S.O.D. "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl) by Looking Glass

10/31/2015     This 1972 smash hit is under the genres of soft rock and Jersey Shore sound.  The latter combines doo-wop, rhythm & blues and pre-Beatles rock and roll with elements of Roots rock and Heartland rock.  A bit confusing, look it up if you like.  

     At the time, Robert Mandel, the promotion manager for Epic Records in Washington DC, drove around to pretty much every radio station in the vicinity of DC and Baltimore persuading them to play the track.  He got lucky with WPGC AM, the #1 station in DC at the time and one of the most popular in the country.  Program Director Harv Moore stated that he had never seen a switchboard light up as it did that night in his 20 years of radio.

     Brandy, in the song is a bartender in a seaside town who falls in love with a sea captain who never returns to her.  It is possibly about late 1700s spinster, Mary Ellis.  In the U.S. and Canada the song shot to #1 and ranked on the Year-end charts at #9 in the U.S. and #12 in Canada.  It also hit #10 in Australia.

     Looking Glass formed in New Brunswick, NJ in 1969 and lasted until 1974.  They released 2 albums and 3 singles with "Brandy" remaining their most popular and successful work.