Monday, July 04, 2011

Unfairly Forgotten Song #9: Whirly Girl by OXO

Hands up:  who remembers OXO?  Hardly anyone reading this blog, that's who.

OXO* was the creation of a guy named Ish Ledesma, whose earlier band, Foxy, is probably better known.  (Foxy, for those like myself who enjoy the disco music of the late 70s/early 80s, had a big hit with a song called "Get Off" and a lesser hit with the follow up, "Hot Number".)  Anyway, after Foxy, Mr. Ledesma formed OXO, which could definitely be called a one-hit wonder.  The one song, "Whirly Girl", was a song about Mr. Ledesma's wife.  According to Wikipedia*, the song's lack of success led to the quick downfall of OXO.

Mr. Ledesma went on after that to form a girl group called Company B, for whom he produced their biggest hit, "Fascinated".  (You don't really hear that one on the radio much anymore, either.)

"Whirly Girl" made it to #28 on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking the week of 4/23/1983.  Since then, the only place I have ever heard it on the radio is on the cult classic radio show "Crap From the Past", heard on 90.1 KFAI out of Minneapolis.  As usual, you'll never hear this song on Austin's local we-play-anything station, Bob FM, which rather takes away from their reputation, if you ask me, and you didn't.

The video for Whirly Girl:



*Note:  most information in "forgotten songs" entries comes from the always-reliable Wikipedia; as such, its veracity may be questionable.

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