I like listening to rebroadcasts of Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 from the ’70s, especially those tunes on the bottom half of the charts. Sometimes those tunes are former chart-toppers on their way down; sometimes they’re future hits just hitting the charts. More often than not, however, those tracks that sat at the bottom of the top forty never rose any higher than that and, because of that middling performance, don’t get a lot of play on oldies stations today. These tunes, unfortunately, have become lost to the passage of time.
Today’s classic song of the day is a case in point. The tune is “Leaving Me,” a mellow little piece of Chicago Soul by an R&B vocal group called the Independents. Released in January of 1973, “Leaving Me” peaked at #23 on the Billboard Hot 100—although it did reach #1 on Billboard’s R&B chart.
“Leaving Me” was written by group members Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancy, who also produced the track. Chuck (not related to the better-known singer with the same moniker) and Marvin went on to write and produce hits for Natalie Cole, Ronnie Dyson, and Phyllis Hyman. (Chuck Jackson, by the way, was the half-brother of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson.)
The Independents were a Chicago-based group formed by Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancy; the other two members were Maurice Jackson and Helen Curry. They released two albums in 1972 and 1973 and a handful of singles, of which “Leaving Me” was the only one to hit the mainstream top forty. (Three others hit the top ten on the R&B charts: “Just as Long as You Need Me (Part 1),” “Baby I’ve Been Missing You,” and “Let This Be a Lesson to You.”) The group broke up in 1975.
