Today’s classic early ’70s soft rock song of the day is the breathily sensual “Stay Awhile” by a group from Canada called the Bells. Released in February of 1971, it rose to #7 on the Billboard Hot 100, #4 on the Cash Box Top 100, and #8 on Billboard’s Easy Listening chart. Not surprisingly, it hit #1 on all the Canadian charts.
“Stay Awhile” is kind of like soft porn for the kiddies. The two lead singers (Jacki Ralph and Cliff Edwards) sigh and whisper their way through lines like “How he makes me quiver, how he makes me smile, with all this love I have to give him, I guess I’m gonna stay with him awhile.” For a kid in junior high, this was hot stuff—especially the later bit about dropping her robe on the floor. Yowzah.
The Bells, originally known as the Five Bells, hailed from Montreal. They got together in 1964 and stayed together for ten years. While “Stay Awhile” was their only hit in the U.S., they had a number of north-of-the-border hits with “Moody Manitoba Morning,” “Fly Little White Dove Fly,” “Lady Dawn,” “The Singer,” “Hey My Love,” “He Was Me, He Was You,” and a cover of the Beatles’ “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” None were quite as titillating as “Stay Awhile,” however.
After the Bells broke up, group member Frank Mills had a solo hit with the instrumental “Music Box Dancer” in 1979. The other members kicked around the Canadian music scene for awhile, but nothing major transpired. In 2014 the daughter of band members Cliff Edwards and Anne Ralph (Jacki’s sister) released a documentary called Stay Awhile about the Bells and the personal relationships of the bandmembers. It got some attention in Canada, but not much here in the States.
And here’s today’s daily bonus video of the day, the trailer for the Stay Awhile documentary. I’m not sure where you can find the documentary online, but I’m sure it’s out there somewhere.
