“Easy Loving”
Freddie Hart
Written by Freddie Hart
Billboard
#1 (3 weeks)
September 11, 1971
October 2 – October 9, 1971
When looking for an example of a technically weak vocal performance strengthening the impact of a record, the country example is usually “Why Me” by Kris Kristofferson.
I humbly submit “Easy Loving” for similar consideration.
Freddie Hart’s vocal performance here is rough, and it heightens every emotion of the lyric. And that lyric is a bit clunky too, but Hart’s sincerity smooths over all of the rough edges.
It all feels like a 9 to 5er clocking out on Valentine’s Day, picking up a box of chocolate and a card on the way home, an inspiration striking as he writes the message. It’s all so perfectly imperfect and I love every second of it.
“Easy Loving” gets an A.
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It may not seem like a great performance but somehow it is. It just sounds so damn authentic. An easy “A+”. A great arrangement and production.
I’ve tried to figure out just what it is about Easy Loving that I like so much, and you nailed it Kevin! It’s so earnest and authentic, the way you hope easy loving would be. Freddie Hart is another artist whose legacy has been unfairly whittled down to just this song, as charming as it is.
Proof that recording company A&R people don’t always get it right – Freddie Hart was a journeyman artist who had had some success as a songwriter but little as a recording artist.
Hart had initially signed with Capitol during the early 1950s with no chart success. From there he went to Columbia charting five songs and then to Kapp where he charted six more singles. Kapp Records might be described as an independent label (it was sold to MCA in 1967 so for Freddie’s latter Kapp singles and albums it was no longer an independent), but no one could describe Columbia as an independent label – it was THE big boy of country labels
During his Columbia and Kapp years, Hart had no Billboard top ten records, but eight of his eleven charted songs reached the top thirty and some were bigger than that regionally as reflected in Cash Box chartings, Cash Box placing less emphasis on large urban areas and more on the south and southeast. “The Wall” (Columbia, 1959) reached #7 on Cash Box and “Born A Fool” (Kapp, 1968) made it to #11 on Cash Box.
Hart signed up for a second tour with Capitol in 1970. Capitol quickly released two albums (NEW SOUNDS, and CALIFORNIA GRAPEVINE) which between them contained four singles, the most successful of which reached #27). Capitol dropped Hart from the label.
The CALIFORNIA GRAPEVINE album contained a song “Easy Loving” that was buried as an album track. An Atlanta DJ, Jim Clemens at WPLO, started playing the album track of “Easy Loving”. Other DJs picked up on the track creating a demand that forced Capitol to release the song as a single and re-sign Hart back to the label. Capitol cobbled together the NEW SOUNDS and CALIFORNIA GRAPEVINE albums, titled the new album EASY LOVING and at age 44 Hart became an overnight sensation. “Easy Loving” kicked off a run of six consecutive #1 singles for Hart, a streak that ended in 1973. After that Hart had a run of seven singles that reached Billboard’s top six. This was followed by a run of top 20 singles ending in 1977. Hart remained on Capitol through 1979 at which point Hart was 53 years old.
Was Hart a great vocalist ? Maybe, but he certainly was a distinctive vocalist. Was this a great song ? Doggone right it was. I have long felt that Freddie Hart thoroughly deserved his late career success and also deserves induction in the Country Music Hall of Fame, as a singer, songwriter and great human being (did you know that at age 15, Hart lied about his age to join the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II. He saw combat action on Guam and Iwo Jima. After the war, he lived in California, where he taught classes in self-defense at the Los Angeles Police Academy). I never got to meet Freddie Hart nor to see him in person, but I have friends who did know him, and they all described him as the nicest human being in Country Music
It also didn’t do half-bad as a crossover hit; it got up to #16 on the Billboard Hot 100.