The Chi-Lites only #1 hit appeared on their 1972 album, “A Lonely Man” (Brunswick, 1972)
“The [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Chi-Lites[/lastfm] stark portrait of excessive male vulnerability was unlike that of even the [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Moments[/lastfm] or the [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Delfonics[/lastfm], two other groups who exercised melancholy to great effect.”
So critic Joe McEwen is quoted as saying in The Billboard Book of Number One Hits: ”[Lead singer and songwriter Eugene] Record highlighted his thin tenor with the most plainting production techniques: a forlorn harmonica on ‘Oh Girl,’ windstorms on (the song) ‘(The) Coldest Days of My Life.’ While this type of pathos was occasionally overwrought, often it was quite dramatic and effective.”
The Chi-Lites, born in 1960 and first successful on the pop chart in 1969, had to wait a full twelve years before their R&B balladry would catch on big with pop audiences. When it did, it stuck to the ribs like a marshmallow cupcake: “Have You seen Her,” its predecessor, hit #3 and “Oh Girl” hit #1, a place it resided for a week in May ’72.
[metrolyrics artist="The Chi-Lites" song="Oh Girl"]
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