Post by erik on Dec 2, 2023 19:31:48 GMT -5
Known as one of the few quadruple threats in television from the 1970's onward, including actress, writer, and director, Mary Kay Place also had a side job as the fictional country singer Loretta Hagers. Under that persona, she got a big C&W hit out of it, which is in this week's Pop Music Hits Spotlight.
BABY BOY (Mary Kay Place; CBS; 1976)—Oklahoma native Mary Kay Place was a rarity in television during the 1970’s: a woman in the trenches when it came to writing scripts for some of the era’s most pre-eminent hit shows. Arriving in Los Angeles in 1970, Place managed to get a spot as a writer on comedian Tim Conway’s TV variety show; and then, in 1972, TV producer Norman Lear gave her a prime spot on his hugely controversial but also hugely successful TV sitcom All In The Family; and in one episode, she revealed her own musical instincts as well as she and guest actress Patty Weaver sang a satirical number called “If Communism Comes Knocking On Your Door, Don’t Answer It”. Place would also appear on another highly successful CBS-TV series, M*A*S*H. In 1976, she appeared on the short-lived TV sitcom Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, which starred Louise Lasser in the title role, as country-and-western singer Loretta Hagers, a character she modeled off of both Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. Out of this, she had a short but successful side career in country music with a fairly large, bluegrass-influenced hit, “Baby Boy”. It became something of a cult hit, especially on West Coast country music stations, notably KLAC AM-570 in Los Angeles, and coincided with an album release that Place made, featuring, among others, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Nicolette Larson on backing vocals. “Baby Boy”, which bears some similarities to what Emmylou was doing at the time, as well as the Eagles’ “Midnight Flyer”, not only reached #3 on Billboard’s C&W singles chart in November 1976, but it even managed a respectable placing of #60 on Billboard’s overall Hot 100 singles chart that December as well. Although Place had only one additional country hit, in 1977, “Something To Brag About”, a duet with Willie Nelson, her career in television, as actress, writer, and frequent director, continued well into the 21st century; she appeared alongside Robert DeNiro in director Martin Scorsese’s 1977 film New York, New York, the 1983 cult classic The Big Chill, and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1996 hit The Rainmaker; and she and good friend Linda Bloodworth-Thomason wrote for such hit 1970’s TV shows as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Phyllis.
BABY BOY (Mary Kay Place; CBS; 1976)—Oklahoma native Mary Kay Place was a rarity in television during the 1970’s: a woman in the trenches when it came to writing scripts for some of the era’s most pre-eminent hit shows. Arriving in Los Angeles in 1970, Place managed to get a spot as a writer on comedian Tim Conway’s TV variety show; and then, in 1972, TV producer Norman Lear gave her a prime spot on his hugely controversial but also hugely successful TV sitcom All In The Family; and in one episode, she revealed her own musical instincts as well as she and guest actress Patty Weaver sang a satirical number called “If Communism Comes Knocking On Your Door, Don’t Answer It”. Place would also appear on another highly successful CBS-TV series, M*A*S*H. In 1976, she appeared on the short-lived TV sitcom Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, which starred Louise Lasser in the title role, as country-and-western singer Loretta Hagers, a character she modeled off of both Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. Out of this, she had a short but successful side career in country music with a fairly large, bluegrass-influenced hit, “Baby Boy”. It became something of a cult hit, especially on West Coast country music stations, notably KLAC AM-570 in Los Angeles, and coincided with an album release that Place made, featuring, among others, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Nicolette Larson on backing vocals. “Baby Boy”, which bears some similarities to what Emmylou was doing at the time, as well as the Eagles’ “Midnight Flyer”, not only reached #3 on Billboard’s C&W singles chart in November 1976, but it even managed a respectable placing of #60 on Billboard’s overall Hot 100 singles chart that December as well. Although Place had only one additional country hit, in 1977, “Something To Brag About”, a duet with Willie Nelson, her career in television, as actress, writer, and frequent director, continued well into the 21st century; she appeared alongside Robert DeNiro in director Martin Scorsese’s 1977 film New York, New York, the 1983 cult classic The Big Chill, and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1996 hit The Rainmaker; and she and good friend Linda Bloodworth-Thomason wrote for such hit 1970’s TV shows as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Phyllis.