New York Groove has pretty much become ex-KISS guitarist Ace Frehley’s very own personal anthem. It is his biggest solo hit, but the song is also obviously about his home town. Ace was born and raised in the Bronx. When Ace sings the line “It’s gonna be ecstasy, this place was meant for me” above that foot-stomping rhythm, you can sense the native pride.
The song is featured on his 1978 self-titled solo album, released at that time when every KISS member released a solo album – on the same day no less – unified by a similar style artwork of their individual face in KISS make-up.
This is not the first place this song appears. In fact, New York Groove was written by Russ Ballard and originally recorded by Hello – a glam-inspired rock’n’roll band who for a brief moment in the mid-1970s enjoyed some popularity. Three years before Ace did his own version of the song, Hello’s version was a hit all over Europe. It got to #9 in the UK and #7 in Germany.
In a way, we can thank Roger Daltrey for the song. In 1975, Russ Ballard had left the band Argent. He was finishing up production on Daltrey’s second solo album Ride A Rock Horse. He had just got the album cut in London, but Daltrey wasn’t 100% happy. He had heard that Bob Ludwig’s cuts done at Sterling Sound in New York were louder and asked if Ballard fancied flying out and doing a cut of the album there. Ballard agreed and went ahead.
Ballard hadn’t been to New York for a while. While sitting on the plane, he got out a pen and paper. He had started thinking of the phrase ‘back in the New York groove’. “I felt that’d be a good title for a song,” Ballard later recalled. “The whole idea was of someone going back to New York and singing about the experience.”
Returning to the UK, Ballard met up with Hello’s manager, Dave Blaylock. Ballard had also written Hello’s debut single (called You Move Me), and Blaylock asked him if he had any more songs his band might be interested in. As it happened, he had returned from his New York trip with a very fresh idea in his back pocket…
Hello’s version of New York Groove was recorded in just five hours at Livingston Studios, Barnet, north of London. Ballard had wanted to do a Bo Diddley beat as that sort of sound hadn’t been heard for a while. The band ended up getting some maracas and a harmonica, and started off with the now well-known ‘cha-ch-ch-cha chcha-cha’ rhythm.
Ballard said “I got the members of Hello to stand on some trestle tables with their platform boots on and they all stomped along. I had the chorus – ‘I’m back, back in the New York groove’ – and I wrote the rest of the words in the studio.”
Ace Frehley claims never to have heard the Hello track before Kramer suggested recording it. Frehley was not at all keen to do the song, but Kramer was persuasive and insistent. In the end, it was decided to record New York Groove because they realised they needed a more commercial song on the album.
The majority of Frehley’s album was recorded in Sharon, Connecticut. They set up shop in a mansion that was originally part of the Colgate estate. “Up in Connecticut we cut all the basic tracks,” Ace tells. “It was just me and [drummer] Anton Fig. [Producer] Eddie Kramer brought along the Electric Lady remote truck. I had an old Les Paul, an old Fender and a Harvard amplifier with a 12-inch speaker. We put the guitars in one room and set up the drums in the hallway. There were two staircases going up, to the left and to the right. We put the drums right in the middle. We put up microphones above them and got all natural reverb. That’s how we did most of the tracks.”
New York Groove, however, was laid down fairly late in the proceedings in Plaza Sound Studios above Radio City Music Hall on 51st Street in Manhattan. They ended up tracking it while they were doing overdubs for the other songs.
All four Kiss solo albums – from Frehley, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley and Peter Criss – were released simultaneously on 18th of September 1978. Frehley’s was the only one to generate a hit single. New York Groove enjoyed a 21-week run in the US charts, peaking at #13 in early 1979.
“It didn’t feel like I was getting one over on the other guys in Kiss,” Frehley shrugs. “It’s just something that happened. I was lucky that it came out as good as it did.”
Ballard has called New York Groove one of his most successful songs. “I guess it surprised me because it’s so incredibly simple. They say a good song will always sell, and there’s a lot of truth in that. I’ve got a few others that keep going round and round, which is wonderful. Songs like Since You’ve Been Gone. Songs like God Gave Rock’n’Roll To You (recorded originally by Argent and covered by KISS). There’s one by America called You Can Do Magic which was gigantic in the US. Then there’s New York Groove, which still gets played at major sporting events in the city – like at Giants Stadium. It’s incredible.”
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