Night Flight is a gorgeous album containing Yvonne Elliman's only number-one hit, "If I Can't Have You," written by the three Bee Gees brothers, from the film Saturday Night Fever. It is a pop masterpiece, the only track on the album produced by Freddie Perren. Perren gives the song a big production, which sounds like the Bee Gees's work with Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson, and the hardworking singer from Honolulu gets a much deserved chart topper to help spread her gospel. She opens the album with Neil Sedaka's "Baby Don't Let It Mess Your Mind," featuring a slow tempo more laid-back than the composer's version, and simply delightful. She covers "Prince of Fools," a song co-written by Nickey Barclay from the group Fanny, Stephen Bishop's moody Sailing Ships," her distinctive and powerful voice gliding over Robert Appere's shimmering production work, and Mentor Williams' "I'll Be Around," not the much covered Spinners' hit but a nice ballad co-written by the famous producer and Jack Conrad. There's a taste of reggae with "Lady of the Silver Spoon," and a truly elegant adult contemporary number, "Down the Backstairs of My Life." As Grace Slick left the sexual ambiguity in "Sally Go 'Round the Roses," so too does Elliman on this rendition, and good for her. These were the disco days, and it is so subtle it no doubt went over the heads of casual listeners. The back cover has Elliman in a long flowing dress with her hair wild in the wind, it's beautiful imagery with a red background on an album which might have got lost because of all the attention paid to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. There are major names galore here, Kiki Dee, James Newton-Howard, Dee Murray, and Davey Johnstone from the Rocket Records/Elton John camp; guitarists Lowell George, Steve Hunter and Steve Cropper, keyboardist Eric Carmen, and many more included. Elliman albums always enjoy marquee players, and her talent truly deserved the support. With Alice Cooper manager Shep Gordon onboard as executive producer, and the number-one hit, it is amazing Elliman didn't give Linda Ronstadt, Helen Reddy, and Barry Manilow more chart competition. Her five hits were always welcome on '70s pop radio, but they only hinted at the depth of her full-length recordings, music worthy of more notice. ~ Joe Viglione, All Music Guide

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'Rising Sun'

Release Date 1/1/1975

Tracks 10

Label RSO

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What The Critics Say

Six years after Steve Cropper co-created The Detroit-Memphis Experiment with Mitch Ryder, he helped coordinate Rising Sun for Yvonne Elliman. Though it yielded no hits, coming in the five year period between her first and second Top 30 adventures, it is a very musical and multifaceted recording. Elliman contributes two titles, "Steady As You Go" and the sublime "Who's Gonna Save The World?," where she sounds like Jackie DeShannon, a real departure for the Yvonne Elliman people knew from Jesus Christ Superstar. She covers Rick Danko of the Band, a wonderful rendition of "Small Town Talk," adventurous music which was more hip than the adult contemporary packaging would lead one to believe. The piano-heavy remake of the Eagles' "Best of My Love" would seem like a Johnny Mathis move, "let's put familiar tunes on an album to sell it," but this is Steve Cropper at the helm, and like Doris Troy performing "Lyin' Eyes," it has its own majesty separate from the familiarity of the Eagles. The singer also draws from two of Barry Manilow'd songwriting sources, taking David Pomeranz' "If You Walked Away" and giving it a performance which deserved to top the adult contemporary charts as her cover of Barbara Lewis' "Hello Stranger" would two years later, and issuing Will Jennings and Richard Kerr's "Somewhere in the Night," doing so almost simultaneous with Kim Carnes' version (they shared some of the same players, Lee Sklar and Mentor Williams to name two), both women beating Barry Manilow and Helen Reddy to the punch (Reddy hit with it in '79, Manilow in '76). But maybe the real find on this album is Todd Rundgren's "Sweeter Memories"; with Rundgren, Moogy Klingman, and Ralph Schuckett, it's Booker T. meets Utopia, sounding nothing like either, but a blend that creates an as yet undiscovered classic. There are so many potential pop hits on Rising Sun, classy material and top-notch players, it is truly an enigma that it wasn't a monster. Simply amazing work. ~ Joe Viglione, All Music Guide

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