1975 No. 1, Featuring Backing Vocals From Elton John, Jumped To The Top Of The Charts 51 Years Ago Today
On October 5, 1975, the No. 1 song on the Hot 100 was "Bad Blood" by Neil Sedaka. Associated with early-'60s pop music, which was by then considered culturally ancient, "Bad Blood" was a major comeback hit and a significant part of Sedaka's out-of-nowhere second act as a chart-topping performer in the varied and competitive mid-1970s. Sedaka's benefactor and the individual who made this comeback possible was Elton John, who was such a lucrative hit machine and tastemaker at the time that he started his own label, the Rocket Record Company. John populated his label with musicians from the past and present whose music he enjoyed — including Sedaka — and in one more assist, he sang backup on "Bad Blood."
John's involvement also led to the bratty piano rocker "Bad Blood" going to No. 1 in another, indirect way: Radio stations across the United States unexpectedly decided to play the song, instead of another Sedaka release, just because John was on the track.
Bad Blood might as well have been an Elton John song
Neil Sedaka placed 13 wholesome singles in the Top 40 in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including the No. 1 smash "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do." But then along came the British Invasion with the Beatles and their many now-forgotten rivals, which made acts like Sedaka passé. He continued to release music after his final hit in 1963, but the public just wasn't interested.
The musician stayed active, penning songs like "Love Will Keep Us Together" for the Captain and Tennille, one of several chart-topping hits you didn't know Neil Sedaka wrote for other artists. But with the boost provided by Elton John's Rocket Record Company, Sedaka became a musician who rescued their dying career with one song: the lush soft rock ballad "Laughter in the Rain," which topped the pop chart in February 1975. Then came the Top 30 hits "The Immigrant" and "That's When the Music Takes Me."
Despite not yet being released in the U.S., radio group RKO started spinning "Bad Blood" from Sedaka's LP "Overnight Success," thanks to John's contribution to the song. While his backing vocals aren't credited, John is there, engaging in a call-and-response with Sedaka on the chorus. The Rocket Record Company was forced to issue a "Bad Blood" single, and consumers sent the song to No. 1 for three weeks in October 1975. It was displaced from that position by "Island Girl" — another unstoppable Elton John single.