Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds Taxed DJs With Their Name, but Still Scored a Massive Hit

In the history of pop music, rarely was there a group name as cumbersome as Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds. When DJs said the name and listeners didn’t have the benefit of seeing where the comma was, it was impossible to tell how many members were in the band.

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Well, there were three of them. And they managed a massive hit with “Don’t Pull Your Love”, a song meant for The King that found its way to this trio for a surprising success.

What’s in a Name? Or Four Names?

So how did these guys get to the point where they charmed pop audiences and strained the capacity of the marquees where they performed? Well, the trio of Dan Hamilton, Joe Frank Carollo, and Tommy Reynolds originally played together in a band called The T-Bones.

The T-Bones were a strange case in their own right. A group of Wrecking Crew session players got together to record an instrumental based on an Alka-Seltzer commercial. When that song, “No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach’s In)”, became an unlikely hit in 1966, a road band was needed to fulfill The T-Bones’ touring obligations. That’s when our intrepid trio of H, JF & R joined. (Even the abbreviation is a lot, right?)

At the start of the 70s, Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds were cutting out on their own and trying to score a gig with Dunhill Records. At their audition, a song was played for them as a potential track they might like to record. That song was “Don’t Pull Your Love”.

If Elvis Won’t Do It, These Guys Might

Songwriters Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter had hoped that Elvis Presley might record “Don’t Pull Your Love”. When that didn’t happen, they pitched it to The Grass Roots, who weren’t crazy about it. A little-known group called Country Store released the first version of the song in 1970.

Since Potter and Lambert also produced that version, they brought it to Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds pretty much fully-baked. The band took that arrangement and ran, with Hamilton doing a pretty good Elvis Presley impersonation on lead vocals.

“Don’t Pull Your Love” combines a little bit of a bubblegum pop feel with the horn-driven pep of popular bands of that era, like Chicago. And it forced the world to learn the somewhat cumbersome moniker Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds when it went to No. 4 in 1971.

Behind the Lyrics of “Don’t Pull Your Love”

“Don’t Pull Your Love” grabs us right away with the chorus and an urgent plea: “Don’t pull your love out on me, baby.” The narrator can withstand anything but that. “Take my heart, my soul, my money,” he beseeches. “But don’t leave me here drownin’ in my tears.”

He fears that she’s going to be leaving on that “big white bird” and doing so “without a single word.” Later, he mentions all that he’s given her. “Doesn’t that mean love to you?” he asks. “Doesn’t that mean anything?” Finally, he wonders what it would take to bring her back. “Would you make me beg you pretty please?”

While “Don’t Pull Your Love” seems to have all the earmarks of a one-hit wonder, Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds had more up their sleeve. They delivered a No. 1 single in 1975 with “Fallin’ In Love”. Fun fact: The group still used the same name for that song, even though Tommy Reynolds had left the band. Why not? By that time, everybody had finally learned it.

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