Bloodstone's 'Train Ride to Hollywood' film - the 'A Hard Day's Night' of '70s Soul?

[Steve M.]

Maybe this thread belongs in the Chit Chat - Movies section, but it is a musical, and rock-era pop musical at that.

Bloodstone are a seventies R&B band from Kansas City best known for their Top Ten single "Natural High" from the 1973 album of the same title. They were known for fusing soul with rock and funk, but their sound wasn't trendy enough for the disco craze, and they faded a bit by 1975 - but they continued to have hits on the R&B chart.

Train Ride to Hollywood, which premiered in October 1975, was their attempt at making the sort of pop movie that the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five used to make but had fallen out of style in favor of concert documentary films. In the movie, Bloodstone - Harry Williams, Willis Draffen, Charles Love and Charles McCormick - express their fondness for Old Hollywood movies before going onstage for a show at the Whiskey a Go Go on the Sunset Strip, but then Williams falls and hits his head, losing consciousness and having a dream about him and his bandmates being on a train bound for LA with eight deceased movie stars of the 1930s and 1940s.

Bloodstone recorded eleven songs for the movie, six of them originals and five of them early rock and roll and Tin Pan Alley covers. The movie wasn't as good as it should have been, but the music was excellent. Was it still the seventies-soul equivalent of A Hard Day's Night? Cinematically, no, but musically it came damn close.

And yet, the soundtrack album didn't make either the Billboard Top Two Hundred or the R&B album chart.

You can watch the whole movie here:

[Steve M.]

For those of you who don't have time to watch an 89-minute movie you've never heard of starring a soul band you've never heard, here's a sample.

This clip shows "the Sinceres" opening for Bloodstone at the Whiskey a Go Go by performing the Coasters classic "Yakety Yak." In fact, the Sinceres are played by . . . Bloodstone. "The Sinceres" was the name the group performed under on the Kansas City R&B circuit, but when they moved to LA in 1972 and got a manger to help them get a record deal, he told them that naming themselves after an adjective in 1972 was not a good idea, and he suggested that they come up with something more contemporary. Bloodstone, one of two birthstones for the month of March, was chosen out of three suggestions.

Having Bloodstone play an earlier iteration of themselves as their own opening act was a clever idea. Imagine if A Hard Day's Night or Help! had begun with the Beatles playing their opening act by appearing as . . . the Quarrymen. Same idea here!

[Steve M.]

"Train Ride," an original Bloodstone song written for their movie, is a throwback to the old MGM musicals of the Depression era. That's why this song sounds like it was written in 1935, thought it was written in 1975. Get those engines rolling, guys!

[Steve M.]

Once aboard the train with his buddies, Bloodstone singer Harry Williams - pretending to be a train conductor - realizes that something weird is going on . . . he encounters movie stars he thought were dead and movie characters he thought were fictional. Here he encounters Count Dracula (Jay Robinson, playing Dracula for laughs before George Hamilton did) trying to seduce Jean Harlow (B-movie queen Roberta Collins).

The look on Williams' face at the end of this clip is priceless. He recalls Bob Dylan's Mr. Jones - something is happening here, but he doesn't know what it is!

[Steve M.]

Bloodstone bassist Charles McCormick, who died in 2022, wrote and sang lead on "Natural High," Bloodstone's 1973 hit, and he delivered a great falsetto vocal on that record. This is his featured number in the group's movie, "Hooray For Romance," in which he employs his falsetto to charm a musicologist played by dancer Geri Riddick.

[Steve M.]

Possibly the best original song in Bloodstone's movie, "Rock 'n' Roll Choo Choo" is a fun number that references all of the movie stars and characters represented in this movie. The song itself sounds like it was written by Jerry Lee Lewis and the Isley Brothers after they watched the late show (not "The Late Show," CBS's late-night show hosted by Stephen Colbert), and the title is subtle reminder in 1975 that black people invented rock and roll, even though white people dominated it in 1975 and called it "rock" for short.

Willis Draffen, the guy in the glasses, sings lead.

[Steve M.]

Train Ride To Hollywood has some funny moments here and there, such as this clip. Here the members of Bloodstone, along with Dracula (Jay Robinson) and the rest of their male traveling companions, wait patiently for Scarlett O'Hara - inexplicably referred to in this movie as "Charlotte" and played by future "Vega$" star Phyllis Davis - to exit the unisex bathroom on the train.

Davis later said that she "had a ball" playing Scarlett in this movie.

[Steve M.]

Bloodstone also covered the Chords' big 1954 hit song "Sh-Boom (Life Could Be a Dream)" in Train Ride to Hollywood. Charles Love takes the lead vocal in the middle-eight lyric. Please forgive me for the poetic-license edit I tacked on at the end. I was in a silly mood.

[Steve M.]

Bloodstone perform Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)" at the conclusion of Train Ride To Hollywood in a scene reminiscent of the TV concert scene toward the end of the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night. Harry Williams nails it here!

Although it could have been a lot better than it was, Train Ride To Hollywood did have some good points, such as impressionist and regular Dean Martin variety show guest Guy Marks' impression of Humphrey Bogart (Marks was a forerunner of Rich Little), B-movie actress Roberta Collins as Jean Harlow (if ever there was a role that should have made Collins an A lister like Susan Sarandon or Diane Keaton, this was it), and, of course, Bloodstone's music.

[Steve M.]

The two different movie posters for Train Ride to Hollywood - the second (the smaller) poster is typical of mid-70s posters with its cartoon-character representations.