Looking For An Echo

Album: Vance 32 (1975)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song tells the nostalgic story of a Doo-Wop group who were always looking for a good place to sing - somewhere with a good echo to enhance their sound. The singer looks back fondly at that time and realizes that he's always looking for his "echo," which is a place of happiness and understanding.
  • In 2000, this song was used as the basis for the movie Looking For An Echo, which is about a Doo-Wop star years after his fame has faded. Kenny Vance recorded a new version of the song with his group The Planotones, and recorded the soundtrack to the movie. Says Vance: "The song was originally recorded in 1975, and it was basically a folk song. I did it acoustically. How I recorded the original was I put down an acoustic guitar, and then I sang it, and then I basically stacked all the vocals on there. And then we added a drum, bass, and keyboard. And that's basically it. Somehow it captures that feeling... it could make you cry in a way. I don't know what it was, but it evokes a certain emotion in the listener. It's so many years later that I'm detached from what I did originally, and I think I can hear it objectively. It was basically a folk song about growing up in Brooklyn, about those days. And then as the years went by, it never died. It never was a hit, but it never went away. And it was played on a lot of these doo-wop shows all throughout the country, these guys would close their show with it."
  • This was written by Richie Reicheg, who is better known as a character actor, appearing in many TV shows including Kojak, CHiPs, Remington Steele, Beverly Hills, 90210 and Alias. Says Vance: "He was a friend of mine, and he had this song - whether he wrote it for me, I don't know. But he had it in a different form, and I kind of changed it around and I left out certain verses. It was kind of corny. I wouldn't criticize him in any way, but I changed it around, put the modulations in. There's two half step modulations in it to kind of build it up a little bit." (Read more in our interview with Kenny Vance.)

Comments: 1

  • Mario from MdfSo I added this song to my Spotify playlist
    Low and behold words changed
    “ two Italian guys“
    Changed to something inaudible?
    Why ? PC ?
    I’m Italian and it was the best part of the song .
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