In 1981, following the death of Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder performed at Jamaica's annual Reggae Sunsplash with international reggae superband Third World. This connection inspired Wonder to co-write, with his friend Melody A McCully, the 1982 hit Try Jah Love. Trombonist McCully also sang on Wonder's Do I Do - also recorded in 1982. He also recorded Part-Time Lover and other songs with Wonder. Try Jah Love was featured on their You've Got The Power album, the follow-up to 1981's You've Got The Power.

We Are One was the title track of the fifth album from Frankie Beverly's San Francisco based band Maze. The 1983 album also featured the hit singles Love Is The Key, Never Let You Down and I Wanna Thank You. Beverly formed the band around 1970 in Philadelphia, his hometown, as Raw Soul. He felt out-of-place in Philly and moved his band to San Francisco, where his friend Marvin Gaye encouraged the band to change their name. The band established a loyal following after the release of their 1977 self-titled debut album. 

Reggae superstar Jimmy Cliff had his first Jamaican hit single in 1962 when he was 14 years old. After signing with Island Records, who had plans to market him to a rock audience, Cliff released his international debut in 1967 - Hard Road To Travel. By the late 1960's Cliff's career was soaring, and in 1969 he wrote the anti-war anthem Vietnam. The song was inspired by his true life friend who had moved to America, and was later drafted to fight in the war in Vietnam. Bob Dylan has called Cliff's song "the best protest song ever", and the song is said to have inspired Paul Simon's 1972 hit Mother and Child Reunion. In 1972, Cliff made his big screen debut in the film The Harder They Come. Jimmy cliff is the only musician to have been awarded Jamaica's hugely prestigious Order of Merit. In recent years Cliff has performed the song Vietnam replacing "Vietnam" with "Afghanistan". see HERE

In 1964 James Brown first recorded I Got You (I Feel Good) - Brown's highest ranking number one hit single (out of 18) on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. Brown produced the song by reworking Yvonne Fair's I Found You - a song Brown produced in 1962 for Fair, one of his back-up singers. When the song was recorded in 1964, the releasee was halted by a complicated lawsuit involving Smash Records and King Records. The song was still being heavily promoted by Brown, who played it regularly on the road (335 days a year). In 1965, Brown recorded the song again adding a guitar, more sax and stronger screams. The new recording was released without a problem.

Iin 1969, Robbie Van Leeuwen, guitarist of the Netherlands rock group Shocking Blue, borrowed the guitar riff from The Who's Pinball Wizard and wrote the classic rock hit Venus. When the group recorded the song in English, they were a bit confused on the translation of the lyrics. Despite the first line of the song being misspoken by lead singer Mariska Veres, the song was a number one hit. The first line should have been "A goddess on the mountain top", but it erroneously went "A goodness on the mountain top". Although many didn't notice, some cover versions went with the misspoken line. In 1986, British girl group Bananarama had a international number one hit with their cover of Venus. Bananarama released the song on their third album, but it was one of the first songs that the group performed when they formed in 1979.

The Ides Of March was a band formed by a group of teenagers in 1965 - their name was borrowed from a line out of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. In 1968, the group added a horn section, and in 1970 they released their most successful song - Vehicle. The song was the fastest selling single in Warner Brothers history. The song is a love story written by lead singer and guitarist Jim Peterik, which was inspired by a break-up line he spontaneously blurted out - "You know all I am to you is your vehicle." After the song became a hit, Peterik ended up getting back together with the girl he had written the song for. They have been married for over 30 years. In 1978 Peterik formed the group Survivor, and he co-wrote Eye Of The Tiger and all of Survivor's hits. Although he was lead singer for Ides Of March, Peterik didn't sing in Survivor.

Bohemian Rhapsody was released on Queen's 1975 A Night At The Opera album. At the time,  A Night At The Opera was the most expensive record ever made. Freddie Mercury never revealed the meaning of or the inspiration of the song Bohemian Rhapsody. There has always been a lot of speculation to the meaning of the song, and the band has agreed to keep the song's meaning a secret. The 5:55 minute song was considered too long for radio play, and Mercury was heavily pressured by the record company to cut a edit version of Bohemian Rhapsody. Mercury refused, and the song still hit number one in the UK shortly after being released. Ironically, the song that knocked Bohemian Rhapsody off the top of the UK charts was Abba's Mama Mia. The two songs share a common verse - "Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let him go."