Listening yesterday to WXPN’s tribute to Jerry Blavat, I was reminded that back in the day the national music scene was a lot less homogenized than it is today. With heavy promotion a song could break nationwide, but a record like Billy Harner’s “Sally Sayin’ Somethin'” could be a big hit in Philadelphia and almost unknown in the rest of the country.
That was the case with “Hold On” by the Radiants, one of the tracks played on the rebroadcast of a show Blavat did several years ago. Blavat’s backing made it a hit in Philly — I remember hearing it quite a bit when it was released in 1968 — but it only reached No. 68 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The Radiants started as a gospel group in Chicago in 1960 but switched to secular music when record companies abandoned the genre. They landed a deal with Chess Records but couldn’t score a hit, and several lineup changes didn’t help. “Hold On” was their last charting single.
