Orleans (band)
Encyclopedia : O : OR : ORL : Orleans (band)
Orleans is a 1970s soft rock band, best known today for "Dance With Me" and "Still The One". The band was founded in January 1972 in Ulster County, New York, by Wells Kelly, John Hall, and Larry Hoppen. The band took their name "Orleans" because they needed a name for the band at a show and didn't know what else to use. The name has nothing to do with New Orleans. Lance Hoppen, Larry's brother, joined the band later in that year.
The band signed with ABC Records in 1973. Their debut album was Orleans, recorded in Muscle Shoals. After ABC dropped the group, their self-produced second album, Let There Be Music, came out on Asylum Records in 1974. The title song peaked at #55 in May 1975. The follow-up single "Dance With Me" was a Billboard #6 hit in October 1975, and it is often mistaken for a Chicago song.
"Still The One" from their follow-up LP Waking and Dreaming was their highest charting national hit, rising to #5 in October 1976. The song (with a change in the chorus to "You're still having fun and we're still the one") was used as a slogan by ABC television, ironically, in 1977. The song was also used with great success by Australia's Channel 9 around the same time amd continues to be used by the network today. The follow-up single "Reach" reached #51 in March 1977.
In 1977, Hall left to begin a solo career and became active in the anti-nuclear program, cofounding Musicians United for Safe Energy.
Orleans, meanwhile, got a #11 hit in May 1979 with Forever's "Love Takes Time". They continued performing, in spite of a diminishing audience, and released One of a Kind in 1982. Kelly died of a heroin overdose on October 29, 1984. Hall quit his solo career and reunited with the band in the early 1990s, releasing a few recordings on the band's own label, Major Records.
The band made the news briefly in late October 2004, when John Hall publicly commented that the Bush presidential campaign never received permission to use "Still The One" at campaign events. The campaign responded by dropping the song from their playlist.
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