Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods

[Ron Phillipchuk]

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Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods are an American pop music group, known mainly for their 1970s hit singles, "Billy Don't Be A Hero" and "Who Do You Think You Are".

The band was formed in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1965 by their leader Bo Donaldson. They were first discovered while touring with The Osmonds in the early 1970s and signed with Family Productions, releasing their first single in 1972, "Special Someone", but their big break came after moving to ABC Records and working with the record producer Steve Barri in 1973.

Although their first single with ABC, "Deeper and Deeper," failed to make a big impression on the charts,  beginning in 1974, the band began a string of hit songs. Their first two (and largest two) hits were cover versions of British hit songs whose original versions had not been hits in the U.S.: "Billy Don't Be A Hero" (a cover of a #1 UK Paper Lace song that reached #1 for 2 weeks on the Hot 100 with the Heywoods' version) and "Who Do You Think You Are" (written by Clive Scott & Des Dyer of Jigsaw, which originally became a hit for Candlewick Green and reached #15 on the Hot 100 with the Heywoods' version).

This was followed by their last top-40 hit, "The Heartbreak Kid" (# 39 Hot 100), and their ominously titled last Hot 100 hit, "Our Last Song Together" (#95 on the Hot 100, the last song written by the Sedaka-Greenfield tandem before its breakup). "Billy Don't Be A Hero" sold over three and a half million copies, receiving a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. in June 1974.

In 1975 they began a migration across three other record labels as the hits dried up by the end of the decade. By 1978, they were known as "The Bo Donaldson Band" and eventually split after trying country music with no success in the 1980s. They reformed again in 1996 as a nostalgia act and still make appearances, most notably in the Barry Williams hosted nostalgia show, Original Idols Live.

In 1996 Varese Vintage Records released Best of Bo Donaldson And the Heywoods, a 15-song compilation of material originally released on Family Productions (1972) and ABC Records (1973–1975). The CD contains all their charted singles and, in fact, includes 9 of the 11 songs featured on the 1974 LP Billy Don't Be a Hero (#97 on the Hot 200). The CD booklet includes liner notes written by Gordon Pogoda and the CD features such highlights as "Who Do You Think You Are", "The House on Telegraph Hill", and "The Heartbreak Kid". In 1975, the band was working on a second album of material for ABC including "Our Last Song Together", released as a single (and which made the pop charts), and "Take Me Make Me Yours", which to this day remains unreleased. Ultimately the group left the label and joined Capitol Records, where they recorded songs by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, the writing/producing team behind the UK act The Sweet.
Lead singer and trumpeter Mike Gibbons died on 2 April 2016.

[montage]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qlK9TJvuSk


Billy Don't Be a Hero" is a 1974 pop song that was first a hit in the UK for Paper Lace and then some months later it was a hit in the US for Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods. The song was written by two British songwriters Mitch Murray and Peter Callander.
Because the song was released in 1974, it was associated by some listeners with the Vietnam War, though it actually refers to an unidentified war. But the drum pattern, references to a marching band leading soldiers in blue, and "riding out" (cavalry) would seem to be referencing the American Civil War.
A young woman is distraught that her fiancé chooses to leave the area with Army recruiters passing through the town and go with them to fight. She laments,

"Billy, don't be a hero, Don't be a fool with your life
Billy, don't be a hero, Come back and make me your wife"

And as he started to go, she said, 'Billy keep your head low'
Billy, don't be a hero, Come back to me.

The song goes on to describe how Billy is killed in action in a pitched battle after volunteering to ride out and seek reinforcements (which suggests mounted infantry and a lack of modern two-way radio communications). In the end, the woman throws away the official letter notifying her of Billy's "heroic" death.