Steam

Considering that they only charted one hit record and that they scarcely even existed, the background of the group Steam is amazingly complex. Their story actually begins in Bridgeport, CT, in 1960-1961, with a group called The Chateaus, who cut a handful of unsuccessful records for Coral and Warner Bros. before breaking up. Cut to the end of the 1960s: Paul Leka, their pianist, by then was a producer and songwriter, co-authoring "Falling Sugar" by The Palace Guard in 1966, producing "Green Tambourine" by The Lemon Pipers in 1968, and also producing sides by The Left Banke, and was working for Mercury Records in 1969. His former Chateaus bandmate Gary Decarlo arranged to cut four solo sides for Mercury with Leka producing, but Decarlo's songs so impressed the label that it wanted to issue all four as A-sides, which meant that they needed an additional B-side in a hurry for the first single.