written by Roger Ball, Malcolm Duncan, Alan Gorrie,

Onnie McIntyre, Hamish Stuart and Robbie McIntosh

produced by Arif Mardin

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I’m making this page July 20th, 2021, the day after the 75th

birthday of Alan Edward Gorrie, one of the founding and few

remaining members of the Average White Band, and who took

part in writing this song with the others. Happy Birthday, AG!!

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AWB released their debut record, Show Your Hand, with MCA Records, then switched to Atlantic for album two—initial-titled AWB. This album topped the US chart, with the inclusion of this song, “Pick Up The Pieces,” which also hit US #1. All the more impressive considering the Average White Band are Scottish. An almost equally successful album-and-single combo followed the next year, in ’75, with the same name for both, “Cut The Cake.” My mind is always a bit blown when I see, that just as in this case as well, that a band from the ’60s or ’70s is still performing and/or releasing into the ’10s and ’20s. AWB charted up into the ’80s, and even in 1994 with a remix single called “Let’s Go Round Again.”

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It is always cool too to process that even if the acts are no longer charting or putting out major label releases, their careers are kept afloat by the support of their fans. As for “Pieces,” since it came out in ’74, it’s become a sports anthem. And... this is a bizarre coincidence, which I love stumbling over when they arise. Just earlier today, I catalogued another huge sports anthem, “We Will Rock You” by Queen, because we just celebrated Brian May’s birthday as well... and here’s the coincidence part: back in ’97, I picked up both of these songs in a fell swoop, on a dinky little 10-track Flashback compilation simply entitled Sports Rock. Having the memory and that one cheap little CD being my first source of both of these songs is just... funny to me.

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The album version of the song is about 4 minutes long, while an approximate minute of it is hacked out in the single version. I’ll include the link to the full 4-minute album version here.

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Have notes to add? Let me know!

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YT:

full version

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AWB’s official website