Pip Williams:
It was more soul-oriented, as I recall, the early stuff that I arranged for Biddu. As a bystander, who just used to do arrangements for Biddu, the thing that changed it all was 'Rock The Boat' by The Hues Corporation, with that particular rhythm - the off-beat tom tom - which, as I saw it, profoundly affected Biddu. He loved that record. I remember when I went round to do the routining session for 'I Love To Love', he played me The Hues Corporation version of 'Rock The Boat' and said, 'If you can imagine it a little bit slower.' Cos that was the rhythm, with the off-beat tom tom and the sixteens on the hi-hat. I know he said he wanted me to take the drum rhythm from 'Rock The Boat'.

Biddu:
I used a rhythm box on Tina Charles' 'I Love to Love' - it's very much like George McCrae's 'Rock Your Baby' in the groove. Like a samba rhythm. All my songs have a slight samba rhythm - all of them, even the ones I do in India. They just have a slight, very light Latinish feel, just nice to dance to.

Pip Williams:
On 'I Love To Love' the gliss sound is the resonant strings on the electric sitar. In fact we used it on a few things. Biddu loved the sound of that.

Tina Charles:
When I did 'I Love To Love' I was actually suffering from really bad flu and I just thought: oh, it's a nice song, blah blah blah. But I was really feeling ill and I went home and I didn't think anything of it. I was very shocked and surprised when within five weeks of release it was #1. I took me by surprise totally, living in a little flat in Streatham with Trevor Horn. One minute I was in this little flat, and the next minute I was jetting off everywhere.

Biddu:
I played 'I Love to Love' to the record company and the guy said, 'It's okay.' Then he played the flip-side, 'Disco Fever', and he said, 'The disco scene is starting to happen, and we have a song called "Disco Fever"; what more do you need?' I said, 'No way, the other song sounds like a number one.' He said, 'I'll bring out "I Love to Love"; we'll give it four weeks.' We brought it out and within four weeks it was #1. I asked myself, 'How can anyone be so wrong about a record?'

Tina Charles:
'I Love To Love' was massive in South America - I've got a platinum album from there. Sweden, that was another place, it was an incredible market - I was actually bigger than The Beatles in Sweden. Which was strange.
I was pregnant with 'I Love To Love' - I remember doing Jim'll Fix It and I was pregnant and about to drop, I was very pregnant.
I actually once collapsed on Top of the Pops because CBS'd just overworked me so much. I was in Israel one day, then I went to Germany, then I was in Holland, and I just got back to London and they picked me, took me to Top of the Pops and I started singing 'I Love To Love' and I just went. Because they wouldn't use tapes. I just went 'bang'. And David Essex came in and said: 'Oh you need a B12, love.' And they gave me a B12 in the bum and I did it. It just shows you can be worked far too hard, because you become a commodity, you're not a person - everybody wants you all of a sudden because your record's #1 everywhere.

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these words were brought to you by
Biddu
Tina Charles
Richard Dodd
Pip Williams

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