Right Time of the Night

The inaugural Arista Records single and album releases of Jennifer Warnes: the single "Right Time of the Night" and its parent Jennifer Warnes album, were both released in January 1977, over a year and a half subsequent to Warnes' April 1975 signing with Arista.[6][7] Although the recording of the Jennifer Warnes album had commenced in May 1975,[8] her producer Jim Price would record Warnes only sporadically as his work schedule permitted - (Jennifer Warnes quote:)"[Price was] producing,...arranging, singing, engineering, playing horns and so forth [for various artists]"[9] - and so Arista president Clive Davis was not presented with the completed tracks intended to comprise Warnes' inaugural Arista album until the summer of 1976.[6]

Davis' reaction to the intended album for Warnes was (Clive Davis quote): "It was a good enough album but it didn't have anything on it that could give her the hit single she needs",[6] and Davis resultantly recruited Jim Ed Norman to produce two tracks to supplement Price's work, with Norman overseeing Warnes' sessions for the tracks "Right Time of the Night" and "I'm Dreamin" at Davlen Sound Studios in July 1976.[9][10] (Jennifer Warnes quote:): "Clive picked 'I'm Dreaming' and 'Right Time of the Night', and he brought in Jim Ed Norman...to give those songs very explicit tracks"[11]- Norman, who had been a member of Don Henley's pre-Eagles band Shiloh, having overseen string arrangements for the Eagles' albums Desperado and One of These Nights and also having arranged strings for Linda Ronstadt's version of "Desperado" (album Don't Cry Now/ 1973). (Jennifer Warnes quote:):"Because of the amount of money Linda Ronstadt was making for Asylum [Records] Arista pretty much saw me as [their] ticket [to similar success]."[12]

Warnes' recordings of "Right Time of the Night" and "I'm Dreaming" would mark the debut of Jim Ed Norman as a record producer: Norman had been working as a recording studio tape copyist when he was recruited as a producer by Clive Davis on the recommendation of Hank Medress and Dave Appell the producers of Arista star act Tony Orlando & Dawn (Norman had arranged and conducted the strings for the 1976 Group With No Name album Moon Over Brooklyn which was a Medress-Appell production). Upon hearing "Right Time..." as one of a number of demos of songs Davis felt had hit potential, Norman would recall telling Davis: "If you’re going to give me a chance to make a record for you, let it be with that song."[14]

Davis, who assisted in the vocal arrangement of "Right Time of the Night",[15] assigned Val Garay to mix "Right Time..." and "I'm Dreaming" and also remix Warnes' Jim Price-produced tracks: Garay had mixed the Linda Ronstadt albums Heart Like a Wheel and Prisoner in Disguise and around the time of his work on the Jennifer Warnes album was working on Ronstadt's album Hasten Down the Wind. The production costs of the Jim Price sessions with Jennifer Warnes had totaled $60,000: the recording of the two supplementary tracks: "Right Time..." and "I'm Dreaming", plus the expenditure for the Garay remix upped the production costs of the Jennifer Warnes album to a $115,000 total.[6]

Warnes' recording of "Right Time of the Night" features a lyrically distinct second verse from the original Peter McCann song: Warnes herself wrote lyrics for a less overtly masculine second verse which McCann rejected, eventually himself writing new second verse lyrics deemed female-friendly.

After scheduling the Jennifer Warnes album for August 1976 release,[16] Davis elected to hold back release until the new year, deeming Warnes' album likely to be lost in the holiday season sales boom:[6] both the album and its lead single "Right Time of the Night" were resultantly released 1 January 1977.[6] "Right Time..." would debut on the 29 January 1977 edition of the Billboard Hot 100 at #81, Warnes' first appearance on the chart in a nine-year recording career: the single would reach a #6 Hot 100 peak that May - paralleled by a #5 peak in Cash Box.[17]

"Right Time of the Night" would also become the first Arista release to reach the C&W chart, where it peaked at #17: the single's promotion in Nashville - the hub of C&W music - was handled by the Nashville office of ABC Music Productions who were the publishers of the song.[18] On the Billboard ranking of Easy Listening hits "Right Time of the Night" would reach #1[11] and would be ranked at #11 on the tally of the year's most successful Easy Listening hits.[19]

Ranked at #34 on Billboard's listing of the most successful Hot 100 hits of the year 1977,[20] "Right Time of the Night" would be the first of six Hot 100 entries for Jennifer Warnes as a soloist and would remain her most successful solo hit, her one further top 40 hit "I Know a Heartache When I See One" peaking at #19 in 1979. However Warnes was to twice reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 as a duo member, first with Joe Cocker on "Up Where We Belong" (1982)[21] and then with Bill Medley on "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" (1987).[22]

High Fidelity critic Todd Everett would contrast "Right Time of the Night" with the bulk of its parent album: in Everett's estimation the Jim Price-produced tracks evinced the penchant of Warnes' earlier albums "toward rock & roll as art song" and were sung by Warnes "as though [with] fists clenched, both arms straight down at her sides, staring at the microphone", while "Right Time..." "boasts a much more powerful vocal treatment (when I first heard it on the radio I thought that it was [iconic 60's vocalist] Darlene Love!) that sounds great, but may not be the kind of thing that Warnes wants to be identified with."[24] While promoting Famous Blue Raincoat, her career defining 1986 album of Leonard Cohen songs, Warnes was indeed quoted as saying: "I had an easier time singing [Cohen's] songs than I had singing 'Right Time of the Night'. There's a side to [Cohen's] music that's more complex than what normal pop music will allow;"[25]"My heart and soul and mind are more complex than 'It's the right time of the night for making love' - although I'm grateful for [that] pop hit...I had [more profound] things to say".[26]

"Right Time of the Night" had a 4 March 1977 UK single release, garnering sufficient interest that in May 1977 "Right Time..." ranked on Record Mirror magazine's "Starbreaker" chart - the equivalent of the Bubbling Under... chart in Billboard - although the single would not advance into the official UK Top 50.[31] "Right Time..." would be reissued in the UK in February 1983: Arista, who had dropped Warnes from its roster in 1982, replaced the original B-side "Daddy Don't Go" with "I'm Restless" a track from Warnes' 1979 album release Shot Through the Heart. Warnes' duet with Joe Cocker: "Up Where We Belong" (on Island Records), was in the UK Top Ten in February 1983 but this apparently failed to afford any prestige to the re-release of "Right Time..." as the track again failed to rank in the official UK chart (despite the official chart by that time having expanded to a Top 100).[32]