The Edgar Winter Group: Hangin' Around

It’s time for our Thursday Repeats and Threepeats feature – songs that were issued multiple times. Today’s feature, “Hangin’ Around” by The Edgar Winter Group, was issued twice as a single in 1973. I got their “They Only Come Out at Night” album along with George Harrison’s “Living in a Material World” as my high school graduation present from my brother.

He took me to Heads Together in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill district to get the Twofer package. The Harrison album was new and you could buy it and another single album both for a special low price. I picked The Edgar Winter Group LP as it was getting a great deal of airplay at the time. It ended up being one of my favorite albums that year.

A total of four single combinations were lifted from this LP. Of those four, two songs were repeats. The singles were released as follows:

“Frankenstein”/“Hangin’ Around” Epic 5-10945 released on January 10, 1973.

“Frankenstein”/“Undercover Man” Epic 5-10967 released on February 21, 1973.

“Free Ride”/“When it Comes” Epic 5-11024 released on July 12, 1973.

“Hangin’ Around”/ “We All Had a Real Good Time” Epic 5-11069 released on November 14, 1973.

Since I’ve already featured “Frankenstein” in the past, we’ll concentrate on “Hangin’ Around,” which was released in January 1973 as the flip side to “Frankenstein.” That single got off to a rocky start and since CBS was looking at releasing “Hangin’ Round” as a single, “Frankenstein” was re-released with “Undercover Man” as the “B” side. The first iteration did not fare well, but the second release was a #1 single.

The second coming of “Hangin’ Around” failed to make it to the Top 40 charts and peaked at #65. Due to this lackluster performance, the single was flipped and “We All Had a Real Good Time” was pushed, but its failure to chart in the Hot 100 signified that “They Only Come Out at Night” was past its promotional prime.

Although not released as a new single in the US, Epic released “We All Had a Real Good Time” as a new single paired with “Autumn” elsewhere in the world. “Autumn” is probably my favorite cut on the album. “Hangin’ Around” was co-written by Edgar Winter and bassist Dan Hartman. Edgar sings lead on this track.