I’ve been trying to make you love me

But everything I try

Just takes you further from me

You don’t love me, no, no … If you don’t need me forever

And if you don’t love me forever

Take me for a little while

I’ve got to make you love me

For a little while

Before Sands’s record could go nationwide, an underhanded move at Chess Records thrust the same song into the hands of established singer Jackie Ross. According to author Steven Blush’s new book, “Lost Rockers: Broken Dreams and Crashed Careers,” Ross recorded and released it in 24 hours, crushing any hope for Sands’s original. After radio jocks discovered what happened, many refused to play the original, and it tainted the success of Sands’s future releases.

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“She wasn’t devastated,” producer Chip Taylor told Blush. “She was just like, ‘Let’s get the next one.'”

So she went on to sing “I Can’t Let Go,” which DJs shunned but The Hollies spun into their own hit. She switched labels and recorded the original “Angel of the Morning,” which was an immediate success, but her label went bankrupt a week later. It revived as a huge hit — but only as covered by other artists like Merrilee Rush and Juice Newton. (These days, you’ll find it on the “Deadpool” soundtrack.) She was in a band in the ’80s, and she tried to stage a comeback in 1999. But at the time of this article’s publication, her Facebook page has 1,713 likes.

Blush, known for his seminal book and film “American Hardcore,” sought 20 talented artists like Sands, whose ascendance seemed inevitable. He examining each fork in the road and how they led to obscurity instead of fame.

“It was not failure but rather perpetual limbo, which may be worse because with failure at least there is closure,” Blush wrote.

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Sands was not alone in having a single ripped off. But other times, they were simply making music that was too ahead of their time. In some cases, it was mismanagement. Several couldn’t handle the pressures of fame. It was difficult to have the stomach to pound at it year after year after multiple rejections. Sometimes it was a combination of these, along with a dose of dumb luck.

Among those who set down their microphones and instruments was Brett Smiley, once dubbed “The Most Beautiful Boy in the World.” When he appeared on Blush’s doorstep in New York with photos for the book, Blush said the doorman was alarmed and called up to say a homeless person was asking for him and wanted to call the cops. The willowy figure had become ragged, the luminescent blonde hair was black, and he spoke slightly incoherently.

“To me these people are heroes … these artists are not treated with the respect that they deserve,” Blush said.