The Knack

The Knack formed in Los Angeles in 1978 and became one of the biggest rock acts of 1979 on the strength of a single song. Their debut album Get the Knack, produced by Mike Chapman, sold over six million copies worldwide, driven almost entirely by "My Sharona," which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks and became the best-selling single of the year. The band — Doug Fieger on vocals and rhythm guitar, Berton Averre on lead guitar, Prescott Niles on bass, and Bruce Gary on drums — drew heavily from the Beatles and British Invasion pop, updating it with new wave energy and tighter arrangements. Capitol Records marketed them aggressively with Beatles comparisons, which generated a swift critical backlash. Subsequent albums ...But the Little Girls Understand and Round Trip failed commercially, and the band broke up in 1982. They reformed periodically through the 1990s and 2000s. Fieger died of cancer in 2010.