January 22, 1977 Part One

'77. Let's go back there. More than half of these songs are from the last late '76 chart, but there's enough new and interesting for me to do the usual two-parter

40 - "Living Next Door to Alice," Smokie
39 - "It Keeps You Runnin'," The Doobie Brothers
38 - "Go Your Own Way," Fleetwood Mac
37 - "You've Got Me Runnin'," Gene Cotton
36 - "Year of the Cat," Al Stewart
35 - "Save it for a Rainy Day," Stephen Bishop
34 - "Love Me," Yvonne Elliman
33 - "Dancing Queen," ABBA
32 - "This Song," George Harrison
31 - "Shake Your Rump to the Funk," The Bar-Kays

Of the seven newbies, three are solidly in the MOR camp. Smokie were an English band who had to change the spelling of their name because of a threatened lawsuit from Smokey Robinson. Judging by their one U.S. hit, a tale of a man longingly staring at the woman he could never have who is now moving away and the other girl who sees this as an opportunity to finally get some attention, they were very much like a Medicine Show era Dr. Hook. Gene Cotton sounds like a cross between James Taylor and John Denver on this, the first of his four minor hits. If this one's any indication, I don't expect much from the rest. And Stephen Bishop, who would later get on the radio with "On and On" and the love theme from Tootsie, had his first hit with this song about loving the wrong woman. He doesn't say whether or not she was Jamaican, unlike later.

Two pop-rock machines are represented here. The Doobie Brothers had just begun the Michael McDonald era with "Takin' it to the Streets," and this was their follow up. It didn't get too far into the 40, and is probably best known today for its use in the movie Forrest Gump. Don't ask me about that movie. Just don't. And Fleetwood Mac were just entering the chart with the first single from the follow-up to their self-titled breaktrhough. Little did they, or anyone else, know what a monster Rumours would become. And this urgent rocker probably did a lot to send it on its way. It's still by far my favorite of theirs.

The other two songs I haven't covered before don't really have much in common. There's Scotland's Al Stewart with his other top ten, a cryptic story about a rock star abandoning his tour for a hippie chick he meets in Morocco. And then there's ABBA with their only U.S. chart-topper, about a 17-year-old girl who becomes booty-shaking royalty when the mood strikes her. It's almost majestic, in its way.

And yes, there are three songs here we've come across before. Yvonne Elliman's ballad is still nice the second time around, but I'm still waiting for "If I Can't Have You." I got a better listen to George Harrison's reaction to losing the "My Sweet Lord" lawsuit. It's deceptively sunny, and has a neat little Eric Idle cameo in the middle. Good stuff. And once again, the Bar-Kays asked something from me, and the music made me want to comply.

30 - "The Rubberband Man," The Spinners
29 - "Night Moves," Bob Seger
28 - "Whispering/Cherchez La Femme/C'est Si Bon," Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band
27 - "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing," Donny and Marie Osmond
26 - "I Never Cry," Alice Cooper
25 - "Hard Luck Woman," Kiss
24 - "Stand Tall," Burton Cummings
23 - "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word," Elton John
22 - "Saturday Nite," Earth Wind and Fire,"
21 - "Weekend in New England," Barry Manilow

There's six repeaters here, so I'm just going to put them in their proper categories.

Three bits of disco/R&B in this group. The Spinners make their third BGC by putting the "fun" in funk with their springy number that doesn't seem to have anything to do with those things I used to use to keep my hockey cards together. Dr. Buzzard's (pronounced Buz-ZARD's) OSB return with another song I got a better listen to this time, the better to appreciate its disco/prohibition-era jazz hybrid. In a weak field for weirdness, it gets this week's Uneasy Rider Award. And Earth Wind and Fire apply their funky gifts to the subject of weekend evenings and the possiblities they contain. I like the keyboard on this one.

Three rock ballads in the bunch. The Styx of Detroit made his first big national splash with this immortal tribute to a long-lost summer of teenage debauchery, which he and a special young lady spent "workin' on mysteries without any clues." The former Vincent Furnier returns, insisting that that moisture coming from his ocular regions isn't what you think, but rather "just a heartache that got caught in my eye." And after a ballad sung by their feline-makeupped durmmer became their biggest pop hit to date, Kiss decided to try that again and got back into the Top 40 with Peter Criss rasping about a woman to whom fortune has not been kind. I must admit, the only version I'd heard of this before tonight was the one sung by Garth Brooks on a mid-90s tribute album. And at the risk of sacrilige, I think I like the cowboy-hatted one's take on it better. I'm sure that disqualifies me from ever serving in the Kiss Army, and probably any of the other branches of the Kiss Armed Forces as well.

Two rockers with pianos here. The ex-frontman for the Guess Who returns to lecture us again about the dangers of "silly human pride." And Elton John once again ruminates over how difficult it is to apologize. It is sad. So sad.

We close with a couple MOR acts of some repute. Donny and Marie, who were in the midst of their variety show run, are here covering, of all people, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. She may have been a little bit country, and he a little bit rock n' roll, but neither were nearly soul enough to pull this off. And Barry Manilow does his Manilowly best with a ballad that you might not be able to recall, but maybe you will if I said that this song would have more easily identifiable if he'd just called it "When Will I Hold You Again." There, now you've got it.

Tomorrow: jeans, queens and libertines.