January 7, 1978 Part One

The first BGC of 2011 takes us back to 1978. Disco was peaking about now with the success of Saturday Night Fever, while some continued to come to grips with the death of Elvis as what would have been his 43rd birthday approached. Both of these things would be reflected on this week's countdown:


40 - "Peg," Steely Dan
39 - "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration," Donny and Marie Osmond
38 - "What's Your Name," Lynyrd Skynyrd
37 - "Emotion," Samantha Sang
36 - "Swingtown," The Steve Miller Band
35 - "We're All Alone," Rita Coolidge
34 - "Girls' School," Wings
33 - "Native New Yorker," Odyssey
32 - "Isn't it Time," The Babys
31 - "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," Santa Esmeralda

The first quarter of this list is very heavy on what constituted "rock" at the time. Steely Dan lead off with one of their most familiar hits, a jazzy jaunt about a girl Donald Fagen loves better when she smiles for the camera. Lynyrd Skynyrd are here with a tune about the joys of groupie-hunting, although it was tinged with tragedy, being as it was from the Street Survivors album, which was released just three days before the plane crash that killed frontman Ronnie Van Zant. Both Steve Miller and the Babys return with their entries from the late 1977 chart I covered a few weeks ago. And Paul McCartney and his other band are here with a silly little song about naughtiness at all-female educational institutions around the world. I wasn't familiar with it, but that's because in Canada, like much of the rest of the world, the side of that single that got most of the airplay was the bagpipe-drenched ode to Scotland, "Mull of Kintyre." That, believe it or not, was Wings' only #1 in the U.K.

MOR has three reps here. Donny and Marie, at the height of their variety-show run, crack the 40 with a cover of a Righteous Brothers hit that's not a little bit country, and certainly not the least bit rock n' roll. But it's a whole lot pointless airtime filler. Chinese-Australian chanteuse Samantha Sang had her only U.S. hit with a great ballad that was written and produced by her friend Barry Gibb. It was meant for the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, but ended up instead in the film version of the trashy Jackie Collins book The Stud, which starred none other than Jackie's sister, Joan. And Rita Coolidge continues to prove that her music was much less interesting than here personal life.

The defining sound of the period is only heard twice in this group. The two-man, one-woman trio Odyssey had their biggest U.S. hit with a breezy, generic disco tune about a lady unsuccessfully looking for love in the Big Apple. And Santa Esmeralda's flamenco-tinged dance cover of a song originally written for the legendary Nina Simone would, surprisingly, end up charting as high as the most famous version of the song, by The Animals.

30 - "Point of Know Return," Kansas
29 - "Desiree," Neil Diamond
28 - "Stayin' Alive," The Bee Gees
27 - "Gettin' Ready for Love," Diana Ross
26 - "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)," Chic
25 - "Sometimes When We Touch," Dan Hill
24 - "The Way I Feel Tonight," The Bay City Rollers
23 - "(Love is) Thicker than Water," Andy Gibb
22 - "My Way," Elvis Presley
21 - "I Go Crazy," Paul Davis

Well, this time, rock is held to just one entry, the title track from the Kansas album that would later spawn the band's biggest hit, "Dust in the Wind," This one's just noodly and synth-laden. Who cares?

This quarter is, however, a good one for chart veterans. Neil Diamond shows up with a grandiose tribute to the (possibly fictional) older woman who took his younger self's virginity. The Bee Gees were only on their second week on the chart with this now hyperfamiliar disco strut that may be the song most closely associated with the genre. Diana Ross is here with a peppy, almost jazzy retro number that I like better than, say, "Love Hangover." And Elvis himself appears from beyond the grave with a live version of the Frank Sinatra hit pulled from a CBS TV special from the previous summer. Paul Anka, who wrote English lyrics to a French song specifically for Sinatra, didn't think it was a good song for Elvis, but I think the big man did all right with it. I'll still take Sid Vicious over either of them.

Besides "Stayin' Alive," disco's only representative her is the first hit by Chic. "Dance, Dance, "Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah,)" is okay, but compared to what was to come, it sounds lightweight. "Le Freak" and "Good Times" are the ones to download.

The other four songs are MOR to varying degrees. Canadian Dan Hill gave the world the legendarily overwrought "Sometimes When We Touch." It's very hateable, but I'm sure it would be fun to do at karaoke while roaring drunk. The Bay City Rollers had their last hit with a ballad that will probably be covered during some future boy-band wave. It's just that kind of a song. Andy Gibb returns with another song of his that I liked much better as a kid than I do after hearing it again after all these years. It is notable, however, for being the second in a line of four straight #1's co-written by Barry Gibb. No one else has pulled that off. Love him or hate him, Barry made a huge mark on pop music. And the half ends with that Paul Davis "I Go Crazy" song. The definition of mediocrity.

Tomorrow: teen idols, country divas, and a song that got its composer compared to Hitler.