Decenber 20, 1975

Another trip back to the 70s. I thought I was done with them, but they keep pulling me back for one more rendezvous. So here we go, 40-11, with the songs I haven't covered before in bold:

40 - "Wake Up Everybody," Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes
39 - "Fire on the Mountain," The Marshall Tucker Band
38 - "Baby Face," The Wing and a Prayer Fife and Drum Corps
37 - "School Boy Crush," The Average White Band
36 - "Venus and Mars/Rock Show," Wings
35 - "Winners and Losers," Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds
34 - "Love Machine," The Miracles
33 - "Volare," Al Martino
32 - "Over My Head," Fleetwood Mac
31 - "Low Rider," War
30 - "Full of Fire," Al Green
29 - "Fly Away," John Denver
28 - "Evil Woman," The Electric Light Orchestra
27 - "Love to Love You Baby," Donna Summer
26 - "Sing a Song," Earth, Wind and Fire
25 - "Rock and Roll All Nite (Live)," Kiss
24 - "You Sexy Thing," Hot Chocolate
23 - "Part Time Love," Gladys Knight and the Pips
22 - "For the Love of You," The Isley Brothers
21 - "Walk Away from Love," David Ruffin
20 - "Country Boy (You Got Your Feet in L.A.)," Glen Campbell
19 - "The Way that I Want to Touch You," The Captain and Tennille
18 - "The Last Game of the Season (The Blind Man in the Bleachers)," David Geddes
17 - "The Times of Your Life," Paul Anka
16 - "Island Girl," Elton John
15 - "I Want'a Do Something Freaky to You," Leon Haywood
14 - "Convoy," C.W. McCall
13 - "My Little Town," Simon and Garfunkel
12 - "I Love Music," The O'Jays
11 - "Our Day Will Come," Frankie Valli

Fourteen newcomers. Time to break 'em down.

We'll start with rock bands. South Carolina's Marshall Tucker Band had their first of two pop hits with this country-rock tale of the gold rush, with the long hours of panning in the day and the gunfights and dance hall girls at night. I liked it. Made me think of Deadwood. That was a fantastic show. Fleetwood Mac had their first major American hit with this Christine-McVie sung number about enjoying having a lover who has wild mood swings. Yeah, sounds like Fleetwood Mac. But the superstardom, drama, and drugs were still to come. ELO are present with by far the biggest hit of theirs I haven't yet covered, a song about...well, it's obvious. It's one of their best, with that fantastic chorus containing those keyboard bursts following "Eeeevil woman." Great stuff. And Kiss, those bemakeupped kings of big dumb rock, took their first step towards becoming the moneymaking party machine they would become with their first Top 40 single, a live version of a song whose studio version had only reached #68 earlier in the year. I don't think I need to describe this for you. You're probably fighting the urge not to sing it right now. It's lunkheaded and even kind of lame, but damn if it isn't also irresistable.

Next we go to soul/R&B. Scotland's Average White Band are back with one of their minor post-"Cut the Cake" hits, a cool little funk number about playground romance. For white guys from from Dundee, they sure had soul. Al Green had his next-to-last 70s pop hit with this almost-disco tune about how much he loves dancing. Maybe not his best lyric ("I rolled a twenty-one"?), but there's enough, for lack of a better word, fire in the performance to more than make up for that. Earth, Wind and Fire had their second pop Top Ten with this simple, joyful dance track about how singing can make you happy. They truly were the pop-funk masters. Gladys Knight and the Pips are back with a typically solid ballad about wanting something permanent, not just a fling. It would be their last pop hit until "Love Overboard" 12 years later. And ex-Temptation David Ruffin had his second and final solo pop hit with with this funk ballad about deciding to leave a lover before she breaks his heart first. That's logical. But I've got to admit I like it. Parts of it remind me of the theme from Shaft.

Then I'll cut to a couple chunks of MOR. Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds had their third and final hit with this limp soft rocker about how victory and defeat are pretty much the same. Um, not really. It's a pretty bad song. And you realize that this was after Reynolds had been replaced. They had more hits without him than with him. Crazy. And John Denver is here with a dreamy, Olivia Newton-John-backed song about wanting to get away from the city to hear "the sounds of the sand and the sea." I like it more than I'd imagined I would. Olivia definitely helped.

There are a couple old-school crooners in the bunch. Al Martino had the second and final hit of his post-Godfather renaissance with this disco cover of a 1958 international smash by Italian singer Domenico Modugno. The title means "to fly," and the lyrics contain the line your love has given me wings." Love, the original Red Bull. And Paul Anka had his last U.S. Top Ten with this song about memories that was originally just a jingle Paul sang for Kodak film commercials, but then Paul recorded and released a full version. Meh, I think it works better in 30-second increments, but people bought it, so good on ya, Paul. Though I wonder if Kodak film had a guarantee that was void in Tennessee. (If you get that, congratulations.)

Lastly, we come to the future #1 smash "Convoy." C.W. McCall wasn't an authentic country singer per se. Rather, he was the creation of Nebraska ad man William Dale Fries, Jr., who made him up as a truck-driver character for a series of bread commercials. The character become so popular that Fries teamed with jingle writer Chip Davis to write and record songs under the C.W. McCall name, with Fries providing the vocals. The biggest by far of these songs was this novelty epic about a group of truckers led by "Rubber Duck" and "Pig Pen" who begin some sort of cross-country protest ride, and are soon joined by many other truckers, and also some Christian hippies in "a chartreuse microbus" as they roll across America, avoiding "bears" (cops) at every turn. This caused the brief mainstreaming of CB-radio slang, and the song was later turned into a successful movie starring Kris Kristofferson. Despite tough competition from past winners "Baby Face" and "The Last Game of the Season," it wins this chart's Uneasy Rider. Oh, and chances are that even if you haven't heard "Convoy" lately, you've still heard some of co-writer Chip Davis' work in recent weeks. He's the man behind Mannheim Steamroller, whose new age versions of Christmas classics have been mall P.A. standards for over 25 years.

Walkin' in a Top Ten wonderland.

10 - "Nights on Broadway," The Bee Gees
As I'm sure I've previously informed you, this is my favorite Gibb hit. It's the one time they were more plain funk than disco. You wouldn't think they could pull that off, but by adding their own Gibbly touches, they did so. Spectacularly.

9 - "Fox on the Run," Sweet
The glam legends scored their last American Top 5 with this stomping power-popper about rejecting an unsatisfactory groupie. Oh, the problems of rock stars.

8 - "I Write the Songs," Barry Manilow
Again, Barry, how can you say you write all the songs whenyou didn't even write this one! You're a fraud! You didn't even write "Mandy." I'm so disillusioned.

7 - "Sky High," Jigsaw
Epic cheese about leaving a woman who lies. As 70s as it gets.

6 - "Theme from Mahogany," Diana Ross
Yes, Diana, for once in my life, I do know where I'm going to. Thanks for asking.

5 - "Love Rollercoaster," The Ohio Players
A disco-funk classic, obviously. The Red Hot Chili Peppers covered it for the soundtrack of the movie Beavis and Butt-head Do America, which is just my excuse to say that the new B+B episodes have been pretty damn great so far. I think the Twilight one is my favorite.

4 - "Saturday Night," The Bay City Rollers
The first and biggest American hit by these Scots. I feel confident in saying that nothing else this band ever did is essential listening for anyone.

3 - "Fly Robin Fly," Silver Convention
Germany's biggest contribution to disco. With typical Teutonic efficiency, this song employs only six different words. However, I'm sure the Convention looked enviously at America's own "The Hustle," which only used five, unless you count "ooooooh" as a word.

2 - "Let's Do it Again," The Staple Singers
Once again, the gospel legends sing about sex for a movie about a crooked boxing match. There's something wonderfully off about that sentence.

And ruling the pop charts during the penultimate countdown of 1975 was...

1 - "That's the Way (I Like It)," KC and the Sunshine Band
This disco perennial had been at #1 a month earlier, then was knocked off by "Fly Robin Fly." But after allowing the Germans three weeks at the top, they returned to reclaim the peak of the charts for the U.S.A. Harry Wayne Casey, defender of American disco from the European hordes.

Just one NotCasey this week: "Take it to the Limit" by the Eagles. Casey also played two Christmas classics; Bobby Helms' "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Feliz Navidad" by Jose Feliciano.

Yes, there will be shows next week, and yes, I plan to cover them. But for obvious reasons, there may be delays. Until then, Merry Christmas, Glovehead-heads.