Time Machine Co-ordinates VIXXI44892276

Today we land in 1976- September 22, 1976- and guess who's there to greet us?

Why, it's Charlie's Angels, who debuted on this day 31 years ago!  Honestly, I don't believe I ever paid attention once Charlie stopped talking, as I have very few memories of this show.  Probably because Wednesday at 10PM meant I was an eighth grader being sent to bed on a school night- if I was lucky.   Moms and Nuns were not real keen on sleepy kids in morning mass...


Anyway, welcome to an awake and lively Time Machine!  This week, we'll be starting a journey through the #1 lps on the Martin Era 2.0, with various facts and factoids to be shared, up until eventually I get to the lps with the most weeks at the top, and the acts with the most #1s to their credit! Along the way I will bring up the odd and the unusual, and hopefully have a lot of fun with the list!  Also, a bit of mythology, and a look at how the M10 is doing album-wise!  Hands up, assume the position, and let's go!


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This week, we have Harry Wayne Casey- the famous KC of Sunshine Band fame- here with us!  How are you, sir?

Just fine, m'man...  but I got a question for you!  How come you didn't put our single this summer, Movin' Your Body, on the M10?

Well, uh... I listened to it... it just wasn't what I hear when I think KC and the Sunshine Band.  Frankly, POWERS comes closer...


What?  They only have the two people, we have FOURTEEN in the band...

And yet... put your single up against their Dance...

Oh, what do you know about music!  You're as bad as Richard Finch...

SLAM

Sigh... another one run off.  Oh, well, let's get on to the Panel poll this week... 29 stations, 10 candidates, so you should have an easy time of it.

Walter Murphy, who in reality WAS the Big Apple Band, was at #4 on Cashbox with A Fifth Of Beethoven.

A vote from Australia for ABBA's Dancing Queen, which wouldn't hit here until April next year.

Sir Cliff Richard's first real hit here in the states, Devil Woman, was at #6.

Rick Dees, who pretty much was his Cast of Idiots, was at #5 with Disco Duck.

Chicago was at #7 with If You Leave Me Now.

Boz Scaggs was at #2 with Lowdown.

Wild Cherry sat at #3 with Play That Funky Music.

England Dan Seals and John Ford Coley at #10 with Really Want To See You Tonight.

The Steve Miller Band (and God help me if they win, because I haven't squeezed THEIR new song in yet either) were at 20 and falling with Rockin' Me.

And the snit-driven KC and his band were at CBs top spot with Shake Your Booty.  See, this is why you don't get all pissy- an easy list and your song was #1 on CB!  (Again, God help me if HE wins two in a row...)

There was actually one song that dominated this week's race, but you can choose from the short list of Chicago, Walter Murphy, Wild Cherry, and... er... Rick Dees.  Sorry KC, you got less than 7% of the vote, that's what you get for being a butt!


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So my survey of the Martin Era #1s comes from the Billboard charts, as CB apparently only did a year-end (or at least they aren't publishing the lp list).  And that brings up anomaly #1 in our story.  It seems that when stereo became a thing, Billboard found it novel enough to be a chart-worthy variation.  Thus, from May 25th of 1959 till August 10th of 1963, they ran a mono chart AND a stereo chart.  As it seemed to flow a lot better using the mono side (and figuring the stereo side prolly had smaller overall numbers), I compiled my data using the mono side. BUT in fairness, I thought I would let you in on what got missed that way- and what got added on.

The Mono listers that never made the stereo side were-

Exotica by Martin Denny, which included a favorite I've mentioned here before, the instrumental Quiet Village;

At Large by the Kingston Trio- which was one of 4 lps riding the top ten by these guys at the SAME TIME...so definitely well-titled..

Heavenly by Johnny Mathis;

Theme From A Summer Place, not by Percy Faith but by Billy Vaughn and his orchestra;

Five of the six comedy lps that made the list:  Allan Sherman's My Son, The Folk Singer and My Son, The Celebrity ( a third after the split, My Son, The Nut, would be the last #1 comedy lp until Weird Al);  Bob Newhart's The Button Down Mind Of Bob Newhart, and The Button Down Mind Rides Again- which BTW would be the first two live #1 lps of the ME2.0; and Vaughn Meader's The First Family.

Bert Kaempfert's Wonderland By Night (love that song!);

The original cast lps for the shows Camelot and Carnival!;

Peter, Paul, and Mary's debut record;

Songs I Sang On The Jackie Gleason Show by Frank Fontaine;

And Elvis with Something For Everyone- unless, of course, you liked stereo, it seems.


Now the stereo lps that made #1 there but not as a mono record were:

Film Encores by Mantovani;
The Lord's Prayer by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir;
2 lps by a guy I'll have to dig into later named Enoch Light- Persuasive Percussions with Terry Snyder, and Stereo 35/M with the Light Brigade;
Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd with Jazz Samba;
and Henry Mancini's Breakfast At Tiffany's soundtrack.

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One new debut this week, by a name you've seen here twice before- the band Ducktails, who have a new lp called Jersey Devil coming out in October.  This tune comes in at #8:





One YouTube commenter said, "This is the '70s jam I've been waiting for all my life!"  Maybe a tad extreme, but certainly gets the spirit.


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So a couple more notes from the "way back then" side of the lp story.  The first lp of ME2.0 at #1 was a soundtrack to a movie called The Student Prince.  This was done by Mario Lanza, who had the songs all but done and a bit part in the movie to film when he had a falling out with the studio and walked out.  Didn't hurt the movie company- just cut his parts, used his music, and made money off the soundtrack.

Yeah... I kinda got tooken on that one...

Another odd story was the on-again, off-again career of the soundtrack to South Pacific.  This lp, which I believe was the record holder for most weeks on the charts until Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, first hit the top on May 19, 1958 for a week.  Then it picked up single weeks again in mid-September and mid- November.  But it was when they kicked off that stereo chart in '59 that it really took off.  First a three-week stint to open the chart, then a month off before the single week after the Fourth of July- and then from July 20th TILL THE END OF THE YEAR, a 24-week stretch which, sadly, doesn't figure into my calculations because, as I said, I went with the mono chart.

But... zees eez not fair...

Them's the breaks, Ezio!


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Stat Pack:

The #74 in '74  was the Little River Band's first American hit, It's A Long Way There; still think it's one of their best.

Our #101 this week belonged to a name I'd seen around back in the day but never heard- Johnny Guitar Watson, with I Need It.  Johnny was an old hand, with a collection of fair to middling hits in the 50's and 60s  on the R&B charts, and remade himself to the funk era.  He cashed in a year later with a tune called A Real Mother For Ya, which just missed the top 40 in '77.  It was as close as he would get pop-wise, as he never broke #96 otherwise.

A new thing I thought I would look at is the hottest song- the fastest mover in the hot 100.  And the Bee Gees claim this week's hottest tune with Love So Right, which jumped 27 spots to #52.

Speaking of the hot 100, I finally broke halfway, knowing 63 songs.  Back in the basement next week, as we'll just be missing the cutoff for 1977 and reverting back to 1955.

In the UK, the top banana was Dancing Queen, which as mentioned earlier was a few months from hitting here.  The highest here that charted there was- really?- Disco Duck, at #5 here and #19 there; the flip was the Bay City Rollers, at #4 there and #14 here, with I Only Wanna Be With You.

And in a week of curiosities, remember last week, when the top song in the UK was Rod Stewart and Sailing?  Well, they had ALREADY re-released it, and it sat at #11 this week!  I would say something about too much of a good thing, but this week on Cashbox, the Captain and Tenille were dropping with Love Will Keep Us Together, even as their Spanish-language version was climbing.  And I used to sing along to both, so...


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Speaking of curiosities, one last one from the lp story:  The aforementioned Dark Side Of The Moon, with about a million weeks on the chart, got ONE, count 'em, ONE week at the top.

Oh, and what was #1 lp wise THIS week?  Why, right in the middle of the last of FOUR stops at the top, Frampton Comes Alive!  It also claimed album of the Year on both Billboard and Cashbox.  Small wonder, we played it all summer long!

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And now, the rest of the M10...


The National stays at #10 with Dark Side Of The Gym.  And as I perused the current Billboard charts, I noted that their lp, called Sleep Well Beast, was at #1 on many of the subcharts that BB has for albums.  So I went looking, and it had debuted on their main 200 at #2!  So congrats there!


The Japanese House finally on the way out, falling from 4 to 9 in it's 8th week with Somebody You Found.

In Greek Mythology, Alcyone and Ceyx were a married couple who made the mistake of calling each other Zeus and Hera.  Which didn't sit well with the real King of the gods, so he hit Ceyx with a thunderbolt, effectively ending his reign.  Alcyone threw herself into the sea in grief, which isn't such a bad thing when your dad is a sea-and-wind god as well.  Zeus, when done being P.O.ed, turned them both into kingfishers, and the term Halcyon Days comes from the one week every winter that Halcyon's (Alcyone's) dad turned off the wind so she could lay eggs.  Now, somehow, the Russians turned all this into the legend of the Alkonost-

-half-woman, half bird, who makes music so beautiful that the hearer forgets his entire life.  Which is where the band Alkonost got its name, and they move up a spot to #7 with War Is Closed By Us.


At long last, Wayne Newton falls from #3 to #6 with The Letter...

...oh, don't mope!  You are in the top 24% of M10 songs all time with your seven weeks- and only 8% spent seven weeks on the chart without hitting #1!

See, it's not so bad....

Anyway, Jana Kramer moves up to #5 with I've Done Love.

A similar two-spot climb for Squeeze at #4 with Innocence In Paradise.

And back up 2 to #3 goes Alvvays with In Undertow.  The new lp, Antisocialites, debuted at #82 this week, and was in the top ten on all the subcharts where The National were #1- including a high of #4 on VINYL lps!  So congrats to them as well!

Dent and Frankie hang out at #2 for a second week with Across The Multiverse, so that means...

Lucinda Williams takes a third week at the top with Six Blocks Away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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And the Panel #1?  With 39% of the vote, it's...

...Wild Cherry and Play That Funky Music!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Next time, back to 1955!  More lp hijinx!  And maybe I won't make the POTM walk out for a change!