Time Machine co-ordinates VICXXVII60711720

Today is January 17th, 1977- and it is cold.  So cold, in fact, that the Dayton Daily News front page today looked like this:

How was it here in Ft Wayne?  Well, after spending 4 hours at -16 (not quite -27 C), we rose to a blistering high of ZERO.

Right now as I type, it's 30F.  Thank God for global warming!

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Welcome to this week's Time Machine, with CW McCall, two new M10 debuts, and a M10-record is tied... but Cashbox can top that! Also, a two time POTM winner becomes a 6D victim for a change!  Bundle up, and away we go!


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First off, I'd like to announce that a heavily 70s-centric  Song of January will be featured next week, God willing!  What song will join Ode To Billy Joe (September), Maggie May (October), Jailhouse Rock (November), and Daydream Believer (December) in our Martin Era 2.0 song of the month club?  Stay tuned!

Second, as I mentioned, we have 2 M10 debuts this week, and the first, coming in at #10, is brand new stuff from Agnes Obel...





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Now, the next thing I want to mention is that the new M10 #1 is...

....Tennis with Runner!  And why would I tell you this now?  Because this song joins Strawberry Runners' When We Were Good and Sweet's Peppermint Twist as the only M10 #1s (and there have now been 124 of 'em) to take 7 weeks to get to the top!  So naturally, I had to see what songs took the longest to make it from top ten debut to #1 in the ME2.0 on the Cashbox charts!  And we will get TO that... right after we look at the Panel picks with our POTM this week, "CW McCall" himself, Bill Fries!

Hi, howya doing?

Just fine, Bill!  Glad to have you here!  You have a list of 13 contestants from a mere 37 stations this time around, and the top group is VERY tightly packed!

So I see!  Well, let's get this Convoy rollin' by mentioning the imports that got votes this week.  Australia chipped in a couple'a votes- one for Chicago's If You Leave Me Now, an' the other for a Christmas song by an outfit called Ol' 55, called (I Want A) Rockin' Christmas.  And, from South Africa we got a vote for a pair of Dutch sisters with the Polish family name Kowalczyk, and go by the moniker of  Pussycat.  Their song was called Mississippi- boy, talk about gettin' around!

Bill, one of the things that I have to bring up for our fans is gonna sound awfully strange to them.  Tell us about your lyrics/music writing arrangement.

Yeah, so I just wrote the lyrics, and a buddy by the name of Chip Davis did the music.

And Chip Davis, for those of you who didn't know- like me- was the founder of Christmastime favorites Mannheim Steamroller!  Weird, wild stuff!  What else do you have on your list, Bill?

Well, I should mention that Chip's music with the Steamroller is more to my personal listening taste than the country-flavored stuff.  But, my life is better expressed in outlaw country, so there we are...

Anyway, 4 of the week's top ten- You Don't Have To Be A Star by McCoo and Davis at #2, Engelbert Humperdinck- glad I didn't grab a handle like THAT one when I come up with CW- and After The Loving at #5, Brick's fusion song Dazz at #6, an' Aerosmith's Walk This Way at #10, all got votes, but not enough...

Nope, but five songs jammed in within 3 votes of each other at the top of the poll, getting 26 of 37 votes!  Oh, and I do have one other freaky thing- a certain station, despite a top 30 of singles, had an ALBUM at the top spot on their chart- Stevie Wonder's Songs In The Key Of Life.  Making it more odd was the fact that while this lp topped their SINGLES chart, it was THIRD on their album chart!  More weird, wild stuff!  Okay, howsabout you let everyone in on our finalists, Bill?

10-4, Pigpe- er, Chris!  

Choose from:  Blinded By The Light, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, #12 this week;
Rose Royce, Car Wash at #1;
You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, Leo Sayer, #4;
The single from Stevie's lp, I Wish, at #3;
And Hot Line by the Sylvers at #7!

Okay, thanks, Bill, nicely done.

Catch ya on the flip-flop, good buddy!

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Our second M10 debut at #8 this week is a slightly older song- from the recent lp You Deserve Love, more music from White Reaper...




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So like I said, I got looking into the list of Cashbox hits in the ME 2.0 (for you rookies, May 1955 to September 1977) that took seven (or more) weeks to go from top 10 debut to number one.  Guess what?  There were 21 songs to take seven weeks- four of them in 1972 alone (Michael Jackson's Got To Be There, Al Green's Let's Stay Together, Looking Glass's Brandy (You're A Fine Girl), and the Hollies' Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress)!  8 of those were in the 50's (including the ME2.0's starting point, Rock Around The Clock), only 4 in the 60's, and a surprising 9 in the 70s.  HOWever, this wasn't the top:  FIVE songs took eight weeks to make it to the top!  They were:

Roger Miller's Autumn Leaves in '55;
Nelson Riddle's Lisbon Antigua in '56;
The Everly Brothers' Bye Bye Love in '57;
Walter Murphy's A Fifth Of Beethoven in '76;
and Rita Coolidge's (Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher And Higher in '77.  No wonder I thought that song was SO overplayed!

BUT, that isn't the end- because ONE song took a staggering NINE weeks to go from top ten debut to #1- 

...Louis Armstrong's Hello Dolly!, which fought through eight weeks of three different Beatles' #1s in 1964!


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Speaking of the Beatles, the "fifth Beatle", George Martin, actually played piano on two tracks off America's last original lp, Hideaway.  Dan Peak of America claims that playing this lp's single, Today Is The Day, at a studio session in his home for Rod Stewart inspired Rod to come up with his much bigger hit Tonight's The Night.  The lead guitar was one of 5 #1s for session man Pete Carr.  The others?  Two from Barbara Streisand, Woman In Love and What Kind Of Fool, Luther Ingram's R&B #1 If Loving You Is Wrong I Don't Wanna Be Right, and our 6D victim, who won this POTM time-slot twice before Barry Manilow finally took her down- Mary McGregor's Torn Between Two Lovers.

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Stat Pack:  Big mover was Fleetwood Mac's Go Your Own Way, up 23 from 66 to 43; there were only three debuts in the Hot 100 this week, including the Bee Gees with Boogie Child at #88; the UK #1 was David Soul's Don't Give Up On Us, which had not hit the US charts yet; Our only crazy cover this week was Ringo Starr's cover of Hey Baby, which got both thumbs up from us; and the song that would have been #1 on my chart this week was our Panel finalist Blinded By The Light- or else Barry's Weekend In New England, which was climbing at #20 this week.

There, I finally won SOMETHING with that song!

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The remaining M10:

Texas Sun falls to #9 for the Khuarngbin/Leon Bridges combine.
RBC moves up 1 to #7 with Black Starling.
Seven weeks on for Saint Asonia's This August Day, slipping 2 to #6.
Jeff Lynne's ELO up a spot to 5 with Goin' Out On Me.
Huey Lewis holds at 3 with While We're Young, which means last week's #1- MGMT's In The Afternoon- drops to #2.


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And the Panel picks?

If you took Stevie Wonder or the Sylvers, you got 10.8%.

If you took Manfred Mann, you got 13.5%.

If you took Leo Sayer, you got 16.2%.

But the winner, with 18.9%....

...Rose Royce and Car Wash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So join us next week when Gwen Dickey and the band go way back to 1956, and you get to meet the Song Of January!