Tag: RFTS (Page 3 of 11)

Chart Week: April 17, 1982
Songs: “Stars On 45 III (A Tribute To Stevie Wonder) (Medley)” – Stars On 45,
“Pop Goes the Movies (Part 1) (Medley)” – Meco.
Chart Positions: #38, 4th week on the chart. Peaked at #28 for two weeks in May. #35, 10th week on the chart. Peaked at #35 for two weeks.

First off, elephant in the room: damn there are a lot of parenthesis in these two titles! I believe the (Medley) tag was added by Billboard, but still…

This countdown was another great representation of how strange the Top 40 could be in the early ‘80s. It featured one pure novelty song (“Pac Man Fever” at #24), a comedy song (“Take Off” by Bob and Doug McKenzie at #37), a infamous movie instrumental that was about to hit #1 (Vangelis’ “Chariots of Fire – Titles” at #3), and a TV show theme song “(Theme From ‘Magnum P.I.’.” by Mike Post at #34).[1]

Down at the bottom of the chart, three spaces apart in the 30s, were our two medleys. Which were also covers. I guess medleys of covers?

If that wasn’t random enough, both songs were by artists with previous #1 hits. Odd.

Sitting at its peak of #35 was Meco’s “Pop Goes the Movies (Part 1) (Medley).” Beginning with the fanfare that famously kicked off 20th Century Fox movies, Meco added his disco-influenced touch to seven classic movie themes, including the James Bond theme, “Goldfinger,” and “The Magnificent Seven.”

Meco’s entire career was based on making movie themes sound like dance tracks. Most famously, he hit #1 in 1977 with “Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band,” which might have been the absolute favorite song of six-year-old me. Three years later he hit #18 with “Empire Strikes Back (Medley).” His luck ran out in 1983, though. “Ewok Celebration,” from Return of the Jedi, stalled out at #60. Everything about that movie was a disappointment. Maybe he should have made it a medley too?

He wasn’t just obsessed with Star Wars, though. In 1978 he cracked the Top 40 with two more movie covers. First, his version of “Theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind” hit #25. Later that year he put out an album filled with disco covers of music from The Wizard of Oz. He truly had his finger on the pulse of America. “Themes from the Wizard of Oz: Over the Rainbow / We’re Off to See the Wizard” topped out at #35.

Stars On 45, a weird-ass Dutch studio group, were a little more limited. They found singers who sounded like familiar artists and recorded medleys of old hits over dance beats. Their self-titled single featuring music of the Beatles and other ‘60s artists topped the chart in the summer of 1981. I’ve always wondered how much of that song’s success was due to John Lennon’s death a few months earlier.

This track was their only other Top 40 hit in the US. With good reason; you can’t go wrong with the music of Stevie Wonder. The singers sound just enough like Stevie and the music remains faithful enough to the originals to make each segment work. Plus they pick some of his best songs to cover. In the LP/cassette era, I can see why this held some appeal. Take the best parts of some of your favorite songs and cut them together into one mega-hit without any of the album filler.[2]

Kind of wacky that both of these songs were on the chart at the same time. Not so wacky that this kind of song disappeared right about this time.

It’s tough to rate novelty tracks like these. On one hand, they kind of suck. On the other, they are harmless fun. Meco’s music especially seemed aimed at delighting kids. Or kids at heart, I guess. While people wanting to hear Stevie Wonder’s music should just go play his albums, Stars On 45 gave us a great reminder of how broad and amazing his career was. So I’ll slap a 4/10 on each.

As I was doing my research I came across a Stars On 45 track called “Star Wars Medley.” It begins exactly like Meco’s “Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band.” Then, for some insane reason, it segues into a number of very non-Star Wars hits from the ‘70s. “Kung Fu Fighting,” “Layla,” “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy,” “YMCA,” “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” and “Baker Street” are among the tracks covered. Also, inexplicably, Kim Cares’ 1981 smash “Bette Davis Eyes.”[3]

What all that had to do with Star Wars I have no fucking clue. If you’re a Spotify user, you should go play it. The progress bar turns into a light saber. When you hover the cursor over it, it pulses a brighter color. Nutty shit for a nutty song.

At first I couldn’t find YouTube entries for either song, which is not a surprise. And Meco’s track isn’t on Spotify. Fortunately after some digging through Discogs I was able to find these very non-official videos.

Chart Week: February 25, 1978
Song: “Falling” – LeBlanc and Carr
Chart Position: #28, 20th week on the chart. Peaked at #13 the week of April 1.

Normally I put my song grade at the end of these posts, but for this entry it seems best to offer the assessment up front. This is not a good song. In fact, it is borderline terrible. I’m sure a lot of people who were young and in love in 1978 remember it fondly. I was six when it was getting heavy airplay, so not sure how I felt about it then. I know that I do not like it now. It’s middle of the road, weightless, AM radio fluff. It strikes me as a lame, misguided attempt to thread the needle somewhere between an Eagles ballad and 10cc’s “I’m Not In Love.” Let’s call it a 2/10.

On this show, Casey related an awful story about the duo that performed it.

Lenny LeBlanc and Pete Carr served as an opening act for Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1977 Street Survivors tour. On October 20 the bands played a show in Greenville, SC. The headliners had their own plane for the tour, an aging Convair CV–240, which they would take to the tour’s next stop in Baton Rouge, LA.

Three of the band’s roadies decided to road trip to Baton Rouge rather than fly, and the band offered LeBlanc and Carr two of those open seats. However, at the last minute the roadies changed their minds and decided to fly. The guys in Lynyrd Skynyrd thought it wasn’t fair to boot LeBlanc and Carr after promising them a lift, but Lenny and Pete overheard the conversation and backed out on their own.[1]

Later that night, just before its scheduled landing in Louisiana, the plane ran out of fuel. The pilots attempted to land in an open field but overshot the field and flew into a line of trees. Six of the 26 people on the flight died, including LS lead singer Ronnie Van Zant. Most of the survivors were severely injured, including the two roadies who were flying in place of LeBlanc and Carr.

Thus the duo joined the Waylon Jennings Club of not being on a plane that crashed and ended the life other music legends.

Did their connection to that flight contribute to this being LeBlanc and Carr’s only chart single as a duo? Perhaps. Somehow, in the midst of Bee Gees/Saturday Night Fever mania, it clawed its way up to #13. Coincidentally, on this week’s chart Lynyrd Skynyrd’s first post-crash hit, “What’s Your Name,” was eleven spots higher at #17.

I’ve been sitting on this post for a year. I could never quite the tone I wanted last winter. I’m still not sure I nailed it. But as I brushed it up to finally get it posted, news broke that founding Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington had died. He was injured in that 1977 plane crash, breaking both legs, both arms, both wrists, both ankles, and his pelvis. He fell into drug addiction in the years after the crash as he struggled with immense amounts of pain. And he lived another 45 years. Props to him.

Chart Week: February 9, 1980
Song: “I Wanna Be Your Lover” – Prince
Chart Position: #20, 11th week on the chart. Peaked at #11 for two weeks in January and February.

It started here. This was the very first Prince single to crack the Top 40. It took a few years, but eventually just about everyone around the world who owned a radio knew the name Prince.

But in 1980, even the great Casey Kasem got his name wrong.

In this week’s countdown, Casey shared the story of how Prince signed his first record contract. He went back to Prince’s childhood, explaining how the young phenom taught himself to play 27 different instruments. The artist took that audaciousness to the studio and recorded a demo completely on his own, playing every instrument and producing every track, and then shopped those demos to record companies in LA. Four big labels were interested, but he turned them all down when each company refused to give him the freedom to stick to that DIY recording process.

Eventually Warner Brothers saw that his talent was worth the risk. In return for letting Prince loose in the studio, Warner Brothers would retain the rights to his music. Foreshadowing!

The point of this post is how Casey got a few things wrong in his biographical sketch of this exciting new artist. He said Prince was 19 and had graduated from high school the previous year. In fact Prince was 21 and had graduated from Central High in Minneapolis in 1976.

The AT40 host made a far bigger flub, though.

In the minute or so that he related Prince’s path to stardom, Casey kept referring to him as “Roger Nelson,” closing by saying that “… he doesn’t use his real name, though. He bills himself as Prince.”

I’ve heard several countdowns from 1980 where Casey refers to Prince as Roger Nelson. It drives me crazy every time. Because, as every music geek should know, Prince’s real name was Prince. His birth certificate read Prince Rogers Nelson. Rogers. Not Roger.

I’ve always wondered who made this mistake. Did Warner Brothers accidentally call him “Roger” Nelson in their promotional material? Did Prince register his music and lyrics under that name? Did someone at Billboard or AT40 decide to call him that after digging into his biographical details? While promoting this song, Prince was indeed telling people that he was just 19 (see in the video below). Was he also telling people that his real name was “Roger” Nelson? For a man who hated being honest with the media, especially about his personal life, you can never be sure if it was all part of some scheme he dreamed up. Again, foreshadowing!

By mid–1983 everyone at AT40 had figured it out, and soon Prince’s given name was a mainstay on the countdown.

Of course, well after Casey left AT40, Prince’s name became a problem again. When Warner Brothers refused to release his new music as quickly as he wanted, or give him full control of his back catalog, Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol. Thus began The Artist Formerly Known As Prince era.

The song is an absolute jam. It is joyous, cocky, and funky as hell. He’s pleading, but he’s not begging. What makes it all work is the vulnerability that Prince attempts to hide with his swagger. He’s young, he doesn’t have a lot of the material things other dudes might have. But he guarantees that he will rock a lady’s world if she just gives him the chance.[1]

I wanna turn you on, turn you out
All night long, make you shout
“Hey, Lover!”

It is loaded with the innuendo that Prince would become (in)famous for.[2] And while the androgyny that would play a bigger role in his persona in the coming years was a bit muted here, it was still present enough that you couldn’t be sure exactly who he was singing to, or who he was singing as.

Put all that together and it’s remarkable this nearly cracked the Top 10 in 1980. It was certainly well ahead of his time. But Roger Nelson, errr, Prince, was always ahead of his time. 10/10

Totally a coincidence, but “I Wanna Be Your Lover” reached its peak when Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You” held down the top spot. A little preview of how a pretty good chunk of the coming decade would be, with Prince and Michael dominating the pop charts.

I’m sooooo glad that Prince performing this song on American Bandstand is back on YouTube again. Dick Clark said the interview in the middle of this segment was the most difficult of his career. Over the years I’ve heard different explanations for Prince’s behavior. He was super nervous to be on national TV for the first time. He was pissed they wouldn’t let him play live and forced him to lip-sync.[3] He was upset about Clark’s crack about Minneapolis. A bandmate claimed Prince did it intentionally to get more publicity. Whatever the explanation, this appearance is absolute gold. Put it in the time capsule, my friends.

Chart Week: January 23, 1988
Song: “Don’t Shed A Tear” – Paul Carrack
Chart Position: #21, 11th week on the chart. Peaked at #9 for three weeks in February.

It feels like I’ve lost the momentum for this series lately. After reviewing the numbers, I did add 15 entries in 2022, which was three more than 2021. Perhaps it seems like I’ve slacked off because I have a bunch of drafts where I’ve jotted down ideas, but, for one reason or another, haven’t been able to turn them into completed posts. Hopefully I can get back into a more regular rhythm with these in 2023.

Aside from my biggest music geek friends, I doubt the name Paul Carrack will mean much to most of you. However, I bet every one of you knows his voice.

In 1974 he hit #3 with his band Ace on their debut single “How Long.” Later he sang lead on Mike + The Mechanics’ two biggest hits: “Silent Running (Dangerous Ground),” which hit #3 in 1986, and their 1989 chart-topper “The Living Years.”

Throw in “Don’t Shed a Tear” and Carrack hit the top ten performing with three different acts.

What isn’t included in that list is Carrack’s most enduring single. In 1980 he joined Squeeze to play keyboards. A year later, on the suggestion of producer Elvis Costello, he sang the lead vocals on “Tempted.” Despite becoming a classic in the decades since, that track stalled at #49.[1]

Wanderlust was a theme for Carrack’s career. Reading through his Wikipedia page is a dizzying experience, as he was constantly hopping around, performing with different groups or different sets of musical friends. Roger Waters, members of the Eagles, Roxy Music, Nick Lowe, and The Pretenders to name just a few of the other acts he worked with. His career path reminds me a little of Marshall Crenshaw’s.

I can’t find any evidence that he had an abrasive or difficult personality, so I think it truly was wanderlust, a desire to perform, and a lack of ego that allowed him to work with so many others.

For years I thought that Carrack must hold some kind of record for singing lead on the most Top 40 songs with different acts. However, last summer I randomly came across a note that proved me wrong. Turns out the person who holds the record is even more obscure than Carrack.

In 1970, British session singer Tony Burrows had one of the most remarkable runs in chart history. What took Carrack 15 years to accomplish, Burrows topped in a matter of months.

In March of that year he hit #5 on “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)” fronting Edison Lighthouse. In mid-June he reached #13 with White Plains, singing “My Baby Loves Lovin’.” The week of July 4 he again hit #13 sharing co-lead vocals for the band Brotherhood of Man on “United We Stand.” And two weeks later he peaked at #9 with “Gimme Dat Ding” as frontman for The Pipkins.[1]

Four singles with four different acts in five months. That’s pretty good work.

He wasn’t done.

In 1974 he hit the top ten one last time, on First Class’ Beach Boys-esque track “Beach Baby,” which topped out at #4.

Amazingly, not one of those acts ever hit the US Top 40 again. Burrows also released his own music throughout the 1970s. Not one of his solo singles ever cracked the Top 40.

You can make an argument that Tony Burrows is the biggest one-hit wonder in chart history for taking five different acts into the Top 40 exactly one time and then basically disappearing. There aren’t retrospectives of his work, tributes to the “Tony Burrows Years,” or modern artists who seek him out as a collaborator. He had his five little moments and then was gone.

“Don’t Shed a Tear” is a solid if unremarkable song. Phil Collins once said that Paul Carrack could sing the phonebook and make it sound great. You definitely hear his talent here. His vocals are terrific. I probably sang along with them back in the winter of 1988. Not much else about the song is memorable, though. I would not have been able to recall it without hearing this countdown. At least Carrack has one song we all remember, even if it doesn’t bear his name. 6/10

Chart Week: November 23, 1985
Song: “Separate Lives” – Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin
Chart Position: #3, 8th week on the chart. Peaked at #1 the week of November 30.

(Note: To tide you over during our Thanksgiving vacation, I’ve scheduled a couple posts to drop while we are away. I’m hoping all goes well and they appear on time and have the appropriate media files attached. If something goes wrong, please forgive me. I will correct upon our return.)

As happens on occasion, this post is more about a story tangentially tied to the song than the song itself.

On this week’s countdown, Casey shared an anecdote about Phil Collins and his once-in-a-lifetime chance to play with a Beatle when he was a teenager.

In 1970, as George Harrison was recording his debut solo album, *All Things Must Pass*, nineteen-year-old Collins signed on as a session musician.

When he arrived at the studio, Collins was given some conga drums and asked to play on a track. He was not given any direction, just told to join in with the guitar part. Jacked up by the chance to perform with one of his heroes, Collins played the hell out of those congas. One problem: although he was a drummer, he had no idea how to correctly play the congas. Add his enthusiasm to his lack of technique, and soon his hands were bleeding.

Eventually the session came to an end, Collins was handed a check, and he left.

A few months later when the album hit record stores, Collins rushed out to buy it. He skimmed through the liner notes, but did not see his name listed as a musician. When he listened to the track he had played on, he realized that the album version was nothing like the song he had played on.

Fortunately, he had never cashed the check. For years he used that as proof that he had, indeed, played with George Harrison (and Ringo Starr, who was also at the session, and Phil Spector, who was producing it).

That’s the story Casey told. It is pretty good.

But it didn’t end there.

Years later Collins ran into Harrison at an event. He asked George if he remembered that session and why a different version of the song made the album. Harrison said he did not recall those details and that it was probably Phil Spector who made the decision about what version made the album. He added that he still had all the master tapes from those sessions and would be happy to send them to Phil so he could review them.

A few weeks later the tapes arrived at Collins’ home. When he listened, he heard absolutely horrible conga drums ruining the track. To make matters worse, when the song ended, he heard Harrison telling Phil Spector to “get rid of the lad on the congas, he’s crap.”

Collins was devastated. Was he really that bad? Yet he still called up Harrison to thank him for sending over the tapes. While on the phone he asked George if he had listened to them. George replied no, he had not. Phil told him about Harrison’s comments on the tape. George paused and said, “Shit, man, I’m sorry, what else can I say?”

They talked for a few more minutes before George began laughing uncontrollably. Collins was taken aback. “What are you laughing about?”

That’s when Harrison came clean.

“After you asked me about that session, I brought in some new players to re-record that track, and asked the conga drummer to play the worst part he could ever imagine!”

That is a first-class, A-level, Mt. Rushmore prank! Jim Halpert would be proud.

As for this song? Blech. It was on the soundtrack for the movie White Nights, and intended to be the big, soaring single from that album. Which it kind of was. It went to #1 for crying out loud! Yet, it was not the biggest song from the movie. Lionel Richie’s “Say You, Say Me,” which was in the film but not on the soundtrack due to licensing issues, was an even bigger hit. It topped the charts for a month to “Separate Lives” one week. And while both songs were nominated at the Academy Awards for best song from a motion picture, it was Richie who took home the Oscar.

I’ve come to appreciate Collins’ work more in recent years, but songs like this I would be fine never hearing again. It sounds more like someone trying to sound like Collins than an actual Collins song. Which makes a little sense, as he didn’t write it. Marilyn Martin is wonderful, and you hear why a lot of people thought she was going to be a star. But her performance doesn’t save the tune. I’m glad this one has pretty much disappeared. 2/10

Chart Week: September 18, 1982
Song: “Somebody’s Baby” – Jackson Browne
Chart Position: #18, 8th week on the chart. Peaked at #7 for three weeks in October.

I loved this song when I was 11. It wasn’t because I was a big Jackson Browne fan, or because it was a fantastic song. No, it was solely because it was the lead single off the soundtrack for Fast Times at Ridgemont High, arguably the greatest movie ever made about being in high school.

There was a long stretch of time when I could probably have quoted 90% of Fast Time’s dialogue back to you. But that wasn’t until 1987 or so.

Why did it take that long? Because I was not allowed to see R-rated movies in 1982.

Still, I got sucked into the cultural vortex Fast Times created when I started six grade in September 1982. Enough of my friends had seen it – or more likely had older siblings that had seen it – that you couldn’t not hear quotes from the film throughout the school day. Like most kids I was a social opportunist, and if quoting a movie I hadn’t actually seen could get me some cred in hallways and locker room of Pittman Hills Middle School, I was all in. I had no idea who Jeff Spicoli was, but I going to say “Hey Bud, let’s party,” anytime I had the chance.

My mom could stop me from seeing the movie, but she couldn’t keep me from hearing its music. Thus I fell in love with the biggest hit of Jackson Browne’s career. I didn’t consider it odd for a 34-year-old, widowed, soon-to-be divorced, father who was several years removed from his most recent, biggest hit to be singing about the lives of high schoolers. All I knew was that his song was from a movie that the cool kids were talking about, which meant the song must be cool.

I still think it’s a pretty good track. It tells a pretty standard story of wanting to be with someone, but thinking that they are unattainable. There are probably a million songs that tell the same story. So just because it’s an old dude singing doesn’t mean it isn’t also applicable to teens.

As I aged, Browne’s presence on the soundtrack made less sense to me. This was a movie about kids in Southern California. Shouldn’t Spicoli and his buddies have been listening to surf punk?[1] Half the girls at Ridgemont High dressed like Pat Benatar, but there are none of her songs in the movie or on the album. While the Go Go’s “We Got the Beat” plays over the opening montage,[2] there are no other examples of SoCal New Wave nor any of the hair metal that was developing in LA.

Instead we got Jackson Browne and a bunch of other odd choices.

The double-album soundtrack also features songs by four former Eagles,[3] Stevie Nicks, Donna Summer, Jimmy Buffet, Graham Nash, and Poco. Not exactly artists who were on the cutting edge or whose prime audience was teenagers. It smacks of a collection put together by label executives nervous about filling it with unproven artists, and instead chose to go with established names who would give it more mainstream appeal.

They had to sell albums, I get it. But those choices keep the Fast Times soundtrack from being a cultural signpost for Gen X the way the movie was.

I will never be able to listen to this song without thinking of the fall of 1982, starting middle school, and Fast Times. Sometimes nostalgia can elevate an otherwise unremarkable song into one that is timeless. 7/10

Chart Week: August 30, 1986
Song: “Heaven In Your Eyes” – Loverboy
Chart Position: #33, 5th week on the chart. Peaked at #12 for two weeks in October.

A quick entry this time, based on a cultural nugget that shows how much the world has changed since 1986.

Casey shared that Loverboy keyboard player Doug Johnson refused to appear in the video for “Heaven In Your Eyes.” Why? Because the song was on the soundtrack for Top Gun, and Johnson was a pacifist. He felt that the movie glamorized war and military service.

Think about that for a minute.

A musician taking a stand against the troops. Can you imagine if that happened today?!?!

Even the most anti-war artists during the Iraq War were careful to say that they were “against the war but for the troops.” Or used some other similar language to make it clear their issues were with policymakers and not those who volunteered to serve.

That stance still caused problems in the 2000s, since a vocal minority of this country believes that if you question the political motives behind military action, you are somehow also “against the troops.”

Hell, the (Dixie) Chicks were basically run out of the country music world because Natalie Maines said she was ashamed to be from the same state as President Bush a year into the Iraq War.

But I don’t remember any real blowback about Johnson’s stance in 1986. Maybe it was because he was Canadian and Loverboy was on the backside of their career.[1] Maybe it was because people who would normally get fired up by similar statements were distracted by the bright, shiny thing that was Top Gun. Or maybe it was just because in 1986 people weren’t so reflexive about defending the idea that only one view of the world can be patriotic.

Last week I heard a countdown from 1987 in which Casey opened the show by thanking a guest host who had sat in for him a week earlier while he attended an anti-nuclear weapons march in New York. I can’t imagine Ryan Seacrest or any of the people who host the various countdowns on SiriusXM making a similar statement today. I don’t think it was an accident that Casey chose to share Doug Johnson’s story.

I guess things were indeed just different in 1986.

As for the song, it sucks. Loverboy carved out an awesome and unique niche in the corporate rock world of the early ‘80s. This song has none of the stuff that made them cool. A cheesy electric piano intro starts things off poorly. Mike Reno sounds bored delivering his vocals. In general, the song comes across as a cheap knockoff of his sappy duet with Ann Wilson, “Almost Paradise,” which had been on the Footloose soundtrack a year earlier.

The Top Gun soundtrack had two songs that will be played forever, a super-cool instrumental theme, and then a bunch of forgettable tracks. This, though, was the turd in the punchbowl. Maybe Johnson was more ashamed of the song than trying to make a political point when he chose to skip the video shoot. 2/10

Chart Week: July 22, 1978
Song: “Baker Street” – Gerry Rafferty
Chart Position: #2, 14th week on the chart. Peaked at #2 for six weeks.

I’ve been wanting to write about this song for ages, and everything finally lined up thanks to an AT40 I caught last week.

“Baker Street” is one of the greatest songs of its time. Or any time for that matter. It is an unforgettable, undeniable, unassailable piece of rock ’n’ roll art. I defy you to listen without cranking it up as loud as is acceptable for your location to revel in its glory.

Sadly, though, it was subject of one of the great screw-jobs in chart history. One that had a direct impact on what Casey Kasem said on two different American Top 40 broadcasts.

Scotsman Gerry Rafferty had six US Top 40 hits in his career; two with the band Stealers Wheel and four as a solo artist. “Baker Street” was, by far, the biggest of those hits. For five weeks in the summer of 1978 it sat at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, stuck behind what would become the #1 song of the entire year, Andy Gibb’s “Shadow Dancing.” However, in late July it looked like Rafferty would sneak past Gibb into the top spot.

In AT40 replays from the 1970s, Casey often gave clues about what the next number one song would be. I always assumed this was because in the ‘70s, AT40 lagged the actual data by a week or two, and he had an idea of what songs would shuffle into what spots in the coming weeks.

The week of July 22, 1978, Casey shared one of these hints in an interesting way. Before playing “Baker Street,” he read a question from a listener asking what country had the most artists with number one hits per capita. He answered Scotland, with four: The Bay City Rollers, The Average White Band, Donovan, and Lulu against a population of about five million. But, Casey suggested, maybe there was about to be a fifth.

When it came time to record the next week’s countdown, Casey indeed worked off a chart that listed “Baker Street” as the number one song in America. He laid down vocals confirming that fact. However, before the show could be mastered and distributed, the chart was adjusted keeping the top two songs as they had been for the previous five weeks. Casey re-recorded the final segment of his show to reflect this correction. A week later “Shadow Dancing” finally fell to number five…but “Baker Street” also fell four notches to number six.

What on earth happened? How can the Billboard numbers change after they’ve already been locked in for the American Top 40 deadline?

The urban legend, and one that seems to have a lot of legs, suggests that Andy Gibb’s management team was responsible. They met with representatives from Billboard to plan for the singer’s appearance on a Billboard-sponsored show. When Gibb’s agents learned that “Shadow Dancing” was about to fall out of the top spot, they strongly inferred that their client would not be making an appearance on the program if his song was no longer number one. Since Gibb was one of the hottest stars in the world at the moment, this sent Billboard scrambling to adjust the count and ensure Gibb’s performance.

Or so people say.

Whether true or not it is a fun theory to speculate about.

So, sure, Andy Gibb kept Gerry Rafferty from earning a number one hit on the Billboard chart. And that sucks. But I guarantee “Baker Street” gets played way more often now than “Shadow Dancing” does, and probably has every year since 1978.[1] So suck that, Andy Gibb (RIP).

By the way, since that question was asked of Casey, four more Scottish acts have topped the Hot 100: Rod Stewart, Sheena Easton, Lewis Capaldi, and Calvin Harris. I would imagine that means Scotland still has the most number one artists per capita of any country. Even with Gerry Rafferty getting screwed.[2]

There is also a controversy about who wrote the incendiary sax line that anchors the song. You can read all about that here. What blew my mind when I read this piece was that Hugh Burns, who plays the roaring guitar solo on “Baker Street,” also played on George Michael’s “Careless Whisper,” another song that is built upon a monster sax riff. Crazy coincidence!

Oh, and if you don’t think this song is a 10, you can fuck right off.

(Worth noting that Tom Breihan wrote about “Baker Street” and the various stories behind it as a bonus track for The Number Ones during last year’s Stereogum fundraiser. You can read it here. He only gave it a nine. 🤷‍♂️)

Chart Week: June 20, 1981
Song: “Angel of the Morning” – Juice Newton
Chart Position: #38, 18th week on the chart. Peaked at #4 for four weeks in May.

Juice Newton was a classic Right Artist at the Right Time success. Although she came up in the world of folk music, by the early 1980s she had slid into a country-rock hybrid that was well suited to the moment. As we’ve discussed before, there was that little window in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s when many country artists were able to have mainstream, pop success. Think Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, The Oak Ridge Boys, and so on.

I don’t really hear much country in this song, or most of Newton’s other early ‘80s hits. Here there is the slightest whine in the guitars, and just a hint of Smoky Mountain twang in her voice. In other songs (“Queen of Hearts,” for example) there is a loping bass line that recalls the earliest days of rock music, when country and pop shared a lot of DNA. To my ears, though, her songs come across as very mainstream, adult pop. If the record companies and radio stations hadn’t labeled her as a country artist, I never would have taken her for one.

Perhaps that explains her success. Her straight-forward sound brought in the pop audience, being cast as a country artist roped in those listeners. Combine them and an artist who had not produced a charting pop single before 1981 suddenly spun off four-straight Top 10’s, three more Top 40 singles, and three Adult Contemporary chart number ones (including this song).

In time Newton did drift towards more recognizably country music, and eventually landed seven country Top 10s and three number ones.

But in 1981, she was one of the hottest artists on the pop chart thanks to songs like this.

This may surprise you, but I think this song is fantastic. I hear common ground with late 1960s artists like the Righteous Brothers. Although her voice isn’t as soulful as Bill Medley’s, there’s a similar vibe in there. There’s a grandness to the music that sounds like those big, blue-eyed soul hits of a decade earlier.

That soulfulness gives the song an emotional honesty and vulnerability I’ve always liked a lot. You really feel Newton’s resignation that she has gotten herself into a relationship that has no good outcomes.

Newton’s delivery is nicely reserved right up until she finally cuts loose and wails “Bay-ay-ay-by…” and then takes the final chorus a level higher than the first two. Stretching out that final “Dar-ar-ling” for a full 10 seconds (before the producers double-track it and stretch it out another 20 seconds) is a perfect, dramatic closure.

I also love those melodramatic fills where the drums crash and the guitars chime, which build tension that doesn’t break until Newton’s climactic lines.

In some ways, this song reminds me of The Long Blondes’ terrific 2007 song “You Could Have Both.”[1] In each song a female singer is acknowledging that she is the other woman, but accepting that role and the heartbreak that comes with it. Newton isn’t begging her lover to stay, but rather a confirmation that their union meant something before they part.

I’m not a huge fan of any kind of country music, even that watered-down country pop that made the Top 40 in the early ‘80s. This song is the one exception. 8/10

By the way, I always love countdowns that fall on important dates. This one landed on my tenth birthday. It is probably for another post to talk about how several teammates from my YMCA baseball team and I huddled in our laundry room as tornado sirens blared…