What a difference 17 years makes! A decade is an eternity in the Music Industry and what was hot in 1960 was pretty much forgotten by 1977. When 1977 rolled around, the Disco Era made in-roads on the BILLBOARD charts.
While Roy Orbison made the 1960 compilation, he only shows up as co-writer of Linda Ronstadt’s hit “Blue Bayou.”
New Orleans gets plenty of love from “Walking to New Orleans” by Fats Domino and “New Orleans” by Gary “U.S.” Bonds.
Styles in popular music come and go. Do you remember these songs? Any favorites here? GRADE: B (for both)
TRACK LIST:
| 1 | Chic– | Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah) Written-By – Bernard Edwards, Kenny Lehman, Nile Rodgers | 3:40 |
| 2 | KC & The Sunshine Band– | I’m Your Boogie Man Written-By – Harry Wayne Casey | 4:02 |
| 3 | Atlanta Rhythm Section– | So In to You Written-By – Buddy Buie, Dean Daughtry, Robert Nix | 3:15 |
| 4 | Climax Blues Band– | Couldn’t Get It Right Written-By – Colin Cooper, Derek Holt, John Cuffley, Pete Haycock, Richard Jones | 3:15 |
| 5 | Pablo Cruise– | Whatcha Gonna Do Written-By – Cory Lerios, David Jenkins | 4:15 |
| 6 | Alice Cooper (2)– | You And Me Written-By – Alice Cooper (2), Dick Wagner | 3:25 |
| 7 | Stephen Bishop– | On And On Written-By – Stephen Bishop | 3:01 |
| 8 | The Marshall Tucker Band– | Heard It In A Love Song Written-By – Toy Caldwell | 3:27 |
| 9 | Firefall– | Just Remember I Love You Written-By – Rick Roberts | 3:13 |
| 10 | England Dan & John Ford Coley– | It’s So Sad To Belong Written-By – Randy Goodrum | 2:52 |
| 11 | Linda Ronstadt– | Blue Bayou Written-By – Joe Melson, Roy Orbison | 3:53 |
| 12 | Foreigner– | Feels Like The First Time Written-By – Mick Jones | 3:50 |
| The Drifters– | Save The Last Dance For Me | 2:25 | |
| Hank Ballard And The Midnighters*– | Finger Poppin’ Time | 2:35 | |
| The Ventures– | Walk—Don’t Run | 2:02 | |
| Sam Cooke– | Wonderful World | 2:05 | |
| Jerry Butler– | He Will Break Your Heart | 2:45 | |
| Kathy Young And The Innocents (2)– | A Thousand Stars | 3:08 | |
| Roy Orbison– | Only The Lonely | 2:25 | |
| Jimmy Jones– | Good Timin’ | 2:06 | |
| Brenda Lee– | Sweet Nothin’s | 2:20 | |
| Fats Domino– | Walking To New Orleans | 1:55 | |
| The Hollywood Argyles*– | Alley-Oop | 2:40 | |
| Jimmy Jones– | Handy Man | 1:58 | |
| Conway Twitty– | Lonely Blue Boy | 2:13 | |
| Rosie And The Originals*– | Angel Baby | 3:29 | |
| Sam Cooke– | Chain Gang | 2:32 | |
| Hank Ballard And The Midnighters*– | Let’s Go, Let’s Go, Let’s Go | 2:20 | |
| Neil Sedaka– | Calendar Girl | 2:38 | |
| Maurice Williams And The Zodiacs*– | Stay | 1:31 | |
| Gary “U.S.” Bonds*– | New Orleans | 2:49 | |
| Joe Jones (2)– | You Talk Too Much | 2:34 | |
| Billy Bland– | Let The Little Girl Dance | 2:18 | |
| The Safaris– | Image Of A Girl | 2:33 |
Grade D- for the 1977 compilation. Only song I like is Blue Bayou. The 1960 is much better. probably a B+. Could do without Alley Oop and A Thousand Stars in the Sky but otherwise a pretty good selection.
Steve, I would predict that in 20 years, more of the 1960s songs will be remembered than than songs on the 1977 CD.
Partly because there are a lot more songs in the 1960 set…and presumably the better selection was cheaper at time of reissue…1960 not Inherently a better year than 1977 for pop music, though the charts were less diverse (but I never gave a damn about whether something was charting, and I can hate everything by Conway Twitty (down to him affecting that name because he thought it made him sound sophisticated) about as thoroughly as everything by KC and the Sunshine Band. And like or love a number, if a smaller number, on both.
Todd, the charts in 1960 and 1977 are radically different. Bill Haley and His Comets’ “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” was the first rock ‘n’ roll track to top Billboard’s leading pop singles chart, then known as the Best Sellers in Stores. Meanwhile, in 1977 the BILLBOARD TOP Hits were:
1 “Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright)” Rod Stewart
2 “I Just Want to Be Your Everything” Andy Gibb
3 “Best of My Love” The Emotions
4 “Evergreen (Love Theme from A Star Is Born)” Barbra Streisand
Pop charts Less diverse musically in ’77 that is…
Todd, by 1977 MOTOWN Records was a shell of itself. It would be another decade before rap songs would start to make the BILLBOARD charts.
Favorite song from both collections: “Only the Lonely”. However, unlike I’m sure almost everyone else here, I do like the 1977 collection. I was a callow college sophomore spending my weekends waiting tables and then shaking my booty at the local disco/club—a lot of those 1977 songs bring back instant memories of the era. Oddly enough, my favorite on that collection isn’t one of the disco dance hits, it’s Stephen Bishop’s lovely & melancholy “On and On”:
“Got the sun on my shoulders and my toes in the sand/
Woman left me for some other man/
I don’t care, I’ll just dream and stay tanned/
Toss up my heart and see where it lands.”
And suddenly 45 years has vanished in a blink.
Deb, Stephen Bishop’s “On and On” was his biggest hit. Bishop did have some other hits, too:
On And On 10.08.77 28 Weeks on the Hot 100
It Might Be You 01.29.83 25 Weeks on the Hot 100
Save It For A Rainy Day 12.11.76 22 Weeks on the Hot 100
Everybody Needs Love 09.16.78 13 Weeks on the Hot 100
Animal House 12.23.78 5 Weeks on the Hot 100
Unfaithfully Yours (Our Love) 03.31.84 3 Weeks on the Hot 100
I’m glad you mentuioned “Animal House” as Bishop was the guy playing the guitar on the stairs when Belushi grabbed it, smashed it into the wall, then handed it back to him and said, “Sorry.”
Jeff, a memorable scene from ANIMAL HOUSE!
He has an autobiography out now see my comment to deb about him
Maggie, Stephen Bishop is an underrated songwriter and singer.
Deb I went to high school with Stephen Bishop He was a year behind me, and I didn’t know him. I’m a member of our foundation and doing the hall of fame. I did have to push by a couple of people to get him in, as I did with SF writer Gregg Bear.
Maggie, I’m sad that Greg Bear died…too soon.
Good for you, Maggie…though I did like Bear’s work better than Bishop’s.
I’ve never been a fan of dance music, so there’s not much here for me to get excited about. There’s some pretty good stuff here–Roy Orbison and Fats Domino in the Sixties, Stephen Bishop and Linda Ronstadt in the Seventies. Like any other form of music, though, dance music (even disco) can succumb to the application of true genius–see, for instance, “Miss You” by the Rolling Stones.
Michael, I was just listening to EXILE ON MAIN STREET yesterday while running errands. Love “Miss You,” too!
The Bishop, Ronstadt, Firefall, and Dan/Coley are the only ones from ’77 I remember. On the other hand, I know all of the 1960 tracks; I probably saw a lot of those acts on Bandstand, afternoons after school (4th grade).
Fred, like you I rushed home to watch AMERICAN BANDSTAND! In 1960 I was just getting into Rock ‘n” Roll music as an 11-year-old.
Jackie knows the names of all the regulars from American Bandstand back then. She says she used to rush home to dance to the music.
Jeff, I used to rush home to watch AMERICAN BANDSTAND to hear the music…and oogle at the cute girls dancing on TV!
Yeah, BLUE BAYOU really made me wanna “Dance, Dance, Dance.”
“What was hot in 1960 was pretty much forgotten in 1977.” Actually, it’s more like what was hot in 1977 was pretty much forgotten by 1977. (Except for Deb, who has laser-sharp recall.)
I wouldn’t mind listening to even the bad cuts from the 1960 compilation.
Jerry, that 1960s compilation brought back a lot of memories! But, then again, so did that 1977 CD. Every song seems to have a memory attached to it for me.
Lots of favorites in the 70s collection. I’ve recently come to appreciate Stephen Bishop’s On and On and Just Remember I Love You by Firefall is a long-time favorite.
The 60s collection has lots of songs that I don’t remember by title; maybe I’d recognize them if I heard them.
Beth, all those 1960s songs are available on YouTube or you can tell Siri to play them for you.
Damn. I started commenting, got sidetracked to youtube, and lost my comment. Anywya, let’s start in 1960, a great year in music IMHO. Perhaps not up to the standard of 1961 but close. The only song I don’t know if “Little Blue Boy” by Conway Twitty. My knowledge (as I was saying) of Conway’s oeuvre begins with his crossover hit “It”s Only Make Believe” and ends (almost) with his duets with Loretta Lynn. But there is one more, a classic version of the great Tony Joe White song “Rainy Night in Georgia” by Conway and Sam Moore on the RHYTHM, COUNTRY & BLUES album, which has several other classic pairings. I mean, you cannot top Little Richard and Tanya Tucker. But don’t take my word for it, here is Sam & Conway’s version of a classic:
Rainy Night in Georgia.
Jeff, I admire you going down those rabbit holes to supply us with excellent links!
I’ll try it in a minute, but damn I never liked Any of his work. I do like Moore, though.
Better than anything else I’ve heard from Twitty, but not actually good–others with similar voices have simply better voices. And, sadly, one of the least-good Moore performances I’ve heard. But glad to have heard it…just not the cover I would ever prefer…
Those songs from 1960 were the real ones for me – helped me studying at high school where I got my “Abitur” in 1962 and then went to university.
!977? Forget it!
Wolf, I was much more into the 1960s songs at the age of 11 than I was the 1977 songs when I was 28…and perhaps a bit jaded musically.
I have to take Jackie to the nail place so will get back to the rest of the comment later. While I know the majority of the 1977 songs, no favorites other than “Blue Bayou.” We saw Chic with Nile Rodgers open for Earth, Wind & Fire at Madison Square Garden about 10 years ago.
While I like most of the 1960 songs, I have to agree with Steve on “Alley Oop,” an annoying novelty song I have on two or three different oldies compilations. There were two nearly identical versions, by The Hollywood Argyles and by Dante & the Evergreens. (Yes, I know oldies trivia. I have to keep up Bill Crider’s legacy.)
More later, perhaps.
Jeff, I always admired you and Bill Crider at various BOUCHERCONs sharing obscure facts about classic songs with the group!
I really only know a few songs on each disc. In 1960 the radio in our house was tuned to a station that was more Easy Listening, and by 1977 I was listening to an Album Rock station, and never heard the Top 40 hits.
Jeff, we had multiple radios in our house in 1960. My mother and father had one in the kitchen and one in their bedroom. My sisters had one, I had one, and my brother had one. And, in those days, the radios were always on. A few years later, we got a color TV and things changed.
I was only 12 in 1960 and didn’t listen to much music yet. The dreck (mostly) on the 1977 collection wasn’t what I was listening to in 1977. Namely, The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Talking Heads, Springsteen, Petty, The Clash, Patti Smith, Roxy Music, Elvis Costello, Warren Zevon, Graham Parker…etc.
Exactly, Steve. A 1977 album featuring your favorites would be more comparable to the 1960 discs…and more expensive to produce.
Steve, in 1977, there was a lot of TOP 40 AM music that catered to a mass audience while Dylan, Lou Reed, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, Warren Devon, and Graham Parker migrated to FM stations with more discerning listeners.
“Freeform” FM stations were already giving way, by then, to Top 40 stations on FM, as well…but college stations, particularly those with student DJs, often would continue to play adventurous music.
Todd, but the TOP 40 creep from AM came to FM. Yes, those collect stations were adventurous, but their broadcast range was limited.
For me, “Alley Oop” is the pleasant kind of catchy/stupid (the Beach Boys’ version is the one I grew up with), while “Calendar Girl” is an annoying earworm that I like even less than the Twitty. Meanwhile, Chic could do little that was very wrong.
Google coughs up, for me, the following “Songs of 1977”, only slightly guided by my actual tastes (hence, no “Africa” by Abbey Lincoln), and along with dreck by Bonnie Tyler and the Bee Gees and Debby Boone and Kenny Rogers and Steve Miller, it’s led off by Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” and features the pleasantly mechanical (Foreigner’s “Cold as Ice”; Supertramp’s “Give a Little”) to the one overlap with your album, the not-bad “Heard It in a Love Song”, and similarly decent work by Natalie Cole, another good Fleetwood Mac song, two good Steely Dan items, 2 decent Lynyrd Skynyrds, the Ramones’ “Sheena is a Punk Rocker”, Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”, Rita Coolidge’s slightly draggy version of “Higher and Higher”, and so on.
From PEOPLE IN ME: Abbey Lincoln, “Africa” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3cReo2Dc9s
And it was released abroad in 1973, but didn’t hit the States till Inner City Records vinyl, what I’ve had for decades, in ’78…
The “genius” behind Alley Oop was Kim Fowley who would later manage The Runaways.
By coincidence, we recently bought a Greatest Hits CD of Gary “U.S.” Bonds and I’m enjoying it way more than expected. We saw him open for Darlene Love several years ago in Staten Island and he sounded great then. Of course, I’ve mentioned that we’ve seen Dion four or five times in recent years (he is about 83 now) and he is always good. His voice is good, he has a good backing band, he has kept recording new music and does some newer stuff along with the old hits.
I also listen to Sam Cooke’s Greatest Hits, which has several of his gospel songs as well as the other hits, and ends with “A Change is Gonna Come.” I love the songs he did with Lou Rawls as his backing vocal. (“Bring It on Home to Me” is the most widely known.) I also mentioned that we saw Roy Orbison perform six months before his death. He was great. (Ronnie Spector was the opening act.) One of my biggest regrets is that Fats Domino canceled on two Jazzfest performances that we had gone there specifically to see. I last saw him live about 1962 or ’63. Not a huge Brenda Lee fan, but saw her live in a free concert in Brighton Beach opening for Neil Sedaka about 10 years ago.
So yesmm the 1960 CD is for me.
Jeff, I envy you!
All of the artists and songs youmention would be on my wish list. But of course in Europe we didn’t have much of a chance to get to their concerts – I manged less than one per year.
Distances were just too big …
Wolf, I envy Jeff and Jackie, too! One of my regrets was not going to see more of the singers and groups I loved when I had the chance.
Could never understand the appeal of Fats Domino. Not very rock and roll or R n B. Closer to Nat King Cole. Brenda Lee did a few good songs before she went country. You couldn’t pay me enough to see Neil Sedaka. Always reminded me of Jim Nabors.
Did manage to see Bo Diddley right before his passing. Also Solomon Burke who sang seated on a throne.
Always liked Dion. He was real compared to fakes like Bobby Rydell, Frankie Avalon and James Darren who were popular at that gtime.
Steve, Dion and The Belmonts’ “Teenager in Love” was the first song I learned all the words to in 1959 when I was 10-years-old!
Well, that would depend also on your definition of R&B (though by my lights, that would be a pretty limited definition)…he was basically a New Orleans piano professor who made it onto the pop charts…I’ve always liked his work.
Jeff, Brenda Lee always camin’ on strong for me!