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Fifty years ago today, at 6pm on an early evening Sunday, I tuned in to Cincinnati’s 1360 WSAI-AM and started a routine that lasted well over six years. For the previous four months or so, the attention of this sixth-grader had been caught in the grip of American Top 40. I tried to follow the routes taken by songs I liked as they climbed and descended the chart. I began to absorb pop music trivia relayed by that genial host, Casey Kasem, in the stories that he spun about the artists on the show, in the questions from listeners that his crack research team helped him answer. But as the school year ended, apparently I needed something more: I was about to become a compulsive listmaker. That night, I took out a sheet of loose-leaf notebook paper and wrote down the songs as Casey played ’em. I couldn’t know then that a habit lasting until a month into my time at college had just formed. |
That sheet is in far worse shape than any other chart I made during that period. But you can see I had a means of denoting songs that were rising, falling, staying put, or debuting from the very start. (Predicting the next week’s chart was also a big thing with me.) |
I can’t recall now where, or how, I stored my charts as they accumulated through my high school years. I do know that they resided in stacks on a shelf in the closet of my bedroom when my parents moved in the fall of ’83, after I was in college. I probably reclaimed them after I bought my first house ten years later. Eventually it occurred to me to put them in four binders, with sleeve protectors: |
My charts truly are among my most prized possessions, near the top of the “must save in case of fire” list. |
How to honor this occasion? Let’s take a quick walk through the five songs that debuted on 6/5/76. |
#39: The Trammps, “That’s Where the Happy People Go.” Likely the first time I heard this song, and you can see above I botched the song title (and artist name–I’m sure I’d seen it sometime in the Sunday morning entertainment section of the Cincinnati Enquirer, where they listed the top 10 pop, country, and soul songs each week, but misremembered which letter was repeated). The middle of their three Top 40 hits, far overshadowed by the third, “Disco Inferno.” Would reach #27. |
#34. Seals & Crofts, “Get Closer.” All three of their Top 10 songs peaked at #6, and this one had an unusual post-peak run. On 7/24, it shot up ten spots to that #6 position, held there another week and then dropped to #13. It then spend the rest of August clawing its way back, going 11-9-9 before heading back down for good. That longevity helped make it #16 on AT40‘s year-end countdown for 1976. |
#33. Starland Vocal Band, “Afternoon Delight.” Did 12-year-old me really understand what this was about? Well, the lyrics are so clear that I should have. Would I have picked it to be the one to dethrone “Silly Love Songs” from the top spot as June progressed? I’m not so sure, though it had skyrocketed into the Top 10 by the 6/19 show. I have to believe Casey mentioned at some point that half of SVB, Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert, had written and sung on John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” five years earlier, but I have no memory of it. |
In listening to AT40 rebroadcasts this past decade, though, I have noticed Casey introducing “Afternoon Delight” by saying “here’s that song” at least a couple of times. I don’t think he meant it in an uncomplimentary way. |
#32. Thin Lizzy, “The Boys Are Back in Town.” I’d guess this one gets the most airplay these days of the five debuts, and it’s easily my favorite among them, a perfect summer tune. Another song for which today might be the 50th anniversary of hearing it for the first time. I shouldn’t complain about a #12 peak, so I won’t. (I wrote about hearing the band name that day as ‘Fin Lizzie’ a few years ago.) |
#30. Steve Miller Band, “Take the Money and Run.” Miller’s first week on the Top 40 since “The Joker” had fallen off in early ’74. I recall this had been receiving airplay on WSAI for a few weeks by early June. It and “The Boys Are Back in Town” ascended practically in unison, never more than 3 spots apart. The only week on the show when Thin Lizzy was ahead was on 7/31, when Steve fell from #11 to #32, while Phil Lynott and company dropped only to #27. |
SMB is one of two acts to appear on both this first chart and my final one, 10/2/82. Fleetwood Mac is the other, but three others on the ’82–Neil Diamond, Olivia Newton-John, and America–missed being here by just one or two weeks, on one side temporally or the other. |
As the years passed, I came to refer to the songs on this show as “The Original 40.” Quite a few found their way into the canon as they became oldies. Ten made the top 20 of the year-end countdown. I can’t regard any of them as stinkers, schlocky as some may be. |
Alas, Premiere doesn’t have 6/5/76 as its featured offering this weekend. It is, though, the alternate show. Maybe, this afternoon or tomorrow, I can find a station playing the show and delight in hearing it another time. |
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