Ah, the spring of 1977, a strong period (in my memory, anyway) for pop music. "Don't Leave Me This Way," one of my top 20 songs of the year, is sitting at #1. This past week I got interested in looking at tunes from the 4/23/77 Hot 100 that never graced an AT40 (as one apparently does). Some of 'em I learned about eventually, while others were still complete mysteries. Here's a mix of songs from both of those categories. I feel like I could make another couple of posts out of the songs on that chart, but this will have to do for now.
83. Angel, "That Magic Touch"
Debuting this week is a D.C. hard rock band that owed its signing to Casablanca to being discovered by Kiss. "That Magic Touch" comes from their third album On Earth As It Is in Heaven--I kinda like the minor chord turn at the beginning of the verses but the chorus is meh at best. It would climb just six spots higher in a six-week run.
Angel's keyboardist was Greg Giuffria, who scored a Top 20 hit with "Call to the Heart" in early 1985, in a new band bearing his name.
77. Cody Jameson, "Brooklyn"
I don't come into these posts with all that many preconceived notions about which songs might get lifted up from positions #41-110--frequently I'll simply punch a title/artist into the search bar on YouTube and see what pops up. "Brooklyn" (which topped out at #74) turns out to be a so-so song about a couple who can't get its act together and ships their young child off to a grandparent back East. The singer's voice is fine, though, and it took me a tiny bit of digging to realize what you see in the thumbnail below--that "Cody Jameson" is in reality future Days of Our Lives star Gloria Loring, at the time a brand-new mother to Robin Thicke (he'd been born in March). She'd also hit Caseyland in the mid-80s, on the #2 duet with Carl Anderson, "Friends and Lovers."
65. Klaatu, "Sub-Rosa Subway"
One of the best mid-period Beatles pastiches I've ever heard. I picked this album up in college (Klaatu in the U.S, 3:47 EST in their native Canada) on the high recommendation of friend Warren and fell instantly in love with this track. I only wish I'd been aware of the 45 that spring I was 13; with "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft" as the B-side, it would have been an inner-circle Hall of Fame member of my 7" disk collection. Only got to #62, alas.
What makes "Sub-Rosa Subway" even more cool to me is that it's describing actual history, the first means of underground travel in NYC. You can read a bit more about inventor Alfred Ely Beach here--you can bet I'll be digging into (pun intended?) more of the story soon.
54. Kinks, "Sleepwalker"
Ray Davies and company had been (almost intentionally) in a six-year U.S. pop singles chart slump. Obviously, "Sleepwalker" didn't turn out to be their first Top 40 hit since "Lola" (that would be 1978's "A Rock 'n Roll Fantasy"), but it did signal they were turning away from the concept album portion of their career. Peaked at #48; good tune.
51. Henry Mancini and his Orchestra, "Theme from 'Charlie's Angels'"
We watched a fair amount of Charlie's Angels in its early years--Dad definitely had a bit of a thing for Jaclyn Smith. I didn't own a Farrah poster but saw them seemingly everywhere for a good while.
This was Mancini's final Hot 100 appearance and the first since his theme from Love Story hit in 1971. It would top out at #45 the following week.
True story: in my first years at Georgetown, we had a computer science major named Charles Angel. If you do the math, you realize he was born before the show was even a twinkle in Aaron Spelling's eye.
50. Rubinoos, "I Think We're Alone Now"
Fun power-pop band originating in the Bay Area who never got their due. I like this cover, though it's played straight enough that maybe I can understand why it didn't climb higher than #45 (and why Tiffany's version exploded a decade later). They might be better known today for "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend," whose chorus sounds plenty enough like that in Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" (legal rumblings and a settlement ensued).
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