Last weekend we had a snow-ice-snow storm that dumped about six inches of the white stuff sandwiched around maybe half an inch of ice. Flakes have continued to fly off and on all week, and it's remained unseasonably cold for a 21st-century January in Kentucky--we got about two more inches yesterday as another storm passed to our south. As I write this, the sun is out and the temperature is around 30° F, so maybe we'll see a little melting over the next day or two. It doesn't sound like our turn with freezing weather is quite over yet, however.
While this doesn't compare--at all--with the momentous stretch of winter I experienced in January 1977, I've enjoyed listening this weekend to Premiere's rebroadcast of the 1/8/77 AT40 in surroundings that at least feel like those when I last heard it 48 years ago. Repeated bouts of snow and the coldest temperatures I've ever experienced (-25° F one night if I recall correctly) kept us out of school for all but one day the year I was in 7th grade. Granted, we were a small, rural district unaccustomed to such weather, but being perhaps the last school to return, literally on February 1, made us the butt of jokes as closings were announced each night on the radio toward the end of the month.
It was a fun few weeks. Amy and I, and probably some neighborhood kids, piled the snow high in our side yard and dug a series of tunnels. We played board games a-plenty. And I got to spend any number of hours with the new portable turntable I'd received for Christmas, spinning over and over the relatively few 45s I owned, honing my DJ patter (of course). Included on the playlist would have been several of the songs on that 1/8/77 show, among them my sister's "You Don't Have to Be a Star (To Be in My Show)" and "Stand Tall" and my "Livin' Thing" and "Nights Are Forever Without You." I'm pretty sure I'd snagged the fairly new "Blinded by the Light" and "Weekend in New England" at the mall before we became snowbound. And rivaling "Livin' Thing" and its fab B-side "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" as the most-played 7" that month would have been both sides of Boston's first single. To be honest, I'm more than a little surprised in retrospect that "More Than a Feeling" (backed with the incredible "Smokin'") topped out only at #5 (it fell from that peak to #15 on this show). I'm sure that album sales cut into demand for the 45, but Boston wasn't a chart-topper, either--it only reached #3 on the U.S. album chart. Maybe it's just that I'm squarely in the demographic to which it was designed to appeal, but "More Than a Feeling" sure seems like one of the all-time great 70s tunes.
Anyway, here are a few artifacts from back in the day. I'm not finding any outdoor photos from that winter of '77, but here I am cleaning off Mom's 1970 Ford Fairlane 500 after the blizzard we had in late January of '78.
Don't ask me why the basketball goal is askew.
This is the case in which I kept my first 45s. Maybe I got it for Christmas in 1976, maybe it came into my life a little later. What I don't seem to have anymore, to my chagrin, is the card that came with it on which I wrote down all the records I had at the time.
While we're at it, here's that first chart of the new year. Yes, it's on purple notebook paper. I'm amused now at the thought of charging someone for my work, but I was certainly big into baseball cards at the time--maybe a pack was still around 15 cents. Forgive the Skynyrd and Al Green goofs (along with any others).
And I'll wrap with my copy of that magical 45, still residing in my basement though not in the 'denim' case anymore.
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