82: The Gap Band, "Early in the Morning"

By Wm. on August 2, 2025

I became an avid, ardent listener of American Top 40 in the late winter of 1976. Since it's always been very much my nature to seek out patterns and try to formulate rules when encountering new batches of information, my twelve-year-old brain quickly set to work on making sense of the week-to-week ebb and flow of the Billboard pop music chart. One thing became clear in those opening months of my new obsession: the first song Casey played was either brand new to the show or one stuck leading things off for a second week before disappearing. Thus, a rule was born: no song could ever fall from a higher perch to #40.

I'm pretty certain I was pretty surprised when the former #1 hit "Love Hangover" slid nineteen spots to kick off the 7/17/76 countdown. It wouldn't be the last time I came to see that something I thought was a 100% certainty turned out to be only a general rule.

That moment came back to me today when hearing the Gap Band's "Early in the Morning" start the 8/7/82 countdown following the recap of the previous show's Top 3, falling from its peak of #24. Soon after, another question centered on meaningless chart trivia emerged: just how often did AT40 open with a song dropping to #40? I elected to examine a ten-year period, June 1976 to May 1986 (so it starts with the week I first wrote down a chart). What did I learn?

--I count 43 occurrences, beginning with "Love Hangover" and ending with "Manic Monday," on 5/24/86. (It turns out that if one expands to include all of '76 and '86, only one song gets left out.)

--Four of the first eight times it happened over this period are former #1 songs: besides Ms. Ross, there's "Don't Go Breaking My Heart," "Stayin' Alive," and "Shadow Dancing." Only one of the last thirty-five was a chart-topper, Lionel Richie's "Hello."

--Four acts appear twice, unsurprisingly all big names: the Bee Gees ("Love So Right" and "Stayin' Alive"), Billy Joel ("My Life" and "Uptown Girl"), the Pointer Sisters ("He's So Shy" and "Dare Me"), and Journey ("Don't Stop Believin'" and "Only the Young").

--There are ten cases where the song also debuted at #40. In chronological order, we have Dolly Parton's "Heartbreaker," Pat Benatar's "Heartbreaker" (there being two songs with the same title that did this is my favorite thing about this post), the Fred Knoblock/Susan Anton duet "Killin' Time," AC/DC's "Back in Black," "Don't Stop Believin'," Ronnie Milsap's "I Wouldn't Have Missed It for the World," Robin Gibb's "Boys Do Fall in Love," Graham Parker and the Shot's "Wake Up (Next to You)," "Dare Me," and Ta Mara and the Seen's "Everybody Dance."

--Five tunes peaked between #37 and #39: Dolly's "Heartbreaker" (40-37-37-40), "Back in Black" (40-39-37-37-40), "Boys Do Fall in Love" (40-38-37-40), "Wake Up (Next to You)" (with the odd 40-39-40 run), and Artists United Against Apartheid's "Sun City" (39-38-40).

--Just because I really like them, I'll point out that the list also includes "Smooth Operator," "Chuck E.'s in Love," and the live version of "Maybe I'm Amazed."

My impression is that the Gap Band's other Top 40 hit, "You Dropped a Bomb on Me," got much more airplay in Cincinnati that summer and fall. However, there's no denying the awesomeness of "Early in the Morning," which became a #19 hit for Robert Palmer at the end of the decade. Brothers Ronnie, Charlie, and Robert Wilson emerged from Tulsa in the mid-70s to score seven Top 10 R&B albums and over a dozen Top 10 R&B hit singles, including four #1's (the first of those, "Burn Rubber on Me," clearly informs the groove of "You Dropped a Bomb on Me"). Alas, only middle brother and lead singer Charlie Wilson is still living. Ronnie (synth) and Robert (guitar/bass) passed away in 2021 and 2010, respectively.

Which is the greater thing about this clip: the flaming drumsticks or the shiny, fringed cowboy outfits? I'm definitely going with the latter.