Songs Casey Never Played, 6/19/76

By Wm. on June 25, 2026

Hitting pretty much all the musical genres in this installment, from tepid pop to rock to country to disco. Let’s take a look at six more tunes I wasn’t hearing a half-century ago.

89. Sundown Company, “Norma Jean Wants to Be a Movie Star”
So, apparently there was this really terrible movie released in 1976 about the early days of Marilyn Monroe’s career, Goodbye, Norma Jean. It starred Misty Rowe, who I remember as Maid Marian on the short-lived sitcom When Things Were Rotten but is better known for appearing on Hee Haw for many years. My best guess about Sundown Company is they were a one-off studio creation, as there is zero, zilch, nada out there about them. The song is unremarkable in pretty much all respects–maybe the most remarkable thing is it charted at all, reaching #84 for the two weeks following this one before sundowning.

(Goodbye, Norma Jean is available in seven installments on YouTube. I watched only the last one–it’s sufficiently dreadful that I don’t need to see any more of them. This song plays over the closing credits.)

86. Special Delivery featuring Terry Huff, “The Lonely One”
The discovery of the month, a fabulous slice of Washington, D.C. soul from a group that didn’t last beyond their first album. Huff, who passed away in late 2012, was the subject of this extensive profile in the Washington City Paper that first appeared sixteen years ago today. It’s well worth your time to read; one thing I learned was that in the early 60s, Terry Huff was a member of a group called Andy and the Marglows (Andy was Huff’s older brother) that came close to beating Doris Troy to the punch with a version of “Just One Look.”

Don’t know if “The Lonely One” was worthy of making AT40, but surely it deserved more than a #75 peak.

78. Fools Gold, “Rain, Oh Rain”
Not much out there on these guys, either. Seeing claims that they served as the band for Dan Fogelberg in his early days, which I can buy–they’ve got that mid-70s country-rock sound down pat. The second of four straight songs featured this time not to make it out of the 70s; this stalled out at #76.

75. Crystal Gayle, “I’ll Get Over You”
Gayle’s first Hot 100 appearance, and also the first of her sixteen #1 singles on the Billboard country chart. This is no “Talking in Your Sleep,” which is my personal fave of hers, but you can hear all the pieces of future success falling into place. It will top out at #71.

73. Steve Gibbons Band, “Johnny Cool”
Gibbons was already a veteran of numerous bands from the UK scene by the time he made this one dent on the U.S. charts, one slot short of its peak this week. I’m digging the sound Gibbons gets from his guitar here. He’ll turn 85 next month.

The lyrics seem to be loosely adapted from the plot of the 1963 Rat Pack-associated movie Johnny Cool (Peter Lawford co-produced, Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis Jr. appear in it, Davis even sings a couple of songs on the soundtrack). Elizabeth Montgomery co-starred as the femme fatale.

63. Michel Polnareff, “Lipstick”
Closing out this post with yet another dip into the cinematic universe. Not sure that I remember seeing ads for the Margaux Hemingway flick of this name back in the day, but reading the plot synopsis on Wikipedia now makes me just as glad I wasn’t paying attention. On the other hand, this disco instrumental by Frenchman Polnareff (who will turn 82 next month) is tasty enough to have merited the chart action it got. It’s about to peak at #61.