Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

Sex took over the US singles charts in 1976, with Rod Stewart’s Tonight’s The Night closing the year at #1, with his seduction of a “virgin child” and lots of sex noises. And Starland Vocal Band’s Afternoon Delight became an unlikely chart-topper, with its sunny harmonies camouflaging its subject matter of “rubbin’ sticks and stones together make the sparks ignite”.

Neither of these feature here, but The Who’s Squeeze Box does. Pete Townshend claims it is an innocent song about the joys of playing the accordion. Sure it is. More More More by former porn star Andrea True is more direct. “Just get the cameras rolling, get the action going,” Andrea instructs. The disco track was a big hit on both sides of the Atlantic.

As noted in Any Major Hits from 1976 Vol. 1, disco broke big that year. Diana Ross’ Love Hangover topped the US charts in May. Its slow-burn seduction gives way to a dancefloor groove halfway through. That structural trick — part ballad, part club track — became a template. Thelma Houston’s Don’t Leave Me This Way later in the year followed the same trick. As in the UK, Euro disco was making its mark in the US, with acts like Donna Summer and Silver Convention scoring big hits.

Oddly enough, Johnny Taylor’s Disco Lady, a chart-topper in March, discussed its subject matter over a rather more pedestrian groove; it’s not a pulsating club track.

It was a great year for soul; it is no accident that nine of the present 23 tracks are soul numbers. A quarter of the Billboard Top 100 hits in 1976 were soul or funk tracks (plus several disco tracks).

The charts in 1976 are remarkable for the variety of styles that provided big hits. Soul, disco, soft rock, country crossovers and novelty records all took turns at the top. They key seemed to be simplicity: most hit songs were instantly accessible and radio-friendly.

Links for all past mixes in the series are up.  If you dig the feel of 1976, take a look at the collection of posters from West-Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1976 (other years are available, too)

As with other Any Major Hit mixes, the sequencing is roughly chronological. As far as possible, all versions here are the single versions. The mix is timed to fit on as standard CD-R and includes home-rubbed covers and the above text in a PDF. PW in comments.

1. The O’Jays – I Love Music
2. David Ruffin – Walk Away From Love
3. Rhythm Heritage – Theme From S.W.A.T.
4. The Who – Squeeze Box
5. Gary Wright – Dream Weaver
6. Peter Frampton – Show Me The Way (live)
7. Johnnie Taylor – Disco Lady
8. Elvin Bishop – Fooled Around And Fell In Love
9. John Sebastian – Welcome Back
10. Andrea True Connection – More, More, More
11. The Manhattans – Kiss And Say Goodbye
12. Starbuck – Moonlight Feels Right
13. War – Summer
14. Lou Rawls – You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine
15. Candi Staton – Young Hearts Run Free
16. Tavares – Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel
17. Daryl Hall & John Oates – She’s Gone
18. Silver – Wham Bam Shang-A-Lang
19. The Spinners – Rubberband Man
20. Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr. – You Don’t Have To Be A Star (To Be In My Show)
21. Burton Cummings – Stand Tall
22. England Dan & John Ford Coley – Nights Are Forever Without You
23. Boston – More Than A Feeling

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Any Major Hits from 1944
Any Major Hits from 1947
Any Major Hits from 1961
Any Major Hits from 1970
Any Major Hits from 1971
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1974 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1974 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1975 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1975 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1976 Vol. 1

A Year in Hits
More CD-R Mixes

As I have done over the past few years, I’ll review the hits from fifty years ago in two parts. One follows the hits from 1976 in the UK, the other in the US. This lot picks 23 tracks that were riding high in the UK charts in 1976; some of them were hits too in the US (and it will work vice versa when Volume 2, which will focus on the US charts, comes out).

In the UK, 1976 marked the launch of punk, with a hype that prompted even West Germany’s teen magazine Bravo to write a feature on the Sex Pistols, with a poster — before the band had even released a record (their first UK chart entry was in December).

Even as the year started with the pomp rock of Bohemian Rhapsody, the year really belonged to ABBA, who finally knocked the Queen opus off the top of the charts in late January with Mamma Mia. Two further #1s followed: Fernando in July and Dancing Queen in September. ABBA spent 12 weeks on the top of the UK charts, and added a #3 hit with Money Money Money as the year fizzled out. Three more consecutive #1s would follow in 1977.

That dancing queen felt the beat from the tambourine in a discotheque. And disco music was getting bigger in 1976 — not yet so big that Ethel Merman felt compelled to make a disco LP, but enjoying a certain ubiquity. And UK acts were helping to lead the charge. Tina Charles’ I Love to Love and The Real Thing’s You To Me Are Everything and Can’t Get By Without You brought club vibes to mainstream pop. From Germany, Donna Summer’s Love To Love You Baby and Silver Convention’s Fly Robin Fly were, well, flying high in the charts. From the US, Tavares’ Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel was a slice of disco joy.

While Ethel Merman and Sesame Street were still holding their disco fire, one novelty record already blazed a trail for the joy-destroying trivialisation of the genre: Rick Dees’ Disco Duck, perhaps the worst record of 1976.

Dees had plenty of competition. JJ Barrie’s dreadful No Charge, a spoken-word country moral tale about unpaid motherhood, spent weeks at #1. The Wurzels’ belated comedy cover of Melanie’s Brand New Key, reworked as Combiner Harvester, introduced agricultural humour to the charts. Robin Sarstedt’s My Resistance Is Low sounded like a Disney movie reject. And punk found an antidote in Our Kid, a Liverpool vocal quartet of boys, led by a 12-year-old with a pudding-bowl haircut, whose You Just Might See Me Cry probably made many people weep with anger.

The closer on this mix might or might it be a novelty tune. The Kursaal Flyers’ Little Does She Know is deliberately and gloriously overproduced — producer Mike Batt said he was going for a Phil Spector effect. Cheating songs are rarely set in laundromats, nor do they tend to refer to dropped bikinis that had been bought in Rome. But the Kursaal Flyers were not usually a novelty band trading in parody, so I assume that they played the song straight.

The year’s biggest-selling single in the UK was the Eurovision winner Save Your Kisses for Me by Brotherhood of Man. The passage of time has eased my objections to this lightweight number. It’s a harmless and catchy singalong tune. But it doesn’t feature in this mix.

The most unexpected record was the born-again Christian Cliff Richard singing about a Devil Woman, a song about a stray cat with evil eyes and a lady with bad intent corrupting our clean Clifford. It’s a decent rock number, and rock music was still very much around. Status Quo were chugging their boogie riff, and Thin Lizzy made a great comeback with The Boys Are Back In Town (featured here, like all tracks, in its single version. I’ve replaced that in my folder with the full album cut).

As the Sex Pistols made their chart debut with Anarchy In The UK in December, peaking at #38, the charts were topped by Showaddywaddy with their rock & roll revivalist Under The Moon Of Love and Johnny Mathis’ adult-oriented When A Child Is Born. Punk would make its mark in 1977, but even in that year, the top positions in the UK charts would defy all ideas of revolution.

Will I make Hits From 1977 mixes next year? I don’t know yet — the lack of comments for the predecessor mixes over the past couple of years suggests that this series is more a self- than crowd-pleasing exercise. I did a Life In Vinyl 1977 mix some years ago, which covers that year. But the well of hits goes deeper than my vinyl acquisitions of that year. You tell me in the Comments or on my Facebook whether you want Any Major Hits From 1977.

Meanwhile, the US hits of 1976 will follow soon.

Links for all past mixes in the series are up.  If you dig the feel of 1976, take a look at the collection of posters from West-Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1976 (other years are available, too)

As with other Any Major Hit mixes, the sequencing is roughly chronological. The mix is timed to fit on as standard CD-R and includes home-discoed covers and the above text in a PDF. PW in comments.

1. Slik – Forever And Ever
2. Tina Charles – I Love To Love
3. Billy Ocean – Love Really Hurts Without You
4. R&J Stone – We Do It
5. Barry White – You See The Trouble With Me
6. Harpo – Movie Star
7. Sailor – Girls Girls Girls
8. Cliff Richard – Devil Woman
9. Sutherlands Brothers & Quiver – Arms Of Mary
10. Jimmy James & The Vagabonds – I’ll Go Where Your Music Takes Me
11. Melba Moore – This Is It
12. Real Thing – You To Me Are Everything
13. Gallagher & Lyle – Heart On My Sleeve
14. Thin Lizzy – The Boys Are Back In Town
15. David Dundas – Jeans On
16. Jesse Green – Nice And Slow
17. Johnny Wakelin – In Zaire
18. Sherbet – Howzat
19. Leo Sayer – You Make Me Feel Like Dancing
20. Showaddywaddy – Under The Moon Of Love
21. Bonnie Tyler – Lost In France
22. Electric Light Orchestra – Livin’ Thing
23. Kursaal Flyers – Little Does She Know

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Any Major Hits from 1944
Any Major Hits from 1947
Any Major Hits from 1961
Any Major Hits from 1970
Any Major Hits from 1971
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1974 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1974 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1975 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1975 Vol. 2

A Year in Hits
More CD-R Mixes

In 1966, pop music was in a state of transition, with established stars still dominant but increasingly challenged by new sounds, new attitudes and new expectations of what a hit record could be. Much of it was informed by the British invasion, which in turn had given rise to garage rock.

Sixty years ago, the British Invasion, led a couple of years earlier by The Beatles, was in full flow, with Herman’s Hermits especially chasing hit after hit. Also featuring prominently in the US charts were acts like The Yardbirds, Rolling Stones, The Hollies, Donovan, The Mindbenders, The Troggs, Peter & Gordon, The Kinks etc.

But the biggest songs of 1966 in the US were distinctly American: California Dreaming by The Mamas and The Papas, followed by garage rock band ? And The Mysterians with 96 Tears.

In the UK, Green, Green Grass Of Home by Tom Jones was the biggest-selling single of 1966 — a British crooner singing a cover of a country song!

In the US and the UK, the year belonged above all to The Beatles. They had an extraordinary five #1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966, and three chart-toppers (of three single releases) in the UK, plus a cover of their Michelle by the Overlanders. Their commercial dominance was achieved with a range of styles: folk-rock, pop, ballad, psychedelia and a children’s singalong. The Beach Boys, meanwhile, matched them artistically when the astonishing Good Vibrations was released late in the year.

Soul was a defining force in the US. Motown enjoyed a golden year, with The Supremes scoring two US No 1s (My World Is Empty Without You and You Can’t Hurry Love), while acts like the Four Tops, Martha and the Vandellas, The Temptations, The Marvelettes and Stevie Wonder were ever-present on radio, as were other soul acts like Wilson Picket, James Brown, Robert Parker, and Percy Sledge.

In the Billboard Top 20 of 1966, a quarter of the entries were soul acts: Jimmy Ruffin (What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted, #3), Four Tops (Reach Out I’ll Be There, #5), The Supremes (You Can’t Hurry Love, #13), Bobby Hebb (Sunny, #14), and Lee Dorsey (Working In The Coal Mine, #19).

Across both markets, folk-rock flourished. Simon & Garfunkel’s The Sound Of Silence, a late 1965 hit in the US but still charting high as 1966 broke, had opened the door for more introspective songwriting in pop (they had a big hit in ’66 with I Am A Rock), while Bob Dylan’s influence was felt even in records he did not make. Folkie Bob Lind features here with Elusive Butterfly, a #5 hit in both the US and the UK. In Britain, a concurrent cover of Elusive Butterfly by Val Doonican also reached #5.

At the same time, novelty (including right-wing stuff like The Ballad Of The Green Berets) and light pop had not disappeared: Petula Clark, Herb Alpert, Jim Reeves and even Frank Sinatra still found room in the upper reaches of the charts — as did Sinatra’s daughter Nancy, with These Boots Are Made For Walking (she features here with a hit she had towards the end of the year).

The mix ends with a Monkees song written by Neil Diamond, and one of Diamonds earliest hits, I’ve Got The Feelin’ (Oh No No). Unlike I’m A Believer, the follow-up to his first big US hit, Cherry Cherry, peaked at only #16.Links for all past mixes in the series are up. As with other Any Major Hits mixes, the sequencing is roughly chronological, in this case based on their appearance in the US charts. The mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-groovied covers and the above text in a PDF. PW in comments.

1. Lou Christie – Lightnin’ Strikes
2. The Supremes – My World Is Empty Without You
3. Bob Lind – Elusive Butterfly
4. Bob Kuban & The In-Men – The Cheater
5. Deon Jackson – Love Makes The World Go Round
6. The Righteous Brothers – (You’re My) Soul And Inspiration
7. The Rolling Stones – 19th Nervous Breakdown
8. The Young Rascals – Good Lovin’
9. The Lovin’ Spoonful – Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind
10. The Mindbenders – Groovy Kind Of Love
11. Walker Brothers – The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore
12. Syndicate Of Sound – Little Girl
13. The Beatles – Paperback Writer
14. Dusty Springfield – You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me
15. The Association – Along Comes Mary
16. The Capitols – Cool Jerk
17. Crispian St. Peters – The Pied Piper
18. The Happenings – See You In September
19. Donovan – Sunshine Superman
20. Lee Dorsey – Working In The Coal Mine
21. The Temptations – Beauty Is Only Skin Deep
22. Four Tops – Reach Out I’ll Be There
23. Count Five – Psychotic Reaction
24. Johnny Rivers – The Poor Side Of Town
25. James & Bobby Purify – I’m Your Puppet
26. Brenda Lee – Coming On Strong
27. Nancy Sinatra – Sugar Town
28. The Monkees – I’m A Believer
29. Neil Diamond – I’ve Got The Feelin’ (Oh No No)

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Any Major Hits from 1944
Any Major Hits from 1947
Any Major Hits from 1961
Any Major Hits from 1970
Any Major Hits from 1971
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1974 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1974 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1975 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1975 Vol. 2

A Year in Hits
More CD-R Mixes

In the UK, it is almost a received wisdom that 1975 represents the low point of pop music. That may well be true for the UK — as we saw on Any Major Hits 1975 Vol. 1, pop music in the US was in a decent state.

In British pop, 1975 was something of an interregnum. Glam had fizzled out, with only Sweet still regularly bothering the upper reaches of the charts. Instead of T. Rex or Slade, the biggest act in the UK was the Bay City Rollers — whose audience was mainly girls of barely pubescent age. Meanwhile, punk, and all it would inspire, was still a couple of years away. Disco and US soul provided some relief.

Looking at the #1 hits in Britain in 1975, I don’t see much to mark the year out as a disaster. There are the usual naff novelty hits. Whispering Grass by Windsor Davis & Don Estelle in June was pretty bad (and that was preceded by Tammy Wynette’s awful Stand By Your Man), but that was knocked off by 10cc’s superb I’m Not In Love. And for every If by Telly Savalas there was a Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel; for every Barbados by Typically Tropical, there was a Space Oddity by David Bowie. And the year ended with Bohemian Rhapsody at #1, at the time an exciting song. 1975 was no 1979, granted, but there still was plenty to like.

Talking of Bohemian Rhapsody… the next documentary talking-head idiot who’ll claim that Queen “broke all the rules” by releasing a single of over six minutes should be made to wear a dunce cap. Literally just a few months earlier, 10cc had topped the charts with the 6:08-long I’m Not In Love. And six years earlier, an obscure number titled Hey Jude by long-forgotten Liverpool combo The Beatles topped the UK charts, coming in at 7:12. Also: Bohemian Rhapsody did not invent the music video, nor revolutionise it. The Beatles produced a bunch of videos for many of their singles, and they weren’t the first nor the only act to do so. The Bohemian Rhapsody video certainly was influential, but that’s different gravy.

Aaanyway, this mix isn’t necessarily a collection of the year’s best singles — even if it includes the best of the year, ABBA’s SOS — but aims to recall the acceptable vibes of the year. Perhaps that vibe is more European than British.

The Leonard Cohen song was a big hit in Europe but didn’t dent the UK charts (Lenny never did in his prime). The lyrics are classic Cohen: “I asked my father, I said: ‘Father change my name. The one I’m using now, it’s covered up with fear and filth and cowardice and shame’. He said: ‘I locked you in this body, I meant it as a kind of trial. You can use it for a weapon, or to make some woman smile’.”

Likewise, Albert Hammond’s catchy anti-pollution song Down By The River didn’t make the UK charts, but was big in Europe. The song starts out as a camping romance poisoned by the polluted river; Hammond ends the song in ways that might have given me nightmares had I understood English then: “The banks will soon be black and dead, and where the otter raised his head will be a clean white skull instead, down by the river.” The b-side was the original version of the future Willie Nelson & Julio Iglesias hit To All The Girls I Loved Before.

Italian hits like Tornero might have set Europe alight, but wouldn’t cross the channel. I Santo California is still a going concern, and three of the five original members are still with the band.

Hamilton Bohannon’s Disco Stomp was a Top 10 hit in the UK. In West Germany, it became the theme of the monthly Disco music show. Presented by a young comic actor named Ilja Richter, Disco showcased a strange mix of schlager stars and international headline acts, all interspersed with Richter’s cabaret-type sketches that were rarely better than absolutely embarrassing. Still, if you see a 1970s music clip on YouTube, and there are lots of orange TVs on the set, then that’s a clip from Disco.

Disco, the genre, was becoming big in 1975, with a UK act getting in on it. 5000 Volts, whose I’m On Fire lit up the charts, was basically Martin Jay (whom we would later encounter in Tight Fit and Enigma) and Tina Charles, who would soon score a huge solo hit with I Love To Love. When I’m On Fire became a hit, Charles was replaced on the lip-synching Top of the Pops by blonde actress Luan Peters, who also appeared on most single sleeves (she is otherwise best known as the hot Australian over whom Basil Fawlty fawns in Fawlty Towers’ “The Psychiatrist” episode). The subterfuge caused a scandal at the time, with the German label replacing the single sleeves for I’m On Fire to depict Tina Charles with Martin Jay and some other guy.

Even if you have no memory of Jim Gilstrap’s oddly-titled doo-wopping Swing Your Daddy, you’ll have heard his voice before. He was one of the two backing singers whom Stevie Wonder roped in to sing the opening verse of You Are The Sunshine Of My Life. Gilstrap was also one of the voices on the theme for the TV show Good Times.

I mentioned Sweet as a glam act that was still having hits in 1975. Fox On The Run was their fifth #2, out of ten Top 10 hits — and only one of the ten topped the charts.

Fox On The Run had appeared on the 1974 album Desolation Boulevard; the 1975 single was an improved re-recording, produced by the band. The song is about groupies: “I don’t wanna know your name, ’cause you don’t look the same, the way you did before. OK, you think you got a pretty face, but the rest of you is out of place; you looked all right before.” Charming.

In 1975, Braford band Smokie broke through, on the RAK label and produced by Chinn/Chapman. They had a #3 hit in the summer with If You Think You Know How To Love Me, and reached #8 with the superior Don’t Play Your Rock ‘n Roll To Me in the autumn.

On the covers of these singles, their name was rendered as Smokey. As I recall it, the Motown legend Mr Robinson apparently believed that the name Smokey was his trademark alone, possibly concerned that the public might become confused between his high-tenor and Chris Norman”s pebble-gargling voice. Or that people might not properly process the picture of four white Yorkshiremen on a sleeve, and buy the record in the belief that they were getting a Quiet Storm. Faced with the threat of litigation, our four friends changed their name to Smokie.

One of the more unexpected names on this playlist is Al Matthews, whose marvellous hit Fool reached only #16 on the UK charts in early autumn. Matthews’ career as a soul singer didn’t get any more successful, but the former US Marine went on to make his name as an actor, remembered especially for his role as gunnery sergeant Apone in the 1986 film Aliens.

Singing backing vocals on Fool is Maxine Nightingale, who had a hit in late 1975 with the wonderful Right Back Where We Started From. In fact, she owes her discovery as a recording artist to those backing vocals on Fool.

Links for all past mixes in the series are up.  If you dig the feel of 1975, take a look at the collection of posters from West-Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1975 (other years are available, too)

As with other Any Major Hit mixes, the sequencing is roughly chronological. The mix is timed to fit on as standard CD-R and includes home-bumped covers and the above text in a PDF. PW in comments.

1. Pilot – January
2. Kenny – The Bump
3. Frankie Valli – My Eyes Adored You
4. Leonard Cohen – Lover Lover Lover
5. Jim Gilstrap – Swing Your Daddy
6. Fox – Only You Can
7. Sweet – Fox On The Run
8. KC & The Sunshine Band – Get Down Tonight
9. Minnie Riperton – Lovin’ You
10. 10cc – I’m Not In Love
11. The Glitter Band – The Tears I Cried
12. Bay City Rollers – Give A Little Love
13. Hamilton Bohannon – Disco Stomp
14. The Stylistics – I Can’t Give You Anything (But My Love)
15. Albert Hammond – Down By The River
16. Al Matthews – Fool
17. 5000 Volts – I’m On Fire
18. ABBA – S.O.S
19. I Santo California – Tornero
20. Smokey – Don’t Play Your Rock ‘n Roll To Me
21. Jigsaw – Sky High
22. Hello – New York Groove
23. Maxine Nightingale – Right Back Where We Started From

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Any Major Hits from 1944
Any Major Hits from 1947
Any Major Hits from 1961
Any Major Hits from 1970
Any Major Hits from 1971
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1974 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1974 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1975 Vol. 1

A Year in Hits
More CD-R Mixes

In the UK, the year 1975 is often regarded as a low point in chart music, but I don’t think such a judgment applies to the US — if you like your soft rock, soul, funk and rock. This first volume of Hits from 1975 reflects the US charts of that year. The second volume, covering UK and European hits, will drop later this year.

The US charts were not introducing anything radical or new; for the most part, they were cruising in a comfortable mode, roof down and wind in their hair, leaving behind the concerns of the world. Perhaps the US needed that after the trauma of Watergate.

The one song here that really illustrates my characterisation is Sammy Johns’ Chevy Van. Where Bruce Springsteen, in his 1975 song not featured here, revved up his automobile to escape a death trap of a town with Wendy, Sammy was cruising for hitchhikers who’d give him inspiration for his Penthouse Letter of the Week (to be fair, Bruce has Wendy strapping her hands across his engines for the runner-up Penthouse letter).

Quite the opposite of Sammy’s laid-back horniness was Janis Ian’s anthem to teenage anxiety, At Seventeen, in which “ugly girls like me” were “inventing lovers on the phone who called to say ‘come dance with me’.” Girls who were 17 in 1975 are now hurtling steadily towards their next milestone birthdays. Time for Janis to write a song called At Seventy.

Where Grand Funk and Amazing Rhythm Aces, despite their names, had little to do with funk or rhythm-dominated dance, Tony Camillo’s Bazuka contributed a great slice of funk to the 1975 charts. Camillo was, as his name suggests, of Italian extraction — a slightly overweight and balding record producer in his late forties, rather than some sexy funkster in flares and glitter top who’d get the Soul Train line grooving (the Soul Train dancers were dancing to it, but not with Camillo anywhere near the action). Bazuka was Camillo’s studio band, and the hit Dynomite was a riff on a catchphrase from the sitcom Good Times.

All that might sound novelty-like, but Dynomite is a fine dance number which takes inspiration from the Average White Band, Ohio Players and Funkadelic. Camillo had a superb track record in soul and funk. His crowning glory was arranging and co-producing Gladys Knight & The Pips’ Midnight Train to Georgia. Camillo died in 2018 at the age of 90.

Links for all past mixes in the series are up.  If you dig the feel of 1975, take a look at the collection of posters from West-Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1975 (other years are available, too).

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-tushed covers and the above text in a PDF. PW in comments.

1. Bachman-Turner Overdrive – Roll On Down The Highway
2. Elton John – Philadelphia Freedom
3. B. J. Thomas – Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song
4. Sammy Johns – Chevy Van
5. Blackbyrds – Walking In Rhythm
6. Tony Camillo’s Bazuka – Dynomite (Part 1)
7. Ozark Mountain Daredevils – Jackie Blue
8. Grand Funk – Bad Time
9. Barry White – What Am I Gonna Do With You
10. Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds – Fallin’ In Love
11. Janis Ian – At Seventeen
12. Earth, Wind & Fire – That’s The Way Of The World
13. Tavares – It Only Takes A Minute
14. Bad Company – Feel Like Makin’ Love
15. Amazing Rhythm Aces – Third Rate Romance
16. Melissa Manchester – Just Too Many People
17. Staple Singers – Let’s Do it Again
18. David Ruffin – Walk Away From Love
19. Bee Gees – Nights On Broadway
20. ZZ Top – Tush
21. Kiss – Rock And Roll All Nite (live)

GET IT!

Any Major Hits from 1944
Any Major Hits from 1947
Any Major Hits from 1961
Any Major Hits from 1970
Any Major Hits from 1971
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1974 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1974 Vol. 2

A Year in Hits
More CD-R Mixes

Lately I have been reading a lot about the summer of 1974. This year marked the 50th anniversary of West Germany winning the football World Cup, which the country also hosted. I was eight years old and approached the tournament with as much wide-eyed excitement as I do modern sports with squinting cynicism. Hence my wide reading on the subject.

In my memory, the summer of 1974 was long and filled with nothing but sunshine and all the fun that brings. The reports from the World Cup suggests otherwise. In June and July, the weather was wet and awful. But photos in the family album testify to some hot days, and the music does the rest.

There was a lot of sunshine music in 1974. George McCrae’s Rock Your Baby was the big summer hit in Europe, and as summer faded, The Hues Corporation’s Rock The Boat was ubiquitous. But even the winter hits sounded like they come from summer.

This mix reflects an upbeat mood, though early in the sequence we have a double-whammy of downbeatness provided by Hot Chocolate’s tragic Emma, whose protagonist dies by suicide, and Gigliola Cinquetti’s Go (Before You Break My Heart). The latter was titled Si in the Italian original, which was the runner-up to ABBA’s Waterloo in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest (read all about that contest in the text for Any Major ABBA Songbook). Cinquetti’s English version reached #8 in the UK.

ABBA feature later in the mix with I Do I Do I Do I Do, a song that exposes the profound influence of schlager music on the Swedes. It was a Top 10 hit throughout Europe, and topped the charts in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, but stalled at #38 in the UK. Surprisingly, the song, hardly ABBA’s finest moment, reached #15 in the US Billboard Top 100, doing better than Mamma Mia, Money Money Money, Chiquitita, Gimme Gimme Gimme or Super Trouper.

This compilation follows Any Major Hits from 1974 Vol. 1, which reflected the US experience of the charts; this lot draws from the US and European charts, though on both playlists there are obviously songs that were hits on both sides of the Atlantic. It is sequenced in a roughly chronological order, according to the UK charts, kicking off with Who Do You Think You Are, a #21 hit in the UK for Candlewick Green but in the US in the cover version by Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods (and much later a hit for Saint Etienne). The mix ends with a track by Italian singer Drupi which wasn’t a hit in the UK but was huge in Germany and other parts of Europe. Drupi had hit the UK Top 20 in 1973 with Vado Via.

Recently I watched a video of The Rubettes performing Sugar Baby Love on German TV. It’s a great pop song, but seeing lead singer Alan Williams lip-synching the falsetto parts as if he had actually sung them in the studio was a bit off. Sugar Baby Love is one of those songs that preceded the formation of the group to which it was credited; the Rubettes were initially really a bunch of session musicians, and Williams was a backing vocalist on the recording. The lead vocals on the record were performed by Paul Da Vinci, but when he declined to be a Rubette, Wiliams became the frontman.

The song was initially offered to Showaddywaddy (also featured here with the thumping Hey Rock & Roll), but they turned it down, despite the backing vocals that go “oop-showaddy showaddywaddy”. At that point the producers told the session musicians that they could have Sugar Baby Love, provided they form a group. The Rubettes went on to top the charts with the song in the UK, West Germany, Netherlands and other countries, and had six further UK Top 20 hits, most of them riffing on the 1950s nostalgia wave, until their chart career fizzled out in 1977.

Around the same time the run of success of the Bay City Rollers came to an end. The biggest teen band of the 1970s became the acme of uncool for the longest time, but a sober reappraisal reveals a string of fine pop records. I made that point many years ago, in 2008.

In Germany, there was a war between the Bay City Rollers and the Sweet. Much as I’m inclined to defend BCR, in a teen-off, Sweet must be the winner. Summerlove Sensation is very good, but The Six Teens is a fantastic song. There were two versions, the album one and the much brighter single version featured here.

Elsewhere, the teen war of 1974 was between BCR fans and those of The Osmonds. In that battle I must have been in the BCR camp, though the toothy Mormons had a few songs that, with the benefit of solemn revision, are stone cold pop classics: Crazy Horses and the featured Love Me For A Reason.

It is interesting to note how well US soul was doing in the UK. Six of the tracks on this mix are soul numbers, including Johnny Bristol with Hang On In There Baby, which climbed up the UK charts to #8 at around the same time The Osmonds were climbing down from the top with Love Me For The Reason — which had been written by Johnny Bristol.

Links for all past mixes in the series are up.  If you dig the feel of 1974, take a look at the collection of posters from West-Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1974 (other years are available, too).

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-lipsynched covers. PW in comments.

1. Candlewick Green – Who Do You Think You Are
2. Alvin Stardust – Red Dress
3. Slade – Everyday
4. Hot Chocalate – Emma
5. Gigliola Cinquetti – Go (Before You Break My Heart)
6. The Rubettes – Sugar Baby Love
7. Showaddywaddy – Hey Rock And Roll
8. 10cc – The Wall Street Shuffle
9. The Arrows – Touch Too Much
10. The Sweet – The Six Teens
11. Bay City Rollers – Summerlove Sensation
12. George McCrae – Rock Your Baby
13. The Main Ingredient – Just Don’t Want To Be Lonely
14. The Hues Corporation – Rock The Boat
15. The Osmonds – Love Me For A Reason
16. Sweet Sensation – Sad Sweet Dreamer
17. Johnny Bristol – Hang On In There Baby
18. Abba – I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do
19. David Essex – Gonna Make You A Star
20. Pilot – Magic
21. Barry White – You’re My First, My Last, My Everything
22. Drupi – Piccola e fragile

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Any Major Hits from 1944
Any Major Hits from 1947
Any Major Hits from 1961
Any Major Hits from 1970
Any Major Hits from 1971
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1974 Vol. 1

A Year in Hits
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In the first of two mixes of hits from 1974, we concentrate on songs that were hits in the United States. Volume 2 will look at the hits in the UK and Europe.

1974 is not widely regarded as a high-water point of pop music, but it marked an interesting point of convergence, in the US especially. This Hits from 1974 mixes reflect some of that.

Disco started to emerge from the underground club scene into the mainstream, with hits like Rock Your Baby by George McCrae and Rock The Boat by the Hues Corporation (both will be on Vol. 2). These songs helped propel disco into the mainstream consciousness. In the US, Eddie Kendricks’ Boogie Down, as US hit in early 1974, helped pave the way for that, as did The Jackson 5’s Dancing Machine and MFSB’s TSOP.

Funk and soul had already had a presence on the charts in the preceding years. In 1974, that presence seemed to grow. Of 36 US #1 in 1973, 11 were by soul, funk or disco acts.

Country music continued to cross over into pop, with artists like Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers and Billy Swan enjoying mainstream success. John Denver, who really was a folk singer-songwriter, was co-opted by the country scene, as was Olivia Newton-John. In 1975, Denver was awarded the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award, having scored two #1s in 1974 (Sunshine On My Shoulders and Annie’s Song). A drunk Charlie Rich announced the award which he evidently didn’t agree with — and set fire to the announcement card.

Other singer-songwriters also did well, with acts like Gordon Lightfoot and Carole King, representing their genre here. The sax on the King track is by Tom Scott, seeing as you will probably wonder.

Where possible, I have used the 7” single versions of the featured hits. The tracklisting is roughly chronological. As always, these are not necessarily my choices of the best hits of the year; rather, I hope to recreate a bit of the vibe of the year in question, using some of the better music of the year.

Links for all past mixes in the series are up.  If you dig the feel of 1974, take a look at the collection of posters from West-Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1974 (other years are available, too).

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-boogiedowned covers. PW in comments.

1. Eddie Kendricks – Boogie Down
2. Cher – Dark Lady
3. Redbone – Come And Get Your Love
4. The Jackson 5 – Dancing Machine
5. William DeVaughn – Be Thankful For What You Got
6. The O’Jays – For The Love Of Money
7. Wet Willie – Keep On Smilin’
8. The Doobie Brothers – Another Park, Another Sunday
9. Gordon Lightfoot – Sundown
10. Chicago – Call On Me
11. Bachman-Turner Overdrive – Takin’ Care Of Business
12. Billy Preston – Nothing From Nothing
13. First Class – Beach Baby
14. Carole King – Jazzman
15. Neil Diamond – Longfellow Serenade
16. Olivia Newton-John – I Honestly Love You
17. The Three Degrees – When Will I See You Again
18. The Kiki Dee Band – I’ve Got The Music In Me
19. Helen Reddy – Angie Baby
20. Billy Swan – I Can Help
21. J. Geils Band – Must Of Got Lost

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Any Major Hits from 1944
Any Major Hits from 1947
Any Major Hits from 1961
Any Major Hits from 1970
Any Major Hits from 1971
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 2

A Year in Hits
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In Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 1, which dropped in January, I noted how few UK hits made it big in the US that year. On the other hand, US acts were very successful in the UK charts, even as the British pop scene was thriving, especially with glam rock peaking.

Where Vol. 1 concentrated on the US charts, the second mix of 1973 hits reflects some of what was happening in the UK. And rightly, it kicks off with a triple whammy of stone cold glam classics featuring Slade, Sweet and Wizzard — and had Gary Glitter not been an unrepentant sexual abuser, it might have been four… The playlist returns to glam towards the end. And if you still need more of a glam fix, try the Any Major Glam Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 mixes.

Junior Campbell had a #15 hit with the blue-eyed soul track Sweet Illusion in the summer of 1973. It was his last chart hit, following on from his first solo hit a year earlier, which reached #10. But Campbell already had his fill of hits as founder member, lead guitarist, keyboard player, vocalist and songwriter with the Scottish band Marmalade. He co-wrote songs like the global hit Reflections Of My Life (on which he played the guitar solo) and I See The Rain, a hit in Europe and now something of a cult classic.

After his solo career, Campbell went to arranging and producing, carving out a fine career for himself.

US soul group Limmie & Family Cookin’ (fronted by the unlikely-named Limmie Snell) were more successful in the UK than at home. Their quite wonderful You Can Do Magic was their only US chart entry, stalling at #86 and getting to only #42 on the R&B charts. In Britain, however, it reached #3 in 1973. The group had another UK Top 10 hit in 1974, with A Walkin’ Miracle.

Jimmy Helms is another US-born soul singer who made it big in Britain. Having signed for a British label, he had a #8 hit with the falsetto classic Gonna Make You An Offer You Can’t Refuse. It sounds as if it was recorded by Gamble & Huff in Philadelphia, but the track was in fact produced by a white guy named Mike Moran, who’d later sing the Eurovision classic Rock Bottom with Linsey de Paul.

Helms didn’t bother the UK charts again as a solo artist, but after a few years of doing session work — including backing vocals on the Deacon Blue hit When Will You Make My Telephone Ring and the Fine Young Cannibals’ Good Thing — he made a comeback in the late 1980s as a founding member of Londonbeat, putting his falsetto to good use on tracks such as the huge hit I’ve Been Thinking About You and A Better Love, both of which he also co-wrote.

The track that is probably the most anachronistic in this mix is The Strawbs’ Part Of The Union, an anthem celebrating trade unionism and collective solidarity, which went as high as #2 in early 1973. You’re not likely to hear much political content of that kind in pop hits these days, and Thatcher succeeded in smashing working class solidarity. And with the current Labour leadership, The Strawbs would have little to brag about today. Still, here they are in 1973, performing on the BBC on Top of the Pops, being introduced by a prominent Tory…

Likewise, I doubt that Hot Chocolate could record Brother Louie in quite the same way today as they did 50 years ago. A song about racial prejudice in the face of an interracial romance, the song’s spoken bits (one of them by Alexis Korner) includes racial pejoratives that would not be tolerated today, even if applied to criticise these attitudes (and that might be a good thing). A cover by the US band Stories topped the US charts later in 1973.

As a bonus track I include a Euro hit from 1973, Simon Butterfly’s Rain Rain Rain. The singer and writer of the song was a German, so you will not be shocked to learn that his real name wasn’t Butterfly but Bernd Simon. His song, on which he sounds a lot like the great, late singer-songwriter Udo Jürgens, was a big radio hit in West Germany, though it peaked at a lowly #20. Oddly, Simon released his song only in English. But it was a success in France, where Marie Laforêt recorded it as Viens Viens, and in Italy, where Dalida rendered it as Lei Lei. Simon released a few more records, but without success, and also did some producing. He died in 2017 at the age of 71.

A companion series to the Hits of the Year series is A Life In Vinyl, which goes back to 1977, when I started to invest seriously in records. .

If you dig the feel of 1973, take a look at the collection of posters from West-Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1973 (other years, from 1957 to 1985, feature too).

As ever, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, and includes home-glammed covers, and the above text in PDF. PW in Comments.

1. Slade – Cum On Feel The Noize
2. Sweet – Ballroom Blitz
3. Wizzard – See My Baby Jive
4. Mungo Jerry – Alright Alright Alright
5. Junior Campbell – Sweet Illusion
6. Hot Chocolate – Brother Louie
7. Limmie & Family Cookin’ – You Can Do Magic
8. The Spinners – Could It Be I’m Falling In Love
9. Jimmy Helms – Gonna Make You An Offer You Can’t Refuse
10. David Cassidy – Daydreamer
11. David Bowie – Sorrow
12. Argent – God Gave Rock & Roll To You
13. The Faces – Cindy Incidentally
14. Wings – Hi Hi Hi
15. The Strawbs – Part Of The Union
16. Albert Hammond – The Free Electric Band
17. Geordie – All Because Of You
18. Nazareth – Broken Down Angel
19. Mott The Hoople – Roll Away The Stone
20. Suzi Quatro – 48 Crash
21. Mud – Dyna-mite
22. Barry Blue – Dancing (On A Saturday Night)
23. Jackson 5 – Hallelujah Day
Bonus Track
Simon Butterfly – Rain Rain Rain

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Any Major Hits from 1944
Any Major Hits from 1947
Any Major Hits from 1961
Any Major Hits from 1970
Any Major Hits from 1971
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 1

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Flashback 50 years ago to 1973! This is the first of two mixes of hits in that year. As in the mixes covering past years, it’s supposed to be a snapshot of the year’s charts, rather than a representative overview — because if it was that, these mixes could be pretty bad (US top song of 1973? Tie A Yellow Ribbon…). I’ve also not necessarily chosen the biggest or even the best hits of the year; if I had, Superstition would feature.

So, the goal is to evoke a little bit of 1973, with some classics and some perhaps half-forgotten hits. The first mix for 1973 focuses on the US charts; the follow-up will cover the UK. What surprised me in researching these two mixes is how few British acts had hits in the US in 1973. The British invasion had been repelled.

In the Top 100 hits of the year, there were British mega acts like Elton John, Wings, George Harrison, Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd — all global stars whose fame transcended their passports. Otherwise, Sweet featured with Little Willy, Stealer’s Wheel with Stuck In The Middle With You, and Gilbert O’Sullivan (who was Irish) with the awful Get Down and the rather sweet Clair. Plus Focus, who were Dutch.

By contrast, the UK charts were full of US acts, including a number of tracks on this mix. That mix will drop later in the year.

The debates about the “first-ever disco record” are futile, because how do you define disco, a genre of several strands? But I think that any list of proto-disco songs should include First Choice’s quite wonderful Armed And Extremely Dangerous.

I suppose a companion series to this one before us today is A Life In Vinyl, which goes back to 1977, when I started to invest seriously in records.  That series tracks my music-buying behaviour in the decade or so that followed.

If you dig the feel of 1973, take a look at the collection of posters from West-Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1973 (other years are available, too).

As ever, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, and includes home-lovetraineded covers. PW in Comments.

1. Deep Purple – Smoke On The Water
2. Alice Cooper – No More Mr Nice Guy
3. Edgar Winter Group – Free Ride
4. Doobie Brothers – Long Train Runnin’
5. Jim Croce – I Got A Name
6. Helen Reddy – Delta Dawn
7. Skylark – Wildflower
8. Dobie Gray – Drift Away
9. The Independents – Leaving Me
10. Barry White – I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More Babe
11. O’Jays – Love Train
12. Three Dog Night – Shambala
13. Ozark Mountain Daredevils – If You Wanna Get To Heaven
14. King Harvest – Dancing In The Moonlight
15. Seals & Crofts – We May Never Pass This Way (Again)
16. Chicago – Just You ‘N’ Me
17. The Isley Brothers – That Lady
18. Ike & Tina Turner – Nutbush City Limits
19. Billy Preston – Will It Go Round In Circles
20. First Choice – Armed And Extremely Dangerous
21. Carole King – Corazon
22. Maria Muldaur – Midnight At The Oasis

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Any Major Hits from 1944
Any Major Hits from 1947
Any Major Hits from 1961
Any Major Hits from 1970
Any Major Hits from 1971
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 2

More CD-R Mixes

We had our fix of Any Major Christmas last week, with the multi-lingual festive mix. Today, there’s a chance to get a nice Christmas present for your mom, dad, aunt, uncle, friend, patient etc over 80, who may enjoy a nostalgia trip with hits from 1947 — 75 years ago. Of course, younger people and you might enjoy it, too. I’m enjoying this compilation tremendously.

1947 was just a short seven years before rock & roll exploded on the scene. In some of the featured songs, the rumblings of the nascent genre can be heard, like distant thunder before the lightning. Those tracks must have sounded quite startling 75 years ago.

Other songs are, of course, of their time. But, hell, you can feel how the jumpin’ boogie of the opening songs must have electrified the USA’s youngsters, and horrified their elders. The biggest juke box star of 1947 was Louis Jordan, a black musician to whose music white kids danced, much as their nieces and nephews would dance to Little Richard and Chuck Berry a decade later.

So this mix isn’t necessarily representative of the hits of 1947, though all were US hits. In compiling this collection, I tried to imagine what music I might have listened to, had I been a youngster in 1947 — and filtered out the many boring crooning ballads by tenors who come in only halfway slow big band tootlings. I certainly would have enjoyed the humour in several of these songs; Tex Williams’ Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! especially still makes me laugh. And if the squares thought that libertine attitudes arrived only with rock & roll, let them hear Julia Lee and Her Boy Friends talk about S-E-X.

I don’t know if I would have been able to swerve between genres; I’d be quite interested to know if such boundaries existed, or whether it was natural to hear jump one minute and country the next. For our purposes, let’s assume that it was possible.

This mix is a good companion piece to the Any Major Hits from 1944 collection I posted three years ago. And if you dig your music in black & white, there’s more, including several Christmas mixes. There’s

Any Major Christmas in Black & White Vol. 1
Any Major Christmas in Black & White Vol. 2
Any Major Christmas in Black & White Vol. 3
Any Major 1940s Christmas
Any Major 1950s Christmas
Any Major Doo Wop X-Mas
Any Major Rhythm & Blues Christmas
Any Major ABCs: 1950s
New York in Black & White
Germany’s Hit Parade 1930-37
Germany’s Hit Parade 1938-45
Saved Vol. 1
Saved Vol. 4

And, of course, there are more recent Any Major Hits mixes: 1961, 1970, 1971, 1972 Vol. 1 and 1972 Vol. 2.

Beach-goers in California in December 1947.

As ever, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-rationed covers. The text above is included in an illustrated PDF. PW in comments.

And with that, I wish you a Merry Christmas!

1. Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five – Let The Good Times Roll
2. The Five Blazes – Chicago Boogie
3. Bull Moose Jackson and His Buffalo Bearcats – I Love You, Yes I Do
4. Ella Fitzgerald & Delta Rhythm Boys – (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons
5. Margaret Whiting – Old Devil Moon
6. Annie Laurie with Paul Gayten and His Trio – Since I Fell For You
7. Frank Sinatra – I Believe
8. Dorothy Shay – Feudin’ And Fightin’
9. Tex Williams – Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)
10. Merle Travis – So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed
11. Hank Williams – Move It On Over
12. Peggy Lee – It’s A Good Day
13. The Mills Brothers – Across The Alley From The Alamo
14. Johnny Mercer and The Pied Pipers – Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
15. Hoagy Carmichael – Old Buttermilk Sky
16. Tony Pastor and His Orchestra – The Lady From 29 Palms
17. The Andrews Sisters – Near You
18. Art Lund – And Mimi
19. Dinah Shore – How Soon (Will I Be Seeing You)
20. Buddy Clark – Peg O’ My Heart
21. Savannah Churchill and The Sentimentalists – I Want To Be Loved (But Only By You)
22. King Cole Trio – Meet Me At No Special Place (And I’ll Be There At No Particular Time)
23. Julia Lee and Her Boy Friends – Snatch And Grab It
24. The Ink Spots – Ask Anyone Who Knows
25. Erskine Hawkins and His Orchestra – Hawk’s Boogie
26. Desi Arnaz and His Orchestra – Babalu’
27. Count Basie and His Orchestra – Open The Door, Richard!

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More Music in Black & White