Gloucester way back when on a dull day
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3rd June 1975
It’s another in a long run of one-weeker’s on top as Roy Wood gets his final solo number one, Oh What A Shame, and his last ever bar numerous returns of the Wizzard christmas classic. To be fair, it’s OK but nothing special, I just happened to be a major Roy Wood fan, so that gives him a grand total of 3 consecutive solo number ones in 3 years, plus 4 consecutive Wizzard chart-toppers, the first 1972 Electric Light Orchestra single and number one (10538 Overture) and a chart-topper in 1969 with Blackberry Way. A total of 9 number ones means the only act that could compete in terms of numbers of chart-toppers were song-writers Chinn-Chapman who also had 9 (with Mud and Sweet), although if I cheated and included Beatles solo singles it would be 12 for the Fabs (plus loads pre-chart, frankly they would be clear in front anyway).
In at 6, it’s a new entry for 10CC and their 6th Top 10 (including Hotlegs, which was 10CC more or less), and it’s a radical departure as they bring in lush multi-tracked vocals on one of the great ballads of all-time, a gorgeous love song which is all about lost love despite the title I’m Not In Love. The lads always, always clever, and in this case heart-breakingly showing they can be clever-emotional as well as clever-witty or clever-bitter or clever-playful. For me, the most consistently under-rated act of the 70’s, musically varied and with a 60’s pedigree already as teenage hit-makers. I’m Not In Love was recently featured to great effect at the start of Guardians Of The Galaxy, Marvel movie sci-fi blockbuster. Quite right too…
Elsewhere, Neil Sedaka’s poignant The Immigrant goes top 10, his 3rd, Kenny grab an instant top 20 hit with new entry Baby I Love You OK at 18 outdoing both their previous UK singles chart big hits in my charts, where they didn’t quite grab me much. At 22 the fantastic Jackie Blue is up 24 places, just ahead of fab smooth soul track Walkin’ In Rhythm, from The Blackbyrds. At 25 the fun African-rhythm chugging disco sounds of Hamilton Bohannon’s Disco Stomp give him 2 top 40 hits in a row, as Billy Swan re-enters his original version of the cover of Elvis Presley’s Don’t Be Cruel into my charts after Mike Berry beat him to it, in at 28.
Speedy Keen gets his first top 40 since mega-number one Something In The Air in 1969, while actual 1969 hit I’m Gonna Make You Mine is back again for Lou Christie at 31. At 40 Tony Orlando is now top-billing Dawn, and getting less bubblegum and increasingly MOR on his 8th chart hit in 4 years, and another UK flop, though it was enormous in the USA. In at 41, it’s Jason Sinclair doing a reggae cover of a song I loved from way back, End Of The World, and which had already charted when reissued for Skeeter Davis earlier in the year. The arrangement is pure Ken Boothe, the vocal is pretty naff, not altogether unsurprisingly as it’s an attempt at a proper hit from the very rude, crude and successful Judge Dread. None of his UK chart hits got radio play, and though I did have Big Six on a compilation album I didn’t chart it, or Big Seven, or Big Eight, or…you get the picture.
Finally, at 50, it’s a Bad Time with Grand Funk Railroad, who had already hit my top 5 with their version of The Locomotion in 1974, following in the wake of Little Eva’s original in 1972. Bad Time is their own song, and was eventually covered in 1995 by The Jayhawks to great effect when it finally became a UK hit 20 years late for Grand Funk to chart with it. As I like music-links, Neil Sedaka went out with Carole King in High School and wrote Oh Carol for her, which became a hit. Carole wrote her own songs (with boyfriend/future hubby Gerry Goffin) when she was also a teenager, and like Neil had a creative singer-songwriter resurgence in the early 70’s. Oh Carol was a hit all over again in the UK in 1972, as was Carole’s It Might As Well Rain Until September. As was Carole’s hit song for her babysitter Little Eva, The Locomotion, which Grand Funk covered successfully in 1974. Another song much covered written by Carole was Halfway To Paradise, as recorded originally by Tony Orlando in the early 60‘s before the hits dried up and he morphed along into the group Dawn bigger and better. The other weekend I went to see the Carole King Musical, Beautiful, which I enjoyed much, albeit in a more domestic style than the similarly life-story-based Jersey Boys. I do enjoy linked themes.
1 ( 6 ) OH WHAT A SHAME Roy Wood
2 ( 4 ) THE ISRAELITES Desmond Dekker
3 ( 3 ) I’M GONNA RUN AWAY FROM YOU Tami Lynn
4 ( 2 ) IN THE SUMMERTIME Mungo Jerry
5 ( 5 ) LISTEN TO WHAT THE MAN SAID Wings
6 ( NEW ) I’M NOT IN LOVE 10CC
7 ( 7 ) THREE STEPS TO HEAVEN Showaddywaddy
8 ( 1 ) SAVE ME Silver Convention
9 ( 8 ) IMAGINE ME IMAGINE YOU Fox
10 ( 14 ) THE IMMIGRANT Neil Sedaka
11 ( 19 ) ROLL OVER LAY DOWN Status Quo
12 ( 11 ) I WANNA DANCE WIT’ CHOO (DO DAT DANCE) Disco Tex And The Sex-o-lettes
13 ( 9 ) AUTOBAHN Kraftwerk
14 ( 15 ) THE PROUD ONE The Osmonds
15 ( 18 ) HEY YOU Bachman-Turner Overdrive
16 ( 10 ) STAND BY YOUR MAN Tammy Wynette
17 ( 12 ) STAND BY ME John Lennon
18 ( NEW ) BABY I LOVE YOU O.K. Kenny
19 ( 16 ) SWING LOW SWEET CHARIOT Eric Clapton
20 ( 13 ) THE WAY WE WERE/TRY TO REMEMBER Gladys Knight And The Pips
21 ( 21 ) SEND IN THE CLOWNS Judy Collins
22 ( 46 ) JACKIE BLUE Ozark Mountain Daredevils
23 ( NEW ) WALKIN’ IN RHYTHM The Blackbyrds
24 ( 32 ) THE STRIPPER Quill
25 ( NEW ) DISCO STOMP Hamilton Bohannon
26 ( 28 ) DISCO QUEEN Hot Chocolate
27 ( 22 ) SEND SOME LOVE Lelly Boone
28 ( RE ) DON’T BE CRUEL Billy Swan
29 ( 45 ) SOMEONE TO LOVE Speedy Keen
30 ( 25 ) MONY MONY Tommy James And The Shondells
31 ( NEW ) I’M GONNA MAKE YOU MINE Lou Christie
32 ( 20 ) PAPA OOM MOW MOW The Sharonettes
33 ( 29 ) (YOUR LOVE KEEPS LIFTING ME) HIGHER AND HIGHER Jackie Wilson
34 ( 40 ) SENDING OUT AN S.O.S. Retta Young
35 ( 17 ) WOMBLING WHITE TIE AND TAILS The Wombles
36 ( 23 ) GET DOWN TONIGHT K.C. And The Sunshine Band
37 ( 24 ) DING-A-DONG Teach-In
38 ( 41 ) JIVE TALKING The Bee Gees
39 ( 31 ) I LOVE YOU FOR YOUR MIND (NOT YOUR BODY) A Raincoat
40 ( NEW ) HE DON’T LOVE YOU (LIKE I LOVE YOU) Tony Orlando and Dawn
41 ( NEW ) END OF THE WORLD Jason Sinclair
42 ( 30 ) I GET THE SWEETEST FEELING Jackie Wilson
43 ( 27 ) CHILD OF LOVE Caston And Majors
44 ( 34 ) HONEY Bobby Goldsboro
45 ( 35 ) HURT SO GOOD Susan Cadogan
46 ( 36 ) FOX ON THE RUN The Sweet
47 ( 37 ) REACH OUT I’LL BE THERE Gloria Gaynor
48 ( 38 ) PHILADELPHIA FREEDOM The Elton John Band
49 ( 39 ) SKIING IN THE SNOW Wigan’s Ovation
50 ( NEW ) BAD TIME Grand Funk Railroad
The weather in 1975 was hot hot hot. I know this cos I was well into revision mode for GCE O Levels, at home and at school in free periods. Happy days, to be honest, I enjoyed myself thoroughly in the 6th form block, there were no bullies for the first time in my school life, and it was the best school year I’d had since 1970, socially. I probably should have just gone straight into A levels in retrospect as I wouldn’t have been trying to play catch-up on coursework for a change. Hey ho, the past is the past. Music was still my main love, of course, at 17.
10th June 1975
10CC get their 3rd number one inside 3 years, as heartbreaker I’m Not In Love breezes deservedly to the top. Donna in 1972 was a 50’s teen pastiche of sorts, and Wall Street Shuffle in 1974 was a bitter brilliant rock attack on greedy brokers and bankers, so they certainly could never be accused of sticking to a format. Highest new entry is 1972 soul classic Have You Seen Her returning the top 5, as it is a reissued double A side hit with 1972 former-chart-topper of mine Oh Girl, which enters at 19 listed on it’s own. I never understood how the huge US hit was such a minor UK hit. Both tracks would be covered in the 90’s minus the Eugene Record soulfulness.
This all bad news for Status Quo who hit 6 with Roll Over Lay Down for a 5th top 10, but who would otherwise have a new peak of 2 if not for all the oldies hogging the top 5. Hamilton Bohannon and The Blackbyrds also go top 10, as 2 major classics (for me) enter at 11 and 15. The Hustle was a new sophisticated disco instrumental (mostly) sound signaling in a new disco dance and a chorus of Do It and Do The Hustle under the creative production of Van McCoy who was also busy writing and producing other soul acts at the time. Fab! Ray Stevens had continued to pop into my charts since his 1970 chart-topper Everything Is Beautiful, but most of them were novelty tracks. This was his first proper comeback with a seriously brilliant country re-invention cover of Johnny Mathis’ haunting ballad Misty. Uptempo, catchy, great arrangement, and for my money the best country record since Johnny Cash hit my top spot in 1972 with A Thing Called Love.
Funk and soul rules as Earth, Wind & Fire debut at 20 with Shining Star, a UK flop, but a good record. Verdine White is currently back with Flo Rida in the singles charts, and the band had a recent good new single some 39 years on. Nuff said. Another more novelty-ish example of the genre is in at 21 for Tony Camillo, the shouty, funky Dy-no-mite. Lynn Paul is back at 29, with new advert-song It Oughta Sell A Million, and Nazereth return at 38 with a fab rock-it-up cover of cult 60’s Tomorrow single My White Bicycle, their 4th chart entry. At 48, another rock cover, this time The Doobie Brothers get a 2nd hit with the fab Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While) a Holland-Dozier-Holland gem that hit for Kim Weston and The Isley Brothers in the 60’s.
1 ( 6 ) I’M NOT IN LOVE 10CC
2 ( 2 ) THE ISRAELITES Desmond Dekker
3 ( 3 ) I’M GONNA RUN AWAY FROM YOU Tami Lynn
4 ( 4 ) IN THE SUMMERTIME Mungo Jerry
5 ( NEW ) HAVE YOU SEEN HER The Chi-Lites
6 ( 11 ) ROLL OVER LAY DOWN Status Quo
7 ( 25 ) DISCO STOMP Hamilton Bohannon
8 ( 1 ) OH WHAT A SHAME Roy Wood
9 ( 23 ) WALKIN’ IN RHYTHM The Blackbyrds
10 ( 10 ) THE IMMIGRANT Neil Sedaka
11 ( NEW ) THE HUSTLE Van McCoy & The Soul City Symphony
12 ( 22 ) JACKIE BLUE Ozark Mountain Daredevils
13 ( 18 ) BABY I LOVE YOU O.K. Kenny
14 ( 9 ) IMAGINE ME IMAGINE YOU Fox
15 ( 5 ) LISTEN TO WHAT THE MAN SAID Wings
16 ( NEW ) MISTY Ray Stevens
17 ( 8 ) SAVE ME Silver Convention
18 ( 13 ) AUTOBAHN Kraftwerk
19 ( NEW ) OH GIRL The Chi-Lites
20 ( NEW ) SHINING STAR Earth, Wind And Fire
21 ( NEW ) DYNOMITE Tony Camillo’s Bazuka
22 ( 12 ) I WANNA DANCE WIT’ CHOO (DO DAT DANCE) Disco Tex And The Sex-o-lettes
23 ( 7 ) THREE STEPS TO HEAVEN Showaddywaddy
24 ( 26 ) DISCO QUEEN Hot Chocolate
25 ( 38 ) JIVE TALKING The Bee Gees
26 ( 16 ) STAND BY YOUR MAN Tammy Wynette
27 ( 17 ) STAND BY ME John Lennon
28 ( 15 ) HEY YOU Bachman-Turner Overdrive
29 ( NEW ) IT OUGHTA SELL A MILLION Lynn Paul
30 ( 31 ) I’M GONNA MAKE YOU MINE Lou Christie
31 ( 14 ) THE PROUD ONE The Osmonds
32 ( 24 ) THE STRIPPER Quill
33 ( 19 ) SWING LOW SWEET CHARIOT Eric Clapton
34 ( 28 ) DON’T BE CRUEL Billy Swan
35 ( 27 ) SEND SOME LOVE Lelly Boone
36 ( 40 ) HE DON’T LOVE YOU (LIKE I LOVE YOU) Dawn featuring Tony Orlando
37 ( 34 ) SENDING OUT AN S.O.S. Retta Young
38 ( NEW ) MY WHITE BICYCLE Nazereth
39 ( 37 ) DING-A-DONG Teach-In
40 ( 36 ) GET DOWN TONIGHT K.C. And The Sunshine Band
41 ( RE ) DO YOU WANNA DANCE Joe And Didi
42 ( 29 ) SOMEONE TO LOVE Speedy Keen
43 ( 30 ) MONY MONY Tommy James And The Shondells
44 ( 20 ) THE WAY WE WERE/TRY TO REMEMBER Gladys Knight And The Pips
45 ( 32 ) PAPA OOM MOW MOW The Sharonettes
46 ( 33 ) (YOUR LOVE KEEPS LIFTING ME) HIGHER AND HIGHER Jackie Wilson
47 ( 50 ) BAD TIME Grand Funk Railroad
48 ( NEW ) TAKE ME IN YOUR ARMS (ROCK ME) The Doobie Brothers
49 ( 39 ) I LOVE YOU FOR YOUR MIND (NOT YOUR BODY) A Raincoat
50 ( 21 ) SEND IN THE CLOWNS Judy Collins
In TV, Captain Pugwash finally ended, to my relief, as I’d hated it as long as it had been running, cheap crap compared to Top Cat, Flintstones, Tom & Jerry, any Hanna Barbera and even The Magic Roundabout. Jaws premiered in the States a few days after this chart, and became a sensation, moving on to be all-time box-champ (not allowing for inflation, of course, as Gone With The Wind was and still is the biggest film of all-time). It made Steven Spielberg the Director of the moment and along with the great TV movie Duel, made me a fan of his. The John Williams score, that head dropping out of the hole in the boat, the camera angles, all top stuff. There was a shark too!
17th June 1975
The chart goes haywire as I get to be home-based, left-alone unsupervised in our RAF Innsworth, Gloucester, house for a week as my parents and brother go to Skeggy for a week’s holiday while I revise and do exams. The weather was scorching, and my record player was faulty so I was playing my 2 new singles in the downstairs radiogram, notably The Hustle which leaps to number 1 and well over 2 months of 1-week-only number ones. The Hustle was, and is, fab. Even better is the one at 2, Misty, with Ray Stevens leaping to get his second-highest chart hit. Fab. An even bigger jump for Tony Camillo’s Bazuka as funky Dynomite hits 3 for a top 5 clear-out, bar The Chi-Lites up to 4.
Highest new entry at 6 is a Mud oldie dating from their 1973 tango-glam days, which I loved, Moonshine Sally, and was a RAK cash-in as they changed labels and went self-written. It’s also their 8th top 10, and sounds not entirely (and unsurprisingly) like early Sweet – some of their hits were rejected singles for The Sweet. The gorgeous Jackie Blue hits the 10, Nazereth cycle into the top 20, the Bee Gees jive in, and in at 16 3 years after it failed to make my charts (non-top-30 hits were excluded, sadly) the brilliant Break from Aphrodite’s Child, a Greek prog-rock outfit that spawned Demis Roussos and Vangelis, neither of whom feature much on this track as the group was disintegrating, but what a record to go out on, just brilliant.
At 21, new in thanks to a free flexi-disc music magazine giveaway I bought, Olivia Newton-John’s rather good Please Mr. Please – it would get a formal release 2 years later, after hitting the US charts. Van McCoy’s B side cover of Disco Tex pops in at 28, just behind the man himself, as my Roxy fandom brings in Eno’s second chart entry, a year after Seven Deadly Fins (which I still can’t buy) he does possibly the most unlikely cover ever (which is also not available on itunes) – The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Had I been charting tracks outside the UK top 30 in 1972 there would have been 2 versions in my charts from Robert John (the big US hit) and Dave Newman (the UK minor hit), but Eno gets my first official chart entry with it a good 7 years ahead of Tight Fit. Wimoweh! In at 31, Steve Harley has a 4th chart entry with another Mr. – Raffles this time, not Soft. Tammy Wynette has another country oldie chart in the UK and in at 36, the rather oddly juxtaposed song about divorce to follow-on her standing by her man. No pleasing some people! At 41, Bobby Goldsboro is back for the 4th time, following up his 1968 oldie chart-topper with a newie not quite in the same league. Finally, the fab Johnny Nash returns after a 3 year absence with Tears On My Pillow, his 7th hit since his 1968 debut, Hold Me Tight.
1 ( 11 ) THE HUSTLE Van McCoy & The Soul City Symphony
2 ( 16 ) MISTY Ray Stevens
3 ( 21 ) DYNOMITE Tony Camillo’s Bazuka
4 ( 5 ) HAVE YOU SEEN HER The Chi-Lites
5 ( 7 ) DISCO STOMP Hamilton Bohannon
6 ( NEW ) MOONSHINE SALLY Mud
7 ( 9 ) WALKIN’ IN RHYTHM The Blackbyrds
8 ( 10 ) THE IMMIGRANT Neil Sedaka
9 ( 1 ) I’M NOT IN LOVE 10CC
10 ( 12 ) JACKIE BLUE Ozark Mountain Daredevils
11 ( 4 ) IN THE SUMMERTIME Mungo Jerry
12 ( 2 ) THE ISRAELITES Desmond Dekker
13 ( 3 ) I’M GONNA RUN AWAY FROM YOU Tami Lynn
14 ( 8 ) OH WHAT A SHAME Roy Wood
15 ( 6 ) ROLL OVER LAY DOWN Status Quo
16 ( NEW ) BREAK Aphrodite’s Child
17 ( 19 ) OH GIRL The Chi-Lites
18 ( 20 ) SHINING STAR Earth, Wind And Fire
19 ( 38 ) MY WHITE BICYCLE Nazereth
20 ( 25 ) JIVE TALKING The Bee Gees
21 ( NEW ) PLEASE MR. PLEASE Olivia Newton-John
22 ( 14 ) IMAGINE ME IMAGINE YOU Fox
23 ( 13 ) BABY I LOVE YOU O.K. Kenny
24 ( 18 ) AUTOBAHN Kraftwerk
25 ( 29 ) IT OUGHTA SELL A MILLION Lynn Paul
26 ( 17 ) SAVE ME Silver Convention
27 ( 22 ) I WANNA DANCE WIT’ CHOO (DO DAT DANCE) Disco Tex And The Sex-o-lettes
28 ( NEW ) GET DANCING Van McCoy & The Soul City Symphony
29 ( NEW ) THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT Eno
30 ( 15 ) LISTEN TO WHAT THE MAN SAID Wings
31 ( NEW ) MR. RAFFLES (MAN IT WAS MEAN) Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
32 ( 30 ) I’M GONNA MAKE YOU MINE Lou Christie
33 ( 48 ) TAKE ME IN YOUR ARMS (ROCK ME) The Doobie Brothers
34 ( 27 ) STAND BY ME John Lennon
35 ( 26 ) STAND BY YOUR MAN Tammy Wynette
36 ( NEW ) D.I.V.O.R.C.E. Tammy Wynette
37 ( 24 ) DISCO QUEEN Hot Chocolate
38 ( 35 ) SEND SOME LOVE Lelly Boone
39 ( 39 ) DING-A-DONG Teach-In
40 ( 40 ) GET DOWN TONIGHT K.C. And The Sunshine Band
41 ( NEW ) AND THEN THERE WAS GINA Bobby Goldsboro
42 ( 28 ) HEY YOU Bachman-Turner Overdrive
43 ( 23 ) THREE STEPS TO HEAVEN Showaddywaddy
44 ( 36 ) HE DON’T LOVE YOU (LIKE I LOVE YOU) Dawn featuring Tony Orlando
45 ( NEW ) TEARS ON MY PILLOW Johnny Nash
46 ( 47 ) BAD TIME Grand Funk Railroad
47 ( 41 ) DO YOU WANNA DANCE Joe And Didi
48 ( 37 ) SENDING OUT AN S.O.S. Retta Young
49 ( 33 ) SWING LOW SWEET CHARIOT Eric Clapton
50 ( 31 ) THE PROUD ONE The Osmonds
As I said, I’d been left Home Alone at 17, and enjoyed having the place to myself, making a daily Instant Whip to cool off from the heat, playing tennis with schoolmate Pete when not revising or in school doing exams, watching exciting Ebola-predicting Survivors on TV, and Top Of The Pops in colour for a change instead of on my black and white portable. I fancied a frozen sweet to cool down so tried freezing a banana in the deep freeze. When I thawed it out a bit it turned to brown mush. Worth trying that one for yourself! I was left in charge of brother’s hamster, who lived in the shed in his cage – and the little bugger escaped never to return. I still get the blame for that one, though I don’t see how I would have left the door open! The shed wasn’t locked mind you. All in all I was having the best time in my life since leaving Singapore 4 years earlier, cos exams have never worried me – I find revision tedious, and just have to have background music on (Radio 1) which would explain the frantic chart activity as I got to hear so much of the playlist, a bit overkill for poor 10CC who plummeted with an actual classic, from the top.
24th June 1975
yet another one-weeker on top as fab Van McCoy is ejected by fabber Ray Stevens and Misty, one of the oldest songs to top my chart at that point, a whopping 20 years old. Well, it WAS before I was born! 20 years old is quite recent to me these days! Anyway the terrific country arrangement gives Ray his 3rd chart-topper, following Everything Is Beautiful in 1970 and The Streak in 1974. Nazereth’s My White Bicycle meanwhile changes gear and pedals to 5, a second top 5 for them surpassed only by Bad Bad Boy in 1973 which hit 2. After slowly climbing, The Bee Gees finally jive into the top 10 with the funktabulous Jive Talkin’, and get their biggest track since 1971 and 8th top 10 in total (including Robin’s solo hits) or 10th top 10 song, including The Marbles and Nina Simone covers.
The highest new entry is in at 7 for pop husband and wife team Captain And Tenille, a great US chart-topping cover of Neil Sedaka’s Love Will Keep Us Together, one which not only wasn’t a single for him, it was released as a freebie flexi-disc at the time to boot. Rather co-incidentally his own The Immigrant is booted out of the top 10. In at 19 Syreeta’s back with some help from ex-husband Stevie Wonder, both on the song, the production and backing vocals, for the caribbean-sounding uptempo Harmour Love. They’d been working together for 5 years by then (just take a look at any early 70’s writing credits for Stevie Wonder songs, she’s the other half of the Wonder/Wright credits, including songs they gave away like It’s A Shame (to the Motown – or Detroit – Spinners).
At 23 it’s a chart debut for Sister Sledge with a 2-year-old pop soul funky dance track which sounded like a Jackson 5 record at the time, due to 14-year-old Kathy Sledge’s lead vocal. Sadly the Top Of The Pops performance seems to have been wiped cos I recall they looked as young as they sounded. It would be another 4 years before they claimed their Chic-tastic bit of immortality that just kept on giving through the following decades, but this was a great little pop track. In at 27, veteran Frankie Valli is back again with his 3rd chart entry, and after many a Four Seasons cover version, with the soulful and under-rated Swearin’ To God, which is a more laid-back MOR groove following on from Can’t Take My Eyes Off You 8 years earlier, without the hook, but with that fab guitar solo that pops up, and a female duet vocal assist from Patti Austin. Like all of his greatest hits, bar one (Grease), it was sort of a Four Seasons song, insasmuch as Bob Crewe co-wrote it but without Bob Gaudio’s usual leading melody – but it was great anyway.
In at 40, The Three Degrees get a 5th entry (including MFSB tracks), with Long Lost Lover, as The Rubettes exclaim Foe Dee O Dee for a 5th chart visit, and as the 50‘s glam-rock sound brings diminishing returns ahead of some subsequent actual varied singles releases. At 48, Dean Martin’s 50’s crooner classic Memories Are Made Of This brings back memories of his TV Variety show for me as it gets reissued to give him a second chart entry 6 years on from Gentle On My Mind. At 49, Alvin Stardust’s glam-days are also on the diminishing returns bandwagon, Sweet Cheatin’ Rita being his 6th entry, but an improvement on his two previous dull ballads. Finally, popping in briefly at 50, an American chart hit, or rather an America Chart hit 3 years after their last one, the fab Horse With No Name and that fantastically-riffed Ventura Highway, as substantially borrowed by Janet Jackson 30 years later. Although they got their break in the UK, as sons of American servicemen in the UK, they became rather big in the States and rather not-very-big-at-all in the UK forever after, which is a shame cos their pseudo-Neil Young beginnings became rather sweetly pseudo-Eagles harmony singles which carried on well into the 80’s. Sister Golden Hair was a chart-topper in the States, and hardly a hit anywhere else, but I liked it at least!
1 ( 2 ) MISTY Ray Stevens
2 ( 1 ) THE HUSTLE Van McCoy & The Soul City Symphony
3 ( 5 ) DISCO STOMP Hamilton Bohannon
4 ( 4 ) HAVE YOU SEEN HER The Chi-Lites
5 ( 19 ) MY WHITE BICYCLE Nazereth
6 ( 20 ) JIVE TALKING The Bee Gees
7 ( NEW ) LOVE WILL KEEP US TOGETHER Captain And Tenille
8 ( 6 ) MOONSHINE SALLY Mud
9 ( 3 ) DYNOMITE Tony Camillo’s Bazuka
10 ( 10 ) JACKIE BLUE Ozark Mountain Daredevils
11 ( 7 ) WALKIN’ IN RHYTHM The Blackbyrds
12 ( 8 ) THE IMMIGRANT Neil Sedaka
13 ( 16 ) BREAK Aphrodite’s Child
14 ( 11 ) IN THE SUMMERTIME Mungo Jerry
15 ( 12 ) THE ISRAELITES Desmond Dekker
16 ( 13 ) I’M GONNA RUN AWAY FROM YOU Tami Lynn
17 ( 9 ) I’M NOT IN LOVE 10CC
18 ( NEW ) HARMOUR LOVE Syreeta
19 ( 15 ) ROLL OVER LAY DOWN Status Quo
20 ( 25 ) IT OUGHTA SELL A MILLION Lynn Paul
21 ( 21 ) PLEASE MR. PLEASE Olivia Newton-John
22 ( 29 ) THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT Eno
23 ( NEW ) MAMA NEVER TOLD ME Sister Sledge
24 ( 18 ) SHINING STAR Earth, Wind And Fire
25 ( 33 ) TAKE ME IN YOUR ARMS (ROCK ME) The Doobie Brothers
26 ( 17 ) OH GIRL The Chi-Lites
27 ( NEW ) SWEARING TO GOD Frankie Valli
28 ( 14 ) OH WHAT A SHAME Roy Wood
29 ( 46 ) BAD TIME Grand Funk Railroad
30 ( 31 ) MR. RAFFLES (MAN IT WAS MEAN) Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
31 ( 26 ) SAVE ME Silver Convention
32 ( 24 ) AUTOBAHN Kraftwerk
33 ( 22 ) IMAGINE ME IMAGINE YOU Fox
34 ( 32 ) I’M GONNA MAKE YOU MINE Lou Christie
35 ( 41 ) AND THEN THERE WAS GINA Bobby Goldsboro
36 ( 30 ) LISTEN TO WHAT THE MAN SAID Wings
37 ( 45 ) TEARS ON MY PILLOW Johnny Nash
38 ( 28 ) GET DANCING Van McCoy & The Soul City Symphony
39 ( 27 ) I WANNA DANCE WIT’ CHOO (DO DAT DANCE) Disco Tex And The Sex-o-lettes
40 ( NEW ) LONG LOST LOVER The Three Degrees
41 ( 34 ) STAND BY ME John Lennon
42 ( 35 ) STAND BY YOUR MAN Tammy Wynette
43 ( 40 ) GET DOWN TONIGHT K.C. And The Sunshine Band
44 ( 39 ) DING-A-DONG Teach-In
45 ( 38 ) SEND SOME LOVE Lelly Boone
46 ( 23 ) BABY I LOVE YOU O.K. Kenny
47 ( NEW ) FOE-DEE-O-DEE The Rubettes
48 ( NEW ) MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS Dean Martin
49 ( NEW ) SWEET CHEATIN’ RITA Alvin Stardust
50 ( NEW ) SISTER GOLDEN HAIR America
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