Monday’s Music Moves Me: WLS Survey From 1977

Monday's Music Moves Me 2 Minutes

I went back and forth with what I wanted to do today as far as M4, and finally I decided to go with the old tried-and-true survey post. So, I spun the wheel and came up with 1977 (sorry, there’s disco) at WLS, by then heavily into their “Musicradio” phase. Let’s see what Larry Lujack was playing on this date in 1977.

  1. Peter Frampton, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)” Frampton chucks the voice box (temporarily) and goes with a Motown classic. It was on his I’m In You LP, releaed earlier in ’77, and reached #18 nationally. It reached #9 the following week before beginning its descent.
  2. Andy Gibb, “I Just Wanna Be Your Everything” The youngest brother Gibb was at the peak of his popularity when he released this, from his Flowing Rivers album. It hit the #1 spot nationally on the Hot 100, spending three weeks there. It had reached #1 at WLS in September and was on its way back down, falling to #13 the next week.
  3. Johnny Rivers, “Swayin’ To The Music (Slow Dancin’)” I had it in my head that Boz Scaggs had done this, but his was “low Dancer.” Anyway, this was written by Jack Tempchin, who was with a band called The Funky Kings, who had minor success with it. This was Johnny Rivers’s last Top 10 song, reaching #10 nationwide. It peaked at #7 the following week on WLS, where it spent two weeks, then spent a week at #1 before sliding down the chart.
  4. Foreigner, “Cold As Ice” Foreigner’s first single from their eponymous debut album, “Feels Like The First Time,” reached #4 nationally. After “Starrider,” which failed to chart, they had another Top 10 hit with this, which reached #6 nationally. The song had risen to #7 after spending several weeks at #8. It began its descent three weeks later, after peaking at #6 in Chicago.
  5. Carly Simon, “Nobody Does It Better” Theme song for the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me (which starred a too-old-for-007 Roger Moore), this peaked at #3 and spent three weeks there. It peaked at #2 nationally.
  6. Peter Brown, “Do Ya Wanna Get Funky With Me” Wikipedia tells me “Chicago radio superstation WLS, which gave the song much airplay, ranked “Do Ya Wanna Get Funky with Me” as the 35th most popular hit of 1977. It reached as high as number three on their survey of October 22, 1977.” ‘Nuff said.
  7. Meco, “Star Wars (Disco Version)” One of the two songs that kept “Nobody Does It Better” from reaching the top spot, it peaked at #2 and stayed there for four weeks. Kind of a fun tune, really.
  8. Shaun Cassidy, “That’s Rock & Roll” Half-brother to David and son of Shirley Jones and perpetual Columbo bad guy Jack Cassidy, this song reached #1 in Chicago for one week two weeks before and was falling slowly through the Top 40 by October 15.
  9. KC and The Sunshine Band, “Keep It Comin’, Love” This peaked at #2 on October 15 and started right back down the week after. KC and the band now play on oldies cruises. One of the musicians in the band (and I don’t remember which) is a friend of our parish’s music director and comes by every year to play on Easter.
  10. Debby Boone, “You Light Up My Life” You knew it was coming… This was its second week at #1. It would spend another 5 weeks in the top spot before being supplanted by Heat Wave’s “Boogie Nights” at the end of November.

And that’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for October 15, 2018.

Monday’s Music Moves Me is sponsored by X-Mas Dolly, Callie, Cathy, Alana, Michelle and Stacy, so be sure and visit them, where you can also find the Linky for the other participants.

Published by John Holton

Internet disc jockey, lover of old TV (especially the commercials), inveterate wise guy.

Published

25 thoughts on “Monday’s Music Moves Me: WLS Survey From 1977”

  1. Pingback: A Cooler and Less Humid Week That Was – The Sound of One Hand Typing

  2. Hey John,
    now you know I really dug your playlist right? :) 1977 was a good year…
    My fav on your list is the Foreigner song. They had so many great hits in the 70s and I had all of their albums. You mentioned that Starrider didn’t chart and that so surprises me, That is a great song! The other song on that album that I really like is Headknocker. Just hearing one Foreigner song brings back a rush of memories through the years. That group has some interesting history and I just might do an Artist Spotlight on it one of these days…

    I hadn’t heard Frampton’s “Signed Sealed & Delivered” in a long time so that was nice to hear.
    One song that I wouldn’t mind never hearing again though is the Star Wars theme. I got soooo sick of that song, both the original and the disco version. It got played to death…

    As for Andy Gibb: every time I see anything about any of the Gibb boys, it just kinda puts me in a sad mood. That family had such tragedy in terms of diseases and death. I love the Bee Gees and saw a special on them a few weeks ago. It was a Kennedy Center Honors special or something — I’ve had it on my DVR for ages and finally got around to watching it. I don’t know all that much about Andy Gibb but he had some prolific hits, one after the other, for a few years before the drugs got him.

    I had to chuckle when KC & the Sunshine Band’s song “Keep It Comin’, Love” came on. I used to think they were singing “Keep it common-law” as in common-law marriage. haha. Not surprising coming from this anti-marriage single gal.. :) (and before you get the wrong idea: I’m not against the institution of marriage at all. I think it’s great for some people. Just not me)…
    Hey, that’s cool that one of the KC musicians comes and plays at your church for Easter! I didn’t know they were playing cruise ships now. I bet that makes for a fun evening onboard.

    Well, I gotta get busy and get back to my 4M post for tomorrow. Can’t wait to see yours. I know it’s going to be killer…

    Enjoy your Sunday,

    Michele at Angels Bark

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    1. I’m up to 13 for tomorrow. Be interesting to see if we match on any of them.

      You haven’t seen the ads for the disco cruises? They actually look like they’d be a lot of fun. They bring along a lot of different acts, and I think The Village People and Gloria Gaynor are on this one.

      The harmony of Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb was a thing of beauty. Not so much during the disco years, but on songs like “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?” It’s a tragedy that Barry is the only one left (not because it’s Barry, but that the others are gone).

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  5. Let’s see, in 1977 I lived part of the year in Texas and part in Wichita, Kansas. I have NEVER heard “Do Ya Want to Get Funky (with me) and – my answer is “nope”. Also never heard the Shawn Cassidy song. On the other hand, there is disco I love. KC and the Sunshine Band yes! Meco – we bought the album (and later, the CD). I had forgotten how…um, short…the single is. But…but…”You Light Up My Life” is totally banned from our house because my husband detests it (and I have to say, it was too overplayed for me to like it, either.)

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    1. I tell everyone who will listen that the version of “You Light Up My Life” in the movie was far and away better than Debby Boone’s cover.

      There were several of these that I didn’t remember, mostly because I didn’t listen to a whole lot of Top 40 radio in the late ’70’s. The two you mention were totally new to me, and I had never heard the Peter Frampton one, either.

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  6. Love all the choices.. Andy Gibb’s tune is very catchy and now will probably stick in my head for a while. Thank you for sharing. I have to keep my messages short because of my limited time for now. Big hugs & thanks for sharing.

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    1. Sure! Remember, with a survey, I’m just going by what the survey said. I have no part in picking the songs. For that matter, neither did The Big 89…

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  7. This is interesting…I see the same error and wonder if this is my tablet doing funky things…sigh. Regardless, I know these songs well and blecchhh to light up your life. For some reason, even though I am not a huge nut fan, I always think of Star Wars

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  8. I loved most of the disco music, especially anything by K.C and The Sunshine Band. I got tired of “You Light Up My Life” by Debbie Boone – wow, talk about overkill. Foreigner is a great group and I especially liked “Feels Like the First Time”. Good selection of songs!

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    1. Do you remember the Battle of the Bands I did with “You Light Up My Life,” pitting Debby Boone’s version against Kasey Cisyk’s (she dubbed Didi Conn’s voice in the movie)? https://thesoundofonehandtyping.com/2018/02/01/battle-of-the-bands-you-light-up-my-life/

      Everybody who lived thru the disco days claims to have hated the music, and yet I think many of them look back on those days with a certain fondness. Those were my college years. KC and crew were (and still are) a rockin’ bunch, and they remain popular today, even if they haven’t had a hit in 40 years, and it’s not hard to see them taking on other styles of music that doesn’t have that heavy 120-beats-per-minute sound. Kind of like Earth, Wind & Fire…

      Foreigner is still a favorite, even with the personnel changes. There’s a guy on YouTube that calls himself The Real Music Observer that talks about them a lot (more like gossip, but he’s pretty good).

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    1. I actually liked the version they used in the movie better than Debby’s, because it maintained the love song aspect of it. Debby recording it turned it into Contemporary Christian, and that’s when it got annoying for me. I liked the movie: it wasn’t all that good, but Didi Conn was.

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