1979 – Another lonely day, no one here but me-o

This was another of those personal landmark years. Struggling through months of A level revision was bad enough, without the ill-effects of sickness and loss of appetite to contend with. The specialist diagnosis turned out to be Crohn’s Disease and it took a year or so for the treatment to settle the inflammation. Meanwhile I bade farewell to my second home for seven years, the Mayflower School, and made those initial nervous steps into higher education. I probably wasn’t cut out for the whirlwind of sudden independence thrust upon me by attending Exeter University. However, I was exposed to a more eclectic mix of music than I had been whilst relying on the regimented rules of chart-led media. I even went to a few gigs, but they were still some way off

The year began with two massive hits following each other to the top. The Village People's ‘YMCA’ was irritatingly catchy, its brass ‘n’ bass rhythm and arm actions instantly recognisable to this day. I actually preferred the follow-up, ‘In The Navy’, which stalled at two. Hot on the heels of that particular disco classic came the highlight of Ian Dury’s career. ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’ shouldn’t really have been successful. Nonsense lyrics, an uncommercial funk vibe, a disabled lead singer whose voice seemed to have been constructed from the gravel pits of the Thames Estuary itself…? Yet it sold a million! ‘What A Waste’ had raised his profile nationally the previous year, but ‘Rhythm Stick’ was on a different plane altogether. Behind Dury’s lyric, those Blockheads were in fine form, too. Norman Watt-Roy’s shimmering bassline and that double-sax solo by Davey Payne were so distinctive. Even Dad liked it!

The song also motivated me to find out more, discovering songs like ‘Billericay Dickie’, ‘Clever Trevor’ and ‘Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll’. The former proved a handy way of introducing myself and my home town to fellow undergraduates that autumn. What I hadn’t quite grasped was that the eponymous character was hardly – shall we say – an icon of middle-class respectability!  As the first verse explains:-

“A seasoned up hyena
Could not have been more obscener”

Hmm. Well. With regard to the fairer sex, I left Exeter as green as I arrived, but at least I got to see Ian and the Blockheads live in the Great Hall.

The band were the leading lights of Stiff Records, a label which had also nurtured Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and a rejuvenated Dave Edmunds. These three also produced songs I really enjoyed in 1979. Costello soared to number two with his bitter but clever ‘Oliver’s Army’, Edmunds to four with the rollocking ‘Girl Talk’ and Lowe had a few hits of his own while playing bass with Edmunds.

Stiff probably would not have existed without the financial fillip provided by Lee Brilleaux, co-founder and chain-smoking singer with Canvey Island’s finest, Dr Feelgood. Already with a number one album to their name, they pierced the singles top ten in February with the powerful ‘Milk and Alcohol’. It was the only time they reached even the top 30, but in our part of Essex they were huge. Not really into R’n’B, it took a while to appreciate their music but a decade or so later I did finally tag along to a gig in Chelmsford to see what all the fuss was about. Being showered with fag ash ain’t my idea of fun, but the atmosphere further back was undeniably fast and furious!

The year also featured the first singles from another Stiff group, Madness. Their revival of the Sixties ska sound left me cold. I’d never even heard of Prince Buster. However, I did recognise ‘One Step Beyond’ as an entertaining foot-tapper, even though Madness were a year or two away from becoming my favourite band. Suddenly ska was everywhere. My first few terms at Exeter played out to a soundtrack of 2-Tone records. Hot Chocolate, The Foundations and The Equals were no longer the only multi-racial groups I’d heard of. In addition to the music, itself a blend of reggae and punk influences, having black and white artists together demonstrated defiance against the rise of the racist National Front and Margaret Thatcher’s new right-wing government. Jerry Dammers’ The Special AKA (not yet The Specials) and The Beat made the top ten, but I favoured the bouncy beat of The Selector’s ‘On My Radio’.

Still in the Home Counties, Squeeze’s ‘Cool For Cats’ was popular with my schoolmates. Amusing lyrics, a deadpan vocal from Chris Difford and cigar-puffing Jools Holland on keyboards was very sixth former-friendly stuff and it went to number two. ‘Up the Junction’ did the same, but was a very different song. Glenn Tilbrook’s lighter voice was perfect for the sweet story of a doomed Clapham romance, which was quite moving. I still can’t decide which of the two hits I prefer. The following few years brought more singles, albeit less popular. ‘Pulling Mussels’ (with a delightful piano interlude from Jools) and ‘Is That Love?’ earned few sales but won my heart. One of my many regrets from those Exeter days was that I didn’t see Squeeze perform there. Difford and Tilbrook are still on the scene so maybe there’s still time….

Wit and whimsicality were not the sole preserve of Londoners like Dury and Difford. Glaswegian B.A. Robertson achieved fame with a sequence of jocular singles in ’79 and ’80, the first of which, ‘Bang Bang’, pulled off the rare feat of being both genuinely funny and great to listen to. ‘Knocked it Off’ was more of a comedy song but also made the top ten. You couldn’t help warm to him. With such depressing politics and economic news weighing heavily even on us teenagers, music to lighten the mood was extremely welcome. 

Disco was still very much to the fore, delivering some crunching dance numbers to complement the 2Toners and wry balladeers. I have never stopped loving the work of Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards. 1979 was their peak year. Not only did their group Chic release the wonderful ‘I Want Your Love’ and ‘My Forbidden Lover’ but the two ace American musicians/composers/producers gave Sister Sledge their first taste of true success. ‘We Are Family’ is the track which to this day seems to generate most airplay, but in my mind, it’s ‘He’s the Greatest Dancer’ which stands proud amongst the top three disco records of all time. It’s one you can listen to, but for a pure dance track, Chic’s 1978 track ‘Le Freak’ probably has the edge. Sadly Edwards is no longer with us but, despite his prodigious drug intake over the years, at the time of writing Rogers is very much active - and perhaps even cooler than he was in the Seventies! 

South Essex hadn't really taken the new American fad for roller-disco to its bosom. However, it was prominent in the promo for Gloria Gaynor’s early girlpower anthem, ‘I Will Survive’. Yes, it’s Gloria’s song but it was the segments spotlighting Sheila Reid-Pender’s graceful roller-dancing which for me are the most enduring images. The record displaced The Bee Gees’ ‘Tragedy’ from the number one position here. I confess I liked neither. When the American rock community launched their record-burning backlash and the nation turned against the Bee Gees, with ‘Tragedy’ in my head I could almost feel they had a point. 

However, the huge hit holding the top spot between Ian Dury and the Gibbs was more to my taste. Blondie may have infuriated their old punk supporters when they released ‘Heart of Glass’, but it made them global superstars, and Debbie Harry a thirty-something sex symbol. If I’d been into buying posters, I’m sure she’d have been on one of them! They didn’t become a disco band, though. Their next chart-topper, ‘Sunday Girl’, was a lighter, almost Sixties-ish pop song. Taking these together with the previous year’s rockier New Wave tracks, you had the heart of Blondie’s LP ‘Parallel Lines’, which was the year’s biggest-seller. 

When it came to singles, nothing sold more than Art Garfunkel’s dreamy ‘Bright Eyes’. Of course it was a beautiful song. Everything performed by Art is. However, the association with the ‘Watership Down’ animated movie meant that the oft-repeated film of fluffy rabbits wore somewhat thin! Cliff Richard’s massive hit ‘We Don’t Talk Any More’ was another song which sounded good for the first few weeks before becoming merely irritating. Even with a twenty-year career behind him, Cliff was still a significant artist back then. 

It was a good year for virtuoso guitarists, too. Cliff’s old mates, The Shadows notched a couple of top-tenners with their own instrumental versions of current popular tunes. Much as I had come to appreciate his enormous influence on rock music back in the early Sixties, Hank Marvin’s mix of grinning and gurning over his Fender tremolo arm in 1979 seemed peculiar to say the least. Yet ‘Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina’ and ‘Cavatina’ did really well. The latter had been revived by its use in the groundbreaking film ‘The Deer Hunter’ and it was only fitting that the man who had originally recorded the tune, classical supremo John Williams, should also make the top twenty with his acoustic version. I’d never seen ‘The Deer Hunter’ until recently and I still associate the mesmeric melody with children’s TV series ‘Vision On’...

Gary Moore’s ‘Parisienne Walkways’ was another great guitar single, but I was more impressed by Mark Knopfler’s frenetic fretwork on ‘Sultans of Swing’. On that final epic solo, how can anyone play so many notes in such a short time – and in the right order?! I first heard it travelling down to Devon in a minibus for a Geography school field trip. It sure took my mind off the relentless rain! 

There was another great guitar solo in that year’s unforeseen Christmas number one, Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’. With its imagery of kids being fed into a meat mincer, and calls of “We don’t need no educay-shun”, it was another of those records which got many educationalists in a tizz. Not Dad, of course. True to form, it merely amused him! It did indeed a memorable video, if somewhat bleak, especially for the season of turkey and tinsel.

The video was in its infancy but starting to move on from Abba-style ‘two-shots’ and bands miming in various locations. As with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, promo films could make a difference to sales. The Buggles’ ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ was a case in point. I recall first hearing the song on Radio 1 and feeling distinctly underwhelmed. It looked like languishing unloved in the lower reaches of the Top 30 until the video was shown on TOTP. Suddenly I ‘got’ it! Three weeks later in October it was at number one. It all looks rather tame and basic nowadays, but it was cutting edge in the Seventies. Singer-writer Trevor Horn proceeded to be one of the most prolific and influential producers of the Eighties so, ironically, under his guidance, video didn’t actually kill the radio star after all.

Another powerful promo belonged to The Boomtown Rats’ ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’. Appropriately for the song’s subject-matter (an American girl’s killing spree) there are lots of scary classroom close-ups and sharp editing but it was the dazzling white-light studio scenes which packed the greatest punch. A great record but an even greater video.

I've written before about my childhood infatuation with drumming. The arrival of punkish white reggae (well, ‘Regatta de Blanc’) group The Police in ’79 brought to my attention the idiosyncratic stickwork of Stewart Copeland. Until that point, most drumming on chart records was regulation stuff. I’m no technical expert but some of Copeland’s rhythms were refreshingly different. Of course, The Police were a trio of brilliant musicians and writers and went on to be so successful, better than the sum of their constituent parts. I first heard them when ‘Roxanne’ reached twelve in the Spring. It didn’t do much for me. However, when ‘Can’t Stand Losing You’ soared to number two (behind the Rats) in July, I began to pay closer attention. A few months later, I felt an instant emotional connection with ‘Message in a Bottle’. Topping the chart when I went up to Exeter University, the lyrics chimed with the loneliness I experienced during those early days in hall, trying to get to grips with new surroundings, colleagues and ways of working. I suppose I, too, was “sending out an SOS” but when Sting sang:-

“Walked out this morning I don't believe what I saw
A hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore

there was a modicum of hope. As the next line revealed, I realised “I’m not alone in being alone”. I may not have possessed in my room a means of actually playing a record, but ‘Message in a Bottle’ was the first 7” I bought purely for me, a personal statement. I wouldn’t have bought it just for the empathetic words, though. It was a fabulous record. A simple guitar riff, bass line, vocal and fairly straightforward structure, but it all came together in such an energetic package, and The Police had such quality no band could touch them for the next few years.

M’s ‘Pop Muzik’ and The Knack’s ‘My Sharona’ were similar examples of classy singles but they were one-offs. XTC delivered the brilliant ‘Making Plans for Nigel’, but failed to penetrate the top ten. The Jam’s ‘Eton Rifles’ was a tantalising preview of what was to come from Paul Weller and co, while Michael Jackson seemed to come of age with his effortless dance moves and vocals on ‘Rock With You’, ‘Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough’ and, with his brothers, ‘Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)’.

I wasn’t really into his music, but his talent was obvious. This was the year of his ‘Off the Wall’ collaboration with producer Quincy Jones, and the hit singles flowed. The ‘Thriller’/’Bad’ Eighties era probably marked Jackson’s pinnacle as a zillion-selling global musical icon. However, 1979/80 appears in retrospect to be the time when young Michael was at his peak as an unblemished human being, before Jacko started to become Wacko.

There was plenty of cheesy pop, of course. Most has been mercifully forgotten but some was too ubiquitous to be easily disposed of with a mental ‘delete’ button. While the Americans had The Jacksons, we had The Dooleys! I kind-of recall 'The Chosen View' but as a product of the Northern club circuit they were pretty dreadful. Not the worst of the year, though…

The Ramblers’ ‘Sparrow Song’ towards Christmas signalled a horrendous start of songs featuring cute kids, culminating in the next year’s mind-numbing number one by St Winifred’s School Choir. I also loathed Lena Martell’s big hit ‘One Day at a Time’ but not all cheese leaves a nasty, mould-ridden taste in the mouth. Dollar were borne out of the crap vocal group Guys and Dolls but David van Day and Thereza Bazar were to release a string of singles in the late ‘70s and, when Trevor Horn assumed control, the early ‘80s. A good-looking couple, but Bazar’s feather-light voice wasn’t really up to much; it didn’t seem to hold them back. As for the music, it wasn’t their most successful, but I had a sneaking regard for their 1979 effort, ‘Who Were You With in the Moonlight’.

It was also the year when ABBA blotted their copybook by releasing ‘I Have a Dream’. For all their amazing back catalogue, I suppose they are allowed one dodgy moment. The simple ballad is OK but once the dreaded school choir kicks in, my patience checks out. 1979 was also unusual given that the Swedes failed to clock a single UK chart-topper. ‘Chiquitita’ came mighty close and is now one of my favourites.

Under 1978, I raved about the Electric Light Orchestra. It’s not that they were top of my list at the time but nostalgia and age has boosted their appeal. In ’79, their album ‘Discovery’ was the second biggest seller, including ‘The Diary of Horace Wimp’. Not one of the most famous ELO songs, but I love it. A silly story, but lovely melody and orchestral arrangements, and the vocoder is used cleverly as a rhythm machine. That autumn, ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ peaked at a very respectable three and consisted of much ‘E’ but no ‘O’. A rock number, allowing Bev Bevan to thrash the drumkit at live shows, I quite liked it, despite the string section’s sabbatical. For all the great Seventies singles, and a few more in 1981, it is painful to recall that ELO’s only chart-topper was the feeble ‘Xanadu’ with Olivia Newton-John in 1980. The least said about that, the better. 

Violins and cellos are all very well, but sounded prehistoric in comparison with a record which captured the imagination in the summer of ’79, much as ‘I Feel Love’ had done a few years previously. Back then we were amidst a feeding frenzy of sci-fi blockbusters like the original ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek movies. Then, as if beamed down from another galaxy, appeared on our TV screens The Tubeway Army. Dressed like Kraftwerk and with a voice akin to a part-alien David Bowie, front man Gary Numan invaded the charts with banks of synthesisers so that pop would never be the same again. At least he also had the foresight to include a few drums and guitars to placate the awe-struck earthlings. ‘Are Friends Electric?’ even had a quizzical title, suggesting an affirmative response was in order. Two years before, The Carpenters had charted with the epic ‘Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft’. Now we knew the result. It was Numan who had - to paraphrase the lyric - been observing our earth, wanting to make a contact with us. 

The song was all so epic, yet futuristic. In fact, Numan WAS the future. I loved it and, despite those booming synth chords, I feel it has stood the test of time. Its sample even helped launch the Sugababes' career two decades later. Numan went solo for the follow-up single ‘Cars’ which was number one just before I left Billericay for Exeter. Used for so many adverts in the intervening years, it feels as if it has never been away. Other hit records followed but none had the impact of the first. It paved the way for a new electronic era in pop which caught hold in the Eighties, a decade which was suddenly upon us…

1978 – 'Cause the power, you're supplying. It's electrifying!

As 1977 became ’78, the musical landscape changed again. Punk changed. Ironically, as a band supposedly so anti- the old rock’n’roll brigade, The Sex Pistols became a rock’n’roll tribute act with the permanently spaced-out Sid Vicious replacing Johnny Rotten on vocals on hits like ‘My Way’, ‘Something Else’ and ‘C’mon Everybody’ before his final, fatal, overdose. Elsewhere, Punk grew up.

Mr Rotten himself matured as John Lydon, fronting the acclaimed Public Image Limited. It turned out that he wasn’t anti everything after all. A polio-afflicted, gravelly-voiced London geezer called Ian Dury enjoyed rave reviews for the ‘New Boots and Panties’ album, and we all loved the lyrics to ‘What a Waste’. For example:

“I could be a writer with a growing reputation
I could be the ticket-man at Fulham Broadway station”

Elvis Costello & the Attractions and The Boomtown Rats each had a string of top twenty singles, becoming more interesting with each new release. By the autumn, Bob Geldof had become a household name, and his effortless TOTP performance propelled ‘Rat Trap’ all the way to the top: the first ‘New Wave’ number one. The clear words of working class desperation were also new to the upper echelons of the charts. I’d never heard anything like it!

Siouxsie and the Banshees fused punk with the Orient in the absorbing ‘Hong Kong Garden’ and The Buzzcocks began a run of great little singles with a fast and furious love song - love song! – called ‘Ever Fallen in Love’. Unlike Siouxsie and Pete Shelley, Poly Styrene had a terrible voice. However, when her band X-Ray Spex produced the glorious ‘slowie’ ‘Germ-free Adolescents’, it didn’t really matter. Intriguing lyrics and smooth production were added to Poly’s unique persona and I really enjoyed the result. It only reached 18 but the song remains a personal favourite.

American New Wave artists also had some limited success over here. Blondie’s ‘Denis’ leapt to two, and Debbie Harry’s appearance made an impact on a lot of teenage boys, including me! The rockier ‘Hanging on the Telephone’ was another hit. Note Clem Burke’s manic drumming performance in this live clip!

I quite liked the Patti Smith Group’s ‘Because the Night’, too, although the rest of her material was a bit too arty-farty for me. The Cars also ascended to three with ‘My Best Friend’s Girl’, a student-friendly guitar record. Their Eighties hit ‘Drive’ became their signature tune but for me the original post-Punk material was even better.

A lot of ‘New Wave’ was pretty earnest stuff. Nothing wrong with that, but there were some artists in the genre who brought some light relief. Sham 69 burst onto our screens in April when Jimmy Pursey, at the start of ‘Angels with Dirty Faces’, exclaimed: “Ello, Mum. Who’s on Toppa the Pops?!” His eyebrows had lives of their own but he sang live and actually seemed to enjoy himself. It was all pretty basic punk rock, but hits like ‘Hersham Boys’ and ‘Hurry Up Harry’ not only made you want to dance but also to smile. ‘If the Kids are United’ – or at least versions of it - can still be heard on football terraces today. Pursey may not have achieved a career as either a solo artist or loveable ‘Cocker-nee’ TV presenter but his charming chants live on. Sham 69 and Dury proved that New Wave could be fun!

Two others caught up in the New Wave pop scene sparked conversations at school, again more in jest than as serious musical critique. Plastic Bertrand’s ‘Ca Plane Pour Moi’ was an extraordinary top ten hit. I did French ‘O’ level, but the title – along the rest of the lyrics – defied translation. The backing track was punk-lite but not the ‘woo-oo-oo-ooo’s! On TOTP, Plastic pogo-ed around as if Johnny Rotten had had a lobotomy and hefty dose of laughing gas. Mad! Still, for good or ill, the song is embedded in my brain and Plastic Bertrand will always crop up in (the very short) lists of famous Belgians.

Then there was Jilted John. Starting in the sixth form that September, we noted that John’s TOTP performance injected some much needed humour into the top ten. Officially the song was also called ‘Jilted John’ but we all knew it as ‘Gordon is a Moron’. Graham Fellows has gone on to Radio 4 legendary status with another musical creation John Shuttleworth, but for me he’ll forever be associated with the hapless John, jilted by his beloved Julie. It also consigned Gordon to history as a boy’s name. Thank God he didn’t use Michael instead. I’d have done more than cry “all the way to the chip shop”! Patti Smith or Paul Weller would never have come up with lines like:-

“I ought to smash his face in
Yeah, but he's bigger than me. In't he?
I know, I'll get my mate Barry to hit him. He'd flatten him.
Yeah but Barry's a mate of Gordon's in'e?”

Perhaps they should….

For all the efforts of New Wave and fledgling labels like Stiff Records, the 1978 charts were total dominated by songs from just two musicals. ‘Evita’ paled into insignificance compared with the power of movies which catapulted ‘Saturday Night Fever’ and ‘Grease’ into the global cultural stratosphere. Needless to say, I saw neither in the cinema. Not just because Billericay didn’t have one, necessitating a lift or bus ride into Basildon or Brentwood. It was just that we never went as a family and I wasn’t part of a bunch of friends who did that sort of thing. Even as 17 year-olds, no sixth formers in those days had a car. In any case, SNF was ‘X-rated’, officially inaccessible to schoolkids like me. I didn’t feel I was missing out. After all, the songs were simply everywhere. 

Once my fave group, The Bee Gees had grown their hair, exposed their chests and gone falsetto. They were no longer just kings of the beautiful ballad; they were now disco gods. Fortunately I still enjoyed what they were putting out. ‘How Deep is Love?’ had done well the previous Christmas, but not with me. ‘Staying Alive’ was something else. That relentless rhythm, Maurice’s bass intro and Barry’s vocals had the world dancing, but in the UK, it was only ‘Night Fever’ which topped the chart. It was also my favourite track from the show. 

Grease may have played second fiddle to Saturday Night Fever in album sales, but the 1978 singles charts became almost the personal fiefdom of Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta. ‘You’re the One That I Want’ was number one for nine weeks that summer. The same clip from the film became boring. If that wasn’t enough, ‘Summer Nights’ held the top spot for a further seven weeks. Of course, we have sung and acted it out at discos and weddings a million times since, but “ohhh, those su-u-mmer nigh-hights” really got on my wick! Travolta was, of course the star of both the behemoth movies, and his ‘Sandy’ also made two. In the first week of November, he and Livvy between them had three of the top four singles. They were all good pop songs but by Christmas, I was fully fed up with Grease.

Those two million-selling chart-toppers were truly massive yet neither proved to be the official best-seller of the year. That title went to a Boney M double A-sider. ‘Rivers of Babylon’ bridged the five weeks at number one between ‘Night Fever’ and ‘You’re the One That I Want’ but it was only when stations played the flip side ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’ later that summer when combined sales broke through the two million barrier.

I may be alone in this, but I actually preferred the ludicrous ‘Rasputin’ which in October was held at number two for three weeks by - who else but - John and Olivia. Its grasp of history was perhaps dubious (“Russia’s greatest love machine” –eh??) but a disco era classic and also memorable for Bobby Farrell’s comedy Cossack beard! Nevertheless, the M-sters weren’t finished that year. They gave Harry Belafonte’s Fifties Christmas smash ‘Mary’s Boy Child’ a foot-tapping Caribbean twist and a festive number one was inevitable. Repeat the ‘Rivers of Babylon’ beat and harmonies, wrap the foursome in Santa gear, and the formula was a sure-fire winner. Even now, I think it’s the second biggest-selling Christmas song in UK history. Boney M were never going to win Oscars or Grammies but they were an entertaining part of my teenage years.

Other artists also dipped their toes into the wacky waters of disco.  Even The Rolling Stones slipped into a nifty bass-heavy groove for ‘Miss You’. It may have shocked many of their old fans but I couldn’t help liking it, and a top 3 chart position suggested I wasn’t alone. Meanwhile, ABBA were continuing their outstanding run of number ones with ‘Take a Chance on Me’. At the time, I considered it their best so far. The accompanying video may be a bit naff, memorably lampooned years later by French and Saunders, but the quality of the music was undimmed.

In September, Bjorn and Benny demonstrated their versatility by releasing ‘Summertime City’. Unashamedly disco, it failed to make the top four. Maybe the world wasn’t ready for a new ABBA sound, but it wasn’t really such a giant leap. The rest of the formula was mercifully intact. Nevertheless, it did pave the way for their 1979 album ‘Voulez-Vous’ which had more danceable stuff.

Even Rod Stewart abandoned his ballad-heavy mode to inflict disco-lite ‘D’Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ on us all. Confession time: I actually quite liked it. Reaching number one briefly in December, I reckon it’s a guilty pleasure for many of my contemporaries. However, my abiding memory of the record is not Rod himself. Instead it was Kenny Everett’s typically irreverent piss-take of the Stewart strut, complete with ever-inflating leopardskin derriere!

The Motors weren’t disco by any stretch of the imagination, but their top four single ‘Airport’ was in my opinion one of the best records of the year. It’s one of those examples of a record which didn’t fit into a particular pigeonhole, but made an impression in an otherwise mediocre summer of music. While the synth intro is instantly recognisable, I particularly loved the keyboard bridge before the final chorus.

Reggae was back en vogue, claiming an improbable pair of number one singles. A pair of Jamaican teenagers, Althia and Donna, came from nowhere in January with ‘Uptown Top Ranking’. None of us knew what the words were, let alone meant, but it caught a mood. There was some light reggae from 10cc, too, in September. With Graham Gouldman taking lead vocals, it proved to be not only the group’s last chart-topper but their last top 30 single. It wasn’t their finest hour but some of the lyrics endure. For example, Angie may enjoy repeating the line “I don’t like cricket” but I just trot out the next line, “I love it!”

A genuine reggae superstar was also making his mark on me for the first time. Bob Marley had made the Top 20 before but ‘Jamming’ was the first song I remember hearing, and certainly enjoying. His impressive dreadlocks and voice were so distinctive, but he seemed to marry the traditional off-beat with melody. Upsetting to think that within three years he was dead.

Earlier I ‘dissed’ the saxophone in pop, but in ’78 came a sax solo that even I could rave about. Gerry Rafferty’s face looked vaguely familiar, and it was his voice I’d heard on ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ but ‘Baker Street’ was something else entirely. It had rock guitar, keyboards, that sax, and a unique vibe all of its own. He followed it the next year with ‘Night Owl’, at least as good in my opinion, and ‘Get it Right Next Time’ but it’s the number three hit in 1978 which made him hugely successful on both sides of the Atlantic.  Rafferty’s laconic drawl and half-shut eyes indicated either a real cool customer or someone under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Sadly, we were to discover it was probably the former. I don’t know if there was an issue with one-night stands but taking the words of his greatest hit, he distressingly failed to “give up the booze”.

I’ve never been an aficionado of soul. Its exponents don’t crop up very often in this memoir. But in early ’78, Bill Withers flew to number seven with ‘Lovely Day’ and it was to be one of my musical highlights of the year. That bassline and smooth groove throughout the song haven’t dated one iota. I reckon that had it come out in the summer, it would have been even bigger. Withers is my kind of soul singer. None of that melodramatic emoting. You can imagine him sitting down by the mic, cup of coffee at his side, just letting the lyrics flow. Another contemporary favourite of mine also started with a distinctive bass intro and beautiful shuffling rhythm. I hadn’t heard of John Paul Young before and can’t recall hearing of him since, but ‘Love is in the Air’ was a joyous record in a genre of its own.

I wouldn’t call Andrew Gold a soul singer, nor even a Seventies superstar. However, his luxuriant ginger locks were at odds with the conventional Californian look, and he did produce the gorgeous ‘Never Let Her Slip Away’ that year. That, and Genesis’ ‘Follow You, Follow Me’ prove to the world that I’m just a big softie, really. The latter even made my all-time Top 50 when I wrote it in 1985! Not sure it’ll be there now, but for me it was a stunning introduction to the work of Genesis. It would be another two years before they’d finally submit to the lure (or peril?) of TOTP exposure and consequent singles success.

Yes, I can be a romantic, but don’t expect me to love The Commodores’ ‘Three Times a Lady’. It may be a wedding dance staple, but it didn’t ‘alf drone on at the top in August. It was enough to make anyone long for Travolta and Newton-John to take over once more. I now appreciate Lionel Richie for the consummate entertainer he is, but back then, his afro seemed better than his songs.

At least the Commodores were superior to Father Abraham and the Smurfs. ‘The Smurf Song’ famously languished at number two for six weeks. Its inanity drove me almost to insanity! Like Brian and Michael’s ode to LS Lowry, ‘Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs’, it was a huge hit I couldn’t avoid, however hard I tried. I could have happily strangled every one of the irritating little blue b*st*rds….

ELO were nothing if not consistent in 1978. Despite several years in the charts, their USP of well-crafted records with a prominent string section had remained – well – U! Co-founder Roy Wood had long since departed to form Wizzard, but drummer Bev Bevan and singer-writer-guitarist-producer-everything-else-er Jeff Lynne were still around to keep us entertained. ‘Out of the Blue’ was a double album, and its signature logo of colourful flying saucer was everywhere that year. Their concerts became more elaborate and technical and, while I didn’t see them live, those performances became a feature of TOTP appearances.

‘Sweet Talking Woman’, ‘Wild West Hero’ and ‘Mr Blue Sky’ each peaked at six in ’78, and there was plenty more still to come. Even better, Jeff Lynne is still going! Although somewhat shrunken since the Out of the Blue era, the trademark frizz is intact, as is, despite all those years in the States, the Brummie accent Why he isn’t Sir Jeff is a mystery, a knighthood long overdue. If the PM or Queen needs convincing, she should simply watch the clip above.

For all ELO’s singles chart consistency, and the tenacious tentacles of the Grease stars, it was another, considerably less famous act which enjoyed no fewer than four top three hits in 1978. No, not Showaddywaddy, although they were still churning out the crap rock’n’roll covers. No, it was Darts. They, too, boasted plenty of members and harked back to a different era, but their blend of doo-wop and R’n’B was in stark contrast to the Leicester boys. ‘Daddy Cool’, ‘Come Back, My Love’, ‘Boy from New York City’ (my favourite) and ‘It’s Raining’ featured different lead vocalists and slightly different styles but Darts managed to carry it off. The wild-eyed Den Hegarty seemed out of synch with his bandmates but when he left in mid-year, they lost their way and the hits vanished as quickly as they had appeared. 

A review of my musical tastes in 1978 could never have been complete without mentioning the extraordinary force of nature that was, and is, Kate Bush. When the shy teenager first appeared on TOTP in February, waving her arms around and squealing what sounded like “Out on the wild and windy moors” in such a ridiculously high register, I and my friends didn’t know what to make of her. It was easiest to simply make fun. Yet ‘Wuthering Heights’ made Kate the first woman to write and sing a UK number one song.  

But bald statistics don’t do it justice. While I indubitably enjoyed ‘Wuthering Heights’ at the time, it seems to sound even better with every passing year. Kate’s vocals, the arty dance moves, the piano, stunning minor chords and rock guitar ‘outro’ together form surely one of the two or three greatest records in history. A work of genius – and she was only nineteen! 

And, blow me, she then goes and releases another mind-blowing single just months later. ‘The Man with the Child in His Eyes’ was another mature product of a young girl’s amazing imagination. It had been recorded three years earlier with that flowing piano and orchestra, but it was worth the wait. When I listen to it now I become the man with the tears in his eyes. When the horn echoes Kate’s voice near the end before that final lingering chord it’s monumentally moving.

Of course, Kate Bush enjoyed plenty more hits in the years to come but if she had disappeared into a black hole in 1979, her legacy of these 1978 masterpieces from ‘The Kick Inside’ would have been enough for any artist. The rush of renewed fascination with the Bush back catalogue when she stepped back into the spotlight with her first gigs in 35 years made me realise that she had been years ahead of her time. I didn’t appreciate a lot of her pretentious material. Indeed, I didn’t like many of her later hits. However, the world of music would be a lot poorer had Dave Gilmour not indulged young Kate in the mid-70s and set her on that road to success.  

Was she merely a Prog rocker, to be pigeonholed with Yes and the Floyd? No, she was unique, a one-off. Certainly progressive, her music full of intelligence. However, I reckon she had more melody than any of the much-maligned groups, and her wondrous love of movement took her onto a different plane entirely.

1977 – He got an ice pick, which made his ears burn

This is a year lauded as a special one in the history of music. Punk rock spelled the end of prog rock, although it was the death of Elvis which left a gaping hole in rock’n’roll. As for me, there was less of a feeling that the sands were shifting in such a momentous way. After all, I had more important things to worry about – like ‘O’ levels.

It transpired that 1977’s biggest sellers followed each other to the top spot from January to March. For all the new genres, David Soul seemed to create one of his own. Already popular as one half of TV’s detectives ‘Starsky and Hutch’, Soul set about dominating the UK singles charts with some rather plaintive piano ’n’ strings love songs led by ‘Don’t Give On Us Baby’. I preferred the slightly rockier ‘Silver Lady’, a number one in October.

Leo Sayer achieved his greatest success with another dreary ballad, ‘When I Need You’, and ABBA’s march to near-global supremacy with ‘The Name of the Game’ and another four minutes of pop perfection in ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’. Cue shots of snowy landscapes, front- and side-on close-ups and bittersweet lyrics. A-ha-ahhhh.

A period of big musicals was set in motion by Evita. Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber had enjoyed some hits from ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ but they were dwarfed by the popularity of the Act 2 scene-stealer, ‘Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina’. Julie Covington’s beautiful rendition was in the top ten for seemingly forever. Accept no imposters like Madonna or assorted Pussycat Dolls! I wasn’t a fan of the song but it’s an undeniable giant of West End musical theatre. Years later I was to see a lot of London musicals but somehow Evita has always eluded me.

Winter was setting in when I first heard a new record by Paul McCartney and Wings. I was happy to say aloud that the simple celebration of rural Scotland would never be a hit. Ever the man with his finger on the pulse of British pop taste, I was proved wrong as never before or since; ‘Mull of Kintyre’ sold two million copies in the UK alone! Not even ‘Sgt Dave Hutchinson’ (aka D Soul) could compete with acoustic guitar, an ex-Beatle and bagpipes.

In contrast to the above, the lens of retrospective specs reveals that there were indeed some pretty pivotal singles released. At the time, I just took them at face value. And that was just the ones I heard. The Clash wouldn’t have been seen dead performing ‘White Riot’ on TOTP, nor do I recall watching Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Don’t Stop’; neither managed to scrape in to the top 30.

Until 1977 all of my favourites tended to be top-tenners. However, while freed from school class attendance obligations during the exam period, I listened to Radio 1 shows beyond the usual Top 20 and Jimmy Savile. I think it may have been Tony Blackburn following the Noel Edmonds breakfast show, so I became familiar with his irritating ways and preferences. Of course, he probably had little say in the tracks played, as there were new releases besides those who’d already climbed the charts. As a result, I got to know, and like, a lot of singles which, despite heavy airplay, were left languishing in the twenties or thirties.

For example, another of the tracks from Fleetwood Mac’s epoch-making ‘Rumours’ album was ‘Dreams’. I loved the soft rock rhythm, the bassline and, of course, Stevie Nicks’ idiosyncratic vocals. I dispute her assertion that “thunder only happens when it’s raining” but it was a cracking record all the same. Yet it peaked at just 24 in the UK.

Another mostly British band who crossed the Atlantic to achieve success were Supertramp. I’d been drawn to a previous hit ‘Dreamer’ and in ’77, it was the turn of the less manic ‘Give A Little Bit’. Even more surprising today is the realisation that David Bowie’s evergreen ‘Heroes’ was another song whose class didn’t translate into contemporary sales. Robert Fripp’s legendary guitar work sounded so, well, heroic, and for me Bowie’s voice was never better. Yet by far his biggest hit of the year was ‘Sound and Vision’, the first half of which was instrumental. I had a friend who really loved Bowie, then seen as way ahead of his time. Perhaps, but that just meant most of us hated his material.

I had a few friends who raved about American country rockers The Eagles. I never really shared their enthusiasm, but they were never far from my ears or eyes in 1977. It was the year when the album ‘Hotel California’ was released. I didn’t really like the first single, ‘New Kid in Town’, but the title track boasted that intriguing lengthy intro and that (then) unusual guitar duet by Joe Walsh and Don Felder at the end. I’d no idea it would become such an iconic rock song, but it eased into the UK top ten, and the performance in this clip from the same year captures their languid LA style to perfection.  

Talking of classics, Boston’s ‘More Than a Feeling’ and Joe Walsh’s ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ made little impression on me or anyone else. However, the year gave us two British rock-pop staples by home-grown giants. Queen’s ‘We Are the Champions’ and Status Quo’s ‘Rockin’ All Over the World’ were top three singles which appealed to me, although they hardly blew my mind.

The voice of Lionel Richie is so familiar now, it feels like we were born with it in our brains but probably the first time I heard it was in 1977 on The Commodores’ ‘Easy’. It may have been ‘easy on a Sunday morning’ but on the Sunday evening chart show it was a bit of a yawnathon. The only redeeming feature was that guitar solo!

Manhattan Transfer topped the chart in March with ‘Chanson d’Amour’. Their 40s pastiche didn’t appeal to me at all and I was surprised that a few classmates actually sang along to it. It did introduce the saxophone as a supposed instrument of gratuitous sophistication to pop, for which the Transfer should grovel for forgiveness. ‘Chanson…’ already had a French title. There was no need to add a sax solo; the record was pretentious enough as it was! Thank goodness for ‘Baker Street’ and ‘Will You’ for delivering the sax from jazz and pop hell! 

Those weekday breakfasts spent listening to Radio 1, delaying another summer session of tedious revision, also left me with some real turkeys filling my head. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Alessi’s ‘O Lori’, Tony Etoria’s ‘I Can Prove It’ and ‘You’re Gonna Get Next To Me’ by Bo Kirkland and Ruth Davis. Yuk! There were some goodies, though. At the end of June, Hot Chocolate finally achieved number one status with ‘So You Win Again’. Even then, we all knew that Errol Brown et al had never topped the singles charts so perhaps the great British public heard the new song and bought it out of sympathy. It wasn’t their best, but a reliable mid-tempo ‘lost love’ number which I couldn’t help liking either. 

Less successful was ‘Heaven on the Seventh Floor’, the latest in a line of unassuming lively ditties from Paul Nicholas, but Smokie reached five with ‘It’s Your Life’. Back then I was unfamiliar with Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s prog rock reputation. I didn’t even know what prog rock was. Nevertheless, if ‘Fanfare of the Common Man’ was anything to go by, I’d sing its praises. The radio edit soared like Keith Emerson’s keyboards to number two, but if TOTP had featured the full eight minutes of their frost-filled performance in the Montreal Olympic stadium, I would surely have re-considered.

Considerable airplay was also given to Boney M’s ‘Ma Baker’. Their third consecutive top-tenner, I loved it. Opening with that snarling "Freeze, I'm Ma Baker, put your hands in the air! Gimme all your money", it opened out into a great dance track. German producer-guru Frank Farian had assembled a visually-arresting quartet of West Indian singers and dancers, the most notable being Bobby Farrell and his afro. His gyrations rarely appeared to be in time with the music, and he famously mimed to Farian’s vocals. I recall watching a clip from a German TV show where Boney M sang ‘Daddy Cool’ live. It became crystal clear why Farrell didn’t sing on the recordings. All he needed to do was get five words in tune but no, he was hopeless! 

Hot Chocolate were followed at the top by a record which undoubtedly did make my jaw drop when I first heard it. Donna Summer’s previous hit ‘Love to Love You Baby’ had been banned because of its unambiguous groans and sighs. However, when ‘I Feel Love’ launched into that synthesizer sequencer line, I felt I had been transported into the future. Indeed I had. Giorgio Moroder’s productions were no strangers to the charts but, assisted by Donna’s sexy voice, this innovative use of the Moog and key changes influenced a new generation of musicians, let alone clubbers or ordinary listeners like me. It was disco, but not as we knew it.

Tavares, Trammps and Rose Royce had more conventional disco hits, not really to my taste, but one of my favourite up-tempo hits of 1977 was Heatwave’s ‘Boogie Nights’. A rare British giant of the genre, this was another record which grabbed you by the throat on first exposure. It sounds quite tame nowadays, but in Spring 1977 that funky growling guitar line seemed really heavy. Their moves in this video are laughable, but it was the sound which blew me away.

It wasn’t only Giorgio Moroder pioneering electronic music in the charts. In France, a twenty-something composer and synth wizard released his LP ‘Oxygene’ to an unsuspecting world. The fourth ‘track’, ‘Oxygene IV’ captured the imagination. It sounded so clean, so crisp, so… new! Totally instrumental, of course, but it led to a new genre of boring-bloke-behind-synths-with-laser-show concerts. Later open-air gigs attracted crowds of a million-plus but not sure how many of them would have seen Monsieur Jarre actually doing his thing. It made four in our charts, and the album also did rather well.

Yet it wasn’t even my favourite French electronic instrumental of the year; that was Space’s ‘Magic Fly’. The helmets in the video were a precursor to the shy, mysterious image so beloved of twenty-first century dancemeisters Daft Punk but the synth melody, bass and drums, together with the visuals, made for such a futuristic package I was instantly hooked. A shame that it was held at number two for three weeks in September, but it was perhaps understandable given the circumstances which began on 16^th August. 

I distinctly remember sitting in a rather austere hotel restaurant in Rimini having breakfast. We were talking about the previous night’s awesome firework display marking the Feast of the Assumption. Then, whether it was seeing the front page on someone’s newspaper or other Brits in our group telling us, I forget, but that was the morning we discovered that Elvis Presley had died.

It was more of a shock to Mum who, while hardly a rock’n’roller, was the same age as Elvis, and who had probably been a major part of her musical soundtrack through the Fifties. My generation was less attached to him and his music, but his singles had continued to sprinkle the charts throughout my life. Apart from the re-released ‘Girl of My Best Friend’ in 1976, I hadn’t liked any of them particularly. However, I knew from the Jimmy Savile show how much of a legend he had been; all those groundbreaking chart-toppers such as ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and ‘It’s Now Or Never’ plus tearjerkers like ‘In The Ghetto’.

His voice and charisma were unmistakeable, even to a child of the ‘60s and ‘70s like me. It’s just that his music didn’t speak to me the way it had done to the previous generation. Unsurprisingly, sales of his recent compilations soared, and his new single ‘Way Down’ predictably went to number one. It didn’t change my opinion of his music but there was no escaping it for a few weeks. There was also the dreadful by-product in the form of the commemorative single ‘I Remember Elvis Presley’ by Dutch producer-singer Danny Mirror. Thousands of people fell for it and it went to number four. It was simply WRONG!

The Fifties and Sixties had already generated huge LP sales that year. The Shadows, Slim Whitman, The Supremes and others all led the album charts. Prog rockers like Pink Floyd, Yes, ELP and Genesis were also in the mainstream. Despite the hiccup of post-Presley grief purchases, the scene was set for a new set of rockers to register their protest against the old guard of music and politicians. They were, of course, the Punks. 

This isn’t a history of pop so I’ll focus on my own belated introduction to the strange world of sneers, safety pins and two-minute bursts of frenetic energy. Malcolm McLaren had been marketing his pet band The Sex Pistols for a while, but it took the nation’s preoccupation with the Queen’s Silver Jubilee to provide the fertile seedbed from which a powerful brand grew into the mainstream with alarming speed.  As the Union Flag bunting mushroomed around the streets of Britain, and pressure mounted on all of us to commemorate Liz 2’s twenty-five years on the throne, it was a clever move to release a snarling alternative anthem appealing to the working classes unimpressed by the real thing. The Pistols’ ‘God Save the Queen’ featuring Johnny Rotten’s biting vocals was banned by the BBC and the main record stores and famously thwarted from taking the number one position in Jubilee week by Rod Stewart. Much as I enjoyed ‘The First Cut is the Deepest’, I would have appreciated the opportunity to hear the record everyone was either talking about or desperately trying to ignore.

When I did manage to catch it, I realised it was nothing special. The follow-up, ‘Pretty Vacant’ was far superior. I recall the TOTP presenter - Kid Jensen, I think it was – linking another doomed and forgettable Cilla Black effort with this film. ‘I also quite liked ‘Holidays in the Sun’, another single from the ‘Never Mind the Bollocks…’ album. However, it was really only the descending guitar riff, ripped off The Jam’s ‘In The City’ and the first verse. The rest degenerated into Johnny wailing on about the Berlin Wall. Eh?

Punk rock was hardly aimed at comfortable middle-class kids like me, but it did have an impact on many teenagers in leafy Billericay. I remember waiting to go into a class and one of the girls – well spoken and certainly no wild child – was raving about a Damned gig she’d been to the night before: “They were gobbing and everything!” she enthused. It was obvious that there was a new world order in pop music. 

TOTP had to change, too. Blackburn, Edmonds, Savile and their ilk needed to give way to presenters like Jensen, Mike Read and Peter Powell. The latter actually appeared to like the New Wave bands he was introducing, and his enthusiasm rubbed off on teens like me. Nevertheless, it was DLT who did the honours for probably the most memorable live TOTP performance EVER. His words were apposite; the world really wasn’t ready for John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett’s ramshackle rendition of ‘Really Free’! It only scraped into the top 30 but was a talking point in our sixth form common room. 

If Otway and even the Pistols had a fairly short singles chart shelf life, the same wasn’t true of The Stranglers. I first saw them on TOTP in around June, Jean-Jacques Burnel bounding around miming to ‘Go Buddy Go’, wielding a guitar with no strings! At least they didn’t wreck their set. They had an ugly reputation for concert violence and even been banned from the Exeter University Great Hall after one fiery gig. A great shame because they were great musicians and songwriters. They were hardly young tearaways, either; drummer Jet Black was already pushing forty! I didn’t appreciate some of their other early hits like ‘Something Better Change’ and ‘Hanging Around’ until later, but ‘No More Heroes’ was in my opinion one of the best records of 1977. With Hugh Cornwell’s superior vocals, J-J’s filthy bass sound and Dave Greenfield’s swirling keyboards to the fore, it had that punk vibe but a great melody, too. The following year or two gave us more terrific hits like ‘5 Minutes’, ‘Nice ‘n’ Sleazy’ and ‘Walk On By’. The Stranglers were notoriously lazy lip-synchers, though. Cornwell and Burnel never seemed to take their TV performances seriously, but I suppose that was part of the image. They were punks and so obviously didn’t care! They also demonstrated that with some quality songs I could be a bit of a punk, too. In spirit, at least.

The Stranglers thus became my favourite band. But the song I accorded the title of favourite song of the year could not have provided a more dramatic contrast. It was Berni Flint’s sweet ‘I Don’t Want to Put a Hold on You’. Acoustic guitar, no instrument destruction, an artist graduating from ITV’s ‘Opportunity Knocks’. Definitely not the new wave. My musical tastes were as broad as ever.

1976 – Feel the Beat from the Tambourine

Ah, the music of 1976. This could be a short chapter! Naffness there was in spades. Not all dreadful, but when you hit fifteen you kinda expect something to get excited about. Excitement was definitely in short supply, but there was still entertainment.

A lot of ladies certainly seemed to get very worked up by Demis Roussos. Already a superstar on the continent, his USP was the combination of an enormous frame barely contained in a kaftan and an extraordinarily light, high voice. His EP The Roussos Phenomenon, led by the ballad ‘Forever and Ever’, topped the charts in the long hot summer of 1976. Maybe the high temperatures and lack of rain made British women long for the Greek beaches and a bearded sex god serenading them – and along came Demis!

In fact he had been on UK TV with Nana Mouskouri and even Basil Brush a few years previously but the EP propelled him into the premier league. I didn’t like his music one iota, but you couldn’t ignore him. He was an easy target for parody, and we all tried our worst falsetto to do so. Nevertheless, imitation is supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery so I’m sure Roussos took it all in his stride.

Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’ took more than two years to make it in Britain. As with most Country music, it didn’t appeal to me at all. Like Demis Roussos, her unmistakeable – er – body shape left her wide open to sexist imitators. To be honest, it was probably the breast jokes which brought her to the attention of a wider audience but Dolly had the last laugh. No number one singles, but, since her Glastonbury triumph in 2014, her ’76 breakthrough has sold more than 200,000 digital downloads!

It was also a successful year for Showaddywaddy. The Leicester faux teddy boys were a regular sight on Top of the Pops in their colourful drapes miming along to a series of late fifties and early sixties hits. Their only number one single came towards the end of ’76, when ‘Under the Moon of Love’ threatened to be the top song at Christmas. It didn’t, thanks to the black polo jumper-clad Johnny Mathis, but it come to epitomise their distinct brand of music, appealing to fans of rock’n’roll-lite and simple, straightforward fun pop.

Another band never likely to win the hearts of New Musical Express editors was The Wurzels. A novelty act, yes, but their Zummerzet shtick was genuine and even I was won over by their re-working of recent hits. ‘Brand New Key’ was transformed into ‘Combine Harvester’ and – lo! – a number one! The follow-up was ‘I Am a Cider Drinker’, with new lyrics to the tune of ‘Una Paloma Blanca’. Their chart positions weakened as the joke wore thinner, but they are still going strong in the West Country. Even I used to sing the ‘Cider Drinker’ chorus as I drove past the Somerset sign on the M5. They regularly headline events in and around Bridgwater, where they are living legends! 

The Brotherhood of Man returned to the big time courtesy of their Eurovision entry ‘Save Your Kisses for Me’. Cute song, cute dance steps and cute little twist at the end. Cute, cute, cute. However, for me the “Ahhh”s on first hearing swiftly became ‘”Aarrghhh”s the more the record was played. And that was very often, because the foursome won Eurovision and became the year’s best-sellers. They even went on to top the charts twice more in the Seventies, coasting on the coat-tails of Abba.

Other annoying hits of ’76 include CW McCall’s trucker song ‘Convoy’, which made number two in a year when CB radio started to become popular, many years before mobile phones. That was bad enough but then Radio 1 DJs Dave Lee Travis and Paul Burnett became Laurie Lingo and the Dipsticks to record the silly ‘Convoy GB’. It peaked at four! John Miles’ ‘Music’ left me unmoved and Eric Carmen’s ‘All By Myself’ deserved to have kept him in solitude for life.

Dutch Country outfit Pussycat enjoyed substantial sales of the pedestrian ‘Mississippi’ and they were turfed off the top by Chicago’s ‘If You Leave me Now’. For many, this is a classic ballad but I beg to differ. I just think Peter Cetera sounds like a whiny bluebottle you can’t destroy. There, I’ve said it! 

Sailor’s ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ also registered high on the naff scale, and accompanied lots of politically-incorrect clips in those unenlightened times. Their nautical costumes and impressive nickelodeon keyboard contraption also stood out from the rest. However, listen to their first number two single, ‘A Glass of Champagne’; it’s actually quite good!

Another act which probably wouldn’t make the grade in the twenty-first century was Tina Charles. She wasn’t a size zero, she couldn’t really dance and, truth be told, she couldn’t really sing very well. Tina probably wouldn’t pass an X Factor audition. However, back in ’76, her winning smile and Biddu-produced dance-pop made winning formula. She looked like an ordinary young woman boogieing on a local dancefloor or nervously taking to a pub karaoke platform, but she was a surprise success story of ’76. 

To some cogniscenti she is now considered a British disco pioneer. That might be pushing it a bit, but ‘I Love to Love’ was the eighth biggest seller of 1976. Her (earthier) voice had also been heard on 5000 Volts’ high-energy 1975 hit ‘I’m on Fire’, but my personal favourite was her solo song ‘Dance Little Lady, Dance’.

The guitar is distinctly funky. Not in the moped/gibbon sense of the word, but in the ‘makes you want to get up and jiggle about’ sense. I also liked the Wild Cherry top tenner, ‘Play that Funky Music’. A shame I rarely hear it on the radio any more. The same goes for The Sensational Alex Harvey Band’s weird ‘Boston Tea Party’. Always a very visual band, this was one of the few Harvey songs I actually liked (the other being their outrageous version of ‘Delilah’). It stalled at thirteen but I enjoyed their brand of rock, and the charismatic Harvey’s unashamed Scottish and, on his TOTP performance, live vocals. At the age of 40, he may have looked slightly the worse for wear, but his stage presence was undeniably Sensational.

Thin LIzzy became rock gods in 1976 with the immortal ‘Boys Are Back in Town’, forever radio-friendly. It may be full of ‘chicks’ and crazy ‘cats’ but I can’t tire of hearing it. Everything that followed was inferior. I don’t think Hank Mizell was ever a guitar hero like Phil Lynott, but I confess that, at the time, I did prefer the re-release of his 1958 rockabilly flop, ‘Jungle Rock’! One of my favourite Status Quo songs also made the top ten. In a year which gave us the century’s most serious and prolonged drought, it had to be ‘Rain’…

Away from rock, I liked Barry White’s number two hit ‘Say the Trouble with Me’, Yvonne Elliman’s sweet ‘Love Me’, The Four Seasons’ ‘December ‘63’ and Andy Fairweather Low’s ‘Wide-eyed and Legless’. That reminds me…. I recently attended a Paul Weller concert in Cardiff. Towards the end, a ‘local boy done good’ was ushered onto the stage. Bald, in unflattering specs and acoustic guitar in hand, Paul introduced him as Mr Fairweather Low himself! Unrecognisable from his Amen Corner days but we all sang along anyway to ‘Half as Nice’. His 1976 top-tenner would have raised a smile, too. 

The most memorable disco contributions must have been Candi Staton’s summer classic ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ and Andrea True Connection’s ‘More More More’  but a song which elicited much discussion in the playground was written and sung by an unknown black British woman, Joan Armatrading. The opening unaccompanied lines of ‘Love and Affection’ 

                        “I’m not in love

                         But I’m open to persuasion” 

must be amongst the powerful of any song in the Seventies. When the acoustic guitar kicked in, you were hooked. It dragged on a bit for me so didn’t register high on my list back then. Nevertheless, something different never hurt!

Elton John took his mix of piano ballads and rock to the States, generating more sales but also pissing off the right-wing bible-bashers who considered him the devil incarnate. And he hadn’t even come out as gay! Over here, it was his unassuming Motown-esque duet ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ with Kiki Dee which captured British hearts, occupying the number one spot throughout the summer holidays. I didn’t much like it, but Elton’s comic turn in the promo film was quite engaging. 

Paul McCartney and Wings were unfortunate to miss out on a number one single in ’76. Both ‘Silly Love Songs’ and ‘Let ‘Em In’ both peaked at two in the charts, but I liked them both. While they were separate entities, I still think of them as parts of a pair. Paul’s bass is really prominent in the former, while the latter is an unashamedly lightweight piano-driven song. As with the nursery rhyme ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’, only McCartney could manufacture a big hit from such simple material: a rollcall of friends, family and heroes knocking on his door.

Earlier I waxed lyrical about 10cc’s ‘I’m Not in Love’. However, it was their 1976 single ‘I’m Mandy, Fly Me’ which was, and remains, my favourite track from their brilliant back catalogue. It starts out as another gentle Eric Stewart ballad before taking off into all sorts of weird directions thanks, presumably, to Kevin Godley’s influence. Impossible to dance to, but it’s wonderful to listen to: the best song of the year. Sadly it marked the end of 10cc as a foursome. Godley and Crème departed to be creative in different fields, notably the development of the music video throughout the Eighties. Stewart and Gouldman kept going (but not as 5cc!) and with such an enormous writing and performing pedigree, enjoyed further hits until Stewart suffered an injury which kept him out of the studio. The magical momentum was lost and one of the great bands was no more.

But they weren’t my favourite artists of the year. Without any doubt whatsoever, that accolade went to the group who dominated our charts in 1976. Not British, not American, but Swedish! They were, of course, ABBA. 

‘Waterloo’ had promised to be a one-hit Eurovision wonder until ‘S.O.S’ came to the rescue at the end of 1975. A few months later, ’Mamma Mia’ finally knocked ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ off its perch. I must admit it left me distinctly underwhelmed. However, come April, their first masterpiece blew me away. ‘Fernando’’s intro of woodwind and gentle military drum rolls immediately creates a special mood, but when Frida sings the first verse, it practically brings tears to my eyes.The chorus brings some happiness to the story but the whole package made me realise ABBA were no passing fad.

Even better was to follow. Returning from our coach holiday through Europe at the end of August, the big news on the Sunday evening Top 20 show was the surge of ‘Dancing Queen’ from sixteen to one. It took only one listen to recognise an instant classic. That opening piano glissando was thrilling and the rest of the record didn’t disappoint either. As ever, the ABBA crew lavished time and lots of love on the production. Benny and Bjorn have since explained how they weren’t prolific, but they worked darned hard to perfect what songs they had written; I guess it’s hard to make a song sound simple. The more you listen, the more recognisable little bells and whistles you can pick up. Not literally ‘bells and whistles’ but the little strings motifs, the ‘high hat’ cymbal, the choral “ah ah-ah”s, the six-note piano bit are all as familiar as the melody and the infectious beat. The video may not have captured the essence but it must be one of the best dance records ever made. 

No sooner had ‘Dancing Queen’ slipped out of the chart, ‘Money, Money, Money’ was released for Christmas. It must have sold plenty but was held at three. I remember going Christmas shopping in Chelmsford, mooching around Dace’s music shop seeking inspiration. ‘Money, Money, Money’ was playing and the main display featured piles of the new ABBA album, ‘Arrival’. I don’t think I bought either, but I did purchase the year’s bestselling LP, the group’s first Greatest Hits collection. For Mum, of course, but we could all enjoy ABBA. 

Disappointingly there was no ‘Dancing Queen’ but I did discover a few other songs which had charted but failed to attract my attention. ‘I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do’ (there are five!), ‘Ring Ring’ and ‘Honey Honey’ had that distinctive ABBA style, as well as typical repeated words in the title. The LP must have been the first proper ‘greatest hits’ record I ever bought. Their next one was probably ABBA’s second. As the brand new album that December declared, the Swedish quartet had arrived. With the musical ‘Mamma Mia’ and later generations of music lovers perpetuating their musical legacy, they have never really departed.