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.