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.

1975 – It’s just a silly phase I’m going through

There was a distinct shift of power in the pop charts in 1975. That perspective can come only from the future, of course, but I remember feeling that something was missing. Maybe it was the death of Glam, maybe my attaining the grand old age of 14, grieving for lost youth as I started my O Level courses. I have read an article by Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley who wrote in passing that 1975 was one of a few years notable for the awfulness of their music. A subjective viewpoint, of course, but it’s  interesting to see a respected musician and journalist supporting my humble opinion.

Despite never attending a proper disco in my school life, there was no excuse for being unaware of the genre. Songs like ‘Disco Stomp’ (Hamilton Bohannon) and ‘Disco Queen’ (Hot Chocolate) did what it says on the tin. However, I preferred other records which didn’t try so hard.  The Bee Gees reinvented themselves with the funky ‘Jive Talkin’’ and Hot Chocolate released the immortal ‘You Sexy Thing’. It would have topped the chart were it not for possibly the greatest record ever made, Shit happens, Errol!

I remember returning from our summer holiday on Mallorca, always eager to find out what had been happening in the UK charts while in our Balearic bubble. The major movement was the rise of two great songs from the USA. George McCrae’s ‘It’s Been So Long’ was my favourite of the year, and it competed for the number four spot with KC and the Sunshine Band’s finest moment on vinyl, ‘That’s the Way I Like It’. Just watch this clip and try resisting the temptation to dance and join in the “Woo-oo-oo”s at the beginning and the “uh-huh”s during the chorus. Dig that brass section, man! I liked it in ’75 but it’s improved with age.

I also enjoyed Van McCoy’s ludicrously catchy semi-symphonic ‘The Hustle’, which made number three in June. It had the edge over that other dance move of the year: ‘The Bump’ by Kenny! The group’s children’s TV presenter-style clothes and bouncy performances were simultaneously irritating and fun.

There were no disco chart-toppers over here but the Philly sound was more successful in the form of The Stylistics. As more singles were released, their chart positions seemed to improve slowly and in 1975 the jaunty ‘Sing Baby Sing’ reached three. This was trumped by the magnificent ‘I Can’t Give You Anything (But My Love)’ in August. Russell Thompson Jnr’s falsetto soared wider even than his afro!

David Bowie had morphed into the Thin White Duke but I didn’t like his soul era. Thank goodness for the re-release of ‘Space Oddity’ which went to number one that autumn. This used to be one of my all-time favourites but has since slipped down the list. Still great, though: and a successful musical story with a sad ending is so rare.                                                  

It was also a big year for Country and Western, as we then called it. Oh, C&W. All that drawlin’ and mewlin’ about lervin’, cheatin’, drinkin’ and a-prayin’ by rednecks who think the world is a poorer place since the abolition of slavery. And then there are all the ‘yee-hahs’. Aarghhh! Yet, strangely 1975 gave us a few Country songs I – er - actually quite liked.

Not Tammy Wynette’s awful ‘Stand By Man’, which took the UK by storm in the Spring. In a year when gender equality took a giant leap closer thanks to the Sex Discrimination Act, the sentiments seemed slightly at odds with the mood of the times. In contrast, two other songs surprised me by sounding rather good. First, Ray Stevens stopped streaking and returned to his Country roots by delivering a rollicking piano-banjo version of ‘Misty’. Later, I also found myself enjoying the be-permed Billy-Jo Spears’ ‘Blanket on the Ground’. Fortunately that was pretty much it as far as good Country & Western was concerned. Sorry, Dolly, but normal service was quickly resumed!

Northern Soul was gaining in popularity and, as with so many local ‘underground’ musical movements, related record sales took the genre into the national mainstream. I’d no inkling of what Northern Soul was. I don’t suppose I’d have recognised the term even if I’d lived next-door to one of the hotbeds of the movement, Wigan Casino! Apparently, revivals such as ‘Ghost in My House’ owed their success to Northern Soul DJs and, in turn, future stars like Soft Cell would create new audiences for mid-‘70s songs such as Gloria Jones’ ‘Tainted Love’. 

Had I been sufficiently motivated to read more about it I’d have worked out why two artists in the 1975 charts had Wigan in their names. Wigan’s Chosen Few were created to accompany the instrumental dance track ‘Footsie’ and, more my cup of tea back then, Wigan’s Ovation recorded the more ‘poppy’ ‘Skiing in the Snow’. I never did reconcile a song about winter sports with an industrial town in the North West! Regardless, both made Top of the Pops and did well. 

South East England experienced a notable heatwave that summer and, for me, three records represent those weeks spent sweltering in the classroom or sitting at home, windows wide open. Brian Hyland’s early Sixties hit ‘Sealed with a Kiss’ was suitably slow and sultry, and one-hit wonders Typically Tropical (how apt!) topped the chart with ‘Barbados’. I’ve never been to the island personally but that August, we had to improvise and make some subtle alterations to the lyrics: “Woah! We’re going to Mallorca!” And we were “flying away on Britannia (not Coconut) Airways”. 

At the time of my fourteenth birthday, 10cc were back at the top with the ageless ‘I’m Not in Love’. A few months earlier, I’d enjoyed the punning whimsy of ‘Life is a Minestrone’ but this was a whole new ball game. It was such an innovative sound, with those painstakingly multi-tracked and looped “aaahhhhhhh”s behind Eric Stewart’s electronic piano, gentle vocals and subtle sentiments expressed in clever lyrics. Just imagine a hot Sunday afternoon with that ‘choir’ wafting softly on a light breeze; ‘I’m Not In Love’ would be perfect. 

1975 was the year Rod Stewart armed himself with eyeliner and other cosmetics, and made his Atlantic Crossing to conquer America. The first step was, appropriately enough, the single, ‘Sailing’, which became the second biggest seller in the UK.  It wasn’t my favourite, but it’s an example of how simplicity works. By coincidence, ‘Sailing’ kept another nautical song at number two, ‘The Last Farewell’ by Roger Whittaker. Rod was travelling “to be near you, to be free” but Rog seemed to be sailing home, leaving his love behind. In his chart hits, he always seemed to be off somewhere: leaving Durham Town, heading “over the sea to Skye”. Never mind; you couldn’t dislike Roger Whittaker. He’d been on children’s TV quite a bit, usually showing off his whistling skills, and he had the kind, avuncular appeal of an unpretentious entertainer, certainly not a pop star! Oddly, ‘The Last Farewell’ did much better in the States than ‘Sailing’ but Rod hasn’t looked back since! 

There were other slowies which I didn’t much like but were hard to avoid. Ralph McTell’s ‘Streets of London’ was more to Mum’s taste than mine, and Minnie Ripperton’s ‘Lovin’ You’ – including those irritating chirping birds and eye-wateringly high notes – was possibly better suited to canines. Then there was ‘If’ by Telly Savalas. It was a big year for the American TV cop show ‘Kojak’ but for some reason its star believed he could be a serious recording artist, too. Women did seem to find his deep speaking voice rather sexy but I found a whole song of him intoning the lyrics sheer hell! If Telly’s musical career encouraged William Shatner’s similar move, then ‘If’ has even more to answer for than I originally thought. 

In the credit column I would place the number ones, the dreamy ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’ by Art Garfunkel and Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel’s delightful ‘Come Up and See Me, Make Me Smile’ (I love that acoustic middle eight). Meanwhile John Lennon took ‘Imagine’ to number six, well before it attained classic status. 

Fox were a band with a different vibe, mostly down to the voice and hippyish poses of singer Susan Traynor. I liked their number three hit ‘Only You Can’ and their 1976 effort, ‘S-s-s-single Bed’. One of my faves of the year was ‘If You Think You Know How to Love Me’ by Smokey (later re-named Smokie, after Smokey Robinson threatened legal action!). They’d apparently been around in some form or other for years but once Chinn and Chapman sprinkled their writing/production stardust, they broke through at last. Chris Norman’s croaky vocals, the acoustic guitar, backing harmonies and quality songs made for a winning formula, repeated on the follow-up ‘Don’t Play Your Rock’n’Roll to Me’. Smokie are probably best known for ‘Living Next Door To Alice’, but only because it was appropriated and desecrated years later by Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown. I insist that their 1975 singles are far superior.

At the start of the year, Mum liked Pilot’s ‘January’ so much we actually bought it for her birthday. For me, the only memorable thing about it was the double-necked guitar they played on TOTP! Singer-writer-bassist David Paton had apparently been part of the Bay City Rollers a few years earlier but I’m not sure he fitted in with the new incarnation of the Rollers, who stood head, shoulders and platform shoes above the rest. 

They’d been building their reputation amongst teenage girls throughout the previous twelve months but as soon as Les McKeown sang the first line of ‘Bye Bye Baby’ in early ’75, they went stratospheric. ‘Rollermania’ out-did anything generated by the Osmonds, David Cassidy or indeed any band since The Beatles. Girls burst into tears at the very thought of Les, Eric, Woody, Alan and Derek. Boys didn’t get a look-in! I hadn’t been aware of The Four Seasons’ original, but the Rollers sold a million in no time at all. 

‘Give A Little Love’ was their summer love song, a chart-topper while I was confined to bed ill at Uncle David’s. However, when they released ‘Money Honey’ in the autumn, it already felt like their day had gone. They never had another number one single and Britain was faced with a pile of unwanted plaid. Modern girls whose mums and grandmothers roll their eyes at their obsession with One Direction, Justin Bieber or whoever, should just ask about that box of yellowing posters and tartan scarves in the attic….. 

Another of my picks from the year’s pop crop was Carpenters’ ‘Please Mister Postman’. As with ‘Bye Bye Baby’, I was ignorant of the song’s origins, but it didn’t matter. However, the passing years have not been kind to this record. It’s that dreaded Country vibe again; give me one of their straightforward ballads any day. 

Researching for this memoir when my own mind failed me led me to the opinion that 1975 must have had more comedy or novelty records than possibly any other. As with anything in life, humour can be very personal and subjective, and so these humorous songs were very hit and miss. I can’t say I was a fan of Windsor Davies and Don Estelle’s ‘Whispering Grass’ yet, performed as their characters from BBC sitcom ‘It Ain’t Half Hot Mum’, it was curiously engaging and was the fourth biggest seller of the year! “Sing, Lofty!” It wasn’t strictly speaking a comedy record. Estelle sang it straight in his impeccable tenor but Davies brought his Sergeant-Majorly Welsh baritone to the spoken section and OTT gurning to their TOTP performances. 

Billy Connolly was just beginning to make a name for himself as a comic and actor but the trouble was that his Glaswegian accent was almost incomprehensible to anyone south of Hadrian’s Wall. His re-write of Tammy Wynette’s ‘D.I.V.O.R.C.E.’ proved a major step towards his achieving eventual national treasure status. However, hearing the song again reminded me that the song wasn’t funny at all. Forget the words and simply watch Billy; he just made you want to laugh. 

Meanwhile, Max Boyce managed a feat that even Billy Connolly couldn’t: a number one album. The charismatic musician and songwriter had become an icon of South Wales and, boosted by a few late-evening network TV series, had spread his fanbase way beyond Cardiff, Swansea and the Valleys. Everyone was going “Oggi oggi, ogg, oi, oi, oi!” even if we didn’t know one end of a (giant) leek from the other. Max didn’t just write rugby-related crowdpleasers or humorous tales; there were also a lot of wistful ballads reflecting his own mining community heritage. Dad and I had become so enamoured of his showmanship and mix of musical material that I actually bought his ‘The Incredible Plan’ LP. From its success, obviously I wasn’t the only one. 

At Christmas, I also purchased the single of Laurel and Hardy’s ‘Trail of the Lonesome Pine’, ostensibly for Mum and Dad but really for me. To be honest, for all their comedy genius, I’ve never been a fan of the musical bits in their films; they just get in the way of that wonderful slapstick and looks to camera that left me helpless with laughter. This excerpt from ‘Way Out West’ was an exception. There were bits we could all act out, and it had the temerity to hit number two in the chart. 

Now if ‘disco’ in the title meant you had to dance, then ‘funky’ signalled the opportunity to laugh. Two top five songs demonstrated that it was working. Neither song contained anything resembling actual funk, unless the ‘k’ is silent! First, The Goodies transferred their TV popularity to Top of the Pops with ‘Funky Gibbon’. Completely pointless, but as with much of Bill Oddie’s musical contributions, who cared? Here were grown men from Oxbridge dressed in colourful clothes prancing around like apes, and we loved it! Brummie ‘stand-up’ Jasper Carrott was less familiar to me, featuring mainly on ITV. That changed when he released ‘Funky Moped’. Essentially a silly tale of a girlfriend lost to another bloke with a bike, it was a decent semi-rock record you could dance to. Also, you can’t beat lines like:- 

        “As soon as me moped’s front mudguard is fixed,

        Gonna find the creep and put him down (down, down…)”! 

A lot of comedy doesn’t stand the test of time. After all, once you’ve heard a punchline, or the twist in a tall tale, it’s lost the element of surprise. But if you have a funny song without jokes, you have an enduring winner.

As in the previous year, my 14 year-old self didn’t really pick out any authentic classics in 1975. Until the end of November, that is. That was when I and all my contemporaries were first exposed to the jaw-dropping promo film for the new single by Queen called ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. From the opening silhouettes to the man with the gong, I remember being enthralled. I had no clue what it as about. “Beelzebub has a devil for a sideboard…”? All those Galileos and Piccolos? Four decades of documentaries and interviews with Freddie, Brian, Roger and Eric, and countless listens haven’t really enlightened me, either. But so what? All the effort required to write and record it certainly paid off. It was number one for nine weeks, then for a further five upon its re-release in the wake of Freddie Mercury’s death in 1991. ‘Wayne’s World’ then gave us the immortal headbanging in the car scene, but ‘Bo Rhap’ still looks and sounds fresh.  

Records commonly touted as The Best Ever usually have a negative effect on me yet I cannot think of another which combines melody, mood, rhythm, rock, innovation and invention in such an unforgettable way. Brian May recently said that he still enjoyed listening to the track when it came on the radio, and it wasn’t just ego talking. For all Bohemian Rhapsody’s history and intellectual dissection, I absolutely agree with him. It sounds as absorbing as it did the first time I heard it. Click on this reference link to remind yourself of Queen’s six-minute magnum opus and the film which launched the whole pop video industry.

1974 – Well, I know I'm not super hip

Ah, 1974. The year when I entered my teens. I may have had some unforgiveable strops at home but at school I was all sweetness and light. I associate a lot of June and July pop with summer lunchtimes on the school field. Weather permitting, we’d have a kickaround (I was cheekily nicknamed Johan after Dutch maestro Cruyff whose ‘turn’ thrilled us all in the World Cup). On Tuesdays, we’d then sprawl on the turf listening on somebody’s tinny tranny to Radio 1’s revelation of the new charts. There was barely time to hear the number one just before 1pm, when we had to scamper back to class.

Whenever I hear tracks such as R Dean Taylor’s ‘There’s a Ghost in My House’, Cockney Rebel’s ‘Judy Teen’ or Showaddywaddy’s debut ‘Hey, Rock’n’Roll’ I can almost smell the new-mown grass and post-football sweat!

Another big hit in the summer term was ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For the Both of Us’ by Sparks. Back then, it had mere novelty value but now I regard it as a Seventies classic. Russell Mael’s frantic falsetto and the peculiar piano poses of brother Ron – dubbed by us ‘the Sparks loony’ – made for an unusual act. Nevertheless, the song left me breathless, and still does. Later, they turned down the pace for ‘Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth’ but the result was also highly entertaining. They’ve never stopped working either. While not often troubling the charts, they’ve been consistent darlings of UK music journos. American-born, maybe, but surely approaching the status of British national treasures.

A young Scottish group called The Bay City Rollers were beginning to win the hearts of schoolgirls, with four top ten singles. Some long-haired art-rockers with a really ugly lead singer also released some interesting records, the best being ‘Killer Queen’. We were to hear a lot more from them! Leo Sayer’s career began at the start of the year in clown’s costume and make-up, performing the engagingly quirky ‘The Show Must Go On’ then the character was discarded for another entertaining top five single, ‘Long Tall Glasses’. However, there were also some appealing songs from performers more commonly linked to the previous decade.

Lulu took an unexpected change of musical direction with David Bowie’s ‘The Man Who Sold the World’, The Rolling Stones were back on form with ‘It’s Only Rock’n’Roll’ (the one with the promo film featuring the boys being slowly submerged in bubbles!) and The Hollies brought out possibly their best single, ‘The Air That I Breathe’, featuring a brilliant guitar intro and haunting vocals from Allan Clarke.

Paul McCartney & Wings had huge success with their album ‘Band on the Run’, and I enjoyed the title track. It was one of those singles with three distinct sections which works a treat. The album cover was also memorable for featuring Paul, Linda and Denny dressed as escaping prisoners posing with a very mixed bunch of celebrities, from Michael Parkinson to film star James Coburn and boxer John Conteh! Only The Carpenters’ ‘Singles 1969-73’ sold more albums than ‘Band on the Run’ that year.

Coincidentally, Alan Price and The Scaffold each made the top ten simultaneously with songs celebrating the towns of their birth. Not earth-shattering, but both the autobiographical ‘Jarrow Song’ and ‘Liverpool Lou’ were very catchy tunes, also heard and hummed on the Mayflower School field.

The American heartthrobs were starting to lose their grip. The Osmonds showed Louis Walsh and Boyzone the future with ‘Love Me For a Reason’ but there were no chart-toppers for Donny, Jimmy or David Cassidy. Britain was crying out for a teenybopper idol of our own, and he emerged in the form of David Essex.

He was unusual, possibly unique in progressing from musical theatre to pop. The previous year, ‘Rock On’ had been dark, dangerous, moody and mysterious, hitting number three.  While playing on Essex’s curly-haired photogenic looks, it was not pop as I knew it. ‘I’m Gonna Make You a Star’ changed all that. The Eastender became a fun entertainer with a winning smile, and, contrary to his lyric, definitely became ‘super hip’ and not at all ‘out of style’! 1975’s ‘Hold Me Close’ took him even closer to his London roots.

On the other hand, the glorious era of Glam was dissolving, but not before a few last hurrahs. Suzi Quatro and Alvin Stardust topped the charts early in ’74 with ‘Devil Gate Drive’ and ‘Jealous Mind’, respectively, while Slade narrowly missed the top spot with the semi-acoustic ‘Far, Far Away’. Gary Glitter did manage it with ‘Always Yours’, but his backing group emerged from his silvery shadow as The Glitter Band and out-sold it with the drum-heavy ‘Angel Face’. 

Away from Wizzard, Roy Wood released some solo stuff (sans wig), most notably the excellent ‘Forever’, on which he inevitably sang, wrote, produced and played all the instruments. Thereafter, whether on his own or with the band, his new music never really connected with me again. Rediscovering his Move material from the Sixties, such as the dreamy 'Blackberry Way', provided adequate compensation. 

Despite the more flamboyant costumes and ear-rings of Rob Davis, I’m not sure whether Mud were truly Glam rockers. Yes or no, the group were definitely the most successful singles artists of 1974. ‘Tiger Feet’ was fun from start to finish, as this TOTP performance proves, topping the year’s sales chart. The dance moves also live on to this day! ‘When the Cat Crept In’ provided more of the same and then in December there was Les Gray’s unashamed Elvis impression on ‘Lonely This Christmas’. I’ll never forget the TOTP performance with the spoken section mimed by a ventriloquist’s dummy. A sad, mawkish song which made you smile; only Mud could do that. 

From an early age, if you’d asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d have said a drummer. Even in the Sixties, when TOTP came on I’d take the fat wooden knitting needles from Mum’s case, arrange the cushions on an armchair and away I’d go! I don’t recall having a particular role model. Not Ringo, Charlie Watts, not even the manic Keith Moon of The Who. 

I suppose I paid more attention to drummers who sang; Dave Clark and The Tremeloes’ Dave Munden spring to mind. In 1974, there was another candidate in the bearded form of Phil Wright from Nottingham’s finest, Paper Lace. No ‘Britain’ Got Talent’ or ‘X Factor’ in those days (hallelujah!) but the Seventies equivalent ‘Opportunity Knocks’ produced a few chart-toppers of its own. Paper Lace enjoyed a year of success, starting with ‘Billy, Don’t be a Hero’. A pleasant enough song, with words we could all sing, it was the third biggest-seller of 1974, but not exactly stuff to make young boys determined to buy a drum set! 

Cozy Powell was a different kettle of fish.  Here was a genuine rocker: dark hair, pointy face and studded, leather wristband. At the start of ’74 he reached number three with what must have been the first drumming (near-) instrumental hit, ‘Dance with The Devil’. I even have the 7” single somewhere! ‘Na na-na-na’ was a more conventional pop-rock song from Cozy’s band, but I liked it, too. I don’t remember him troubling the charts again, other than as rent-a-drummer for Whitesnake, Rainbow and others. Probably the last time I pulled out the knitting needles, too.

Drums were not particularly prominent on ‘Seasons in the Sun’ but, hot on the heels of ‘Billy, Don’t be a Hero’, it gave us another number one we could all sing along to. The lyrics had undergone various transformations from Jacques Brel’s harsher, sardonic French original, but Canadian Terry Jacks’ version was a sentimental ballad which went on to sell millions worldwide. What I remember was TOTP spending weeks trying to locate film of Terry Jacks performing the song, having had to make do with endless re-runs of Pan’s People swaying to the melody. They finally tracked down a performance of Jacks just before it was displaced by the Eurovision winner. 

And what a winner that was! Held in Brighton, the Contest resulted in a first triumph for Sweden, the first by a band and the first sung in English by a non-UK nation. The victors were, of course, ABBA; the song, ‘Waterloo’. I recall first the conductor dressed as Napoleon, then the foursome seemed even more outlandish in glam-rock outfits. Cliff Richard, it wasn’t! If the Swedes weren’t sufficiently different, heaven knows what the continental audience thought of The Wombles as the interval act! 

Although it signalled a dramatic sea-change in the competition, I didn’t especially like ‘Waterloo’ at the time. Yes, I preferred it to Olivia Newton-John’s old-style jolly Eurovision stomper but then who didn’t?! The ’74 Contest also stands out in my mind because no fewer than four of that year’s participants made the UK top ten. They were all very different, too, each with their own appeal. Besides Abba and Olivia, there were oddball Dutch duo Mouth and MacNeal (‘I See a Star’) and Italian Gigliola Cinquetti (‘Si’) who’d won ten years previously. It was probably the first and last time our charts had such a continental look, and had so many Eurovision songs I liked. 

1974 also brought us a couple of chart-toppers which played on social and cultural flavours of the day. For some reason, the practice of people stripping off and enlivening/ruining* (*delete as applicable) sporting events by ‘streaking’ (i.e. running around naked) had gathered momentum, mainly in the States. The versatile, tongue-in-cheek American Ray Stevens knocked up a cheeky novelty song ‘The Streak’ which duly sold plenty on both sides of the Atlantic. It amused schoolkids like me of course, but fortunately none of us was tempted to streak ourselves! 

That autumn, it was kung fu’s turn to hog the UK pop spotlight. Bruce Lee had died the previous year but I wonder what he’d have made of Jamaican Carl Douglas and ‘Kung Fu Fighting’. More martial farce than martial arts, it was nonetheless a catchy chunk of funk-pop which caught the zeitgeist. Huu-hh! It wasn’t really “a little bit frightening” but Douglas and his producer/co-writer Biddu certainly “did it with expert timing”. Hahh! 

Another Jamaican chopped ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ from the top spot. I had, and still have, a soft spot for Ken Boothe’s smooth ‘rock steady’ cover of David Gates’ ‘Everything I Own’. Or ‘Anyting I own’, as Boothe insisted on singing. Until Bob Marley hit the mainstream, this was my favourite reggae-ish song. In fact, it probably still is. 

Another beautiful slow number was Hot Chocolate’s ‘Emma’. The group famously enjoyed a top ten single in each year of the Seventies but it wasn’t until this tear-jerker that I sat up and took notice. Most of their hits were more up-tempo but the rhythm and lyrics of ‘Emma’ were absorbing. Watch this clip and I dare you not to be moved by Errol Brown’s performance, especially his eyebrows. Somebody, just give him a hug! While this was the year of classic ballads ‘Candle in the Wind’ and ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me’, it was Errol, not Elton, for me. 

Back at the lower end of the spectrum of ‘cool’, two other acts caught my ear and eye. The Rubettes sprung from nowhere to pop royalty status in 1974 thanks to ‘Sugar Baby Love’ and that piercing falsetto intro by early lead vocalist Paul da Vinci. I actually preferred their December hit ‘Juke Box Jive’ by which time their much-parodied (mainly by The Goodies!) white berets and jackets were losing their novelty value! Also, what use was our brand new colour TV if the costumes were black and white?! 

The other ‘band’ had their origins not in a studio but in a series of children’s books and subsequent TV series. Yes, folks, I’m talking about those cuddly litter-pickers from Wimbledon and Eurovision entertainers, The Wombles. Their debut was simply the programme’s theme tune: “Underground, overground, wombling free….” and seemed destined to be a one-hit wonder. After all, what can you do with a bunch of imaginary furry creatures? The vocals sounded to me like Bernard Cribbins who’d narrated the TV animation, but of course in reality the music, production and singing were all the responsibility of Mike Batt, then still in his early twenties. How was I to know that Batt was a talented composer and musician who would turn The Wombles into one of 1974’s biggest-selling acts? The second single, ‘Remember You’re a Womble’, proved his pedigree. Indeed, it had all the hallmarks of Roy Wood and tongue-in-cheek 10cc, which is high praise indeed: a nod to rock’n’roll here, a burst of folky fiddle there and a catchy chorus. Of course, the lyrics were hardly awe-inspiring. You didn’t want to be heard walking to school singing: 

            “When it's foggy on the common and you just can't see
             And I womble into you and you womble into me”! 

Yet it was a genuine pop-rock song, and the magic formula also took ‘We Wish You a Wombling Merry Christmas’ to number two. Why it’s rarely played or featured on Christmas compilations is beyond me. It’s neglect on a criminal scale! In between they even introduced audiences simultaneously to Mozart and waltz via ‘Minuetto Allegretto’. Fun, educational and, thanks to their tidying exploits on Wimbledon Common, environmentally-friendly icons, too. The Wombles were way ahead of their time! 

For all the likeable chart entrants I’ve mentioned, at the time I felt there were few stand-out songs. My contemporary favourite was ‘I Get a Kick out of You’, which Australian folkie Gary Shearston took to number seven. I’d no idea it had been a Cole Porter composition from the Thirties; I just loved the acoustic rhythm and the violin bit in the middle!

Meanwhile, the charts were starting to fill with a new American sound. Motown had been everywhere for a decade but now we were hearing danceable records featuring lush production with strings (e.g. Barry White) and brass (including Hues Corporation’s ‘Rock the Boat’). I particularly recall being struck by the piercing ‘whoooos’ on the fast and furious ‘Queen of Clubs’ by KC and The Sunshine Band. Then there were the stuttering vocals on Bachman Turner Overdrive’s ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’, forever linked in my head with Harry Enfield’s Nineties DJ comedy creation ‘Nicey’: “Let’s ROCK!"

Yet perhaps the most enduring song from 1974 was another co-written and produced by Harry (KC) Casey, and recorded, purely because he happened to be in the studio at the time, by George McCrae. ‘Rock Your Baby’ lured you in with that sexy shuffle beat, followed by that keyboard melody and disco guitar, before George’s stunning falsetto took you to a different place altogether. It sounded like a love song but with such an infectious rhythm made you want to dance at the same time. It has been retrospectively labelled the first disco number one but at the time it was just a delicious record with the falsetto, open shirt and keyboards pre-dating the Saturday Night Fever Bee Gees by three years. Disco had arrived!