OCTOBER 1976

 

 

This month I decided to form a group that would devote itself to the arts, principally theatre and music, along with some of my fellow school pupils. They eventually revealed themselves as a bunch of backstabbing cunts but happily the first quarter of 1979 is not going to be reassessed here. Our sole achievement was to produce a play which we eventually performed in May 1977, having rehearsed it for several months. It was a children’s play and no masterpiece, although it wasn’t rubbish either. I haven’t really recovered from the shit that got shovelled on me as a schoolboy, since these are supposed to be vital years in terms of forming a human being and you never get past what you experienced in those years. As I previously said, however, nobody would talk to me at primary school either – certainly not in any friendly way – so obviously there was Something In My Brain Which Was An Impediment. Use the comments section below to suggest what that might have been, and may still be.

 

Notes on Text

 

“If You Leave Me Now” did indeed proceed quite swiftly to the top, while “The Summer Of My Life” had to be content with three weeks at number seven.

 

“You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” became the third Leo Sayer single to peak at number two in the UK, but it was a near-miss.

 

Possibly because I am now what professionals call "time-limited," my views about some of these songs are now more generous than once they were. The David Essex song actually isn't bad at all (if a bit reminiscent of Joe Cocker's "Marjorine") and I don't even mind old Paul Nicholas' cheery nautical romp.

 

 

2 October

 

JAMES BROWN: Get Up Offa That Thing/Release The Pressure (Polydor 2066 687)

 

 

 

James Brown doesn’t have many hit singles in Britain and the ones he does occasionally have don’t get very high in the charts, but that may be due to extraneous factors. Nevertheless this is fiercely funky and much like Can could theoretically go on forever. You do get the feeling that he’s heard Parliament and is determined not to be left out. Dynamic and in its blustering way very avant-garde.

 

 

 

J.A.L.N. BAND: Disco Music/I Like It (Magnet MAG 73)

 

 

 

This is the difference between American and British funk – the Americans just have the swing, the essential feel to their funk, whereas British musicians usually sound as though they’re struggling to match it but can’t quite “get it.” In the process, however, and possibly by accident, they come up with something quite unique. This feels more rigidly controlled, particularly rhythmically, than the James Brown record, but it discovers its own sense of mobility.

 

 

 

SHERBET: Howzat/Motor Of Love (Epic EPC 4574)

 

 

 

Earnest Australian bubblegum-rock with insistent electric piano, strained stadium rock vocals and a verse which harmonically, if not rhythmically, recalls the Pink Panther theme. Radio 1 play it all the time so it will do well. I quite like it.

 

 

 

 

9 October

 

ENGLAND DAN & JOHN FORD COLEY: I’d Really Love To See You Tonight/It’s Not The Same (Atlantic K 10810)

 

 

 

Big American hit making it over here; this duo come across as a brighter, more generous Bellamy Brothers and this is an unspectacular but nice midtempo song. Whereas Dr Hook and the Wurzels just sound like dirty old men wanting to get into your knickers, these mild-mannered fellows just want a pleasant evening, hanging out and having a good time. Hopefully not both of them with the same person, though…

 

 

 

THE DRIFTERS: Every Nite’s A Saturday Night With You/I’ll Get To Know Your Name Along The Way (Bell 1491)

 

 

 

Make up your minds, you silly old men – is it “nite” or “night”?

 

 

 

RANDY EDELMAN: The Uptown, Uptempo Woman/Farewell Fairbanks (20th Century BTC 2225)

 

 

 

Anguished and guiltily arty MoR ballad which tries to tell a story but Edelman is no Harry Chapin.

 

 

 

THE “DETROIT” SPINNERS: The Rubberband Man (Part 1)/The Rubberband Man (Part 2) (Atlantic K 10807)

 

 

 

I put the inverted commas around “Detroit” because how stupid would you be to get them mixed up with the “In My Liverpool Home” Spinners who give blood on television every ten minutes? Their first hit here in over two years, with Thom Bell writing and producing, and it WIPES all of the Stylistics cabaret dreck firmly away! Fabulous bouncy rhythms, epic chord changes and a general air of carefree ebullience – top twenty rather than top ten, I’d say, mainly because the Spinners never appear on The Two Ronnies or Seaside Special, but this is really first-rate soul-pop.

 

 

 

TAVARES: Don’t Take Away The Music (Part 1)/Don’t Take Away The Music (Part 2) (Capitol CL 15886)

 

 

 

All these Parts 1 and 2 affairs indicate that really I’ll need to get the 12-inch single versions of those dance tunes, although Woolworths in Hamilton are yet to stock those. Anyway, Tavares are doing fantastically well at the moment and this should easily follow “Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel” into the top ten; its yearning melody recalls a very famous classical waltz, the name of which I can’t remember at the moment but which gets used for TV commercials all the time, and it’s very, VERY danceable. To think we’ve got a school disco coming up next month and for the first time in my life it isn’t the Dashing White Sergeant!

 

 

 

MANHATTANS: Hurt/We’ll Have Forever To Love (CBS 4562)

 

 

 

Elvis did an explosive version of this song several months ago – this is a lot more restrained but should make an equally-dignified sequel to “Kiss And Say Goodbye.” Top five again.

 

 

 

SMOKIE: I’ll Meet You At Midnight/Miss You (RAK 241)

 

 

 

Smokie must be the most boring pop group in Britain. Are Chinn and Chapman so ashamed of their bubblegum hits that they now want to compose “serious” songs. Another dreary midtempo slice of Bradford soft-rock which is not redeemed by its curious final chord, which seems to echo the introduction to “Doina De Jale.”

 

 

 

DEMIS ROUSSOS: When Forever Has Gone/Woman (Philips 6042 186)

 

 

 

Summer has certainly gone but that won’t stop anxious housewives from going crazy over another very old-fashioned sounding and histrionic ballad from the Phenomenon. Engelbert Humperdinck could have recorded this in 1968. Perhaps that is what they want.

 

 

 

 

16 October

 

CLIMAX BLUES BAND: Couldn’t Get It Right/Fat Maybellene (BTM Records SBT 105)

 

 

 

Extremely groovy pub rock hustler with Stretch-style swing and Alexis Korner/CCS-type growling vocals (“So deep I’m gonna DROOOOOOOWWWWWWN!”) and a really catchy hook – this is going to be quite big.

 

 

 

PAUL NICHOLAS: Dancing With The Captain/Freedom City (RSO 2090 206)

 

 

 

The Clockwork Orange lookalike has already done this on television, featuring the world’s worst dance routine. So flimsy and feeble it makes “Reggae Like It Used To Be” sound like Marcus Garvey. Are record-buyers really that unfussy?

 

 

 

WILD CHERRY: Play That Funky Music/The Lady Wants Your Money (Epic EPC 4593)

 

 

 

The latest in the line of Billboard smashes crossing over to the UK; very smartly self-mocking and genuinely funky – in a “rock” kind of way – this doesn’t mess about.

 

 

 

CHICAGO: If You Leave Me Now/Together Again (CBS 4603)

 

 

 

…but talking of American smashes, this has topped the Billboard chart and must surely be on its way to doing likewise here; the band’s first British hit single in more than six years, very different from “25 Or 6 To 4,” is a carefully-paced and well-structured orchestral ballad with a rather irritating lead vocal by Peter Cetera. However, this will be earmarked for the “last dance” section at discos and is going to be enormous; there’ll be no getting away from it.

 

 

 

SIMON MAY: The Summer Of My Life/The Summer Of My Life (Instrumental) (Pye 7N 45627)

 

 

 

Although this has leapfrogged over Chicago in the charts, no doubt due to its use in Crossroads, the song and its singer are far too anxious to carry the same appeal as “If You Leave Me Now” and overall Mr May tries just a little too hard to recreate that “MacArthur Park”/”Music” multipart epic magic. He sounds as if he’s just scraped his pinkie on a Cresta can. Pineapple flavour.

 

 

 

 

23 October

 

AVERAGE WHITE BAND: Queen Of My Soul/Would You Stay (Atlantic K 10825)

 

 

 

Harmonically classy soul-pop, probably too subtle to become a really big hit, but fans will enjoy.

 

 

 

JOAN ARMATRADING: Love And Affection/Help Yourself (A&M AMS 7249)

 

 

 

The St Kitts-born singer-songwriter has been threatening to break through for a couple of years but this is really one of 1976’s finest pop singles, with its opening lyrical nod to “I’m Not In Love,” its circuitously self-questioning lyrics – Armatrading sounds like she’s improvising the words in line with her band’s music – and a domestically panoramic production by Glyn Johns, incorporating shoulder-shrugging deep strings, Jimmy Jewell’s softly-acerbic alto solo and a random basso profundo voice reminiscent of the Temptations’ “Ball Of Confusion.” This is profound adult music, so won’t be the immense hit it deserves to be because the public seems to prefer easily-digestible schmaltz. But this is a major musical figure rising.

 

 

 

LALO SCHIFRIN: Jaws/Quiet Village (CTI Records CTSP 005)

 

 

 

This was unexpected; the former Dizzy Gillespie pianist and Mission Impossible theme composer surfaces with a disco version of the Jaws theme! So seemingly absurd a concept that it ironically works. I saw the film at Hamilton Odeon with my parents in 1975. I don’t know how I got in but nobody asked any questions. The scariest part of the film has nothing to do with any sharks. The entire audience gasped in genuine horror.

 

 

 

 

30 October

 

LEO SAYER: You Make Me Feel Like Dancing/Magdelena (Chrysalis CHS 2119)

 

 

 

Leo Sayer doesn’t put out many singles, but when he does he makes sure they get noticed. This time he ventures quite wonderfully into strutting midtempo disco with probably the catchiest hook and chorus he’s come up with yet and an elastic, booming production by Richard Perry. His fifth hit, and all five have been in entirely different styles – how many other artists could you say that about? Two of those made it to number two; this great record suggests that he could go one further.

 

 

 

NILSSON: Without You/Everybody’s Talkin’/Kojak Columbo (RCA Victor MaxiMillion Series RCA 2733)

 

 

 

Another three-track retrospective from RCA, keen to repeat the success they had with David Bowie and Glenn Miller’s back catalogues. You can’t really pin Harry Nilsson down that easily, though; there he is, performing perhaps the most wracked and hurt of all male pop vocal performances on “Without You” but also happy just to cruise through the amiable wreckage of life (“Everybody’s Talkin’”) or simply have a laugh (“Kojak Columbo”). It’s only four-and-three-quarter years since “Without You” was a number one, though, so people may be warier this time around.

 

 

 

NEIL DIAMOND: Beautiful Noise/Home Is A Wounded Heart (CBS 4601)

 

 

 

Also back in our charts after a four-year absence, this is almost a late summer record, with hazy echoes of imaginary marching bands filtering through the singer’s front room and very clever use of the Moog synthesiser. Produced by Robbie Robertson of The Band.

 

 

 

DAVID ESSEX: Coming Home/Good Loving (CBS 4486)

 

 

 

Perhaps because his record label was frightened off by the commercial underperformance of “City Lights,” this is a much more conventional offering from Essex; pleasant enough and instantly forgettable, and not really pop music any more.