Look at The Person on Your Left...

     Bishop Eustace Prep sat on RT 70 in Pennsauken, NJ right by the Cooper River.  It was a small prep school with a good reputation for both academics and sports.  There were about 160 kids in my graduating class, about half the size of other Catholic schools in the area like Holy Cross (where my wife went) or Camden Catholic (where my three siblings went).  So much great literature and film has been dedicated to the high school experience, I’m not sure how much insight I can add.  But if you want to learn more about High School life, in general, I suggest you check out the excellent documentary Fast Times at Ridgemont High. So let’s lay the groundwork, shall we?

First of all, the main players for the next 4 years:

Don “The Master of Disaster” – Best friend and partner in crime  

Janet – A Beatles fanatic 

DeCosmo – Biggest Led Zeppelin Fan ever.

Baxter – In tune with new music and hater of all things Zeppelin

Dolan – Friend and classic rock music nut.  Drive a 69 Charger.

Anne – Socialite.  Anne hosted the best parties and ran the social scene.

Sean – Guitar player, songwriter, sometime boyfriend of Anne

Romasco – The Underground music source

Buzz Henry – Knew who Bootsy Collins was

Toal – The mystic: authority on The Dead, Tolkien, Zen 

Limanni – Guitar player and musical partner

Ken – Fantastic artist and avid reader.  Had great Halloween parties

        Fr Angleo (RIP) – Cigar chomping Principal and Don Corleone incarnation

Of course these little fragmentary sentence bites don’t begin to describe how great it was to know these people and the wonderful influence they had on my life.  But it was high school and although it wasn’t always wonderful, it would all be memorable. 

The cool and scary thing about high school is how instantaneously my world expanded.  In grade school, all my friends were a bike ride away.  At the Prep, the universe expanded like the big bang.  My friends were from Medford Lakes, Deptford, Runnemede, and yes even Pennsauken and I would spend a lot more time on the phone talking to everyone, until I finally had my license.  There were only a handful of kids from my grade school that went to Eustace.  The others went to Camden Catholic or to Pennsauken HS and I would never see most of them again.  Even at the Prep, friends would come and go.  With a high price tag, the pressure was on to keep up the grades.  From that first day, I doubt there’s anyone who doesn’t remember Father Angelo’s “Prep Talk”:

“Look at the person on your left, look to your right.  Look at the person in front of you and behind you.  By the end of this year, one of you will be gone.”  Oh yeah – those were happy times.

With so few friends around, how do you connect with new people?  Through popular culture of course!  Music, books and movies provide fertile ground for discovering about people, what thy like and don’t like and maybe a little insight into who they are.  I met one of my best friends, Ken, thanks to Tolkien.  Early in freshman year, He saw I was reading The Lord of the Rings and struck up a conversation with me.  Other friendships were a matter of classroom geography.  Randy sat next to me in homeroom and he was from Deptford and I believe that lead to meeting my friend Don and a whole Deptford contingent.  

One, of my earliest memories of the Prep, apart from the less-than-subtle opening day threat, was the first dance.  A Freshman only mixer in the cafeteria, the event was heavy on the dance tunes, of course.  But I think it was they first time I ever heard Funky Town.

The End is In Sight

Funky Town was a nameless, faceless, paint by numbers hit capitalizing on a popular genre.  Was it any wonder that the disco backlash couldn’t be far behind?  The end of disco loomed on the horizon like a blazing fireball exploding in the heartland. But before it did, it would take down some of the biggest names in rock’s pantheon.  It seemed like everyone wanted to get in on the act.  The Rolling Stones release Some Girls in 1978.  Blech.  I never cared for Miss You and I was more of a Beatles fan anyway.   Kiss’ foray in to disco, I Was Made for Loving You, tried to bring a harder edge to disco, but that wasn’t working either and it started Kiss on a downward spiral that would take them years to recover from.  

I think ELO’s Discovery (Disco? Very!) in 1979 was a big disappointment for me, although it does include a few of my favorite ELO SO songs, like Last Train to London, Confusion and Midnight Blue - but Shine A Little Love is as pure a dance tune as you’re going to find.  I’m sure Jeff Lynne would like everyone to forget the dreadful movie Xanadu - But thanks to my Blog, now everyone can remember that they wrote some of the songs about a magical night club that, in the end, turned out to be a Roller Disco.  The movie put a taint on one of my favorite bands - an uncharacteristic misstep for the savvy Jeff Lynne.

It’s no surprise that Barry Manilow would latch on tot disco to score one of his biggest hits ever with Copacabana - but even Bruce Springsteen couldn’t escape the fever unscathed.  He penned Protection for Donna Summer.  But the worst and I mean WORST offender was Rod Stewart.  I hated Do Ya think I’m Sexy so much that flames would shoot out of the side of my ears whenever that song came on.  I think it was # 1 on the charts for 2 months.  

One of my clearest memories from this time was an ongoing argument with Dolan about whether or not Pink Floyd’s Another Brink in the Wall was a disco song or not.  He insisted that the drum beat was pure disco.  I argued in the negative, but I don’t think we ever resolved that one.  Even the fledgling New Wave Movement took its hits. Blondie’s Heart of Glass was their break through hit, but the original version was more of a Ska/Reggae number before the record producer’s got a hold of it.

But in July 1979 there was a sweet revenge when The Chicago White Sox promoted Disco Demolition Night between games.  The ill-thought out stunt had fans bringing their disco albums to the stadium to be tossed onto a pile in centerfield, where there would be detonated with a charge of explosive.  Well, the explosion tore hole in the outfield, the vinyl shrapnel flew every where and the soon to be drunk fans were tossing their razor-edged discs all over the stadium.  The White Sox ended up forfeiting the game, which I believe is the last time a game had to be forfeited in the American League.  And out of those ashes, A phoenix was ready to rise....

Power Pop Returns!

But there was one song and one album that kicked it all off.  Live at Budokan was released in October 1978.  The version of Surrender off of this album hit me like a wall of sound.  I think I remember doing a double take and thinking “Whoa! What was that?!”  I immediately got the album, too.  Cheap Trick was more popular in Japan than they were in the US and this album wasn’t originally intended distribution in the US.  I had never even heard of Budokan! Somehow, bootleg copies made their way to the US and hit college radio stations and the record company ended releasing a US version and Cheap Trick became a household name! The second side of this album was on my turntable for a long time:

Ain’t That a Shame kicked it off with a rumbling Bun E Carlos drum lead-in that always had me playing some serious air drums.  I Want You to Want Me, was next.  You could hear the Japanese kids screaming in the background, nearly drowning out the band, like when the Beatles played Shea Stadium. I still crank up this song whenever it comes on the radio, especially when Rick Nielsen bends those strings on the main riff.  Surrender was next, a crunchy, totally catchy, subtly political and entirely angsty power pop anthem for a new generation of disaffected youth!  I loved the Kiss reference, too!

When I woke up mom and dad

Were rolling on the couch

Rolling numbers, rock and rolling

Got my Kiss records out!

Besides Cheap Trick, there were two other landmark songs that marked the changing tide in the Fall of 1978.  First was a one-hit wonder from Canada. – Okay, I know that doesn’t really narrow it down for you, but there was no mistaking this high voiced sensation from the great white north.  Nick Gilder (did you think I meant someone else??) brought a little glam and androgyny to his 1978 # 1 hit Hot Child in the City.  Hot Child, was a song that, even though it made it # 1, no one really admitted to liking.  Between subject matter – teenage runaways and prostitution and Nick’s gender-bending delivery, this was a song that you generally didn’t want your parents to catch you listening to.  

On the other hand, My Best Friend’s Girl, from the Car’s self-titled debut was as radio friendly as New Wave got in 1978.  Elliot Easton’s guitar work was both reminiscent of rock-a-billy twangers like Eddie Cochrane and still modern enough to fit the times.  Rick Ocasek’s quirky voice gave the band a great original sound that helped them find a niche that would keep them on the charts for nearly the next 10 years.  The debut also had the great power pop hit Just What I Needed and was a more typically sounding Cars song.  

Novelty Act or the Real Deal?

Okay, one last mention from 1978.  Now that I was in high school, I got to do all kinds of grown up stuff.  Like staying up late and watching Saturday Night Live!  There were great skits back then, especially the Mr. Bill sketches.  “Oh No! It’s Sluggo!!”  A sketch that spilled over into the main stream in a big way was the alter egos created by Belushi and Ackroyd as The Blues Brothers.  I remember when they crossed the SNL stage, dressed in black suits, Ray Bans and pork pie hats, and launched into a great cover of Sam and Dave’s Soul Man.  To me, Belushi & Ackroyd really became Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues, soul brothers on a mission to save the Blues from being swept aside by the soulless tide of “preprogrammed electronic Disco”.  The duo hit the road for a tour and brought along some of the giants of the Blues and soul era.  And here’s the key to their success, apart from the driven personality of John Belushi – their band was the real deal.  Guitarist Steve Cropper was part of the blues outfit Book T and the MGs who scored with Green Onions and Hip Hug Her.  He also wrote songs like In the Midnight Hour and (Sitting on) the Dock of the Bay.  He defined the Soul style of guitar playing.  The bass player, Donald “Duck” Dunn, was also part of Booker T and the MGs and layed the soul groove down for a generation’s worth of music.  Booker T also served as the house band for Stax Records which produced unforgettable soul music through most of the 60s.  When these guys joined the Blues Brothers, they weren’t just part of a novelty cover band – They were playing the music they created and reintroducing it to a new generation of fans, like me.  

When I first heard Soul Man on the radio – It opened up whole new world for me.  At first I didn’t realize that this was a cover song, a remake. I just wasn’t familiar with soul music from the 1960s.  But when I got the album, I immediately wanted to know more about the performers and the songs.  Belushi did a good job given a shout out to the original performers, like Delbert McClenton, Junior Wells or King Floyd (which I misheard as Pink Floyd!)  and the band members.  Briefcase Full of Blues was an important album for me, because it changed the way I approached music.  I took more of an interest in the sources and influences of music and who was playing it.  I've enjoyed introducing this album to my kids (Rubber Biscuit, anyone?)  It was one of my favorites remains so to this day. 

Next: Next Phase, New Wave

Odds and Ends: 1970 - 1978

     Over the course of recounting the music I remembered from my youth, I knew I couldn’t touch on everything. If I did it would sort of all run together like the old hit Life is a Rock (But the Radio rolled Me) by Reunion. However, before I venture off into the high school years, I wanted to look back over the big acts, one-hit wonders and other favorites from the 1970s that I didn't have time to mention before. Since I’ve been writing these blog entries, I’ve been stirring up my memory, kinda like poking a hornet’s nest with a stick. Some of the memories were better left in the vault, but they’re on the loose now.

 

The Champ

 

Paul McCartney.  HE hit the 1970’s still rolling after his success with that other group he was with and pounded out hit after hit throughout the decade (12 Top 100 hits). Okay, by the time he got to Let ‘em In I think he was just dialing it in. If you ever have the chance, you should ask my wife what she thinks about that song, and be prepared for an earful.

 

Someone’s knocking on the door, someone’s ringing the bell

Do me a favor, open the door and let’em in

 

It’s a wonder Lennon didn’t take him out back and kick the crap out of him. We still got the great Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey, Band on the Run, Jet and Junior’s Farm. Sure there were syrupy ballads, but Sir Paul could do no wrong during the decade. His ex band mates added another 8 songs to the top 100, most of them by Ringo Starr.

 

 

The Big Players

 

     I went to the Billboard top 100 hits for each year from 1970 through 1978 and took a look at who had the most hits during that time. Elton John and the Carpenters each racked up 11 top 100 hits during that time period. There was hardly a time when Elton John wasn’t on the radio, with his first hit charting in 1972 and the latest in 1977. If you add in his duet with Kiki Dee, Don’t Go Breaking my Heart, in 1976, that gets hit total up to 12. Somewhere in there he also managed to star in The Who’s rock opera Tommy as the Pinball Wizard in 1975. Between David Bowie and Elton John, they pretty much defined glam rock in the 70’s. John’s career after the seventies is a story of re-invention and well timed nostalgia, and he still is a big draw on the concert circuit, most recently teaming up with Billy Joel.

 

     The Carpenters, on the other hand, were about as far from glam rock as you could get. They were AM radio mainstays from 1970 to 1975, when personal problems and the pressures of fame would start to take their toll. Fortunately, Barry Manilow, whose career was taking off just when the Carpenter’s was declining, would continue to push the envelope on overproduced harmless, vanilla music, reaching the top 100 8 times from 1975 to 1978. The music of both acts still haunts us today, but is especially annoying at Christmas, when selections from the Carpenter’s Christmas album are played every hour from Thanksgiving to Christmas. And just for everyone’s information – “Christmassing” isn’t a real word.

 

     Another chart topper that I remember from back then was the kid prodigy out of Motown, and I don’t mean Michael Jackson. Stevie Wonder first turned Motown on its head, infusing the label with a fresh breath of funk and serious musical chops, then took over the charts on his own. Like Elton John, Stevie was on the charts for just about the entire decade, even stretching out into the eighties, where his career took an unfortunately mellow turn. I can still remember times I heard If You Really Love Me, You Are the Sunshine of My Life, Living For the City and Sir Duke on the radio. I still dig Superstition, but I can’t believe the same person was also responsible for I Just called to Say I Love You

 

 

Chicago’s hits from the early 1970’s were a big part of my memories of the Golden Age of AM Radio, especially Saturday in the Park and Does Anybody Know What Time It Is? They hit the top 100 8 times until 1976 when their music fell a bit out of step with the times. I think KC and the Sunshine Band were what Chicago could have been if Chicago were wholly and entirely evil, instead of just mostly evil. (I’m talking to you Peter Cetera!). Chicago would reinvent itself a few years later and hit it big in the mid 80’s, but Peter Cetera would leave the band and neither would be the same again. Oh yeah, and they had a really cool logo. You know, bands just don’t have cool logos any more. Chicago, Boston, ELO…These guys took the time to craft something that would look good on a 12x12 Album cover. Now all you get is a 1x1 thumbnail on iTunes. It’s a lost art! Bah!

 

     And let’s don’t forget the women! Helen Reddy, Olivia Newton John, and Carly Simon made their presence known with hits like Delta Dawn, Have you Never Been Mellow, and the classic You’re So Vain – which I still love. Between them they hit the top 100 20 times throughout the decade. Only Helen Reddy would fade out as the 80’s came along. And heck, I’ll throw James Taylor in with this bunch for good measure, since he spent half the decade shacked up with Carly Simon anyway.

 

    And how about that country cross-over, John Denver? He parlayed the songwriting success of Leaving on a Jet Plane (a hit for Peter Paul & Mary in 1969) into a string of hits for himself that included Take me Home, Country Roads and Thank God I’m a Country Boy! He peaked out around 1975, made a Christmas special with the Muppets and took a star turn in the movie Oh, God! Which I thought wasn’t too bad.

 

     In the later half of the 70’s Philly boys Hall & Oates started making their presence known and would become consistent hit makers for the better part of the next 10 years. Rich Girl, which charted in 1977 was, until then, the highest charting song with the word bitch in it. I always thought the rhyme of rich & bitch was a little gratuitous, but it was a big deal bag in 1977. Hey, If Starland Vocal band can sing about nookie, a coupla Philly guys can toss around a few choice words with no problem!

 

 

The Biggest One Hit Wonders!

 

The 1970s was chock full of one-hit wonders the likes of which wouldn’t be seen again until the 1980s. For this list, I only picked the hits that cracked the top 20, but it still gives you a pretty good flavor for the decade.

 

 

1973 Billy Paul Me And Mrs Jones 

• We had a thing going on! Decent RnB tune, but I remember finding an old reel to reel tape recorder in my brother’s room one day. I played the tape and found myself listening to my brother Glenn totally spoofing of Billy Paul’s “Mee-e-e-e-e and Mrs MRS Jooooones. I still laugh about that to his day.  

1973 Clint Holmes Playground In My Mind

• And most people think it should have stayed there! In my mind, I always pair this one with Melanie’s Brand New Key 

1973 Dobie Gray Drift Away 

• Great tune! 

1973 Stories Brother Louie

• I picked this one up on a Buddha Records boxed set that had a lot of other great tunes on it. This one had a nasty groove working on it. 

1973 Vicki Lawrence The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia 

• I loved this song about a jilted lover, her revenge and the execution of an innocent man! A great story song that flips around Johnny Cash’ romanticized “Long Black Veil”. It’s dated now, but it was great fun, back then.

1974 Blue Swede Hooked On A Feeling 

• Gaboo Gaboo Gaboo Gotcha Gaboo! 

1974 David Essex Rock On 

• How this still gets played is beyond me, but in my mind, the Phrase “Rock On” became one with the 1970s, right up there with “Keep on Trucking”. The production on this was eerily minimal but still had a kind of raw power. The strength of this song as a 70s icon was reinforced almost 30 years later when Cheryl Crow released her sunny hit “Soak up the Sun” which ends with the great line:
• I, I’m gonna soak up the Sun 
• I’ve got my 45s on, so I can Rock On

 

1974 Love Unlimited Orchestra Love's Theme

•  Written by Barry White!

 1974 Maria Muldaur Midnight At The Oasis

•  Meh

1974 MFSB TSOP  

1974 Terry Jacks Seasons In The Sun 

• We had joy, and we had fun, while we sang about death!

1975 Carl Douglas Kung Fu Fighting 

• A great Golden AM classic!

1975 Janis Ian At Seventeen  

• A Proto-emo ballad

1975 Minnie Riperton Lovin' You 

• Sorry Minnie, but you sounded like a leaky balloon squeaking out the notes on this one. 

1976 Andrea True Connection More, More, More 

• Another Buddha release! 

1976 Four Seasons December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night) 

• Obviously the Jersey Boys, with Frankie Valli had a great career, but on this one Frankie took a back seat to the rest of the band and the result was one of their best songs ever. Great bass line on this one, too.  

1976 Manhattans Kiss And Say Goodbye  
1976 Starland Vocal Band Afternoon Delight 

• Dear God  

1976 Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band A Fifth Of Beethoven

1976 Wild Cherry Play That Funky Music

1977 Alan O'Day Undercover Angel  

• She said What? I said woo-wheee! When this song hit the charts, it was the first time that I realized a song I liked was totally derided by the critics. I think this made everyone’s end of the year worst songs list. I liked it, so I took it personally that other people hated it. It took me years to realize it, but it really was a crappy song. 

1977 Emotions Best Of My Love

1977 Hot Angel In Your Arms 

• Saucy tale of lover’s revenge! 

1977 Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville 

• Jimmy Buffett is more than a singer, songwriter and musician. He’s an Industry! But for all the success he’s had, this bar band staple was his only song to hit the charts.  

1977 Mary MacGregor Torn Between Two Lovers

1977 Peter McCann Do You Wanna Make Love  

• In my Chevy Van! 

1977 Thelma Houston Don't Leave Me This Way

• Not bad for a disco song! 

1978 A Taste Of Honey Boogie Oogie Oogie 

• A decent groove, but otherwise a totally unnecessary song 

1978 Chic Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah) 

• Nile Rogers was part of this band and he would go on to produce some great pop acts in the 80’s. Chic had serious musical chops, they just wasted them on disco. 

1978 Debby Boone You Light Up My Life 

• I’ve already shared my feelings on this one. 

1978 Exile Kiss You All Over 

• I remember working in the parts department at my dad’s car dealership when Tony, the Parts Manager commented on this one, “Kiss you All Over? Who the hell wants to do that?!?” 

1978 Paul Davis I Go Crazy
1978 Samantha Sang Emotion 

• Penned by the Bee Gees, cause they didn’t want to hog up all the sappy disco ballads to themselves. (Hate to admit it but I did have this album.) 

1978 Yvonne Elliman If I Can't Have You 

• Yvonne came to light in the rock opera Jesus Chris Superstar as Mary Magdalene, but she tore it up with this better than average disco stomper. She had such a great voice, it’s a shame she didn’t have a better career.

Some More of My Favs.

 

    I need to give a last shout out the rest of the great (and maybe not so great) songs that were part of the soundtrack of my childhood. If I forgot any, leave a comment for your favorites from those years! Next stop is high school, a new group of friends and another lifetime of memories!

 

 

1970 Band Of Gold Freda Payne
1970 O-o-h Child Five Stairsteps
1970 Spirit In The Sky Norman Greenbaum
1970 Venus Shocking Blue
1971 Treat Her Like A Lady Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose
1971 Gypsy, Tramps And Thieves Cher
1971 Don't Pull Your Love Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds
1971 It Don't Come Easy Ringo Starr
1972 Lean On Me Bill Withers
1972 Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) Looking Glass
1972 Go All The Way Raspberries
1972 Too Late To Turn Back Now Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose
1972 Day Atter Day Badfinger
1972 Doctor My Eyes Jackson Browne
1973 Half Breed Cher
1973 Loves Me Like A Rock Paul Simon
1973 Stuck In The Middle With You Stealers Wheel
1973 Shambala Three Dog Night
1973 Dancing In The Moonlight King Harvest
1973 Your Mama Don't Dance Loggins & Messina
1973 My Maria BW Stevenson
1973 Kodachrome Paul Simon
1973 Ramblin' Man Allman Brothers
1973 It Never Rains In Southern California Albert Hammond
1974 Come And Get Your Love Redbone
1974 Billy Don't Be A Hero Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods
1974 Sundown Gordon Lightfoot
1974 Rock Me Gently Andy Kim
1974 Rock The Boat Hues Corporation
1974 Smokin' In The Boys Room Brownsville Station
1974 The Night Chicago Died Paper Lace
1974 Rikki Don't Lose That Number Steely Dan
1974 Taking Care Of Business Bachman-Turner Overdrive
1974 Radar Love Golden Earring
1974 Beach Baby First Class
1975 Magic Pilot
1975 How Long Ace
1975 Some Kind Of Wonderful Grand Funk
1975 Killer Queen Queen
1975 You Aint Seen Nothin' Yet Bachman-Turner Overdrive
1976 Let Your Love Flow Bellamy Brothers
1976 Dreamweaver Gary Wright
1976 Convoy CW McCall
1976 Saturday Night Bay City Rollers
1976 Fox On The Run Sweet
1977 Swayin' To The Music (Slow Dancin') Johnny Rivers
1977 Lonely Boy Andrew Gold
1977 Smoke From A Distant Fire Sanford Townsend Band
1977 Lido Shuffle Boz Scaggs
1978 Baker Street Gerry Rafferty
1978 Love Will Find A Way Pablo Cruise
1978 Thunder Island Jay Ferguson
1978 Peg Steely Dan
1978 Because The Night Patti Smith

Next:  Take a Look at the Person on Your Left...

 

1977 - 1978: Growing Up

Well, first an apology to Bruce Springsteen for co-opting the title of one of his songs, but it does describe 1977 through 1978. Well sort of. It was my last year of grade school at St Pete’s and the last time I would see a lot of the people I spent the last 7 years growing up with. It was a time I would do some growing up, and make a few major bonehead mistakes. There were new influences and changing tides in music, in life, at home and through the country. Be forewarned:  The first half of the post is my normal musical reminiscing.  In the second half, I do get a little more personal than I have in the past - If you want to skip that. feel free.  I promise to do my best to keep future posts free of too much emotional baggage!

The major non-music event that happened in 1977 was the release of STAR WARS. And by that I mean STAR WARS, not “Episode blah d blah A New blah blah blah”. When it was released in May, 1977 there was no episode subtitle on the movie. That was added later after the Empire Strikes back was released. Oh, and Han Solo shot first. But even Star Wars ties into my musical heritage. I won the tickets for the show from a call in contest on WIBG. They sent the tickets and an original movie poster. The poster was folded and creased and stuffed into a 10x13 manila envelope, but I hung it up on my wall where it stayed until they day we moved from Pennsauken in 1986. I called my cousin Bret and we went to see it at the SamEric at the Pennsauken Mart. I saw it again with my dad as well (it may have been the other way around though!). I remember thinking that it was pretty good movie at the time and it was the first movie I saw twice in the theater. But what really turned me into a Star Wars nut was the merchandising! I had fan magazines and models and action figures and all that stuff, which is alas, long since gone. Eventually I remember my dad yelling at me, “Star Wars! STAR WARS! STAR WARS!!! Is that all you can think about?!? Why don’t you change your name to STAR WARS Walter!” But I would forever be a Star Wars Fan. Oh yeah – I had the soundtrack album, too.

But not only that, I think it also made me into a Movie Fan as well. There’s nothing like seeing a huge spectacle of a movie on the big screen with the sound blasting and the popcorn crunching. And by the end of 1977, I would be a life-long Science Fiction fan, too. Close Encounters was released in November of the same year and the original Star Trek series was still on in syndication. I enjoyed reading Ray Bradbury, Jules Verne and HG Wells, too.



K-Tel’s Last Gasp

While the last K-tel collection, Music Machine tried to latch on to the new Sci-Fi Wave and featured a campy picture of Robbie the Robot (from the movie Forbidden Planet) it was my least favorite. Disco reigned supreme on this collection, but this set is notable for at least one stunning exception: Debby Boone’s You Light up My Life. Released August 16, 1977, the thing just wouldn’t go away. It was a decent ballad but I’m not sure how it managed to top the charts for 10 consecutive weeks. Before that you had to go all the way back to the birth of Rock and Roll with Elvis’ Hound Dog to find a song that topped the charts as long. I mean c’mon!!! Freaking Hound Dog was beat out by Debby Boone?!?! Maybe it something to do with the fact that the song was released on the very day Elvis died. Or maybe not, but it would become the top selling song of the 1970’s. The song eventually became a victim of its own success and in the process served as the poster child for everything bland and vanilla about the decade. Even today, the oldies stations won’t touch the thing, but who knows, the time may be right for techno-sampled mash up of the tune. In case you’re wondering…yes I had the single.

Music Machine
Side 1
I Just Want To Be Your Everything / Andy Gibb
Keep It Comin' Love / Kc & The Sunshine Band
Don't Give Up On Us / David Soul
Do You Want To Make Love / Peter Mcann
Hot Line / Sylvers
Got To Give It Up (Pt.1) / Marvin Gaye
You Don't Have To Be A Star (To Be In My Show) / Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis
Play That Funky Music / Wild Cherry
Gonna Fly Now (Theme From Rocky) / Bill Conti

Side 2
Dancing Queen / Abba
Beth / Kiss
Blinded By The Light / Manfred Mann's Earth Band
Car Wash / Rose Royce
Lucille / Kenny Rogers
I Like Dreamin' / Kenny Nolan
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road / Elton John
You And Me / Alice Cooper
Feels Like The First Time / Foreigner

     I don’t have a lot to add about the Music Machine, except to say that this was the last one I owned. There was Play that Funky Music, which became a bar band staple and Kiss’ Beth which would impress the Kiss Army into believing that the band could do anything it wanted. I remember my friend Larry saying, “Kiss is so great – they can rock out and turn it right round and mellow down”. I never really liked Kenny Rogers’ Lucille, but there was no denying it was a big hit. And I can’t figure out how a hit from 6 years ago ended up on this album but Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is there still the same. Two groups that would go on to have big careers made their debuts here. Dancing Queen was an irresistible hit from ABBA that would mark the start of a strong career from the Scandinavian quartet. And Foreigner proved that straight up rock singles could still crack the top 40. After this, I think K-tel had a few more collections, but they were exclusively Disco. Or should I say disco. Or maybe I should just say crap.

Blinded by the Light was a big hit for Manfred Mann, but I’m not sure how many people realize it was written by home state hero Bruce Springsteen? I didn’t at the time, but I was impressed that a song with the word “douche” in it could be a big hit. Of course that wasn’t really what he was saying – the real lyric is “deuce” – but that’s what it sounded like. Either way, the lyric has been a head scratcher for more than a few people. I think the original line:

Cut loose like a deuce, another runner in the night

is meant to imply “cutting loose” something worthless, like a deuce playing card, to become a nameless wanderer in the night. But that’s just my take on it.



Billy Joel’s The Stranger was released in November 1977, but when Only the Good Die Young was released as a single it created quite the stir for us Catholic school kids. I think there was talk about the song being banned, but at St Pete’s all the guys were into it! Billy Joel totally nailed the Catholic imagery on this one, although he claims he never nailed the girl in the song.  It was the perfect song at the perfect time for me.



My Short-Lived Life as a Socialite (Or the blog where I, myself jump the shark!)

While my grade school days were winding down, my hormones were starting to get into gear. In 8th grade, the boys and girls started pairing off and everyone was talking about who was dating, or making out or was seen together at the roller skating rink over in Cherry Hill. I had eyes for one girl in particular, until she ended up in my basement closet with my musical “soulmate” and best bud Larry at my own party. I sure understood how Lesley Gore felt. Some time during eighth grade I was invited to what we called a “boy/girl” party by Ed Schmidt. Ed was an alright guy who sat next to me for most of 8th grade, but we didn’t really hang out. I was surprised to be invited but it was a pretty big deal for me. We had pizza, listened to a lot of cool records, some of the girls and guys danced and some of them hooked up and snuck off to make out. Ed’s mom would occasionally come down to keep everything on the up and up, but it was a lot of fun. I remember listening to Kansas and checking out the Point of Know Return album cover and I remember taking most of the night to ask a girl to dance and getting shot down anyway. Mostly I remember just having a great time.



I had such a good time that somehow I got the incredibly stupid idea that I should have a party myself. Well it seemed like a perfect idea at the time, my folks agreed and Larry helped with the planning, but if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t mind having another chance at doing it right. My mistake (bonehead mistake #1) was to try to recreate the same party I went to at Ed’s house, which really was a party of the more popular kids, with maybe me as the token dweeb. Of course, I wanted all the same kids at my party, to the point that I excluded some of the kids I had been friends with for that last seven years. My dad even tried to warn me that I was making a mistake, but I was too stupid to realize what I was doing. Even the nuns that were teaching 8th grade tried to make the same point. Sister Mary came over to our 8th-grade class to give us (and I mean me) a little lecture and said that all the parties always had the same people invited to them and that was a really a shame and maybe we (me) should try to do better. Another hint I was too dumb to take.


The party ended up being pretty good and Larry stole my girl, but I think I hurt a lot of my friends by not inviting them. A few years later, I would have another party right around the end of sophomore year when I was in high school and I would make it a point to stretch out the invite list as wide as I could. Maybe I learned something from that 8th-grade party, but I still feel bad about being a jerk to my friends.


My Short-Lived Life as a Stud-Muffin



Which brings us to bonehead mistakes number 2 and 3, my short lived romantic life. Before I completely incriminate myself, in my defense I just want to say that I really had no idea what the hell I was doing in 1978. First, there was the girl in my class who really went out of her way to show me she liked me. She invited me to her house, asked me to hang out – I more or less didn’t catch on and I think I ended up pissing her off when I shoved a handful of flowers in her face and triggered her allergies. Smooth move!


Then there was the 8th-grade dance and all that followed that. First, Larry and my old flame had broken up, so I saw it as my big chance to ask her to be my “date” to the 8th-grade dance. Even though everyone was invited to the dance, sponsored by St Pete’s, and we weren’t supposed to have “dates”, I still wanted to let Mary Jo know I still liked her. After all, she was the first real female friend I ever had. So I made a big deal out of setting up this whole “date” thing with her only to end up spending most of the dance with Fran, who I didn’t even know was in my class until she walked up to me and asked me to dance. I was sure glad she did. I can’t even remember what songs they played that night, but I remember her. Slow dancing and just being amazed that any girl would have wanted to dance with me, but there we were.

We talked to each other every night after the dance and we were together for a few weeks that summer – our first date was to see Grease with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. We had a great time and I think we even kissed good night that night. We hung out a lot, I remember being over her house and watching TV, I met her family, and she told me about the records she liked. I still think of her every time I hear Magnet and Steel by Walter Egan. Sometime in the middle of that, I went to stay with my brother Ted in Louisville for two weeks (most of which I spent playing Darkness on the Edge of Town on my brother' stereo) and we still managed to write letters back and forth. When I came back we went to see Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band This was a movie that featured the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, two of the biggest pop music stars of the day. The musical had some sort of convoluted plot wrung out of Beatles’ songs from Sgt Peppers’, Abbey Road and Let It Be.

Then it was over, before school started up again. That was bonehead mistake #3. One day I just didn’t call her and then I never called her or saw her again. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her, because I did. I never meant to stop seeing her. I guess I just didn’t really know what to do with a girlfriend, or how to act mature. But it was a crappy thing to do. I mean, she went out of her way to dance with me, wrote to me when I was half way across the country, hung out with me for most of the summer and then I just blew her off. Another smooth move, Romeo. Geez. Well, I didn’t really intend for my blog to be some sort of tell-all way to exorcise my 30 year old emotional demons, but these things were really a big part of helping me become who I am. I learned the hard way, and (sadly) at other people’s expense, that there had to be better ways to treat people, and I would try, sometimes tipping the scales too far the other way. As the summer of 1978 waned, grade school was behind me and high school lay ahead like a sleeping dragon. And as I said at the start of this entry, it was all part of Growing Up.

I spent these month-long vacations in the stratosphere

And you know it’s really hard to hold your breath

I swear I lost everything I ever loved or feared

I was the cosmic kid…..

Next: 1970 - 1978: Odds and Ends

Lost in the Record Store

I’m not sure when it opened, but I definitely spent a lot of time there around 1977 and 1978 – Peaches Records and Tapes. This was a huge record store in an abandoned supermarket and it was huge. Did I mention how big this store was? Well to a novice 8th grade record buyer it felt like an entire universe. With pocketful of allowance money earned from cutting the grass, I would spend hours just going through row after row of records. Of course I even bought my own Peaches Crate, which I still have and it still has the label on it. I remember hearing a rumor that Peaches was a front for the “Moonies” – A cult lead by Reverend Sun-Young Moon, but who knows? I couldn’t pin down when exactly Peaches opened, but I remember it being a big deal. The store was maybe 2 miles from my house, an easy bike ride on my Ross 10-speed. The store didn’t last forever, and I read somewhere that they were betting on 8-tracks being the next big thing, instead of cassettes, which led to their demise. I’ll always have a little place in my heart for the store where I bought my first albums, and wasted a lot of my time.

In my life there were a few record stores I was partial to. The first was Peaches. After they closed, I migrated over to Wall to Wall Sound, over on Rte 130 just north of the Pennsauken Mart. Later, I would spend a lot of time in the record store in the Berlin’s Farmer’s Market looking for 45’s. Tower Records, both on South Street in Philly and later in Cherry Hill got a lot of my money. There was also 3rd Street Jazz in old City in Philly, which had a great punk/indie/new wave section in the basement. If you wanted to find locally produced music, this was the place to go! In the late 80’s and early 90’s I would spend a lot of my lunch hours from work at Final Vinyl on Haddon Ave in Westmont. I think I almost met Ben Vaughan there, once!



The other day, the family took a day trip up to Princeton and I stopped in the Princeton Record Exchange. What a great store! Vinyl Lps! Cheap CDs! DVDs Indie/Hardcore just about anything you want. It was definitely a throwback store, but it was pretty cool to be able to show a store like that to my teen-age sons. They’re already both so used to buying songs online and watching videos on YouTube that I doubt they will ever actually buy a physical CD in a store in their lives.



The First Records I Ever Bought



Of course I remember the first albums I ever bought with my own money. Just like your first date, or a first kiss or your first car, for my generation, buying your first album was something you knew you were going to remember, so it had to be done right. I bought them at Peaches and they marked the start of a record collection that would grow to include hundreds of albums, singles and CDs. They weren’t the first albums I owned, though. I had Wing’s Band on the Run, as I mentioned earlier. I also had an Elvis’ greatest hits album, with about 20 songs on it and a Tom Jones greatest hits album. (Why Why Why Delilah??) The Elvis and Tom Jones albums I won from selling magazine subscriptions for my grade school’s fundraiser. I really wanted to win the 10 pound bar of Hershey’s chocolate, but I was never that aggressive of a magazine peddler. The best thing about the magazine fundraiser was the carbon forms they used to give you to record the orders. They had this weird smell that I think I was addicted to, because I would spend the first day of the fundraiser sneaking whiffs of the forms out of my book bag.

But where was I? Ah yes, my first albums. The first one may not be a surprise to anyone from that time. Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors was released in February of 1977 and went on to rule the charts for the better part of that year. Don’t Stop was the first single of that album, but I was partial to the rocking Go Your Own Way. This album redefined pop songwriting for the next few years, while at the same time reflecting songwriting that wouldn’t have been out of place coming form the songbooks of Carole King or her Brill Building contemporaries. The album would turn Stevie Nicks into a pop culture icon for a generation of teenage girls, and us guys thought the photo of her on the album was pretty nice, too. The album has truly stood the test of time, with nearly all of album’s original 11 tracks still in rotation on oldies and classic rock stations.

The other album I bought at the same time was from what would be one of my favorite bands. In October, 1977 ELO released Out of the Blue, an epic double album that would be their commercial and critical peak and would mark their place in rock and roll history. The album cover featured a great picture of a spaceship, featuring the script ELO logo. Released in the same year between Star Wars and Close Encounters, I think ELO knew what they were doing with the Sci-Fi themed cover. The album packaging also featured a cut-out of the large and small space ships that you could put together, but mine are long since gone. I liked ELO since Roll Over Beethoven and Evil Woman. The year before they released A New World record, this featured Telephone Line and Do Ya, but I bought this album on the strength of the singles Turn to Stone and Sweet Talking Woman. Both were pretty good songs and still make the rounds on the radio, but this album had a lot of great surprises including the eternally spotless and sunny Mr. Blue Sky. I plan on dedicating a blog post to ELO down the road, but for now, I’ll just say that this is still one of my favorite albums. It was one of the first albums that I upgraded to CD when it was available. I remember later realizing that the design for the space ship was actually a variation of an old art deco Wurlitzer jukebox, which I thought was pretty cool, bridging the history of rock and roll to its future.

Columbia House

I don’t know if you were part of this, but it was hard not to notice the full page ads on the back of Parade Magazine. I think I had to ask my folks a couple of times before they caved in and let me join. Of course, they ended up footing the bill for most of my purchases, but I was able to start adding to my record collection and start filling up my Peaches Crate. I was starting to realize that there was lot of music I had to catch up on! You probably remember the ads: get 11 records for 1 cent. Just buy 10 more over the next two years at our ridiculously inflated prices to satisfy your commitment. A friend of mine thought that Columbia House sold cut-rate versions of the records and that you were better off buying them in the stores. I never noticed any problem with the quality of the records I bought. The first batch of records I bought included a great number of Barry Manilow records, I’m sorry to admit, but it was true. Also in there was the double album Star Wars Soundtrack, Steve Miller’s Book of Dreams, and I think this was when I finally picked up Boston’s debut album.

Over the years, I bought a lot of records and a lot of posters from Columbia House, but I was still partial to the records stores, especially when I got into the local music scene, which was mostly independent. There really was nothing like going through aisle after aisle of LPs, looking for a new release or just checking out the cover art. It’s something I miss from my youth and I’m sad that my kids won’t have the same experience. Maybe they get some kind of rush looking through the new video games at the GameStop or Best Buy, but it’s not really the same. Call me a curmudgeon if you want to, but I think eventually it will be hard to find stores that sell CDs or even video games as the internet becomes more powerful and wireless delivery of merchandise creeps takes over more formats.

Next: 1977 - 1978 Growing Up
 

Disco Sucks! (but what else was there?)

     Yeah, okay I’ll admit it. I had my fair share of disco albums in my collection. Whether you were a brother or whether you were a mother you probably had a copy of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. I had a copy, but who didn’t …hey, I was young and innocent. When I was in 8th grade SNF was THE R-rated movie everyone was sneaking in to see. The movie studio even released a PG version to get more kids in to see it, but only the loser kids went to see that version. Disco was everywhere, multiplying like a virus, consuming all in its path. Let’s face it, Disco was all but synonymous with top forty radio from 1977 through 1979. But when my oasis of the radio - WIBG succumbed and switched to an all disco format in 1977, it became an all out war! At the time I didn't know it, but the resistance was growing, in the seedy clubs of NYC, in London, Boston and even LA  The underground movement was gaining strength.

     I’m going to track the last two years of my grade school experience against the K-tel collections from 1976 and 1977. I think they tell the story of my alienation with pop music and a search for something more substantial.


The Hit Machine Collection

     Some people think Happy Days “jumped the shark” when the Fonz, you know, JUMPED THE SHARK. I think it really happened when they switched theme songs from Rock Around the Clock to the Happy Days Theme by Pratt and McClain. I realize I am risking the integrity of the Space-Time Continuum by saying Happy Days jumped the shark before the actual shark jumping event occurred in the show that popularized the saying “jump the shark”. Ummmm… where was I?




SIDE ONE:
KC & the Sunshine Band - (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty
Maxine Nightingale - Right Back Where We Started From
Starbuck - "Moonlight Feels Right"
War - "Summer"
Linda Ronstadt - "When Will I Be Loved"
Pratt  McClain - "Happy Days"
Frankie Valli - "Our Day Will Come"
Paul Anka - "(You're) Having My Baby"
Billy Ocean - "Love Really Hurts Without You"
Rick Dees & His Cast of Idiots - "Disco Duck (Part 1)"


SIDE TWO:
Elton John - "Island Girl"
Walter Murphy the Big Apple Band - "A Fifth of Beethoven"
Bellamy Brothers - "Let Your Love Flow"
John Sebastian - "Welcome Back"
The Electric Light Orchestra - "Evil Woman"
Rick Springfield - "Take a Hand"
Kiss - "Rock and Roll All Nite"
Jessi Colter - "I'm Not Lisa"
Four Seasons - "Who Loves You"
Johnnie Taylor - "Disco Lady"

     This collection marks the appearance of one of my favorite bands, ELO – The Electric Light Orchestra. Evil Woman was their break-through hit, but they were bouncing around the charts a bit before then, most notably with a symphonic fueled version of Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven, which together with the disco-fried A Fifth of Beethoven spearheaded a mini-Beethoven resurgence. Kiss’ Rock and Roll all Night is here, representing the rock camp. This album was an odd mix – 2 of the year’s top 10, 5 hits from up and comers, a handful of one-hit wonders, a uneasy mix of rock and disco , a token nod to easy listening and the only top forty song that featured a xylophone solo! And Paul Anka? How the hell did that song get on this record?  It's song like Having My Baby that gave the 70s a bad name!


     There are two great songs from this album that I remember listening to over an over, but never really hearing on the radio. Both are from upcoming stars that would have decent careers in their own right. The first is Billy Ocean’s Love Really Hurts without You. If you heard this song now, you may have a hard time believing this was the same guy who would eventually top the charts with Caribbean Queen. Love Really Hurts was a straight forward up tempo Pop-rock song with great hooks and a Motown-inspired sound.

     The other is a driving Pop-rocker from Rick Springfield, the fledgling teen idol, called Take a Hand. The song had great dynamics, quiet, low keyed verses and rocking choruses. This song gets overlooked since most folks will mark the start of Rick’s career with Jesse’s Girl. Even I had forgotten about it when Jesse’s Girl came out, but it’s still a pretty good song! And what do you know - I just went to iTunes and downloaded both of them. I guess I know what I’ll be listening to on my drive to work this morning!

Off to work
Okay, I'm back

     So I listened to both of these throw-back tunes on the way to work today. I was nervous about whether they would be as good as I remember. Some songs just don’t hold up over time. What struck me about the Billy Ocean song was how much of a Motown influence it had. It reminded me of the Four Tops hits like Sugar Pie Honey Bunch and I thought how important timing was to a make a song a hit. Ten years earlier, and the song would have fit right in, but in 1976 it was out of place, even thought it was a pretty good pop song. If I were to make a mix tape, (or create an iTunes playlist), I would have grouped this song with the Motown Classics before I put it on a tape with it’s 1976 contemporaries. Billy Ocean would get the vibe right a few years later, when he released Caribbean Queen.

     Missing from the collection was representation from what would be the greatest selling debut album in American music history. Boston’s debut album came out in 1976 and has been with us ever since. I still get chills listening to the one part in More Than a Feeling where Brad Delp’s vocal blends right into Tom Scholz’s guitar, near the end of the song: “I see my Maryann walking awaaaaaaayyyyyyyy”. Every one of the eight songs still gets airplay and the opus Foreplay/Longtime was pretty intense for it’s time, blending Bachian keyboards with rock sensibilities. Peace of Mind had a great acoustic guitar opening and memorable riffs. I loved Something About You, from the flip side as well. By combining clean acoustic guitars and rich, Marshall-powered electric guitars, Boston (okay, Tom Scholz, really) created a sound for itself that wasn’t hard and bluesy like fellow Bostonians Aerosmith or the J Giels Band, but was strong on melody and harmony. And geez could Brad Delp sing. His voice was one in a million and the perfect fit for Boston. Rock lost one of it's truly great voices when he took his own life a few years ago.  Later, when I started playing guitar, this was one album I immediately wanted to learn how to play.

     Life in 7th grade at St Pete’s was fairly routine and rote. You read the books, listened to the teachers and took the tests. Catechism was a monotonous drill. Actually the Catechism was the worst because I had mistakenly thought that once we all made our Confirmations in 6th grade we would put away the Baltimore Catechism for good, but I was wrong. Very wrong. There weren’t a lot of outlets for any creativity for imagination at St Pete’s, but I tried to find some for myself. In seventh grade we were studying Greek mythology and I remember creating a short play about some of the gods. The premise was a news reporter (me) goes to Mount Olympus to interview the gods. I think there were 4 or 5 of us and we all helped write it and Ms Dempsey let us perform it in front of the class, and then shipped us over to other 7th grade class to perform it there as well. We got a nice ovation, but it really gave me a taste for trying to create something of my own. Over the years I would try my hand at plays, stories, poetry and eventually songs, but this is where that creative spark may have been kindled.


Next:  Lost in the Record Store