Jason’s Jukebox Volume 29

Jason Maloney reviews

JASON’S JUKEBOX
V o l u m e # 2 9 Chart Date: August 21st 1976 Online Date: 19th August 2004

Jimmy James & the Vagabonds:
Where Your Music Takes Me The long, parched summer of 1976 was soundtracked by the first UK chart-topper by Elton John, joined by Kiki Dee on the 6-week #1 Don’t Go Breaking My Heart. On his own, Elton had reached #2 with Rocket Man, but it wouldn’t be until 1990 that he’d score a completely solo #1 in Britain. Don’t Go Breaking My Heart was enjoying the fifth of its 6 weeks at the summit, while A Little Bit More by Dr. Hook continued to shadow it all the way; the single had climbed to #2 the week Elton & Kiki hit the top and it was still there, making it one of the longest-running #2 of all-time.

Several of the acts in the Top 10 of 28 years ago have long since been forgotten; David Dundas (at #3 with Jeans On), Johnny Wakelin (up from #7 to #4 with In Zaire), Jimmy James & The Vagabonds (down to #7 with Now Is The Time) and 5000 Volts (stuck at #8 with Dr. Kiss Kiss) didn’t manage to carve out lengthy chart careers for themselves.

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The Cream of
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel Among the more familiar names, however, were mainstays of the 70s Top 40 listings such as Wings and the Bee Gees. Paul McCartney‘s outfit were on course for consecutive UK #2s as Let ‘Em In climbed 8 places to #5, and a pre-Saturday Night Fever Bee Gees inched up a place to #9 with the glorious You Should Be Dancing. The Beatles, despite splitting up in 1970, also had a presence in the Top 10 thanks to Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel‘s faithful cover of Here Comes The Sun, which was up from #16 to its peak position of #10.

The George Harrison-penned track originally appeared on the Fab Four’s Abbey Road album in 1969 but was never released as a single. Curiously, another Beatles album cut, Back In The USSR (from 1968’s douple opus The White Album), had just fallen off the chart after a posthumous release on 45, having risen as high as #19 during a 6-week run.

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The Very Best of
Status Quo Outside the Top 10, Status Quo‘s Mystery Song proved to be one of their lesser hits, failing to go higher than #11 and now already in reverse. Bryan Ferry‘s Extended Play EP, including a cover of the Everly Brothers’ Price Of Love, was moving in the opposite direction; hot on the heels of the #4 smash Let’s Stick Together a month earlier, Extended Play quickly climbed the Top 40; debuting at #40 while its predecessor was still charting, it soared 25 places to #15 and now stood at #14 where it would remain the following week before vaulting up to #7.

Swapping places with Bryan Ferry were the Isley Brothers and their seminal Harvest For The World, a former #10 hit. Nine years later it would be covered by Duran Duran/Chic supergroup The Power Station on their eponymous debut album (although it wasn’t released as a single), and eight years after that it became a hit again for The Christians.

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Billy Ocean:
The Ultimate Collection At #20, Billy Ocean was in the midst of his first flush of success. Love On Delivery had been as high as #19, the second of four back-to-back Top 20 hits that included a pair of #2s, but he would have to wait until 1984’s comeback with Carribean Queen to grace the UK Top 40 again. Climbers in the bottom half of the Top 40 were few and far between; only Thin Lizzy‘s Jailbreak (up 8 to #31) and Jesse Green‘s Nice And Slow (up from #35 to #25) making notable advances.

New at #22 and #23 respectively, Rod Stewart‘s The Killing Of Georgie and Dancing Queen by ABBA subsequently found themselves occupying the top two positions a month later, although the latter’s #23-#16-#1 progress eclipsed the slightly slower upward movement of Rod’s single, which would climb #22-#18-#8-#6-#2.

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