Any roll call of great American radio stations must include Nashville’s legendary WSM, which is the subject of a new book, Air Castle of the South: WSM and the Making of Music City, by Craig Havighurst. (I recommend it to anyone interested in the evolution of radio, even to people unfamiliar with WSM.) The station went on the air in 1925, and is best known for pioneering the Grand Ole Opry, which it continues to broadcast today. But the station has been a full-time country outlet for only fractions of its history. During the 1970s, it programmed Top 40 during the day and country at night. Here’s the WSM survey from this week in 1975. Although it has plenty of country-flavored hits—Jessi Colter, Michael Murphey, John Denver, Freddy Fender, Elvis, Pure Prairie League—all of ‘em were legitimate Top 40 hits as the summer of 1975 began to dawn. Let’s dig a few of the obscurities further down the chart.
10. “Funny How Love Can Be”/First Class (up from 20). A British studio creation featuring the mighty Tony Burrows, First Class had scored a gigantic American hit with “Beach Baby” late in 1974. They put two other records into the lower reaches of the Hot 100, including this one, which bandmember John Carter had recorded with his group the Ivy League in 1965. It didn’t do anything for me until the middle eight (”what a thing to happen/left without a friend”), which is pure Top 40 glory.
14. “Bertrand My Son”/Larry Jon Wilson (up from 17). Considered part of the outlaw country movement of the ’70s, Larry Jon Wilson never had the career enjoyed by other outlaws like Waylon and Willie or David Allan Coe. Bertrand was Wilson’s disabled son; Wilson recorded the guitar and vocals in one take, after which the producer noticed that one string on his guitar was out of tune. Wilson refused to record it again, however, which required the string arrangement to be written so that it would accommodate his unusual tuning.
25. “Just Like Romeo and Juliet”/Sha Na Na (down from 16). These 50s revivalists had become stars after performing at Woodstock (right before Jimi Hendrix closed the show on Monday morning), but things were not so good by 1974. About the time this record was released, group member Vince Taylor, who had joined the band post-Woodstock, died of a heroin overdose. Greater success was to come, however. They’d star in a popular syndicated TV show from 1977 to 1981 and would appear in Grease in 1978. A version of the group is still on the road today. (I suspect this version of the song is from the TV show.)
27. “Mary Anne”/Fallen Rock (debut). A pretty country-rock ballad from a Los Angeles-based trio actually called Fallenrock (one word), who recorded a single album on Capricorn called Watch for Fallenrock. One member was Rafe Van Hoy, who wrote or co-wrote a boatload of country hits, including “Golden Ring” for George Jones and Tammy Wynette, “Let’s Keep it That Way,” recorded by Mac Davis, Tanya Tucker, and others, “Sail Away” by the Oak Ridge Boys, and “What’s Forever For” by Michael Murphey. It feels to me like Watch for Fallenrock may have been a bit too pop for country radio in 1975, but how it missed on pop radio, I dunno.
Extra: “Who Is It”/Carlton the Doorman. In the spring of 1975, Rhoda was wrapping up its first season, and was one of the biggest hits on TV. Rhoda’s wedding, broadcast on October 28, 1974, had been one of the most-hyped and highest-rated single episodes of any show in the 70s. Carlton the Doorman was an unseen character on the show, voiced by one of the show’s writers, Lorenzo Music, later the voice of Garfield the Cat. “Who Is It” doesn’t seem to have sniffed the charts anywhere other than Nashville and it’s nothing to get especially excited about, although the piano swings nicely and the line “who’s had a buzz on since ripple began” made me smile.
“Mary Anne”/Fallenrock (out of print)
“Who Is It”/Carlton the Doorman (way, way out of print)
(New this morning at WNEW.com: some rock history bits.)
Filed under: Record Charts, Tracks
