Casey Kasem American Top 40

[Tinka Cat]

off to a good start

#40: White Lies, Blue Eyes by Bullet, great harmonies!
#39: Looking for  a love by J Geils. Casey cites a a SF Chron critic from back in the day who called them the "grubbiest" band since the Stones.

[Gazoo]

Too many great songs in this set to give BOS votes.  But OMGWTFLOL to the two competing versions of "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" in the top 13.

[Gazoo]

Ah, dammit, the stream's crapped out after "You Are Everything."   

[RGMike]

This weekend (1/24-25) Casey70's visits Jan 22, 1972. The Playlist:
http://www.whnn.com/goout.asp?u=http://images.radcity.net/5874/3417161.pdf

OMG! Beverly Bremers! Best. Lesley Gore. Imitation. EVAH -- until Tracey Ullman came along 12 years later with "They Don't Know". Also looking forward to Gladys' fab forgotten "Make Me The Woman You Go Home To". Hope Gaz got a charge out of Think's dreadful "Once You Understand"; anxious to see if it's the truncated version or if we get the full histrionics at the end. And speaking of edits, will it be the "sooky/suck you" version of Honey Cone's "One Monkey..."

[Gazoo]

Hope Gaz got a charge out of Think's dreadful "Once You Understand"; anxious to see if it's the truncated version or if we get the full histrionics at the end.

Mr. Kirk?  Do you have a son, Robert Kirk, age 17?

Yes ...?

We had full histrionics.  There is indeed something fascinating about that record.

As for Beverly Bremers, I meant to mention that Casey compared her to *Karen Carpenter*!  Would you believe.  The Lesley Gore is far more apt.

[SFGuy]

I noticed listening to the early 70's as compared to late 70's to 80's, how different Casey put his show on the air. The early ones mainly had no story. He just said at number 40, at number 39 and just intro'd the songs as compared to giving trivia later on. Listening to the later shows make his early ones pretty boring.

[Gazoo]

I noticed listening to the early 70's as compared to late 70's to 80's, how different Casey put his show on the air. The early ones mainly had no story. He just said at number 40, at number 39 and just intro'd the songs as compared to giving trivia later on. Listening to the later shows make his early ones pretty boring.

I think that development was partly him refining his shtick, and partly him needing to fill the space as the show expanded from 3 to 4 hours.

[Gazoo]

Casey's '80s hit Jan. 23, 1988, this week.  He played a version of "True Faith" mixed noticeably differently from the version I own.  This set is mostly superstars in the heart of the six-hits-from-an-album era, so boring in spots.  But at #3 is Tiffany's "Could've Been," perhaps the most thoroughly forgotten of all #1 hits.

BOS to the Bangles at #5 with "Hazy Shade of Winter," that rarest of examples of a cover of a good song utterly trouncing the original.

[Gazoo]

PS: This chart got rickrolled!  NGGYU debuted at #34.

[RGMike]

Hope Gaz got a charge out of Think's dreadful "Once You Understand"; anxious to see if it's the truncated version or if we get the full histrionics at the end.

Mr. Kirk?  Do you have a son, Robert Kirk, age 17?

Yes ...?

We had full histrionics.  There is indeed something fascinating about that record.

There was a version (not sure if it was official, or just an edit made by WPIX (the only NY station that played it) that completely deleted the sobbing. Either way the ending always struck me as heavy-handed, and at the time most people I know considered it a rather Nixonian record (more anti-drug than pro-parent/teen communication).

Speaking of Nixon, one of his favorite black people, Charley Pride, gets a BOS from me with "Kiss an Angel Good Morning".  And I never noticed the similarities between "Precious & Few" and "Cherish", melodically speaking.

[Wayback]

This weekend (1/31) Casey70's visits Jan 27, 1973.  The Playlist:
http://www.whnn.com/goout.asp?u=http://images.radcity.net/5874/3436621.pdf

[RGMike]

This weekend (1/31) Casey70's visits Jan 27, 1973.  The Playlist:
http://www.whnn.com/goout.asp?u=http://images.radcity.net/5874/3436621.pdf

some fine forgotten stuff there (the time period is quite sledgehammery for me personally): 3DN's "Pieces Of April", maybe their least-played oldie; Bobby W's "Harry Hippie", which I always interpreted as a black man calling a white guy "lazy and shiftless" (until I heard the true-life story behind it), and Blue Haze, Elvis and Lobo.  Also 2 of my all-time WOS's: "Love Jones" and "Funny Face".

[RGMike]

The first hour of this '73 chart is really bringing it all back for me. I'd forgotten Luther Ingram's "I'll Be Your Shelter" and the Partridges' "Looking Thru the Eyes of Love" -- a Gene Pitney cover, sez Casey, tho' it's not on the Pitney best-of I have. The Cat Man's "Sitting" is a favorite of mine, and Chuck Berry's remake of his own "Reelin' & Rockin'" is infinitely better than "My Ding-a-Ling", and amazingly off-color (sexual innuendo-wise) for '73.

And oh, Bette Midler's "Do You Wanna Dance" is a fabulous performance, Joni's "You Turn Me On" one of my very fave "radio" songs, and I recently expounded on "Dreidel" in my Xmas thread.  But Blue Haze's "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is one of the more worthless remakes ever -- another for the "oh those wacky Brits" file, as the '50s revival was reaching fever pitch in the UK at that time.

[RGMike]

HA! Casey intros Elvis' "Separate Ways" with a Mae West anecdote (!) and then says the King has been making the charts for 17 years... "and considering how well he takes care of himself, and how well he's taken care of by the Colonel, there's no reason to believe he won't still be around 17 years from now."

Oh Casey, if you'd only known.

Lobo's "Don't Expect Me to Be Your Friend" is another lost gem, but OMFG, here's 2 of my all-time HFHs back-to-back: "Funny Face" and "Love Jones".

"ah don' wanna bore you with a long irrevelent (sic) conversation..."

Er, then DON'T, dude.

[RGMike]

Casey intros "Do It Again" by naming all 6 members of Steely Dan!  And then Paul tries to give Linda his sweet banana -- er... ewww.

Now here's Johnny Rivers with what would be the second of his bi-annual remakes of the '70s: "Rockin' Pneumonia". (There was also "Sea Cruise" in '71, "Help Me Rhonda" in '75 and "Slow Dancin'" in '77.)  I just finally got my hands on Rhino's fab (and, sadly, out-of-print) 2-disc Rivers anthol.