Casey Kasem American Top 40

[SFGuy]

Hey kids!  here's a cool surprise:  WODS Boston lets you listen to AT40 in an on-demand podcast for several weeks after it airs!:
http://www.oldies1033.com/Oldies-On-Demand-Audio/4334827

oooh!  you can also download the files and save them as MP3s:

1. right click on the center icon (the download arrows)
2. choose "Save linked file as..."
3. name it, save it

 even though it's low-quality sound (~ 53 kbps VBR) it's a big file (1 hour ~ 21 MB)

It would take you one hour to download?? You must still have dial up. It would take 3-4 minutes for a 21 MB file on a slower DSL line I use.

[Tinka Cat]

Hey kids!  here's a cool surprise:  WODS Boston lets you listen to AT40 in an on-demand podcast for several weeks after it airs!:
http://www.oldies1033.com/Oldies-On-Demand-Audio/4334827

oooh!  you can also download the files and save them as MP3s:

1. right click on the center icon (the download arrows)
2. choose "Save linked file as..."
3. name it, save it

 even though it's low-quality sound (~ 53 kbps VBR) it's a big file (1 hour ~ 21 MB)

It would take you one hour to download?? You must still have dial up. It would take 3-4 minutes for a 21 MB file on a slower DSL line I use.

sorry, I meant the file is 21 MB and about an hour in running time.  (The three hour AT40 show is split into three files of about 55 min each).

[Tinka Cat]

#36 “LUCKENBACH, TEXAS (BACK TO THE BASICS OF LOVE)” by Waylon Jennings, which made it to #1 on the country charts, is one of those self-referential works that always kinda bug me.  Movies about the movie industry and songs about musicians seem like inside jokes, crafted to please other industry folks and not that relatable to "you and me."   of course there are exceptions, like Seeger's Turn the Page, Byrds So you wanna be a rock n roll star.  hmm, so there you go, I just exposed myself ... maybe I'm just hatin' on Waylon in this song.

The Helen Reddy song was too wimpy.   I've already forgotten it.

digging on the Rufus feat Chaka Khan "Hollywood" 

and I have to note the two nice sad love songs we started with :

#40 “ALL YOU GET FROM LOVE IS A LOVE SONG” – The Carpenters
#39 “IT’S SAD TO BELONG” – England Dan & John Ford Coley
 
pretty nice, and you have to feel for England Dan and JFC, being trapped in a relationship with each other when their "real" true loves came along. (I wonder who that was?)

[Tinka Cat]

Coming in at number 26, it's Leo Sayer's When I Need You. 
yay! Several of Leo's hits are guilty pleasures for me, esp How Much Love.  I can remember hanging out at the public pool with all the hotties that summer, trying to figure out what to do about the whole situation from my junior high POV.

Before this were

#26 “BACK TOGETHER AGAIN” – Daryl Hall & John Oates
John Oates sang lead -- and now we know why Darryl sang all the hits.. oh snap!

#27 “ARIEL” – Dean Friedman
retro 50s take, I remember this one. not really ear-wormish, but recognizable. 
 

[RGMike]

The Helen Reddy song was too wimpy.   I've already forgotten it.

Gaz and I will both scratch your eyes out next time we see you.  A fine cover of Cilla Black's British-invasion original, and (sadly) Ms. Reddy's last Top 40 hit.  Nice old-school production by (of all people) Kim Fowley.

[Gazoo]

Nice old-school production by (of all people) Kim Fowley.

Mike, you're just wrecking it with the I Didn't Know Thats this week!  Kim Fowley is the most astonishing Zelig of the pop/rock music world.

[RGMike]

Nice old-school production by (of all people) Kim Fowley.

Mike, you're just wrecking it with the I Didn't Know Thats this week!  Kim Fowley is the most astonishing Zelig of the pop/rock music world.

I live to dazzle you with musical geekitude!  Astonishing indeed: he was producing The Runaways at the same time he was making the Ear Candy LP with Ms Reddy.

[RGMike]

Magic 98 in Madison, WI, is where I usually listen to Klassic Kasem on Sat nite, and their "Saturday At the '70s" feature (nothing but '70s tunes all day) has become a fave of mine. Just tuned in and heard the Mighty 'Berries with "Let's Pretend", their fabulous hommage to "Wouldn't it Be Nice", and one of my 3 or 4 favorite songs of theirs.  That it only got to #35 is an inexplicable tragedy.

[RGMike]

Casey answers a letter asking what duo has had the most #1's. The answer was a 3-way tie between the Everlys, S&G and the Carpenters with 3 #1's each. If you'd asked, in 1977, "what duo do you think will ultimately break that tie?" I wonder how many would've guessed Hall & Oates.

I know a lot of folks who hate Rita Coolidge's "Higher and Higher", but as an example of that '70s subgenre, The Mellow Remake (think: JT's "Handy Man"), it's nicely done, and hey -- everybody was trying to cash in using the Ronstadt template. Coolidge managed 2 Top Ten singles from that LP, which is 2 more than hubby Kris Kristofferson ever had, amazingly. 

[RGMike]

Is there such a thing as Trumpet Karaoke? The talented Maynard Ferguson has his only Top 40 hit with his cover of "Gonna Fly Now" -- he'd settle for peaking at #28 while the Bill Conti orig went to #1.

But I *do* like H&O's "Back Together Again".  And I adore "Ariel", as quirkily NewYork-specific a lyric as has ever hit the 40.

[Gazoo]

Agreed on the quality of "Back Together Again."  As the follow-up to the #1 "Rich Girl," though, I guess it confused people.

Listening to Casey's '80s now: June 4, 1983.  I hadn't heard Alabama's "The Closer You Get" since it was on the charts (I think I remember them performing it on Solid Gold), nor Ronnie Milsap's "Stranger in My House" (my brother and I found the line "somebody here that I can't see" endlessly amusing), and a few were NTM minor charters (Kenny Rogers' "All My Life," Pat Benatar's "Looking for a Stranger," Jim Capaldi's Paul-Carrack-lite "That's Love").  And OMGWTF, the Bee Gees' embarrassingly bad "The Woman in You."

[RGMike]

Yo, bitch! Take Peter McCann seriously, or take it somewhere else. Word. I'd be remiss if I didn't at least VHM "Do You Wanna Make Love", one of my favorite '70s pop lyrics.

But co-BOS honors to Babs' stellar perf on "My Heart Belongs to Me", and Joe Tex, learning the horrors of big-woman bumping in the funniest disco song this side of "It's Raining Men".

[Tinka Cat]

Agreed on the quality of "Back Together Again."  As the follow-up to the #1 "Rich Girl," though, I guess it confused people.

It's got a great sound, production and groove, but John's voice seems tentative. 

And upon second listen to Helen "You're My World,"  I can see why it's appreciated.  She's got a couple phrases that are pretty breath-y and beautiful.  It's not wimpy, but the guitar solo mimicking the vocal hook -- it reappears at the song's end, too -- isn't my cup.  I think that left a bad impression on me.  (Mike: Please don't scratch my eyes out.)

chk out this wiki item on Dean Friedman's Ariel:

The record label which produced "Ariel" insisted Friedman change the song's second verse which refers to the eponymous Ariel as "a Jewish girl", believing that radio stations might use it as an excuse not to play the record. The third verse was also removed to make the single shorter for radio. The management company received threats from the Jewish Defense League protesting against the edit and, at Friedman's insistence, the original version was put on the album.

[Gazoo]

TANC: One of the bartenders at the Phone (the bar/restaurant where my friend Andy works), an Irishman named Colm, this week introduced me to an African funk band, the Lafayette Afro Rock Band, that had a competing (and very similar) version of Manu Dibango's "Soul Makossa."  Friday night he played the song and I told Andy about how Michael Jackson had appropriated a piece of it for "Wanna Be Startin' Something" - and here it is, debuting in the Top 40 at #22.

Followed by my BOS, Elton's "I'm So Excited That I'm Still Standing."  I have loved this one ever since the first time I heard it.  It'd have gone Top 10 if the video hadn't been so overtly gay, I'm convinced.

[Gazoo]

Agreed on the quality of "Back Together Again."  As the follow-up to the #1 "Rich Girl," though, I guess it confused people.

It's got a great sound, production and groove, but John's voice seems tentative. 

And upon second listen to Helen "You're My World,"  I can see why it's appreciated.  She's got a couple phrases that are pretty breath-y and beautiful.  It's not wimpy, but the guitar solo mimicking the vocal hook -- it reappears at the song's end, too -- isn't my cup.  I think that left a bad impression on me.  (Mike: Please don't scratch my eyes out.)

chk out this wiki item on Dean Friedman's Ariel:

The record label which produced "Ariel" insisted Friedman change the song's second verse which refers to the eponymous Ariel as "a Jewish girl", believing that radio stations might use it as an excuse not to play the record. The third verse was also removed to make the single shorter for radio. The management company received threats from the Jewish Defense League protesting against the edit and, at Friedman's insistence, the original version was put on the album.

The guitar solo on "You're My World" sounds like it wants to break off into "Harlem Nocturne" or "A Town Without Pity."

And I wish I could share Mike's love of "Ariel."  To me it's a fun one to hear once in a while, but I remember inducing pearl-clutching from Mike a few years ago when I called it as much a novelty as "Back When My Hair Was Short."  (TANC!)