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Welcome to the Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown Show, I’m your host, Christopher Verdesi. Every week we dive deep into a year in Pop music and culture and count down the top ten from our exclusive re-ranking of the weekly charts published at the time in Billboard, the music industry’s top trade mag. This week on Chartcrush it’s 1977, a year of deep divides—between genres and generations, fantasy and reality, idealism and cynicism, past and future—nowhere more vivid than on the Pop charts.

’77, of course, the year of Star Wars and Disco—kinetic, escapist fantasies for Americans running low on optimism and neck-deep in what President Jimmy Carter would soon dub a “malaise.”

But alongside the lightsabers and mirror balls, top 40 radio and the charts? Awash in slow, tender Ballads full of heartbreak, innocence, longing. Not just escapist, but retreatist! And there was plenty to retreat from. The economy? Stagnant. Inflation? Rampant. Politics and government? Deeply suspect post-Watergate. Crime? Rising. Cities? Burning and crumbling. Energy costs? Through the roof. The speed limit on highways, capped at 55 since ’74 to save gas, and wouldn’t go back up until the mid ’90s. Carter in his first Oval Office address called the energy crisis “the moral equivalent of war,” then turned down the thermostat to 65, donned a cardigan and put solar panels on the White House.

But for a couple days in July of ’77 in New York, it really did feel like a war when the lights went out in a massive blackout. Fires, mayhem, and looting—especially pro audio shops. And the next week, according to Hip-Hop Pioneer MC Debbie D and many others, “Everybody was a DJ. Everybody.” ’77, also the Summer of the Son of Sam murder spree, turning the Big Apple into a noir nightmare.

And elsewhere? Cleveland, on the verge of default. Detroit, choking on smoke and decline, earning its rep for Devil’s Night fires. Crips and Bloods, ramping up in L.A., where the smog was thicker than the plot of an ABC Movie of the Week.

Elvis Presley died in August—young! Just 42. Boomers mostly shrugged, but for older fans, the unprecedented media spectacle transformed Elvis into a tragic symbol of a vanishing American dream, his death a sobering postscript to early Rock ‘n Roll rebellion.

And in that wake, Nostalgia shows Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley surged in the TV ratings. And also on the tube, new hits like the sex farce Three’s Company, plus The Love Boat and, speaking of fantasy, a show that had it right in the title, Fantasy Island. All those on ABC—redefining itself in the late ’70s as the antidote to CBS’s earlier lineup of Norman Lear social-commentary sitcoms All in the Family, Maude and The Jeffersons. That approach to comedy, seeming a little too heavy by ’77.

And of course, the cresting Disco wave—less a revolt than an alternate universe that went mainstream, with enough DJs spinning records to spawn a whole new format—the 12-inch single: longer, louder mixes tailored for club play. Music for bodies in motion: sweat, sex, glamour, and abandon—the sexual revolution hitting the dancefloor in heels, polyester, Sassoon jeans and Fabergé Brut. Half our ’77 countdown, Disco or Disco-adjacent hits, and Saturday Night Fever didn’t even hit theaters ’til late November.

But as I said at the top, even with Disco booming, many of 1977’s top hits were soft—sentimental, acoustic, Country-inflected: a quieter echo of that same revolution—with emotional openness, romantic ambiguity, confessing anxieties and insecurities in whispers, not shouts.

Overall the Pop charts in ’77 were a soundtrack for emotional limbo—fraying nerves and fading dreams—the future more a question mark than a promise. While the Sex Pistols snarled “No Future” in the U.K., America rode out malaise on rich Corinthian leather seats in softly-lit faux wood-grain appointed sedans, humming along with latest escapist hit Ballad on the radio, while heading out to the disco.

#10 Mary MacGregor – Torn Between Two Lovers

But at least it was an earnest escape: one that clings to love—even the messy kind—as the last refuge of meaning. Which helps explain how an intimate Ballad about a woman caught between two men got all the way to #1 in February. The Singer’s first (and only) hit, co-written and co-produced by Folkie Peter Yarrow—he was the Peter in Peter, Paul and Mary, who mentored her. Kicking off our Chartcrush Countdown of 1977’s top ten hits, at #10, Mary MacGregor’s “Torn Between Two Lovers.”

https://open.spotify.com/track/4qegwB7zI3FAianHx6jHZv

So, she’s telling her husband she’s cheating—but hoping he’ll be cool with it. Pretty brazen—and even the Singer Mary MacGregor found it cringey, blaming the song for her eventual divorce. But surprisingly, “Torn Between Two Lovers” also topped the conservative Easy Listening chart (soon to be rebranded Adult Contemporary), and was top ten Country for five weeks.

Unclear from the lyrics how things work out for her, and no one ever did a sequel or answer song (why on Earth not?!). But in ’79, CBS did borrow the song and title for a TV movie starring Lee Remick and George Peppard, and spoiler alert—in that, she winds up back with hubby.

Mary MacGregor: the first of five Female Solo Acts in our 1977 Chartcrush Countdown. The only other year with that many up to then? 1952. And it wouldn’t happen again ’til 1989. Female Solo Acts in the ’75 and ’76 top tens? Zero. The only women were in Duets or Groups—so, quite the comeback for the ladies in ’77.

#9 Kenny Nolan – I Like Dreamin’

Another theme among ’77’s top hits: fantasy lovers. Two major hits in the year, both by White Guys from L.A. who’d just notched their first #1s as Songwriters in ’75, now stepping into the spotlight as Singer-Songwriters—at the peak of the Singer-Songwriter era.

Alan O’Day’s “Undercover Angel” made it to #1 in July and both records got seven weeks in the top ten, but this one was first, in March, and despite only getting to #3, it logged three more weeks in the top 40, so it comes out ahead on chart points. At #9, Kenny Nolan’s “I Like Dreamin’.”

Kenny Nolan, co-writer with Four Season Bob Crewe, of two back-to-back #1s in 1975: Frankie Valli’s “My Eyes Adored You” and Labelle’s “Lady Marmalade.” Alan O’Day’s first big score before “Undercover Angel” was Helen Reddy’s surreal “Angie Baby,” also in ’75. So two red hot Songwriters going solo and scoring with songs about imaginary lovers, in a year when sex and relationship norms were in flux. The Atlanta Rhythm Section for one was paying attention—their hit titled “Imaginary Lover” put the exclamation point on the trend in early ’78.

Interestingly, 1959, also a banner year for songs about fantasy lovers: Frankie Avalon’s “Venus” and Bobby Darin’s “Dream Lover,” both aimed squarely at inexperienced Teens. And in between, Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” in ’63 and The Temptations’ “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)” in ’71, which the Rolling Stones were busy covering for their 1978 album Some Girls.

#8 Thelma Houston – Don’t Leave Me This Way

Now if you’ve been listening to our Chartcrush 1977 Countdown wondering when the Disco kicks in, it’s time to break out the mirror ball, folks, because we’ve got three in a row, starting with a Motown Singer whose career up to that point had been a string of near-misses.

Set to star in a Dinah Washington biopic inspired by Diana Ross’ Oscar-nominated turn as Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues, but the project got iced when Washington’s family wouldn’t sign off. Then she was first to record the Michael Masser/Gerry Goffin song “Do You Know Where You’re Going To?” But Motown shelved it and Diana Ross scored the hit in ’76 as the Theme of her movie Mahogany.

Finally in ’77, though, the dice rolled her way when Ross passed on this song as the follow-up to her smash “Love Hangover,” and it landed in her lap. #1 for a week at the end of April, at #8 it’s Thelma Houston’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way.”

#8, Thelma Houston, “Don’t Leave Me This Way.” Written by Philly Soul legends Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff and first done by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in ’75 with Teddy Pendergrass singing lead, but never released as a single—leaving it for Motown and, after Diana Ross passed, Thelma Houston (no relation to Whitney, by the way).

She never cracked the top 20 again after being catapulted to Disco royalty, but then again, neither did Diana Ross during peak-Disco—no #1’s after “Love Hangover” until “Upside Down” in 1980. Both Singers, though, scored multiple top tens on the Dance charts in the early ’80s after leaving Motown for RCA.

#7 Heatwave – Boogie Nights

Next up in our three-pack of Disco hits here on our 1977 edition of the Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown Show, a record that was in the top ten October and November, five those ten weeks after Billboard‘s October 29 cut-off for its 1977 “chart year” and not counted, so on their official year-end Hot100, it’s only #93—one of dozens of smashes over the years that’ve fallen through the cracks, only because of when on the calendar they were hits.

Now, at Chartcrush, we don’t do “chart years.” Instead, we factor every song’s full run on the weekly charts into whichever year it got the most ranking points, so we’ve got this one at #7 for ’77, not #93!

It’s a group formed in Germany, fronted by U.S. Serviceman Johnnie Wilder, built around the songs and keyboards of an unknown Brit named Rod Temperton—who in just three years would be working with Quincy Jones and writing “Rock with You,” “Off the Wall,” and “Thriller” for Michael Jackson. Rounding out the lineup, Wilder’s brother Keith from Dayton, Ohio, plus another Brit, a Czechoslovakian, a Jamaican and a Bass Player from Switzerland.

They made their debut album in ’76 after moving to London, and our #7 song hit in the U.K. in January ’77—but took nearly a full year to catch on in the States. And no thanks to Discos—at least not the elite ones Billboard was surveying for its National Disco Action chart at the time. It barely cracked that chart at #36. But it was a huge Pop hit, #2 for two weeks in November while the unstoppable juggernaut we’ll be hearing later at #1 was racking up its record-breaking ten weeks at the top of the Hot100. At #7, it’s Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights.”

Heatwave, “Boogie Nights” at #7 on our Chartcrush Countdown of 1977’s top ten hits—again, not a song you were likely to hear in an upscale disco in ’77—DJ’s preferring sleek, orchestrated, rhythmically consistent tracks for seamless mixing and a continuous, hypnotic 4/4 pulse. Even Kool & The Gang, edged out of Discos for the same reason, until “Ladies Night” in late ’79.

Heatwave scored two more big hits in ’78, the Slow Jam wedding perennial “Always and Forever” and another funky Banger, “The Groove Line.” But once Rod Temperton got snapped up by Quincy Jones to write for Michael Jackson and became one of the most in-demand R&B songwriters, Heatwave—unlike Kool & The Gang—couldn’t keep the momentum going into the ’80s.

And hey, if you’ve ever wondered why “Boogie Nights” isn’t in the 1997 movie of the same name starring Mark Wahlberg about the rise of the Porn industry in the ’70s? Well, Frontman Johnnie Wilder became a born-again Christian after a car crash in 1979 left him paralyzed—and he vetoed it.

#6 Leo Sayer – You Make Me Feel like Dancing

Next at #6, another Brit whose first U.K. hit took a few months to catch on in the States back in ’74 and ’75: the quirky “Long Tall Glasses.” But by late ’76, he was well-known enough that this one charted on both sides of the Atlantic more or less simultaneously.

He’s the other Male Singer who rode his falsetto to Pop glory in the late ’70s—Barry Gibb, of course, the one you think of, and the Bee Gees did blaze that trail with “You Should Be Dancing,” their first of their many hits with a falsetto lead. That peaked in September of ’76. But on the eve of Saturday Night Fever and “Stayin’ Alive,” this guy pretty much had the falsetto lane all to himself with back-to-back #1’s in early ’77. At #6, the first of them. It’s Leo Sayer with “You Make Me Feel like Dancing.”

Leo Sayer here on our 1977 edition of Chartcrush—another year-straddler, its first two weeks in Billboard‘s 1976 chart year, not ’77, and in Billboard‘s year-end ranking, that made the difference. It missed the top ten at #13. But factoring its full run with our Chartcrush ranking method, it’s #6.

Ray Parker, Jr., reportedly the actual writer of “You Make Me Feel like Dancing.” He said he gave it to a label exec, and when the record came out, his name was nowhere to be found. And it went on to win Best R&B Song at the Grammys! Parker landed on his feet, though—two top tens in ’78 and ’79 with his Group Raydio, two more solo in ’81 and ’82, and then “Ghostbusters” in ’84, which got him sued for ripping off Huey Lewis’ “I Want a New Drug.”

Leo Sayer followed up in ’77 with the Ballad “When I Need You“—his second back-to-back #1 in May—and then after a three-and-a-half year top 20 drought, he ditched the falsetto and donned a New Wave-y pink jacket for one last top ten, “More Than I Can Say,” in 1980.

#5 Crystal Gayle – Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue

OK, so that wraps our three-pack of Disco hits, but next up at #5, our third year-straddler in a row that you won’t find in the top ten on any Billboard year-end Hot100, again, because their chart runs got split between Billboard‘s “chart year” ranking periods. “Boogie Nights” and “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing,” split between the 1976 and ’77 chart years; this next one—plus one more still to come in the countdown—’77 into ’78.

To this day, Billboard caps its chart year early to give themselves time to get the rankings out by New Years, but at Chartcrush, without a publishing deadline we get to factor songs’ full chart runs—even if they end the following Spring—and correct the record.

And in this case give proper due to a Singer who scored her first hit on the Country chart in 1970, “I’ve Cried (The Blue Right Out of My Eyes),” written for her by her older Sister, none other than Country Legend Loretta Lynn. Her first Pop crossover was her first Country #1 in ’76, “I’ll Get Over You,” but in ’77, she put the blue right back in her eyes when she scored the biggest Pop hit by an already-established Country Singer since Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy” in ’75. At #5, it’s Crystal Gayle with “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.”

’77, a big year for Country crossovers. Crystal Gayle’s “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue,” the biggest at #5 in our Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown. Glen Campbell’s “Southern Nights” and Kenny Rogers’ “Lucille” were earlier in the year, and just as “Brown Eyes” slipped out of the top ten, Dolly Parton made her move with “Here You Come Again,” on her way to #3 for two weeks in early ’78.

Crystal Gayle never scored another Pop hit quite that big, but she did crack the top 20 a couple more times before the end of the decade. And for the record, her eyes are blue, but it was her floor-length hair that really had people talking in ’77 and beyond.

#4 Barbra Streisand – Love Theme from A Star Is Born (Evergreen)

At #4, the second #1 hit by a Superstar who was already the first woman to complete the EGOT grand slam—E-G-O-T: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. She won the Best Actress Oscar in ’69 for Funny Girl, and an honorary Star of the Decade Tony the next year, after racking up Emmys and Grammys aplenty in the ’60s.

But this next song—co-written with lyricist Paul Williams—made her the only Artist ever to win Academy Awards both for Acting and Songwriting when it took Best Song at the ’77 Oscars. She also starred in the movie it was from, A Star Is Born, opposite Kris Kristofferson—her second time taking a Movie Ballad to #1. The first? “The Way We Were” in ’74.

This one ended a three-year top 40 dry spell for her and kicked off a run on the charts that kept her in the spotlight through the Disco era and into the early ’80s. At #4, it’s Barbra Streisand’s “Love Theme from A Star Is Born (Evergreen).”

The 2018 remake of A Star Is Born also yielded a #1 hit and Best Song Oscar—”Shallow,” sung by co-stars Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. Gaga as Lead Songwriter got the Oscar and was one of the nominees for Best Actress. Had she won, she would’ve matched Barbra’s historic feat, but Olivia Colman got the nod for The Favourite, so Streisand remains the only Artist ever to win for both Acting and Songwriting.

#3 Emotions – Best of My Love

Now Earth, Wind and Fire didn’t crack the top ten again after their #1 breakthrough in ’75, “Shining Star” and their #5 “Sing a Song” in ’76 until their late-’70s run starting in ’78. But our next song at #3 is an EWF record in all but name—they wrote it, produced it, and most of them played on it.

The voices, though, belonged to a Chicago Sister Act—Wanda, Sheila and Pamela Hutchinson. Performing since 1958, recording since ’62, and from ’69 to ’75, on Volt Records—same label as the late Otis Redding—where Isaac Hayes and Dave Porter were their Producers. But nothing charted higher than #39 until this. Bigger than any Earth, Wind and Fire single ever, at #3, it’s The Emotions with “Best of My Love.”

The Emotions’ “Best of My Love,” #3 on our Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown for 1977—their second single after Stax-Volt dissolved in ’75. Earth, Wind and Fire’s Maurice White snapped them up for Columbia Records and produced their comeback.

Fellow Stax alum Johnnie Taylor also landed on Columbia and scored the first-ever Platinum-certified single with “Disco Lady” in ’76.

And for the record, the hit that broke Earth, Wind and Fire’s own top ten dry spell? A Beatles cover: “Got to Get You into My Life,” from the Sgt. Pepper’s movie soundtrack in ’78. The Fab Four’s own version from Revolver 1966, put out as a single in 1976 and it got to #7—by far their biggest hit, post-breakup.

#2 Andy Gibb – I Just Want to Be Your Everything

Well we’re down to #2 in the countdown, and it’s the song with the longest chart run of ’77—31 weeks, 26 of those in the top 40, and a record-tying 16 in the top ten. But that record didn’t last long: just a few months later, the Singer’s older Brothers, Barry, Robin and Maurice, broke it with “How Deep Is Your Love” from Saturday Night Fever.

The Brothers, of course, The Bee Gees, and like Earth, Wind and Fire’s Maurice White with the Emotions we just heard at #3, Barry Gibb wrote, co-produced and sang backup on the song—and it was a bigger hit than anything the Bee Gees had done up ’til then. At #2, the debut single off the debut album by then-19-year-old Andy Gibb, “I Just Want to Be Your Everything.”

Now earlier Bee Gees hits like “Jive Talkin’” in ’75 had already demonstrated that that sound—the tight falsettos, breezy grooves and slick production—could slay on the chart. But after Andy Gibb’s “I Just Want to Be Your Everything,” it was everywhere—three #1s for the Bee Gees from Saturday Night Fever, two more for Andy in ’78. And all—same Producers (Barry Gibb, Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson); same label (RSO Records), and even the same studio: Criteria in North Miami.

And Andy? Instant Tiger Beat Teen royalty, along with Actors-turned-Singers Leif Garrett and Shaun Cassidy, who both took covers of early-’60s hits up the charts in ’77: “Da Doo Ron Ron” for Cassidy, and “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and “Runaround Sue” for Garrett.

By the way, Billboard declared “I Want to Be Your Everything” “Song of the Summer” for 1977, which is a no-brainer on chart points. But doesn’t Meco’s discofied “Star Wars Theme” rate at least an honorable mention? Who cares that its two weeks at #1 were in October?!

#1 Debby Boone – You Light Up My Life

So #1 on our Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown for 1977: it’s the Pop juggernaut I’ve been teasing all hour. Ten weeks atop the Hot100, breaking the 18-year-old record of nine shared by Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife” in 1959, Percy Faith’s “Theme from a Summer Place” in 1960 and The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” in ’68. But going forward, the record of ten weeks stood until Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road” in 1992, tied only once by Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” in ’82.

Its run at #1, all in calendar 1977—October to mid-December—but all but three of those weeks, after Billboard‘s cut-off for the ’77 chart year, so they’ve got it at #3 for 1978—more “chart year” straddling weirdness. But it’s the reason Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights” and Crystal Gayle’s “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” didn’t hit #1, and the Singer never even had a hit before! At #1, Debby Boone’s “You Light Up My Life.”

Well when you add it all up, not just the #1 song of 1977, but of the ’70s decade! Debby Boone: Daughter of ’50s Pop Idol Pat Boone, and Granddaughter of Country Legend Red Foley. But her version of “You Light Up My Life?” A cover—of the title song from a hit movie, originally sung on the soundtrack by Ukrainian-American Session Singer Kacey Cisyk. And both versions have the identical backing track produced by the film’s Writer-Director-Composer Joe Brooks.

The story goes that when Cisyk rebuffed Brooks’ advances, he put her version on the B-side of his instrumental single from the soundtrack album, credited only to “Original Cast,” and brought in Debby Boone to re-do the vocal for a proper single release—all to avoid paying Cisyk any royalties. Well, after the song was a runaway smash, Cisyk sued—and won—and years later, Brooks took his own life while awaiting trial for multiple sexual assault charges.

Boone, a devout Christian who talked openly about her faith, never cracked the top 40 again—maybe a little too straight-laced even for the late-’70s. But she found her footing and thrived on the Country and Contemporary Christian charts into the ’80s.

Bonus

Now as I mentioned, most of “You Light Up My Life’s” chart run was after Billboard‘s October 29 cutoff for 1977 and they’ve got it at #3 on the year 1978. But Billboard‘s #1 song of 1977 was also a year straddler—Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night,” #1 for eight weeks mid-November ’76 to January 1, ’77, so we’ve got that one where it belongs: #1 on the year 1976: an even swap in the top ten—one coming in from ’78, another shifting to ’76.

But remember our three year-straddlers in a row at numbers 7, 6 and 5 that came into our top ten, but weren’t in Billboard‘s? Quick review: Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights,” #7; Leo Sayer’s “You Make Me Feel like Dancing,” #6; and Crystal Gayle’s “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue,” #5. Well those three coming in to our Chartcrush Top Ten, of course, means three other songs from the top ten on Billboard‘s official published year-end top ten, bumped from ours, so to be thorough, let’s have a look at those in our bonus segment.

#11 Alan O’Day – Undercover Angel

At #9, Billboard had the other ’77 hit about a fantasy lover by a Songwriter-turned-Singer-Songwriter from L.A. We heard Kenny Nolan’s “I Like Dreamin'” back at #9; here’s Alan O’Day’s “Undercover Angel.”

Alan O’Day’s “Undercover Angel” just misses our Chartcrush ’77 top ten at #11—#9 on Billboard‘s year-end tally. His follow-up later in ’77 stalled at #73, but he resurfaced in the 1980s co-writing over 100 songs for the Saturday morning Muppet Babies TV show.

#12 Rita Coolidge – (Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher

Next up, the Backup Singer who in 1970, dated both Stephen Stills and Graham Nash of Supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young—one right after the other. Well that was some drama! Maybe she should’ve sung “Torn Between Two Lovers!” But by ’77 she’d been married for four years to Kris Kristofferson—Streisand’s leading man in A Star Is Born—and scoring her own top ten hits, the first of which peaked at #2 in September behind “Best of My Love” and was #8 on Billboard‘s year-end ranking. It’s Rita Coolidge’s “(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher.”

“(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher,” a #6 hit for Soul Legend Jackie Wilson in 1967, re-titled to “(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher” for Rita Coolidge’s mid-tempo cover in 1977—Billboard‘s #8 song of the year; it shakes out at #12 on our Chartcrush ranking.

#13 Hot – Angel in Your Arms

And finally in our bonus segment of songs that made Billboard‘s year-end top ten in ’77, but not our Chartcrush top ten we counted down earlier, a Soul Trio that hit up their Producers for a Country song, and they supplied one of their own—and after five months climbing the charts, it peaked at #6 for two weeks in July. Longevity like that, always rewarded in year-end rankings—even if a song doesn’t crack the top 5 on the weekly chart. Billboard‘s #5 song of 1977 is Hot’s “Angel in Your Arms.”

One-hit wonder Hot’s “Angel in Your Arms,” Billboard‘s #5 song of 1977, notches in at #13 on our Chartcrush ranking.

And that’s all we’ve got for you here on our 1977 edition of the Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown Show. I’ve been your host, Christopher Verdesi.

Hey, if you like what you heard this hour, head over to our website, chartcrush.com for a transcript of the show and a link to stream the podcast version, plus foxy extras like our full top100 chart and interactive line graph of the Billboard chart runs for the top10 hits. We do that for every year, 1940s to now, and it’s all on that website—again, chartcrush.com. Meanwhile, thanks for listening, and tune in again next week, same station, same time, for another year and another edition of Chartcrush.

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