Between grappling with this hectic fall semester and deciding to play another Strat-o-Matic tourney these last three weeks, I’ve let putting up another Charts post slide down the priority list. It’s become time for me to get it together.
9/5/81
Another case where I missed the tail end of the show and used the Florence Mall Recordland as a backup. That third Archive song was “To Sir, with Love”–this, after Casey giving a career retrospective of Lulu in hour 2 before playing her current hit. It’s embarrassing I whiffed on both of Bobbie Gentry’s names.
Hello/Goodbye: Nobody bows in, but it’s never again for Point Blank, Robbie Patton, and John Schneider.
As for my rankings:
While 1981 has a (justified) soft rock/country-dominated reputation, I’ll defend my top 15 choices of the time, Oak Ridge Boys excepted. The song at #25 is one I’ve noted before, from Union, another Randy Bachman joint–it didn’t chart nationally.
9/25/76
This is during the six-week period that WSAI took Casey off the air. I woke up early on a few Sunday mornings to listen to WAKY out of Louisville (but not 6:00am early, apparently). I didn’t write down the Top 10, since I could get that out of the newspaper.
Hello/Goodbye: Didn’t know it at the time, but this week was the beginning for Firefall.
10/7/78
The first four-hour show; I had one row at the bottom set aside for extras, and by gum, that’s where all of them were going to go.
Hello/Goodbye: They both had more solo hits to come, but we’re bidding adieu to Simon and Taylor as a duo.
10/11/80
Gotta wonder if I was not paying close attention to the radio when that third Archive song was being played. When I got this chart out ahead of time, I thought, “I’m really interested to listen to this, because I don’t think I’ve ever heard this one before.” When Casey started playing it: “Hmm… that sounds an awful lot like to the intro to Bruce Channel’s ‘Hey Baby’.” (In my defense, I doubt I knew the song at the time.)
Hello/Goodbye: Nothin’ goin’ on here.
Here’s what I thought:
While 1980 has a (justified) soft rock/country-dominated reputation, I’ll defend my top 15 choices of the time, though the Queen has fallen from favor over time from overplay.
10/17/81
Already back to my senior year of high school. There were only two Archive songs this time, perhaps due to the length of “Hey Jude.” I apparently didn’t listen to the reasonably touching second LDD of “The Way We Were.”
Hello/Goodbye: Finally, another first-timer: Diesel. And the Cult is going bye-bye.
What had changed for me in six weeks?
10/20/79
I suppose it’s fine when a current hit resonates with someone enough to be made a LDD? May be in the minority, but in the aggregate I’ll take the lower half of this chart over the upper.
Hello/Goodbye: Three newbies, each with an asterisk. Jim Henson had hit before as Ernie, J.D. Souther was a part of Souther/Hillman/Furay, and Chris Thompson sang for Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. This is all for Nick Lowe.
The 1979 and 1981 shows were played on the same weekend back in October, so I checked to see what I had from my WKRQ collections around that time. This 1979 chart is the last one I have from that year; the 1981 chart is the last one I have, period (Q102 must have discontinued the weekly updates not terribly long after this–I do have something from them representing the whole month of July 1982). Love that the Commodores are at the top and (almost) bottom of both (love that whole top 5 from 1979, actually).
I won’t show you, but the back of the 1979 chart announces the grand opening of the fourth location of Dreamland Waterbeds, not far from the Florence Mall. The back of the 1981 lists four upcoming concerts: the Cincinnati Coliseum will host the Moody Blues on 10/29, Foreigner on 11/4, and E. L. O. on 11/6; Music Hall has Rick Springfield on 11/8.
10/23/82
I’ll spare you my scribblings (you got a taste of what I’ve got from that period here), but my own rankings are perfectly suitable for display:
Melissa, your title is too long!
The Music of My Life 