The AT40 Blog/August 31, 1985: A shout out for the Jersey Shore

The Top 40 for August 31, 1985 was best known for all the international artists in the countdown. There were 17 songs by international artists ... that is, 17 different artists.

From England, there was 13 acts in the Top 40 alone: Dire Straits, John Parr, John Waite, Wham!, Howard Jones, Eurythmics, Billy Ocean, Phil Collins, Sting, Paul Young, Godley & Creme, Tears For Fears and Dead Or Alive. There were two Canadians in the countdown: Corey Hart and Bryan Adams. One act came from Australia ... Rick Springfield. The other foreigner in the countdown: newcomers a-ha from Norway.

While the foreign invasion of the charts that started in 1983 with the second British Invasion was still going strong, there were three songs in the countdown to come from one of the smallest states in the U.S.

Yes, New Jersey, aka the Garden State, was being repped in this countdown. In the Top 10 up four places from No. 12 to No. 8 was the third Top 10 hit from the album "Emergency" for Kool & The Gang out of Jersey City. The ballad "Cherish" would ultimately get to No. 2.

And then the other two Garden Staters could be found  near the end of the first hour of American Top 40. Of course, Casey Kasem himself teased that segment in the previous segment by telling everyone, "Up next, the man who makes the Garden State rock."

Then after the break, Casey goes into his spiel when it comes to all the radio stations all over the world. In this case, he pointed out WQLT in Florence, Ala. He gave a shout-out to 2XL in Cooma, New South Wales, Australia. And then ...

"And Jersey Shore hit radio WJRZ, Manahawkin and Toms River, New Jersey."

That was special. When Casey points out your home base, there's a big piece of pride involved. Growing up in Toms River, WJRZ was the Top 40 station of choice there at 100.1 on the dial in the early-to-mid 1980s along with another radio station that would broadcast AT40 a few years later, WPST in Trenton.

Then he continued from there ...

"And from the Garden State, here's New Jersey's favorite rock and roller, Bruce Springsteen, with his recent Top 5 smash now at No. 32, "Glory Days."

Swelled pride, no doubt, especially since Bruce is the iconic Jersey Shore rocker, straight from the hard-scrabbled streets of Freehold, a town I used to drive through a lot in a younger day for one reason or another. Perfect segue way. And that would be followed up at No. 31 by a song moving up eight notches in its second week in the countdown. From East Orange, N.J., it was the second Top 40 hit for 22-year-old Whitney Houston, "Saving All My Love For You," the song that would end up being her first No. 1 hit.

Yes, the moment lasted a second or two, but you can't help but remember it. It's in the final segment before the end of the first hour.

Meanwhile, three of the Top 4 songs in America came from movies: "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)" by Tina Turner from the movie she was a star in, "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome," was at No. 4, "St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)" by John Parr was waiting to get to No. 1 at the No. 2 spot, and holding the fort down was the hit from the Michael J. Fox movie "Back To The Future," "Power Of Love," by Huey Lewis & The News, holding at the top for a second straight week.

The AT40 Blog/August 24, 1974: America felt nostalgic

The world wasn't such a great place to be in 1974. Gas prices had gone up dramatically. There was crisis in the Middle East with Israel and Egypt at the forefront. But the lowlight in the summer of 1974 came on Thursday night, August 8, when in a speech made from his Oval Office to the country, President Richard M. Nixon announced that as of that next day at noon, he was resigning the office of the presidency and replaced by Vice-President Gerald R. Ford.

Watergate had gotten too much at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and in a short amount of time, President Nixon was going to be asked to testify in front of the Senate hearing committee and asked what he knew and when he knew it to them and a national audience.

Let's just say it wasn't going to end too well.

The people were bummed. They didn't like the world or their own country at this point in 1974. And so they turned to the one thing they could always turn to -- nostalgia. The year before, a movie that told of a simpler time in the early 1960s was released called "American Graffiti" and it became a huge hit and made household names of such actors as Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss and Harrison Ford. Earlier in 1974, the first No. 1 hit of the rock 'n roll era was released -- Billy Haley & The Comets' iconic "Rock Around The Clock" -- and in late May, it hit the Top 40, peaking at No. 39, spending one week in the countdown. And ABC was beginning to develop a new television show about life in the 1950s in Milwaukee that would star Howard and little-known actors such as Tom Bosley, Marion Ross, Anson Williams, Donny Most and a guy named Henry Winkler ... yup, "Happy Days."

And on the weekend of August 24, 1974, there was plenty of that nostalgia to go around in a number of songs within the Top 40.

Debuting at No. 33 was the latest single for the British artist known as Cat Stevens. A decade earlier, Sam Cooke went to No. 10 with "Another Saturday Night. Now Stevens was having his playful take with that number and would peak higher on the chart with his version at No. 6.

Moving up nine solid notches from No. 40 to No. 31 was the first and only Top 40 hit for the British group First Class. "Beach Baby" was a longing look at the long, beautiful days of summer lovin' and enjoying days on the sand and in the surf. It's the closest thing any foreign act has ever come to sounding like Brian, Carl, Dennis, Mike, Al and Bruce and the Beach Boys sound. With singer Tony Burrows, who made a history of singing on other one-hit wonder studio acts such as the Pipkins' "Gimme Dat Ding," White Plains' "My Baby Loves Lovin'" and Edison Lighthouse's "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes), leading the way, that smash single was a hit long after summer turned to fall, peaking at No. 4 in this country.

Also leaping nine places from No. 30 to No. 21 was the latest hit by lead singer Burton Cummings and his group, The Guess Who. "Clap For The Wolfman" was also an ode to a disc jockey who first made a name for himself playing rock 'n roll records while on a Mexican radio station, Wolfman Jack (real name, Robert Smith, from Brooklyn, N.Y.). The Wolfman made a name for himself in that smash movie "American Graffiti" the year before and the Guess Who paid tribute to the man, who was now also the host of NBC's highly successful "The Midnight Special." It would end up peaking at No. 6.

Another act getting nostalgic ... well, in a much different way ... was the British band Fancy, led by the lone female in the group, lead singer Helen Court. They moved up four places from No. 22 to No. 18 with their fresh take on the Troggs' 1966 No. 1 hit "Wild Thing."

But maybe the most unique act with any kind of nostalgic lineage was a country star who failed as a pop singer in the 1950s. Billy "Crash" Craddock, given his nickname for his prowess on a Greensboro, N.C. football field as a running back, released numerous songs with unique titles such as "Smacky-Mouth," "Birddoggin'" and "Boom Boom Baby." Only one title even reached the Billboard Hot 100 and that was the No. 94 song "Don't Destroy Me" in 1959. So in the mid-1960s, Craddock stopped trying to be a rock-a-billy star and turned his focus to the country music scene, where he scored numerous Top 10 hits, including his breakthrough smash, his No. 3 country remake of Dawn's pop No. 1 smash "Knock Three Times" in 1971. Then came "Rub It In," the playful tease of a record about layin' the suntan on while bakin' on a summer's day at the beach. It became Craddock's first No. 1 country hit at 35 years old and even better, the song finally helped him crack the pop Top 40. The man who had the same kind of charisma as the King of Rock 'n Roll did, Elvis Presley, moved up four places in this countdown from No. 20 to its peak position of No. 16, where it held down for three straight weeks.

Moving up a notch from No. 9 to No. 8 was the first collaboration of Donny and Marie Osmond, who were 5 and 4 years old, respectively, when Dale & Grace took "I'm Leaving It Up To You" to No. 1 for two weeks in November 1963. Donny and Marie decided to add an "all" into the title and "I'm Leaving It All Up To You" would wind up peaking at No. 4.

Last but not least was the guy at the top. Between June 1963 and the middle of July 1974, Canadian Paul Anka had exactly one Top 40 hit with the No. 27 song "Goodnight My Love" in 1969. But it wasn't as if he was doing nothing in the interim. He had composed the theme song to "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" and he wrote the classic Frank Sinatra Top 30 smash "My Way." And he was still on the circuit, doing night clubs in Vegas. He was hot even if he wasn't having a hit. Well it was this week in 1974 that Anka's first Top 40 hit since "Goodnight My Love," "(You're) Having My Baby" jumped up from No. 3 to land at No. 1 to become his first No. 1 hit since "Lonely Boy" in 1959 and 17 years after scoring his very first No. 1 hit at 16 years old, "Diana."

The song caused a stir in two ways: First was the title of the song. A lot of women were offended by the title, "(You're) Having My Baby," as if he was saying we were giving birth instead of the mother, who got to endure the nine months of labor and then give birth. The feminists out there said that Anka didn't get it, even if he didn't think anything of it. Second, the song contained the line, "Didn't have to keep it ... wouldn't put you through it. You could've swept it from your life, but you wouldn't do it. No you wouldn't do it." Those who were pro choice got all over Anka, but the star defended himself, saying in 1974, "I am into the antihuman thing, and I do understand the other side of it. There are those who can't cope, and it's not in the cards for them to have kids. I'm a libber myself, in the sense that ... if you've got to abort, you do. Some people just can't cope."

Though given the title by some as "the worst song ever," Anka's song has lasted for three generations and was one of his biggest hits ever, staying at No. 1 for three weeks.

It was a nostalgic time on the music charts. And with what was happening in the world, especially in this country, you could understand why Americans turned to a more cherished and "innocent" time.

The AT40 Blog/August 16, 1986: When chocolate met peanut butter

For years, rap music was threatening to infiltrate the mainstream Top 40 world.

Sure, there were some songs that had their moments in the song. The two most memorable rap singles up through the mid-1980s were "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang in January 1980, the first-ever all-rap song to make the Top 40. The other came a year later when Debbie Harry rapped in the second half of "Rapture," Blondie's fourth and final No. 1 hit in less than two years.

But starting in 1984, three friends from Hollis, Queens, N.Y., Joseph Simmons, Jason Mizell and Daryl McDaniels, started to make noise in the R&B world with their raps. And unlike other artists out there like Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaata, these guys were a little harder edged. It was in 1984 when they made waves with a song called "King Of Rock," using a guitar-edged backdrop to their loud and proud raps.

Jason, Joseph and Daryl grew up on smooth R&B, but they also grew up on hard rock. They saw an avenue with their rap that might get them noticed a little more quickly than some of the other acts out there. And so Jason, the DJ and scratcher, Joseph, who went by the nickname of "Run" and Daryl, who took the "DMC" from his name, went to work on an album that would get them noticed in the summer of 1986 with the help of a little-known producer named Rick Rubin.

It was called "Raising Hell." The centerpiece of the album was an innovative rap using a song all three guys never heard growing up -- "Walk This Way" by Boston's bad boys of rock, Aerosmith. It was Rubin who brought his copy of the album the song was from, "Toys In The Attic," to the studio and played the original for the young rappers. He suggested they try to rap Tyler's original lyrics and neither Simmons or McDaniels were up for it. But Rubin was persuasive. And Mizell was willing to give it a shot by putting his own unique scratching skills to the song.

They got the permission from Tyler and Joe Perry, the writers of "Walk This Way" and who were unusually inspired to write the song after they caught the Mel Brooks-directed "Young Frankenstein" at the movies one day, to do the song. Next thing they asked permission for: If Perry and Tyler would like to play on the remake. They were both willing to come to New York and cut the new version.

What happened next is what some of us calling "the moment when chocolate met peanut butter" in rap music. Tyler was used mainly as the backing vocal while Perry starred on lead guitar just like he had a year before. And Run and DMC traded raps off the original lyrics as if they wrote the song.

It was a landmark. And on the weekend of August 16, 1986, "Walk This Way" was the highest Top 40 debut of the week at No. 30, already supplanting the Sugarhill Gang's No. 36 smash "Rapper's Delight" as the highest-charting single by a rap act. The song zoomed into the Top 10 within weeks and would peak at No. 4 by late September.

The door was opened for other rappers such as L.L. Cool J., D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, Salt-N-Pepa, J.J. Fad and 2 Live Crew to walk through before the 1980s came to an end and another group of rappers invaded the charts from the 1990s on. And trust me, rap has had some great songs hit the charts, but not everyone that hits the Top 40 is a classic.

That could be said about songs that are sung. And that's partly why "Walk This Way" is such a landmark single. The song also did something else -- it revived the career of Aerosmith, who would release "Permanent Vacation," their first successful album in years and featured the Top 40 hits "Dude (Looks Like A Lady)," "Rag Doll" and "Angel," the Top 3 ballad that served as the band's first Top 10 hit since "Walk This Way." Aerosmith's dominance continued well into the 1990s where they scored their first No. 1 hit with "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" from the "Armageddon" movie soundtrack. And when "Jaded" hit the Top 10 in 2001, it proved the band had strength going into the 21st century. And they still continue to rock out when they can.

But Aerosmith's "second" life and rap music could not have happened without Rick Rubin's insistence that three early 20-somethings record a 10-year-old song and put their own spin on it.

The true meaning of chocolate meeting peanut butter.