The AT40 Blog/August 25, 1979: Disco's death blow done by Doug Fieger's muse

Starting in the middle of January 1979 with Chic's "Le Freak" and going until mid-August 1979 with Chic's other chart-topper, "Good Times," every No. 1 song on top of the Billboard Hot 100 was a disco/dance tune with the exception of Peaches & Herb's "Reunited."

Disco saturated the proverbial musical earth and quite frankly, there was a ground swell of hatred toward the disco monster.

If not for Doug Fieger's obsession of a 17-year-old girl, who knows how long disco's overbearing self would have dominated the top of the charts.

So in that regard, a 17-year-old is either to blame or thank for disco's death.

It was the summer of 1979 and much of the music coming out of the radios were songs that had a pulsating 100-beats per minute sound that sent people young and old dancing, whether at a discotheque or in the safety and comforts of their own homes. Disco was everywhere. Even established stars like Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney and Barbra Streisand -- Barbara Streisand! -- were indulging themselves by dipping their hands and voices into the seemingly safe waters of disco music.

The top of the chart the week of July 21, 1979 was a practical disco lovefest -- Donna Summer was at No. 1 with "Bad Girls" and No. 3 with "Hot Stuff," while Anita Ward was at No. 2 with "Ring My Bell," Chic was No. 4 and flying fast up the chart with "Good Times," David Naughton's high-energy theme from the ill-fated TV show he was a star on, "Makin' It" was No. 5 and the collaboration between Earth, Wind & Fire and The Emotions, the roller-disco anthem "Boogie Wonderland," was at No. 6. There seemed to be no escape from the disco craze that was strangling us.

But it was that week a song called "My Sharona" debuted in the Top 40 at No. 34. It leaped from No. 53 to No. 34 and was getting nationwide attention. It was a new single by a four-man band based in Los Angeles called The Knack. The Knack were signed to Capitol Records -- the same label that once was the home to four guys named John, Paul, George and Ringo a decade earlier. And to say The Knack embraced that "Beatles feel" would be an understatement. Like the Beatles on their debut "Meet The Beatles!" album in this country, The Knack did the same kind of album cover for their debut, "Get The Knack."

The band had come together just one year earlier, led by Michigan native Fieger, who had performed in bands called Sky and the Sunset Bombers, who made the decision to move to Los Angeles in 1977. It was there singer-guitarist Feiger met three guys eager to make it in the music business as he was: Berton Averre, a lead guitarist-keyboardist-songwriter, Bruce Gary, a session drummer with experience, and Prescott Niles, a bass player. Niles joined what would become The Knack right before they started to tour in June 1978.

Meanwhile, Fieger found rejection at his doorstep at every turn from one record company after another that weren't into his kind of straight-forward rock and roll since disco was the way to go at that time. But Fieger didn't quit and neither did his three new friends, who got a following doing shows locally and were brought out to jam, playing mainly at the L.A. club Sunset Strip, with established acts such as Tom Petty, Ray Manzarek of the Doors and "The Boss" himself, Bruce Springsteen.

Word of mouth certainly could get any act far and in 1979, it finally did for The Knack. A bidding war began -- one that seemed unlikely just six months earlier -- and Capitol Records won the battle by signing them in the winter of 1979. So with the contract's ink dry, Fieger went to work to write songs for the debut album. He had already written a number of songs -- the same songs he got rejected for by those record companies the year before -- so he and the band were established when it came to start recording.

But he needed more.

Enter Sharona Alperin, a 17-year-old who was introduced to Fieger by none other than ... Fieger's own girlfriend at the time! It was obvious that from the moment Fieger laid on the beautiful blue eyes of that 17-year-old, he was hook, line and sinker in love with her. Fieger was suddenly motivated to do what he would ultimately call "the best songwriting of my life" in a two-month period.

By April 1979, all the songs were ready to go to record for what would be the "Get The Knack" album, and Alperin explained in an interview with NPR Radio in 2010 that she had a break from the clothing store she worked at to stop by the recording studio. It was there, she said, that Fieger and Averre, who worked on the song with Fieger, introduced the finished product to her. She said to NPR that as she left, she was questioning what she just heard, saying, "Did I just hear a song with my name in it?"

If you thought Alperin was surprised by the sudden obsession by 26-year-old Fieger, imagine how Fieger's girlfriend felt the day before as she heard the song when Fieger and Averre were finishing up composing it in the apartment that she and Fieger shared. As Averre would say in an interview years later, "I told him, 'You can't do that!' His girlfriend at the time was in the other room. Judy's right there. I told him, 'Doug, stop, she'll hear it." Fieger would say in an interview about that moment, "I said it's OK. I just 'feel' it."

With legendary producer and songwriter Mike Chapman doing the production and admitting he didn't have to do much for this composition other than to "hit the record button," "My Sharona" was finished the next day. "Get The Knack" was finished two weeks later and in June 1979, the 12-track album was released to a huge promotional blitz by Capitol Records. And the focal point of the album was the hard-driving "My Sharona," as anti-disco a song as you would ever come across. The song was highlighted by Gary's memorable backbeat starting the song off in the way an Elvis Costello record would begin and sound throughout,  Averre's guitar riff that seemingly was duplicated for years to come and Fieger's sexually obsessed vocal that spelled out his feelings for this young lady that no one knew was 17, stuttering over the "My" part of "My Sharona" when he sang it.

As the members of the band would admit for years, it was simply a song written from the vantage point of a teenage boy "wanting so bad to screw a teenage girl."


Whether people enjoyed it because it was straight-forward rock 'n roll or tolerated it because it wasn't disco, the song was being requested at all hours on the radio and the single release -- which featured Alperin on the cover of the 45 in a revealing white tank top and jeans and holding a copy of the "Get The Knack" album -- was getting bought up quickly. "My Sharona" was becoming the fastest-selling 45 single in Capitol's history since the Beatles' debut hit "I Want To Hold Your Hand" in 1964.

"My Sharona" jumped from No. 34 to No. 18 the next week. The week after that -- August 4, 1979 -- "My Sharona" leaped into the Top 10 from No. 18 to No. 6. From there, it cracked the Top 5 at No. 4, then got to No. 2. And on the week of August 25, 1979 -- the week Fieger turned 27 years old on August 20 -- "My Sharona" knocked Chic's "Good Times" out of the No. 1 spot and would begin a six-week run as the biggest song in the country, ultimately becoming the No. 1 song of 1979.

And the band's persona was becoming bigger as everyone wanted to "Get The Knack." "My Sharona" was being played everywhere. The album spent five weeks at No. 1 and sold one million copies within the first month of release, not bad for an album that cost $18,000 to make and took two weeks to record. The band received critical praise for the album and the comparisons to the Beatles were becoming more and more commonplace.

But instead of retreating from that, Fieger and his bandmates continued to breathe it all in. And that was where the problems began with the band. In the following months, the band continued to refuse doing any interviews and were being called brash and arrogant by the music critics. And some began to question the band's hype, even misogynous views on women in their songs. All this led to conceptional artist Hugh Brown's campaign which would famously be called "Knuke The Knack," a kit that would include a T-shirt, buttons and bumper stickers sullying the band's building reputation.

And as "My Sharona" was finally ending its run on the top of the chart, their follow-up, another sexually charged record aimed at teens called "Good Girls Don't," began to fly up the Top 40. But it didn't have the magic of "My Sharona" and would end up peaking at No. 11.

White hot from the success of "My Sharona" and the "Get The Knack" album, the band jumped right back into the recording the studio at the end of 1979 with Chapman to do a follow-up for Capitol called "... But The Little Girls Understand." The album was rush-released and the tracks on it were nowhere near the genius that "Get The Knack" had. And the first release from the new album was the "My Sharona" copycat "Baby Talks Dirty." It only got to No. 38 and that seemed to sink the band lower than ever. As Rolling Stone magazine writer-critic Dave Marsh said of that song, "The kid in 'Baby Talks Dirty' is a foul-mouthed windup doll."

And that wasn't all Marsh said. He also wrote, "All of Fieger's lyrics finally boil down to one sentiment: F*ck- me, honey."

Ouch! And you'd thought the main criticism was that "Baby Talks Dirty" sounded almost note for note like the band's biggest hit ever.


The band released one more album in 1981 -- "Round Trip" -- which was produced by Jack Douglas, who produced the late John Lennon's comeback 1980 album, "Double Fantasy." The album drew mixed reviews, but they were better than the previous album. It still, however, didn't keep The Knack together and in 1982, the band called it quits.

Over the years, The Knack would get together three more times, but made it permanent in 1996 with the original four members getting together and two years after "My Sharona" found a new and younger audience thanks to its use in the Ben Stiller-directed slacker film Reality Bites. Over the years, some members left and others came on, but The Knack continued to persevere. On their 2001 CD, "Normal As The Next Guy," Fieger described the process of making that CD as "doing whatever we wanted to do." They released three CDs between 1998-2003 and released a live recording in 2001. They were having fun and had none of the pressure involved with it.

Sadly, Father Time caught up with the band. In 2006, Gary, who became a very well-respected producer in the business, lost his battle with lymphoma at the age of 55. And during that year, Fieger got dizzy and disoriented during a show in Las Vegas. It turned out he had two brain tumors. He had surgery and radiosurgery to remove the tumors and continued to tour feeling better. But he never recovered from the battle with those tumors and a couple of years later, doctors found he also had lung cancer. On Valentine's Day, 2010, the end came for Fieger at the all-too-young age of 57 at his home in Woodland Hills, Calif.

Before he passed away, many of Fieger's friends and influences came to visit. And he also had another visitor on occasion in those last few months -- Sharona Alperin, who Fieger won over a year after "My Sharona" became a hit and dated for almost five years before breaking up. But even though the pair had married separate partners, they were still close friends until his passing.

Today, Alperin is a realtor for Sotheby's International Realty to some of the top entertainers and stars in the L.A. area, a job she's done for over 20 years. And no matter where she's gone or what she's doing, she said that song became her life even as she became a mother at the turn of the century.

She may have been obsessed about in those lyrics, but she could also claim to putting the first death knell into disco.

Not too many 17-year-olds can say they did those kinds of things.

The AT40Blog/August 25, 1984: A hard lead vocal habit to break

In 1973, the band Chicago had a memorable year. Their album "Chicago VI" hit No. 1 that summer and that album spawned a pair of Top 10 hits -- "Feelin' Stronger Every Day" and "Just You 'N Me."

Both those songs had lead vocals done by the same man: Bass guitarist Peter Cetera. As a matter of fact, Cetera sang the full lead vocal or shared lead vocals on the Top 10 hits "25 Or 6 To 4" and "Saturday In The Park." But starting with that sixth Chicago album, Cetera became more the front-and-center guy on lead vocals, especially on the hits. And between 1973-79, Cetera had all or shared lead vocals on all the band's Top 40 hits with the exception of Robert Lamm's lead vocal on "Harry Truman" in 1975. Cetera sang the lead vocal on the band's first No. 1 hit, "If You Leave Me Now," in 1976.

All the while, the band cranked out one hit after another. But that all changed on the night of January 23, 1978. It was that night that Terry Kath, the band's lead guitarist and sometimes lead vocalist, most memorably on the band's hits "Make Me Smile," "Color My World" and "Free," was found dead in his Woodland Hills, Calif., home from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, just one week before he would turn 32 years old.

The loss of Kath to the band was devastating, so much so that the band even talked about disbanding. They chose not to. And one person close to the band made a phone call to a man he thought could come in and help the band move forward.

He was a 30-year-old session singer named Bill Champlin, who left the group he formed, The Sons of Champlin, in 1977 for a solo career which started with his move from his native Oakland, Calif., to Los Angeles and working alongside such men as producers Jay Graydon and David Foster and artists Steve Lukather (of Toto), Boz Scaggs, Elton John, Al Jarreau and The Tubes. The caller suggested Champlin come in to audition for the part in the group, but since the call came the day after Kath's passing and Champlin wasn't ready to join a band, he passed.

Meanwhile, Chicago found their replacement at lead guitar and vocalist when they hired Texan Donnie Dacus, who shared lead vocals with Cetera on the next two Top 40 hits by the band -- "Alive Again," a song that served as a tribute to Kath, and the ballad "No Tell Lover," both songs peaking at No. 14 in 1978 and '79, respectively, and both coming from the first non-Chicago Roman numeral album, "Hot Streets."

However, there was a discomfort between the band and Dacus and after recording their 13th album in 1979, they released Dacus. He would be replaced by another guitarist, Chris Pinnick, and full-time lead vocals were taken over by Cetera by 1980. But within a year, the band would be released by long-time employer Columbia Records, who said their hit-making days were long behind them.

So in 1981, the band found a new home with Warner Brothers and found a new producer after years of working with James William Guercio. Foster, a Canadian musician, was brought in to resurrect Chicago's career. And immediately, the first change Foster made was quick: He brought in Champlin to serve as a keyboardist, guitarist and sometimes lead singer.

The horn sound that made Chicago famous was being pushed to the back burner and synthesizers as well as session musicians (including those from the band Toto) were brought in to make what would be Chicago's "comeback" album "Chicago 16," featuring the band's second No. 1 hit, "Hard To Say I'm Sorry," featuring Cetera on lead vocal.

But Foster wanted more from Champlin. Champlin came to the group winning a pair of Grammy Awards for songwriting -- he co-wrote the 1979 No. 2 hit for Earth, Wind & Fire, "After The Love Has Gone" with Graydon and Foster and in 1982, he co-wrote George Benson's No. 5 smash "Turn Your Love Around" with Graydon and Lukather. He also recorded vocals for REO Speedwagon's 1979 album, "Nine Lives." He was an on-demand session singer that many acts wanted, yet, here he was in a band that he really hadn't quite felt comfortable being in yet and actually turned down being in years earlier. When Champlin joined the band in 1981, he left a very comfortable position as the music director of the ABC late-night show called "Fridays."

Foster was pulling the strings by now and in the summer of 1983, the band went back into the studio to record "Chicago 17." Champlin wrote or co-wrote three songs on the album, compared to just one on "Chicago 16." On "Chicago 16," he shared lead vocals with Cetera on two songs and sang lead on the other two songs, but none of those songs were hit singles. On "Chicago 17," Champlin would get the vocals again on four songs, three shared with Cetera and one lead vocal on "Please Hold On," a song he co-wrote with Foster and Lionel Richie.

For the first release from the 17th Chicago album, "Stay The Night," a song strong on synthesizers and Pinnick's lead guitar with lead vocals by Cetera, would get as high as No. 16. It was not the kind of lead single you want from an album by a well-known group.

So once again, Foster made the decision that changed the direction of the band -- for the next single in the summer of 1984, a totally different song from the synth-heavy "Stay The Night" was chosen. The song was "Hard Habit To Break," a tune that brought back the famous Chicago brass sound, only this time in a ballad in the form of "If You Leave Me Now." It also featured Foster's careful string arrangement that played throughout.

But it also featured the co-lead vocals of Champlin, who was the second lead vocal after Cetera's first lead vocal. The song, co-written by Foster, John Lewis and Steve Kipner, famous for co-writing Olivia Newton-John's monster 1981 No. 1 hit "Physical" and writing Christina Aguilera's debut No. 1 hit in 1999, "Genie In A Bottle," debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 61 the week of August 4, 1984 and zoomed to No. 41 two weeks later.

One week later -- the week of August 25, 1984 -- "Hard Habit To Break" was the highest debuting song in the Top 40, coming in at No. 32, debuting in the countdown the same week that new hits by Laura Branigan ("The Lucky One"), The Jacksons ("Torture") and Fleetwood Mac's Lindsay Buckingham ("Go Insane") debuted.

Driven by their appearance on MTV in a music video featuring the band playing the song in a black backdrop and featuring women with "habits" in the video, the song zoomed up the Top 40 four notches at a time the first three weeks. Then the week of September 22, it jumped up six notches from No. 20 to No. 14 to eclipse the peak mark of "Stay The Night." It didn't stop, though, as two weeks later on October 6, the song leaped from No. 12 to No. 6 and had the Top 5 in its sights. Two weeks later on October 20, 1984, the smash got to No. 3, but that's where it would top out after two straight weeks in that position.

The tune, about the difficulties of living alone after the heartbreak of the end of a relationship, would go on to earn a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year and win a Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocals in 1985.

The song helped boost a run of 1980s hits for Chicago as "You're The Inspiration," featuring Cetera completely on lead vocal, got to No. 3 in early 1985 and "Along Comes A Woman," another synthesizer-driven hit with some horn background, would go to the Top 15. It would be the last lead vocal by Cetera, who made the decision in the summer of 1985 to leave the band after nearly 18 years for a solo career.

The band continued on with the revamped synthesizer-driven, power-ballad sound Foster force-fed the public as Champlin became one of the two lead vocalists for the band along with new member Jason Scheff, a 23-year-old Californian newbie who was brought in to replace Cetera as bass guitarist. Champlin did most of the lead vocals on hits like "Will You Still Love Me?" (shared with Scheff), "I Don't Want To Live Without Your Love" and the band's third No. 1 hit in 1988, the Diane Warren-penned hit "Look Away."

In 2009, Champlin, a driving force in the band for 28 years, decided to leave the band to resume a solo career he had been tinkering with for a few years. Chicago has continued along with four original members -- Lee Loughnane, Lamm, James Pankow and Walter Parazaider -- and Scheff leading the way. Over the last few years, Chicago has toured side by side with good friends Earth, Wind & Fire and were doing so again in the summer of 2015.

Though Champlin left the band in 2009 for a solo career, he has not released a solo CD since 2008's "No Place Left To Fall." In 2013, his son, Will, finished third on the television singing competition The Voice. Champlin and singer-songwriter-wife Tamara have been married for 33 years.

Champlin put a lot of work into his time with Chicago, not an easy thing for an outsider from the band to do, yet he did it and helped to establish the band's sound of the 1980s, giving it a second career. And it all started with Foster's decision to give Champlin more lead vocal, including the hit "Hard Habit To Break," which broke a habit of Peter Cetera solo lead vocals, the last not solely featuring Cetera being 1972's "Saturday In The Park" as Cetera and Lamm shared vocals.

Old habits are hard to break. In this case, it lent a new lead voice to an American institution.

The AT40 Blog/August 15, 1987: Grey "touching" to Deadheads

If you are a fan or even a borderline fan, you know their songs by heart.

"Uncle John's Band." "Truckin'." "Shakedown Street." "Ripple." "Sugar Magnolia." "Alabama Getaway." "The Music Never Stopped."

The band ia as iconic as the San Francisco landscape where they came from. The only thing more iconic than they are happen to be their fans, worldly known as "Deadheads."

That, though, scratches the surface of what was the Grateful Dead. For 30 years, they were one of the main groups most fans wanted to go see on tour. Their fans were so loyal, they literally traveled the country to wherever they played. And let's just say you didn't have to smoke a little weed to enjoy their music at their shows -- all you had to do was inhale it and you felt like you were part of the "in" crowd.

Formed in 1965 in nearby Palo Alto, Calif., the Dead played all brands of music: folk, country, blues, reggae, jazz, bluegrass, psychedelia and a little acid rock. Their jam sessions were long and memorable and fans were allowed to freely tape the band for their pleasure. All you have to do is prowl around YouTube and you can find a Grateful Dead performance somewhere.

The Dead released 18 albums onto the chart between 1967-81, yet never one of those albums hit the Top 10, the closest to doing so was 1975's "Blues For Allah," which peaked at No. 12. Then again, the albums were really just filler for the band's seemingly unstoppable tour schedule. In other words, they never had to have a Top 10 album or even one Top 40 hit and yet, their place in rock history was forever made.

Their unyielding fans would agree with that. To them, the Earth, moon and sun revolved around their band.

In 1981, the band released the albums "Reckoning" and "Dead Set," each peaking at Nos. 43 and 29, respectively. And then that was it: No albums ... nothing ... for six years.

On September 15, 1982, the band went back on stage for their encore at the old Capital Center in Landover, Md. And they had a song to perform that they never had done before. With music by the band's legendary guitarist and lead vocalist, Jerry Garcia, and the words by their longtime lyricist, Robert Hunter, they dove into the song "Touch Of Grey." It got a rousing reception and every so often in the next four years, the band would do that song.

Garcia, Hunter and the band knew that the song needed to find its way on the next album. So on January 6, 1987, the Dead was back working on their 19th album called "In The Dark," but for this album, they struck up an idea: Since they had been performing all or most of the songs for the album on tour for the previous four or five years, they wanted to give each of those songs a "live" feel to them. So most of them were recorded around California in empty arenas, most notably the Marin Veterans Memorial Auditorium in San Rafael, Calif.

When the band had done all eight tracks (the shortest of which was the Garcia-Hunter composition "When Push Comes To Shove, coming in a rather miniscule 4 minutes, 5 seconds) for the album, the tapes were brought back to a studio for "cleaning up" purposes where needed. And the time taken to record the album? How about one single week. That was it -- it started on January 6 and was completed by January 13.

In an interview with deaddisc.com, Garcia stated about recording the album, "Marin Vets turns out to be an incredibly nice room to record in. There's something about the formal atmosphere in there that makes us work. When we set up at Front Street to work, a lot of times we just sort of dissolve into hanging out. Going in (Marin Vets) without an audience and playing just to ourselves was in the nature of an experiment."

Within a couple of months, the band -- consisting of Garcia, guitarist-vocalist Bob Weir, keyboardist-vocalist Brent Mydland, bassist Phil Lesh and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann -- was back on tour to promote an album that wasn't released yet by their record company, Arista. Once again, the reaction from crowds throughout Deadhead Nation was positive and on Monday, July 6, 1987, the album "In The Dark" was released.

For the first release, Arista chose "Touch Of Grey." Hunter, who co-wrote the classic Dead songs like "Truckin'," "Casey Jones," "Sugar Magnolia" and "Ripple," penned the tune about an older man seeing his world changing from when he was younger and not liking how he relates to it, but finding he's accepting of it. Hunter penned lines in the song that needed meaning:

"Dawn is breaking everywhere. Light a candle, curse the glare. Draw the curtains I don't care 'cause it's all right." Hunter used a line that former U.S. Secretary of State Adlai Stevenson used in a 1962 speech about the late Eleanor Roosevelt when he said, ""She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness ..."

"It's a lesson to me. The Ables and the Bakers and the C's. The ABCs we all must face. And try to keep a little grace." Hunter takes the Ables, Bakers and C's line from the first two words in the military code alphabet -- Able is for A, Baker is for B. That was way back when -- these days, Alfa is for A and Bravo is for B.

"I know the rent is in arrears. The dog has not been fed in years. It's even worse than it appears, but it's all right." Basically, Hunter is trying to make up for lost time as the "older" person and has just been neglectful of matters. And though he could throw a tizzy over the whole thing, he's saying it doesn't matter.

"Oh well a touch of grey. Kind of suits you anyway. That was all I had to say. It's all right." Not only does the look of an older person (the touch of grey) look all right on him, but it looks good on others who grew old along with him, leading to Garcia singing at the end, "We will get by" instead of "I will get by" through most of the song. The "We" part was a message to other Deadheads who grew up and got a little older with the band.

"Touch Of Grey" was the highest debuting song on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 25, 1987, coming in at No. 77 and took 16 notches off its pursuit up the chart the next week to No. 61. By the next week, August 8, it was up to No. 47, which if it had stopped right there, would have been the band's biggest hit of all time.

But it wasn't in a standing still mood. After 22 years and 19 albums and numerous singles failures, "Touch Of Grey" reached the Top 40 for the band on August 15, 1987, debuting as the highest debuting song of the week at No. 32. As Casey Kasem himself would say for that countdown, "I didn't think I would ever say this, but that's the Grateful Dead in our countdown with the highest debuter of the week, 'Touch Of Grey.' It's their first hit and it debuts at No. 32.'"

And the song, featuring Weir's guitar, Garcia's vocals and the work of keyboardist Mydland, kept climbing, also steered up the chart by the music video featuring the band playing as skeletons of themselves -- the logo the band used for their careers -- until midway through the song when they come to real life. Five weeks after making their Top 40 debut, the Grateful Dead went to a place no one ever believed they would ever end up in their careers -- the Top 10 as the song slid up from No. 11 to No. 10. A week later on September 26, 1987, it slid up one last notch to the peak position of No. 9 before falling back the next week.

As for "In The Dark," it pushed its way up the chart and became the band's first (and only) Top 10 album, peaking at No. 6. And on the Mainstream Rock chart, "Touch Of Grey" hit No. 1 the week of August 1, 1987, spending three weeks at the top -- the only No. 1 song the Dead would ever have in their careers on a national level. Their follow-up, "Hell In A Bucket," hit No. 3 on the Mainstream Rock chart, but would never hit the Hot 100.

As a matter of fact, the Grateful Dead would never hit the Hot 100 chart again after "Touch Of Grey." But as the song's refrain kept saying, "It's all right." They drew a younger and more mainstream audience with the "In The Dark" album and Top 10 single and continued to tour endlessly the rest of the decade and into the 1990s when health problems began to plague Garcia, who would eventually go into a drug rehabilitation facility just after he turned 53 years old in August 1995. Sadly, a week later on August 9, 1995, Garcia died of a heart attack. His fans and Deadheads alike were crushed.

The 30-year "long, strange trip" as documented in the song "Truckin'" was over. No one would or could replace the band's biggest emblematic symbol whatsoever. And so the various members of the band went their separate ways to form other bands or join in on established bands throughout the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st.

Then in early 2015, the four remaining living members of the Dead -- Lesh, Kreutzmann, Hart and Weir (Mydland had died of a speedball overdose in 1990) -- made the decision to reunite and do five last shows called "Fare Thee Well" to put an official end to the band on what would be their 50th anniversary as a group. They played two shows at the new Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., near where the band made musical tracks half a century earlier, on June 27 and 28. A week later, they played Soldier Field in Chicago for the last three shows on July 3, 4 and July 5. Joining the band on stage were Trey Anastasio of the band Phish, the current day group most associated with the kind of music the Grateful Dead do, Jeff Chimenti of the Dead-like bands The Dead and Further, on keyboards, and longtime fan and superstar himself Bruce Hornsby, who was a Dead member from 1990-92, on piano.

In August 2015, it was reported by Billboard that Weir, Kreutzmann and Hart would join bassist Oteil Burbridge, Chimenti and star guitarist-singer John Mayer in a Dead off-shoot band called Dead & Company with the first show planned to be held for Halloween night at Madison Square Garden.

The Dead, Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame inductees in 1994, may be "dead and buried" as an everyday group, but the legacy lives on just over 20 years after Garcia's passing. Their music will be everywhere ... today, tomorrow, forever.

And true, they may have gotten along without a Top 40 hit and been just fine. But when "Touch Of Grey" hit the Top 40 and then went to the Top 10, it was as if the last box on the Dead's legendary card had been checked off.

They did get by.

The AT40 Blog/August 8, 1970: How a 'Duke' became 'groovy'

In the 1950s, Gene Chandler was using his real name, Eugene Dixon, and was a member of the musical group The Gaytones. He left them to join another group called the Dukays in his native Chicago.

In 1960, Chandler and the Dukays reunited after he had done a stint in the U.S. Army. He and the members of the Dukays recorded the song "The Girl Is A Devil" on Nat Records. Producers Carl Davis and Bill "Bunky" Sheppard were so impressed by the Dukays, they had them record four more songs in August 1961. One of the songs was "Nite Owl," which did OK as a regional R&B hit. But there was another song they shopped around.

It was a soulful, playful tune called "Duke Of Earl." Davis and Sheppard shopped the song around to other record labels until Vee-Jay Records liked it enough to take it on. One thing, though – they did not want the song to be a record by "The Dukays." They wanted it to be a solo record for Dixon, who co-wrote the song with Bernice Williams and Earl Edwards. Taking the surname of an actor named Jeff Chandler, "Duke Of Earl," a song born out of a "warm-up, doo-wop" session with other members of the Dukays, was released and hit No. 1 for the man known as Gene Chandler.

It's a song – and name for that matter – that is synonymous with Chandler since 1962 when the song hit the top. And after hitting No. 1, he would have four more Top 40 hits as a solo performer, the last being "Nothing Can Stop Me" in June 1965, peaking at No. 18.

But that was it for Chandler. No more hits as the 1960s slowly faded away. Nine songs hit the Billboard Hot 100 and none of them found the Top 40. And though Chandler had some success on the R&B chart, he decided to give his vocal chords a rest and work as a producer in the late 1960s.

In late 1969, Chandler earned his first huge success as a producer, working the board behind the Mel & Tim smash Top 10 hit "Backfield In Motion." But there was another song that the duo did that Chandler was impressed with. That song was called "Groovy Situation."

Suddenly, Chandler had an urge to put his stamp of approval on the song. It was written by Russell Lewis and Herman Davis and Chandler moved into the recording duo to record the song. Two things are noted about "Groovy Situation." The first was the backdrop melody of "a-tisket, a-tasket" at the beginning of the song and then near the end. The second was the muted trumpets that gave it a stifled sound, almost like a French horn.

Chandler hit the song out of the park. And on the week of August 8, 1970, "Groovy Situation" leaped 22 notches to land in the Top 40 at No. 40, the first Top 40 hit for him in five years. The song had a slow takeoff, though – it moved up from No. 40 to No. 36 to No. 34. Then on the week of August 29, it jumped nine places to No. 25. But it slowed up again, making a one-point move to No. 24.

That, though, was a temporary "setback" as "Groovy Situation" was becoming more and more groovy each week. It was in the Top 20 at No. 20 the week of September 12. Then it got to No. 17 and then No. 12, two steps from the doorstep of the Top 10, a place he had not been since "Duke Of Earl." Unfortunately, "Groovy Situation" wasn't so groovy anymore as it held at No. 12 the week of October 3, 1970. The next week, it dropped back to No. 24 and began its descent down the chart.

Though a setback, Chandler's work was praised: He won the National Association of Television and Radio Announcers Producer of the Year because of that song and "Backfield In Motion," beating the likes of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff and Norman Whitfield.

Still, nothing "groovy" came after "Groovy Situation" for Chandler. He would have only four Hot 100 singles the rest of his career, none any higher than the 1978 release "Get Down," which peaked at No. 53 and would prove to be his last Top 10 R&B hit, peaking at No. 3, the last of eight Top 10 hits on that chart.

Then in 2004, "Groovy Situation" found a new home – in the movie and on the soundtrack of the Will Ferrell comedy Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.

And every now and then, Chandler, born July 6, 1937,  goes out touring and always gives the fans a kick when he dresses up in a crown like a king as he performs "Duke Of Earl" and "Groovy Situation" among his songs.

For Chandler, it's been a worthwhile 60-year career that he has never taken for granted, from the time he was with the Gaytones to the time with the Dukays and then solo. He's also been placed in the Grammy Awards Hall of Fame.

In other words, his situation for a long time has been "groovy."

The AT40 Blog/August 6, 1988: The 18-year winding road ends

When American Top 40 began the weekend of the 4th of July 1970, only a handful of radio stations had been in on that debut show. By the time 1988 came around, the number was well over 200 radio stations.

American Top 40 became as much a brand name as Coca-Cola, Chevrolet and the New York Yankees in this country. The heartbeat of that show was none other than its co-creator and host, Casey Kasem. Along with Don Bustany, Tom Rounds and Ron Jacobs, Kasem, a disc jockey at Los Angeles station KRLA-AM who was best known for telling the audience biographical facts about the artists behind the songs while spinning the hits, followed that same format to the national Top 40 show that was like no other.

For three hours each week, Kasem would count down the hits backwards according to the Billboard Hot 100 chart. By 1978, the man who first came to national prominence as the voice of Shaggy on the TV cartoon Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, added the now-famous "long distance dedications" to the show and on October 7, 1978, eight years and almost three months after starting, the show expanded to four hours, allowing Kasem to play more "special" hits and talk more about the artists.

He was there for the singer-songwriter phase of the early 1970s. He was there when disco took off in the mid-to-late 1970s. He was there when new wave music dominated in the 1980s. He was there when the second British Invasion began in 1983. He was there to introduce the debut hits of artists such as Rod Stewart, The Eagles, Electric Light Orchestra, Elton John, Prince, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Bruce Springsteen, Rick Springfield and Wham! featuring George Michael. And that's just scratching the surface. He was there for Elvis Presley's and the Beatles' last Top 40 journeys. He caught the Bee Gees for all nine of their No. 1 hits and all nine of Michael Jackson's No. 1 hits in the 1980s alone. He watched over Air Supply scoring seven Top 5 hits to start their careers and the six No. 1 hits in a row the Bee Gees had between 1977-79 and all seven straight No. 1s Houston had between 1985-88.

The music was special in the 1970s and '80s and right there to count down the hits each week on AT40 was Casey Kasem.

So when his contract was up for negotiation in the spring of 1988, it was obvious Kasem, almost 56, was looking to go somewhere most stars of shows wanted to go -- well over $1 million a year. But ABC Radio Network, who hosted AT40, pointed out that ratings were not quite as high as they had been. This was discouraging to Kasem because for the first time, he was looking at leaving the show he not only the star of, but one of its co-founders. ABC did not back down from Kasem's demands to be paid and when it was all said and done, Kasem and ABC had reached an impasse and the star of the show decided it was time to go.

Yes, in April 1988, it was reported by Billboard that Casey Kasem was leaving AT40, moving on from the show he started. They had set the date for his last broadcast as August 6, 1988. So in between, Kasem went about his business as ABC began the task of finding his replacement. That would come over a month later when Hollywood Squares show announcer and sometimes "square" Shadoe Stevens would keep the show rolling after Kasem counted down his final hit.

Kasem continued to do his show and a special countdown during Memorial Day weekend of the biggest "new" acts of the 1980s (with Madonna coming in at No. 1). He would have guest hosts step in for him and on the week before his last broadcast, the show made history when superstars Daryl Hall & John Oates counted the hits down for the week of July 30, 1988, the first time non-DJs hosted the show.

But it was Casey Kasem's last "at-bat" for the original AT40. And so he began the countdown by playing the former No. 1 hit "Foolish Beat" by 17-year-old Debbie Gibson, the youngest artist in history to write, record and produce their own No. 1 hit, at No. 40. And dropping back from No. 27 to No. 39 on this countdown was the recent Top 10 hit for Al B. Sure! called "Nite And Day."

Then came the first of five debut hits in his last countdown -- ironically, it was the hosts of the previous week's show doing the honors as Hall & Oates debuted at No. 38 with "Missed Opportunity." That followed at No. 37 with the second debut -- and a man who Kasem announced at No. 1 with four previous songs, two with Chicago -- "If You Leave Me Now" and "Hard To Say I'm Sorry" -- and two on his own, "Glory Of Love" and "The Next Time I Fall," his duet with Amy Grant. It was Peter Cetera's latest single, "One Good Woman," which he co-produced and co-wrote with one of Madonna's main producers/writers, Patrick Leonard. Denise Lopez debuted at No. 36 with her one and only Top 40 hit, "Sayin' Sorry (Don't Make It Right)." The hottest new act of 1988 thanks to two No. 1 hits, Rick Astley, debuted at No. 33 with his third hit, "It Would Take A Strong Strong Man."

But the highest debut of the week -- fittingly -- came from the man who dominated the 1980s with such monster hits as "Rock With You," "Beat It," "Billie Jean" and "Bad." Of course, that was Michael Jackson, debuting at No. 31 with the sixth single from his "Bad" album, "Another Part Of Me." Unfortunately for The King Of Pop, that song would not make the Top 10, peaking at No. 11.

Nine songs in the countdown were by artists enjoying their first Top 40 hit: Sure!, Lopez, Climie Fisher, Jane Wiedlin (her first solo hit after the breakup of the Go-Gos), Tracy Chapman, D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince (aka future Oscar-nominated star Will Smith), Johnny Kemp, Breathe and Guns 'N Roses, whose song "Sweet Child 'O Mine" would become a No. 1 hit in September.

Five of the songs in the countdown were by acts who had Top 40 hits in 1970: Elton John, The Moody Blues, Jackson and both Cetera and his former band, Chicago, who debuted together with "Make Me Smile" in 1970. And Gibson was the only act in the countdown born in 1970 when AT40 began. As a matter of fact, eight shows had already taped before Gibson was born on August 31, 1970.

Even more amazing: Over half the countdown -- 21 songs -- were by acts who hit No. 1 with that song they were on the chart with or had previously been to No. 1 and announced with the No. 1 song in America by Casey Kasem: Hall & Oates, Gibson, Cetera, REO Speedwagon, Astley, Kenny Loggins, Jackson, Van Halen, Huey Lewis & The News, Cheap Trick, INXS, Robert Palmer, Billy Ocean, Houston, Michael, Chicago, John, Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine, Terence Trent D'Arby, Richard Marx and the man with the No. 1 song that week with "Roll With It," Steve Winwood.

On the show, Kasem played the hits as well as answered questions like he normally did and played two long-distance dedications, one for a hit in the countdown at No. 23, the recent No. 1 hit "The Flame" by Cheap Trick, the other being the 1987 No. 1 hit "(I've Had) The Time Of My Life" that, if memory serves correctly, was dedicated by a young man from Jacksonville, Fla. to a group of friends he made at a camp.

The biggest mover within the Top 40 belonged to New Edition, back in the countdown after a couple of years and back without original member Bobby Brown (Johnny Gill replaced him). Their future Top 10 hit, "If It Isn't Love," leaped eight places from No. 34 to No. 26.

And as for the Top 5, D'Arby's "Sign Your Name," the follow-up to his No. 1 hit "Wishing Well," moved up from No. 6 to No. 5, where it would peak, Eric Carmen's second Top 5 hit in 1988, "Make Me Lose Control," went up another notch from No. 5 to No. 4, eventually stopping at No. 3, Marx dropped a notch from No. 2 to No. 3 with his first No. 1 single, the ballad "Hold On To The Nights," and moving up from No. 3 to No. 2 was the British band Breathe with their debut smash, "Hands To Heaven."

As for No. 1 -- Winwood's ode to Memphis soul of the '60s, "Roll With It," held for the second week there.

Many of us waited to hear the announcement most knew would come for months that this would be his last show. We were waiting for him to thank everyone who helped with the show and thank the listeners for being there all these years.

But as we found out, that wasn't how Casey Kasem rolled. He finished his show in the same normal manner he had each week, telling his audience as usual, "Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars." Then the closing music moved back to the foreground.

It was officially done. And it felt empty. Maybe there was so much animosity between Kasem and ABC that he didn't want to thank anyone.

So one era came to an end and another began as Stevens -- a much more bombastic host unlike the grandfatherly Kasem -- took over for the week ending August 13, 1988.

Maybe he got out at the right time as the music styles were changing by then -- freestyle music and rap were becoming a more powerful force than ever. We wanted to remember Casey Kasem for the pop, R&B, country and rock songs he played each and every week on the radio. This thing called "rap music" was still in its infancy and most of us weren't sure how to take it. Maybe it's a passing fad, maybe it's here to stay. Who knows?

Stevens would tell Billboard magazine in a 2010 interview that the first year he did AT40 was rough, simply because he wasn't the iconic Kasem and the show's producers didn't know what to think of his approach and style. And while AT40's ratings continued to slowly slip, Kasem himself was signing a gaudy five-year, $15 million deal with Westwood One to host another countdown show called Casey's Top 40, which would debut the following January 1989. Where AT40 used Billboard as a guide, Casey's Top 40 used the Radio & Records chart.

Casey's Top 40 would last for most of the nine years it was on the air. Meanwhile, Stevens found out not being Casey Kasem wasn't sitting well with the loyal listeners of the show. And whether ABC Radio Networks could use the excuse of "failing ratings" for not giving Kasem another contract, their shift in on-air personalities for the show was a bust as by July 1994, the show stopped being broadcast in the U.S. and only overseas. It finally stopped being broadcast the week of January 28, 1995.


Meanwhile, Kasem was able to acquire the American Top 40 name. In early 1998, he brought the subject up with Westwood One to rebrand the show by that name again. Westwood One, in its infinite wisdom, denied him that opportunity. And so the show died officially on March 21, 1998 with various guests hosting the show as Kasem signed a deal with AM/FM Radio Networks (now Premier Radio Network) and debuted the new American Top 40 on March 28, 1998, one week after the "re-branded" The Top 40 Countdown ended its run with Westwood One. Kasem would be the host of AT40 for almost six years in the second run. His last show came on January 3, 2004 with "Hey Ya!" by Outkast as the top song.

And this time, he did say goodbye, going out on his own terms this time around. He had retired from the four-hour grind of the show at 71 years old, handing it off to a much younger person, 29-year-old American Idol host Ryan Seacrest, who has hosted the show ever since.

Kasem hosted American Top 10 and American Top 20 for a more "adult contemporary" audience. His last show was on AT20 for the countdown of July 4, 2009 -- exactly 39 years after he started with the original AT40. He would live in retirement after that until his passing on June 15, 2014, at the age of 82.

Anyone who grew up with Casey Kasem and AT40 was blessed all these years later to remember there was this countdown show every week and most of the time, it was the soothing and direct voice of this man doing the countdowns each and every Saturday or Sunday. No matter how hard Seacrest or Rick Dees or anyone during his time period tried, they could never, ever beat the original Casey Kasem AT40 brand.

This is where the original story of AT40 ends: That 18-year, one-month period when we cheered on our favorite songs up the chart and found a piece of happiness when it hit No. 1. It was special.

AT40 was never the same after August 6, 1988. Most fans of the show, including myself, knew it. The music's changed. The personalities are changed. Much has changed in the last generation.

But we will always have our memories of the hits and of AT40 and in replays, either on the Sirius XM 70s on 7 channel or on various stations throughout the world replaying the original shows from the Premier Radio Networks and the wonderful work done of remastering the original shows by Arkansas native Shannon Lynn.

And we will always have the memories of Casey Kasem. Thank you.

The AT40 Blog/August 3, 1974: Three debuts, three future No. 1s and one former No. 1 remade

The Top 40 countdown for August 3, 1974, saw six songs debut. Two of the songs were debuts that didn't get very far up the countdown -- "Kung Fu" by Curtis Mayfield, a debut at No. 40, would only spend one week in the Top 40, though it did get to No. 3 on the R&B chart and was part of the whole "Kung Fu" phenomenon of the mid-1970s, and "My Thang" by James Brown debuted at No. 37 and would peak at No. 29 as it hit No. 1 on the R&B chart, his 15th No. 1 R&B hit.

The other four debuts had far better success climbing the chart.

Nothing From Nothing--Billy Preston: It was this week that the man best known for playing alongside the Beatles and Rolling Stones and scoring solo hits on his own like "Outta-Space," "Will It Go 'Round In Circles" and "Space Race" debuted at No. 39 with his newest release. His composition, which he co-wrote with good friend Bruce Fisher and that he produced would take its sweet ol' time climbing the Top 40. Best known as the first song ever performed on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" in its debut show on October 11, 1975, would ultimately reach No. 1 11 weeks later on the chart of October 19, 1974, spending one week at the time. It would be Preston's second and last No. 1 after "Will It Go 'Round In Circles" and last Top 10 hit for 5 1/2 years.


Then Came You--Dionne Warwicke & The Spinners: By 1974, not only had Dionne Warwicke not had a Top 40 hit since "Make It Easy On Yourself" peaked at No. 37 in 1970, but she addedhad an "e" to the end of her last name, which sounded all fine and dandy as a "positive vibe" thing, but between 1971-75 when she had the "e" she only had this one hit. But what a hit: It teamed her up with one of the top acts of the time, the Spinners. The two acts combined to debut at No. 38 with this song co-written by Sherman Marshall and Philip Pugh and produced by Thom Bell, a star producer and writer of the 1970s. Like "Nothing But Nothing," it took its sweet time up the Top 40. The week after "Nothing But Nothing" hit the top, "Then Came You" went to No. 1. And like "Nothing But Nothing," it, too, dropped from No. 1 to No. 15 the week after it hit the top. The song became the first No. 1s in the careers of both acts and still the only No. 1 pop hit to this day for the Spinners. But even as she scored a No. 1 hit and reverted back to her normal last name Warwick, the New Jersey-born star would not have another Top 40 hit until her comeback smash "I'll Never Love This Way Again" hit No. 5 in October 1979.


I Shot The Sheriff--Eric Clapton: Bob Marley wrote the song in 1973 and recorded it for The Wailers' album "Burnin'" that year. It's a song that Marley admitted started as "I Shot The Police," but would have caused a major stir in his native Jamaica, so he changed it to sheriff, though the idea was still the same in both cases -- justice. Clapton heard The Wailers' version of the song and thought it had a blues feel to it compared to the reggae version of the original. He asked permission from Marley to record it and Marley more than obliged. With that blues background and the work of keyboardist Dick Sims and the backing vocals of Yvonne Ellliman and Marcy Levy, it's one of the rare moments in which Clapton's guitar work doesn't have a starring role. It debuted on August 3, 1974, at No. 34, and moved quickly up the Top 40, hitting No. 1 just six weeks later and like the other two songs mentioned above, spending one week at the top of the chart. It, too, is still the lone No. 1 hit Clapton has ever recorded.


Wild Thing--Fancy: The highest-debuting song of the week was a remake of the Chip Taylor-penned No. 1 hit in 1966 by the Troggs, a song that has stood the test of time as a classic. In 1974, another British band decided to take its turn on the song, giving it a "glam rock" sound that was made famous in that era by such acts as T.Rex, Gary Glitter, Slade and Suzi Quatro. With former Penthouse Pet Helen Caunt singing lead vocals, "Wild Thing" debuted at No. 32 on August 3, 1974, but unlike the other three songs mentioned above, "Wild Thing" didn't make history by going to No. 1 for a second time. Instead, it would peak at No. 14.

Not a bad week at all for memorable debuts. As for the top of the countdown that week, John Denver's tribute to his wife, "Annie's Song," was at No. 1, holding off Elton John's epic "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" at No. 2 for the second straight week. Roberta Flack's "Feel Like Makin' Love" was on the prowl and closing in on No. 1, moving up three places from No. 6 to No. 3.