Each week, I am releasing a list of my 15 favorite songs from the first 15 summers I lived in my beloved hometown of Toms River, N.J. between 1974-88. That takes me from the summer I was 7 until the summer I was 21. Each song from each summer has a special meaning and I will try to convey them as best as I possibly can. So I will rank each summer's hit song memory from Nos. 15 through No. 1. Each song was a hit that peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 between Memorial Day Weekend and Labor Day Weekend.
This week, it's the Sounds of the Summer of '77:
15. I Don't Love You Anymore—Teddy Pendergrass (#41, July)
No, this song never, ever took off nationally as it sat at No. 41 in the height of that Summer of '77. That salsa-sounding backdrop seemed perfect for the voice of the former Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes' lead singer, on the charts with his first solo hit. Oh, he'd become a bigger act in the coming years, but this song, which WABC-AM played a ton, should have been his first national hit. Unfortunately, it wasn't.
14. Just A Song Before I Go—Crosby, Stills & Nash (#7, August)
The story was that Crosby, Stills & Nash had seen their better days together as a trio, but they came back to give me and everyone else that Summer of '77 one of the easiest and breeziest hit songs ever, one I believe clocked in at 2:08 as in two minutes and eight seconds. The three-part harmony throughout is how I best know CS&N, who I saw in concert in August 1984 as my first-ever concert away from my family with my friend Kim. They put on a great show, and that record — for as short as it is — still resonates all these years later, especially that sudden ending.
13. Do You Wanna Make Love?—Peter McCann (#5, August)
I can still hear the late Dan Ingram on WABC-AM asking the musical question while introducing this tune — "Do you wanna make love … or do you just wanna fool around?" and then coming up with some snide, snarky answer about how much love costs. Though this song doesn't come on the radio the way it did in the middle of that memorable summer for me, I can still stop myself and hear it from start to finish. I always love the bridge part near the end of the song: "And if you wanna get close to me. You can do it so easily. Is it love that I see, when I look in your eyes … or just another empty lie." For such an overt question, it was one of the greatest Easy Listening/Adult Contemporary songs I've ever heard in my life.
12. Whatcha Gonna Do?—Pablo Cruise (#6, August)
Speaking of easy and mellow, this record gave me the impression that the band was having an overnight jam session in the leader's parents' house garage and were tasked not to wake up the neighbors. Great soft backbeat to begin the song, then that bass guitar from the late Bud Cockrell finds its place and Cory Lerios' keyboards fit right in after that. Great guitar solo from David Jenkins in the middle and Jenkins' lead vocals shine through. I've always associated Pablo Cruise with great surf music and the West Coast mellow sound of the 1970s. This one is one of those two great examples the band did of that music.
11. Barracuda—Heart (#11, September)
Years later, I found out the song was a reaction to a guy who thought sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson were lesbians. You soon found out it's not a good idea to mess around with these Seattle-based rockers. This record with Ann's wailing and power vocals and Nancy and fellow guitarists Roger Fisher and Howard Lease jamming away as loud and as hard as possible showed everyone the power of the band and why I got lucky enough to see them jam out on this record twice in concert 24 years apart in two different states. Even in her 60s, Ann Wilson brought the power and the drive in her vocals to one of the all-time great rockers that helped rock out my Summer of '77.
10. Margaritaville—Jimmy Buffett (#8, July)
To most, this may be Jimmy's most overplayed song. But let's take into consideration this: It's his most popular song ever and the only Top 10 hit of his pop music career, peaking at No. 8 in the height of that Summer of '77. And no, I never get annoyed or agitated when that song comes on. I still get that feeling of sitting by the public East Dover pool that my mother, sister and I (and dad on the occasion) would go to that particular summer. That song would come on the radio and automatically, it felt very much like summer. And all these years later, especially at the two Buffett shows I've gone to, both based in Florida, that song never fails to make me smile. The Caribbean never sounded that good to tourists anywhere! Make me a margarita, please?!
9. Feels Like The First Time—Foreigner (#4, June)
These days, I'm a huge fan of the full version of the song, including Mick Jones' rocked-out intro before that one drum pound by Dennis Elliott sets this song in a classic rock direction. Lou Gramm, to me, has always been the quintessential lead vocalist of a rock band. That man could bring it and on this record, he didn't have to bring it too hard. Nice, easy vocal take on what would be the half-American, half-British band's first hit ever. That record was a nice way to kick off one of my favorite musical summers ever. Can never get enough of that song in that Summer of '77.
8. I'm In You—Peter Frampton (#2, July)
These days, people make all these jokes about the title of the track and asking, "How deep in you am I?" But this song grew on me as that summer continued on. Come to find out that Peter Frampton played both the piano and lead guitar on this song. I know his career's height kinda sorta came and went in the late 1970s, but that man was simply bloody talented,. And "I'm In You" is one of the first power ballads I remember hearing in my youth. Nothing dramatic about the song and it really helped define the Summer of '77.
7. Dreams—Fleetwood Mac (#1, June)
I once heard this song years later in which it was John McVie's bass guitar and Mick Fleetwood's drums just playing together, no other instruments or Stevie Nicks' vocals. Just that bass-drums combination working in unison makes me long for the days of that kind of musicianship on a record. "Dreams" was from the longest-running No. 1 album of the 1970s, "Rumours," and it still, to me, is the defining song on that album. Nicks pored her heart into her own composition, in saying that maybe the relationship (which she had with fellow American group member Lindsay Buckingham) was over, but there's still a window crack that maybe there'll be a time where we patch things together and continue on. It's a great tune of optimism that may or may not be relayed well, but it certainly resonates in a time now where people just walk away from one another without giving themselves another chance.
6. Angel In Your Arms—Hot (#6, July)
Once upon a time in July 1977, I was with my mother in Brick Township, N.J., and she was there to help her friend Joy, who owned the main dance school in that town, with some fund-raiser that had her sitting outdoors trying to get people to get involved in buying to help the dance school. That song came on whatever radio was on outdoors and she just started singing that song … not loudly, but since I was sitting next to her, it was distinct. The message about messing around behind your woman's back while she has he right to go messing around behind yours still is commonplace today. I'll always remember this song as one of my mom's favorites.
5. Best Of My Love—The Emotions (#1, August)
This song was all over the radio in the latter half of the Summer of '77. It's one of those records that when I hear it now, I can transpose myself to that time when I was 10 years old and that beat can get me going. Good thing Earth, Wind & Fire's Maurice Williams was a huge fan growing up in Chicago of the Hutchinson sisters and kept pleading to produce an album for them, which produced that song he wrote. It was a No. 1 R&B hit and a No. 1 pop hit, but I never quite heard the soul in that song. To this day, it's what I classify an "every person's song."
4. I'm Your Boogie Man—KC & The Sunshine Band (#1, June)
"I'm Your Boogie Man" is still my all-time favorite KC & The Sunshine Band. There's so much good going on in this record — that percussive beat that goes on throughout the record, those tremendous horns, the stellar backing vocals behind Harry Wayne Casey and that small jam after Casey goes, "Oh, yeah!" It gets quiet again and Casey's piano fits right in there as it builds up to its final ending. In this case, the "boogie man" is Casey laying down an irresistible dance track that 40-plus years later, you still can't get out of your head, even into the fade of the record. Great early Summer of '77 tune.
3. Undercover Angel—Alan O'Day (#1, July)
I never knew who the "Undercover Angel" was, but after listening to the late Alan O'Day tell the story about her, I wanted her in my life! One of the best '70s "story" songs, O'Day had written two other great songs from the middle part of the decade, "Rock & Roll Heaven" by the Righteous Brothers and "Angie Baby" by Helen Reddy. I always loved him leading into the chorus when he sings, "I said, 'Whaaaaat?' She said, 'Oooo-oooo-ooo wee.' I said, "All right!' She said, 'Love me! Love me! Loooove meeee!'" I'm sold. Alan O'Day, as an artist, was a one-hit wonder and will forever be that, but for one song, he gave me one of my favorite summertime memories growing up.
2. Theme From 'Rocky' (Gonna Fly Now)—Bill Conti & His Orchestra (#1, July)
Simply one of the greatest movie songs of all time. Those horns come in and you can't help feel swelled up with pride that greatness is about to hit your radio. I've always said this is one of the all-time great movie songs ever composed because it's a little bit of everything -- it's pop because it appeals to all people, meaning it's popular, it's rock because that great guitar solo that fits into the song, it's classical because those amazing strings and horns you hear that overpower the song and it's Disco because it has a strong beat. For just even the slightest of moments, you simply forget that this is Rocky Balboa climbing into the ring to face Appolo Creed for the heavyweight championship of the world. This movie song represents everything to just about everybody.
1. I Just Want To Be Your Everything—Andy Gibb (#1, July)
There was no escaping this song in the Summer of '77. There were two camps because it was played over and over and over and over again on the radio — you loved it or you hated it. I loved it. That song could go in a perpetual loop in my head the moment I hear it and then long goes away. The youngest of the Gibb brothers musically, Andy had this innocence in his voice that was so appealing, it was why it was the biggest hit of the entire year and would spend 17 weeks in the Top 10, four of them at No. 1. Most everyone thought he and Barry, the oldest Gibb with the falsetto-sounding vocal, were twins like Robin and Maurice were, but they were 10 years apart in age. They so worked well together on this song that Barry wrote and co-produced and will forever be a reminder to me of how great Andy Gibb's career was early on before the drugs came to overwhelm him and lead him to his early demise at 30 years old.
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