40 Year Itch: Crocodile Rock Hits #1

Carly Simon loses #1 to Elton John on the US charts for February 10, 1973 while Hurricane Smith peaks at #3 with "Oh Babe What Would You Say". The O'Jays and Roberta Flack ( at #11 with "Killing Me Softly" are charging up the charts with a bullet). This is Elton John's first #1.

1. Elton John: Crocodile Rock



2. Carly Simon: You're So Vain
3. Hurricane Smith: Oh Babe, What Would You Say

4. Stevie Wonder : Superstition

5. Loggins and Messina : Your Mama Don't Dance

6. The Spinners: Could It Be I'm Falling In Love

7. Timmy Thomas: Why Can't We Live Together

8. The O'Jays : Love Train
9. Steely Dan: Do It Again
10. War : The World is a Ghetto

Alison Moyet's All Time Top 10

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Along with Depeche Mode's founding member Vince Clarke, Alison "Alf" Moyet added a soulful voice to the machine beats and melodies of early 80's synth pop. The result for Yazoo ( or Yaz in the US) was a hit album with 1982's Upstairs at Eric's ( featuring two solid dance numbers in "Situation" and "Don't Go" and my toddler daughter's fave ballad "Only You"). When Alf presented the February 1983 edition of Smash Hits magazine with her Top 10 list, she and Vince were recording the follow-up, You And Me Both. The list , notable for being mostly old school soul, comes courtesy of Brian at Like Punk Never Happened.

Yazoo "Nobody's Diary"

Sam Cooke "I Love You For Sentimental Reasons"

Family "Sweet Desiree"

Gladys Knight and the Pips "Don't Burn Down the Bridge"

40 Year Itch: World's Most Forgotten Boy

                                   

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"I felt doomed at the time, very doomed. No one was listening to me.."
      -Iggy Pop, World's Most Forgotten Boy

    Raw Power, released February 7 1973,  is the sound of  a "street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm"  falling down the stairs, loading up on heavy ordinance and threatening to destroy everything in its sight. The album offers a blueprint to every band with punk aspirations. Kurt Cobain called Raw Power his favorite album ever. It's on just about every list of great rock album. And so , naturally, it was ignored by the buying public despite rave reviews from, among others,  Rolling Stone's Lenny Kaye:

   With Raw Power, the Stooges return with a vengeance, exhibiting all the ferocity that characterized them at their livid best, offering a taste of the TV eye to anyone with nerve enough to put their money where their lower jaw flaps. There are no compromises, no attempts to soothe or play games in the hopes of expanding into a fabled wider audience.




Dropped by Elektra after 1970's Fun House failed to sell big numbers, the Stooges broke up. Iggy was a messy heroin addict.  But then he became another rehabilitation project for David Bowie. Mott The Hoople and Lou Reed benefited from Bowie's sexually ambiguous glam rock make-over but Iggy wanted nothing to do with that. With James Williamson on guitar, Iggy brought back the Asheton brothers and recorded in London. Of the sessions, Williamson tells Blurt Online the Stooges had the studio to themselves:

 We didn't really have any adult supervision. We were in there doing it on our own. We didn't have a producer; all we had was an engineer from CBS Studios and us. That's what allowed us to lay those tracks down, because I don't think any self-respecting producer would have let us do those because who could relate to that music? It was completely brand new at the time and if had had any sense we wouldn't have laid them down, but we liked them and that's how it happened. There's an authenticity about that music that is rarely captured on record.



Columbia rejected  Iggy's original mix of the album. The band had to wait until David Bowie found a day to mix the album. The result was a thin and famously muted release. And yet, the album influenced an entire generation of punk rockers and secured Iggy's place as the Punk Messiah.

 Iggy still reigns to this day. Just watch the reaction of the San Francisco fans sharing the stage with Pop recently.

My Top Ten Tunes by Andy O of Blue Zoo

Now known as the founder of the mushroom foraging group Fungi To Be With, Andy O was at one time vocalist for a promising UK band called Blue Zoo. Though dismissed  as "a bunch of fucking tossers" by one YouTube comment maker, their Top 20 single "Cry Boy Cry" anticipates Gene Loves Jezebel pop-Goth hits by at least two years. #4 is most likely "Dance Away" as "Dancing The Night Away" is a new wave hit by The Motors. Andy made this list for the January 20th, 1983 issue of Smash Hits which comes to us courtesy of Brian at Like Punk Never Happened.

40 Year Itch : Paid The Cost To Be The Boss

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Following in the funky footsteps of Issac Hayes ( SHAFT), Curtis Mayfield (SUPERFLY) and Marvin Gaye (TROUBLE MAN), James Brown ( and Fred Wesley) finally contributed a soundtrack album to a blaxploitation picture. Sold as the Godfather of Harlem, Black Caesar stars Fred Williamson as a black member of the Mafia who goes to war with the rest of the city while bedding down with pretty lady Gloria Hendry.

    It seemed natural to have the Godfather of Soul work on the soundtrack to a movie about the Godfather of Harlem. There are some decent cuts on the soundtrack ( released in February of 1973) -- most notably the opener "Down And Out In New York City" and "The Boss". Both feature great funk instrumentation and lyrics gangsta rappers of the 80's and 90's would envy. The rest of the album, made up mostly of Wesley instrumentals, isn't so inspired. The "Dean", Robert Christgau, gave the album a D+ and suggested Brown "should never be allowed near a vibraphone again".

James Brown and Fred Wesley would return later in the year with another soundtrack, Slaughter's Big Rip-Off, which featured one of the great tag lines in film history :"The mob put the finger on Slaughter …so he gave them the finger right back curled around a tight trigger."

40 Year Itch: When Fridays Rocked

Beginning February 2, 1973, rock fans who stayed up after Friday's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson were rewarded with music and comedy. After a special hosted by John Denver in August of 1972, NBC made The Midnight Special a regular thing. Each show had its own host.

On February 2, the host was Helen Reddy, still riding high on her #1 hit "I Am Woman". Among the other performers that night were The (Clarence White era) Byrds, Curtis Mayfield, Don McLean, George Carlin, Rare Earth and Ike and Tina Turner.


The show stuck around until May of 1981. By then musical guests had included such 1001Songs faves as David Bowie, Elton John, Rod Stewart, The Cars, Blondie, Roxy Music, Genesis and hundreds more.


 

40 Year Itch: ELO on TOTP

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On February 1st 1973 Electric Light Orchestra appeared on Top of The Pops to play "Roll Over Beethoven", the band's Top 10 single from their forthcoming second album ELO 2. The album isn't an easy listen--with overly orchestrated, overlong progressive monstrosities not the least of which is the eight minute album version of the single.



ELO founder Roy Wood left the band during the recording, leaving Jeff Lynne behind as the main songwriter. Lynne's Beatlesque feel would pay off for ELO months later with their October single "Showdown", a favorite of John Lennon's who called ELO  "Son of Beatles".

The second cut of ELO II, "Momma", is our favorite. By a long shot.