WLS Music Survey November 14, 1981

Thirty-five years ago today, our family was spending its eighth week in Tucson after Dad was transferred from Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. After we spent our first four weeks living in a tent at the Crazy Horse Campground southeast of Tucson city limits, we had moved into what felt like the Taj Mahal: a 4 bedroom, two bath home on the base that had a backyard as large as the house itself.

After repeatedly playing three cassettes (above) to death at the campground, I was overjoyed to be able to tune in local FM stations KLPX and KWFM on my Soundesign Stereo (model #4764) in the privacy of my own room and enjoy the popular album rock of the day (KLPX) as well as KROQ-ish new wave (KWFM) but I missed the Top 40 of WLS back in Illinois. Turns out, they were playing a lot of the same music I was listening to more than a thousand miles away; at least according to the weekly survey below.

It's a solid Top 40 45 with a great mix of pop, rock, country, and soul hits. Rock was king with Journey, Foreigner, Billy Squier, Stevie Nicks and Rick Springfield each having two singles apiece on the survey. I count almost ten acts who later became Rock and Roll Hall Of Famers and a few more who are on the ballot of nominees this year.

Looking over the Thirty-threes albums chart, two of my tapes were in the Top 3 though I had another six of the albums on vinyl at the time while I recall Dad owning another four so, between us, we had a solid one-third of the albums listed. And check out that Concerts in the Weeks Ahead killer lineup featuring Genesis performing songs from their latest album Abacab on the second of their two nights in the Windy City that very night (November 14th) before AC/DC rolled in on their For Those About To Rock Tour later that week for a three-night stand closely followed by the Rolling Stones on their American Tour 1981 a couple nights later, also a three-night sell-out, to be immediately followed up by a show from the mighty Earth, Wind & Fire touring behind their album, Raise!, which happened to be released on November 14, 1981. And that all went down at the same venue, the Rosemont Horizon.

Rick Springfield was featured on the back of the week's survey with the lyrics to his hit song (written by Sammy Hagar, in case you didn't know) "I've Done Everything For You" as well as being featured in the Bio section. The survey was sponsored by Chicagoland Shell stations who were giving away reproductions of pencil-drawn prints of Chicago Bears players including "Sweetness" himself, the immortal Walter Payton.

The survey scans above and below are my own from a near gem mint condition survey I picked up for a couple of bucks on eBay. Someday soon I hope to have enough cash to buy many more of them. After the full-frontal scan below, I've included a chart comparison with WLS going up against the Billboard and Cashbox one-hundred position charts for the same week. All song titles and artists names in the comparison chart appear exactly as they do on the survey.

WLS	title	artist	Billboard	Cashbox
45	Fire And Ice	Pat Benatar
44	Beach Boys Medley	The Beach Boys	84	98
43	The Voice	Moody Blues	81	94
42	The Stroke	Billy Squier
41	Elvira	Oakridge Boys
40	Slow Hand	Pointer Sisters
39	Theme from Greatest American Hero	Joey Scarbury
38	Hold On Tight	Electric Light Orchestra	58	96
37	Share Your Love With Me	Kenny Rogers	38	48
36	Leather & Lace	Stevie Nicks	25	36
35	(There's) No Gettin' Over Me	Ronnie Milsap
34	Poor Man's Son	Survivor	44	57
33	The Breakup Song	Greg Kihn Band
32	Jessie's Girl	Rick Springfield
31	Stop Draggin' My Heart Around	Stevie Nicks	45	77
30	Say Goodbye To Hollywood	Billy Joel	22	24
29	Queen Of Hearts	Juice Newton	80	50
28	Magic Power	Triumph	51	49
27	Here I Am	Air Supply	7	14
26	Heavy Metal	Don Felder	100	75
25	No Time To Love	The Tarney/Spencer Band
24	Nicole	Point Blank
23	Hard To Say	Dan Fogelberg	20	18
22	Burnin' For You	Blue Oyster Cult	96	51
21	Sausalito Summernight	Diesel	26	27
20	Working In A Coal Mine	Devo	87	58
19	Don't Stop Believing	Journey	28	34
18	We're In This Love Together	Al Jarreau	15	23
17	In The Dark	Billy Squier	61	46
16	Who's Cryin' Now	Journey	53	25
15	Urgent	Foreigner	57	93
14	No Reply At All	Genesis	32	35
13	When She Was My Girl	Four Tops	11	10
12	Step By Step	Eddie Rabbitt	35	16
11	For Your Eyes Only	Sheena Easton	16	5
10	Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic	The Police	12	11
9	I've Done Everything For You	Rick Springfield	8	9
8	Physical	Olivia Newton-John	3	6
7	Waiting For A Girl Like You	Foreigner	4	12
6	Endless Love	Diana Ross & Lionel Richie	21	3
5	The Night Owls	Little River Band	6	7
4	Tryin' To Live My Life Without You	Bob Seger	5	8
3	Arthur's Theme	Christopher Cross	9	2
2	Start Me Up	Rolling Stones	2	4
1	Private Eyes	Hall & Oates	1	1

This is the song I didn't recognize from the survey, number 25 on WLS (after peaking at 24 a few weeks earlier) though it had originally peaked at number 84 on the Hot 100 upon its original release in 1979 and peaked ten positions higher in a brief four-week run again after being re-released in 1981. After listening to the music video, the song's chorus brought it back front and center - loved it back then but have all but forgotten about it and would have sworn it was by another group. Looked it up and I have it on The Greatest Hits Album. Further research revealed that Alan Tarney, who sang and played everything on the song except Spencer's drums, was involved with several other familiar and beloved hits of both the Seventies and the Eighties. Mind blown!