We return to the WLS survey from the week of August 27, 1977, with a pop quiz about the three live double albums on the Thirty-threes chart. Quick! What is the title of the Top 10 Bee Gees double album that preceded the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack by just six months in 1977? Cup your ear and sing it with me: Here At Last... Bee Gees... Live! The two albums have two songs in common though both "Jive Talkin'" and "You Should Be Dancing" sound that much better in a live setting with the playing of the three Brothers Gibb, the three additional members of the Bee Gees Band and the six-piece Boneroo Horns. After eight weeks on WLS's Thirty-threes chart, peaking at number 22, Here At Last... Bee Gees... Live! would be knocked off the chart the following week by their little brother Andy's debut album, Flowing Rivers. The youngest Gibb was currently in the midst of a four-week reign high atop the Forty-fives chart with his debut single "I Just Want To Be Your Everything".
You didn't ask but my first REO Speedwagon album was Hi Infidelity. More than likely it was your first REO album as well as it was a monster. My second was the double album anthology A Decade Of Rock N Roll: 1970-1980 because I wanted to hear more songs by the band but didn't want to waste my limited funds buying individual albums. My third REO Speedwagon was Nine Lives because I fell hard for the track "Back On The Road Again" - written and sung by the band's bassist Bruce Hall - on the Decade collection and was curious if there were more like it from the album. (Answer: No.) My fourth album by the band was the live double album Live: You Get What You Play For. Quick! How many lead vocalists has REO Speedwagon had since their debut in 1971? Terry Luttrell handled vocals on REO Speedwagon. He was replaced by Kevin Cronin for T.W.O. in 1972. Cronin was replaced by Mike Murphy for the group's next three albums. Cronin then returned for the group's sixth album, 1976's R.E.O. aka C.O.W. and has been with them ever since. On the Thirty-threes chart this week, Live: You Get What You Play For is at lucky number 13 after peaking at number 9 a month back. Over on Billboard's Top LPs and Tapes chart, the album spent two weeks shy of a year, earning Platinum certification despite never rising higher than number 72.
Quick! Can you name the third live double album featured on this week's Thirty-threes list? The album in question debuted at number 10 back in June and would have been Number One by July had Fleetwood Mac's Rumours* never existed so it settled for four weeks in the runner-up position instead. In fact, this album would spend its first four months on the chart within the Top 10 before being knocked out of that elite upper echelon by an album with the exact same title! One last clue: This album is one of two albums by the artist on the Thirty-threes chart this week. Time's up!
*Rumours would go on to spend 34 consecutive weeks at the top of the Thirty-threes chart before being deposed by the Saturday Night Fever juggernaut which spent the next 23 consecutive weeks atop the chart itself.
This week's album's list contains three soundtrack albums: Rocky at number 24, A Star Is Born at number 22 and Star Wars at number 7. It would be several months before another soundtrack album would make the chart when two identically titled albums landed on the list for the week of November 5, 1977.
Only one of them was a bonafide soundtrack album for the little-seen film You Light Up My Life while the other album contained what would become the biggest-selling single of the year. And the decade. In 2013, Billboard placed Debby Boone's cover of "You Light Up My Life" number 9 on their All-Time Hot 100 based on the previous 55 years of charted singles. The next soundtrack album after You Light Up My Life to make the Thirty-threes chart was Saturday Night Fever two months later, on January 14, 1978.
END OF PART TWO
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