Listening to the songs on this week's Forty-fives list whisks me back to the raging hormones of eighth grade. Specifically, it was the music I heard at the roller rink, on the jukeboxes at the base youth center and Garcia's Pizza, and on the turntable at the eighth-grade play cast & crew party held in Mrs. Usher's swanky basement on Briarcliff Drive. The music reminds me of listening to WLS during a time when almost every song was a favorite and I couldn't wait to hear what the next song would be. Here are WLS's Forty-fives for the week ending April 5, 1980. (You can read about that week's Thirty-threes HERE.)
There are four songs are making their debut this week on the Forty-fives:
Journey's "Any Way You Want It" at #45, Chuck Mangione's "Give It All You Got" at #44, Michael Jackson's "Off The Wall" at #43 and "Lost in Love" by Air Supply up at #39. The latter song would eventually peak at #1 two months later and wind up at the top spot of the year-end Big 89 of 1980. Jackson and Mangione's tracks would soon stall outside the Top 20 of the Forty-fives chart but Journey would take "Any Way You Want It" up to #17 in May 1980 and finish at #47 on the Big 89 countdown.
"Off The Wall" is one of two singles on the Forty-fives list from Jackson's Off The Wall album. The other song, "Rock With You", is up at #6 down one from the previous week. It had peaked at #1 back in February 1980. Both songs were written by Rod Temperton and it has been reported that they were among those offered to Karen Carpenter during the recording of her self-titled solo album, recorded 1979-1980 but rejected by her label at the time. Carpenter ended up recording three other Temperton compositions though one of them was ultimately left off the album when it was finally released in 1996.
Rupert Holmes is another artist with two songs on the Forty-fives chart. "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" peaked at #1 back in January 1980 and sits at #33 on this week's chart after falling five spots from last week. The second single released from Partners In Crime ("Him") moves up three places to #13 this week and will peak the following week at #8.
Another single that would peak the following week is "Refugee" from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. That peak would be #13 but this week, it is at #14. It would be #69 on Big 89 of 1980. Petty's second single on the survey is "Don't Do Me Like That" at #31, down from a peak at #5 back in February. It would prove to be Petty's second single on the Big 89, coming in at #3.
Kool & The Gang have two singles on the Forty-fives list located thirty positions apart. "Ladies Night" is at #41 this week, down five from last week. The song peaked at #8 back in December 1979 and wound up at #87 on the Big 89 of 1979. "Too Hot" sits just outside the Top 10 for a second week at its peak position of #11.
Two other artists appear on two songs on WLS's Forty-fives this week with one single under their own name and as a guest on another single. KC and his Sunshine Band are holding at #42 for a second consecutive week with their slow jam "Please Don't Go", a couple's skate staple. The song would end up at #63 on the station's Big 89 of 1979. KC also produces and duets with his high school classmate Teri DeSario's cover of Barbara Mason's "Yes, I'm Ready", another couple's skate favorite down at the roller rink. The single is down two this week to #15 after peaking at #5 a month ago.
Linda Ronstadt's "How Do I Make You?" moves up to #17 this week and would reach its peak at #16 two weeks later. Linda also appears on The (Nitty Gritty) Dirt Band's cover of Rodney Crowell's "An American Dream" which moves up 6 to its peak position of #25.
The lyrics on the back of this week's survey are for the #10 song "This Is It" by Kenny Loggins with a songwriting assist and backing vocals from Michael McDonald. "This Is It" had peaked at #6 the previous month and would finish at #7 on the Big 89 of 1980. McDonald's distinctive pipes also appear on Christopher Cross's "Ride Like The Wind", this week's biggest climber, moving up 16 to #24. It would eventually peak at #2 a few weeks later and land way up at #5 on the Big 89 of 1980. Overall, twenty-two of this week's Forty-fives will wind up on the station's Big 89 year-end countdown for 1980, including eight of the Top 10. Not too shabby. There are too many great songs to even begin to pick a favorite so I'll just leave this here.
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