WLS Music Survey – June 16, 1979 (Part One - The Thirty-threes)

Welcome to the WLS Music Survey breakdown for the week ending June 16, 1979. Today, we're covering the front side of the survey, including Jock of the Week, Concerts in the Weeks Ahead, and the list of Thirty-threes. (The Forty-fives list and the rear side of the survey will be covered at a later date in Part Two of this post.) My usual disclaimer: I was out of state for the summer of 1979, but much of this music was getting airplay before I left. They had radios and jukeboxes out of state as well, like the legendary Cow Talk Steak House jukebox just outside Navasota, Texas. My family tends to spoil me, and a few weeks back, I dreamed they had tracked down the particular machine, had it restored, and presented it to me for my 60th birthday.

Tommy Edwards was "Little Snot-Nosed Tommy" to Larry Lujack's "Uncle Lar" for the station's Animal Stories bits. After 54 years in radio, Edwards retired in 2014. He continued as the arena announcer for Chicago Bulls games until his full retirement in 2019, when he moved to California to be closer to his family. He is credited with the iconic introduction ritual, using the Alan Parsons track "Sirius," when announcing the Bulls' starting lineup beginning in 1984.

According to the folks who shared their concert experiences with setlist.fm, Eric Clapton had three openers on this Backless Tour stop at Chicago Stadium: Johnny Winter, Pinetop Perkins, and Muddy Waters. Concertgoers recalled a sixteen-song playlist that included two encores after the epic closer, "Layla". Backless peaked on the Thirty-threes at number 15 back in February before leaving the survey in March.

Cheap Trick was absolutely HUGE in the Summer of '79, riding high with At Budokan and getting ready to release Dream Police. Once again, the fans at setlist.fm shared their memories of the band's triumphant three-night stand during the At Budokan Tour at the International Amphitheater, recalling four encores after their thirteen-song performance on the 16th. The opening act was Graham Parker and the Rumour, touring behind their acclaimed Squeezing Out Sparks album. (Live) At Budokan is how Cheap Trick's album is listed on this week's albums list, where it sits at number two for another week. The first single from the album "I Want You To Want Me" rises nine spots to number 8 on this week's Forty-fives.

Supertramp was also huge in the Summer of '79, following the March 1979 release of Breakfast in America. The album is enjoying its sixth of eight weeks at the top of the Thirty-threes. With Chris DeBurgh in tow, the group's three nights at Alpine Valley saw them run through at least twenty songs nightly from Breakfast in America and their three previous albums: Crime Of The Century, Crisis? What Crisis?, and Even In The Quietest Moments... According to setlist.fm users, most of the songs performed were from the magnificent Crime Of The Century, including the show opener "School" and the concert closing title track. "The Logical Song", the first single from Breakfast in America, moves up five to number 11 on this week's singles chart.

🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧

Two albums make their debut on this week's albums list. Coincidentally, both artists start with the letter K. Kenny Rogers comes in at number 28 with The Gambler. The album had been released in November 1978, and while the title track failed to ever make the station's survey, "She Believes In Me", another single from the album, made its debut on the Forty-fives just last week. This week, it jumps 15 spots to number 26. The Gambler would peak at number 7 in thirty-eight weeks on the Thirty-threes. The other debut album landed at number 21 shortly after it was released. Monolith by Kansas would peak at number 13 in two weeks before beginning a short slide off the station's surveys.

Donna Summer is the only artist to notch more than one album on the Thirty-threes this week. After bottoming out at number 33 last week, Live and More bumps up to number 32. The double album had peaked at number 2 back in December 1978, driven by the single "MacArthur Park", the side four More in the album's title. Bad Girls is at number 5 this week but will peak at number 3 next week, the first of four consecutive weeks at that spot.  Two singles from Bad Girls are on the Forty-fives this week. We'll discuss them in Part Two of this post.

Speaking of Kenny Rogers and Donna Summer, all five Album of the Year nominees for the 22nd Annual Grammy Awards are on the Thirty-threes this week:

• 28 The Gambler - Kenny Rogers
• 23 52nd Street - Billy Joel
• 06 Minute By Minute - The Doobie Brothers
• 05 Bad Girls - Donna Summer
• 01 Breakfast in America - Supertramp

On February 27, 1980, 52nd Street won the Grammy.

Five artists on the list of Thirty-threes are represented by their self-titled first albums, which is pretty cool:

• 26 Toto
• 20 Dire Straits
• 16 Molly Hatchet
• 08 Rickie Lee Jones
•  07 The Cars

Six has been my favorite number for as long as I can remember having a favorite number. I found it interesting that six albums on this week's Thirty-threes are the sixth studio albums recorded by their respective artists:

• 28 The Gambler - Kenny Rogers
• 25 Enlightened Rogues - The Allman Brothers Band
• 23 52nd Street - Billy Joel
• 21 Monolith - Kansas
• 05 Bad Girls* - Donna Summer
• 01 Breakfast In America - Supertramp

* Technically, Bad Girls is Summer's seventh studio album, but here at The Hideaway, much like Donna herself, we don't officially recognize her first album, Lady Of The Night, released only in the Netherlands in 1974.

Our final featured album connection is a wild one. The Music Box Dancer album was released in 1974 and considered a flop. The title track was later released as the B-side of a 1978 single, where it caught the attention of a Canadian radio station that made it a hit. Music Box Dancer is at number 33 this week. Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, simply known as Hair, was a groundbreaking, controversial musical first staged in 1967, featuring several songs that found chart success when covered by mainstream artists, including Three Dog Night's "Easy To Be Hard", The Fifth Dimension's "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures)", The Cowsills' "Hair" and Oliver's "Good Morning Starshine". A movie adaptation of Hair was released in 1979 with an accompanying soundtrack double-album featuring a few songs that had been cut from the film. The Hair soundtrack is at number 30 this week. One of the songs on the soundtrack album not featured in the film is "Frank Mills", the name of the Music Box Dancer artist.

The following connections are not detailed above and are listed solely for your entertainment. Can you spot...

• 5 double albums? (32/31/30/22/5)
• 2 albums featuring four sisters among the performers? (32/13)
• 2 albums by artists with the word Brothers in their name that do not contain any siblings within their ranks? (25/6)
• 3 albums with guitars on the cover? (27/14/2)
• 7 albums that actually feature male siblings? (27/26/20/19/17/15/4)
• 5 albums with at least three women on the cover? (30/28/27/15/13)
• 2 live albums? (32/22)
• 2 albums that feature police officers on the cover? (18/5)