WCBS-FM TOP 20 COUNTDOWN REMEMBERS 1/11/1979

[pjc1961]

To view the playlist used for this countdown (with some alterations) hosted by Rob Parker, check link below:

http://www.musicradio77.com/Surveys/1979/surveyjan979.html

Changes/alterations made to playlist ("revisionist history", you could say):

ON LIST: ON AIR: SONG: ARTIST:

20. EXTRA You Stepped Into My Life - Melba Moore
36. 20. Fire - The Pointer Sisters
35. 19. Da Ya Think I'm Sexy - Rod Stewart
34. 18. Lotta Love - Nicolette Larson
--. EXTRA Soul Man - The Blues Brothers
--. EXTRA Honesty - Billy Joel

 

[andreajesus]

To view the playlist used for this countdown (with some alterations) hosted by Rob Parker, check link below:

http://www.musicradio77.com/Surveys/1979/surveyjan979.html

Changes/alterations made to playlist ("revisionist history", you could say):

ON LIST: ON AIR: SONG: ARTIST:

20. EXTRA You Stepped Into My Life - Melba Moore
36. 20. Fire - The Pointer Sisters
35. 19. Da Ya Think I'm Sexy - Rod Stewart
34. 18. Lotta Love - Nicolette Larson
--. EXTRA Soul Man - The Blues Brothers
--. EXTRA Honesty - Billy Joel

First of all, it's Ron Parker...

Secondly, with these "alterations", as you put it, SO WHAT?? i liked the songs they added in - i mean, when they played Melba Moore's "You Stepped Into My Life" - I was like WOW! i was on the phone with my friend and i'm explaining to him that back around that time, Melba Moore was recording BIG hits and...well, let's just say he got educated about a LOT of stuff from me tonight...

Andrea
(mourning for the Giants losing today... )

 

[pjc1961]

To view the playlist used for this countdown (with some alterations) hosted by Ron Parker, check link below:

http://www.musicradio77.com/Surveys/1979/surveyjan979.html

Changes/alterations made to playlist ("revisionist history", you could say):

ON LIST: ON AIR: SONG: ARTIST:

20. EXTRA You Stepped Into My Life - Melba Moore
36. 20. Fire - The Pointer Sisters
35. 19. Da Ya Think I'm Sexy - Rod Stewart
34. 18. Lotta Love - Nicolette Larson
--. EXTRA Soul Man - The Blues Brothers
--. EXTRA Honesty - Billy Joel

First of all, it's Ron Parker...

Secondly, with these "alterations", as you put it, SO WHAT?? i liked the songs they added in - i mean, when they played Melba Moore's "You Stepped Into My Life" - I was like WOW! i was on the phone with my friend and i'm explaining to him that back around that time, Melba Moore was recording BIG hits and...well, let's just say he got educated about a LOT of stuff from me tonight...

Andrea
(mourning for the Giants losing today... )

Thanks for the correction, Andrea. I was thinking of the sportswriter for the Detroit Free Press who resigned last week over his remarks about Detroit Lions coach Rod Marinelli's defensive co-ordinator Joe Barry, who is married to Marinelli's daughter. Speaking of football...sorry about the Giants :'(; high hopes for a repeat - dashed! Wait 'til next year...

 

[andreajesus]

1) that's okay, honey :-* - i'm just making sure that the correct information about WCBSFM gets published, that's all...
2) that dude on the Detroit Free Press - he needs to check himself the next time BEFORE he wrecks himself...
3) My Giants out of it - oh well wait til next year...
4) Tonight? G-R-R-R-E-A-T countdown!! My friend, the one i was on the phone with, i'm tellin him that when these songs were out in 1979, i was like 20 years old, and these were MY songs growing up, MY songs that I remember (he's older than me... )

Andrea

 

[DToTheJ]

I thought CBS-FM cancelled the countdown. Glad to see it's still on the air!

 

[andreajesus]

I thought CBS-FM cancelled the countdown. Glad to see it's still on the air!

i'm glad to see it's still on the air as well...

 

[BruceS8852]

I thought CBS-FM cancelled the countdown. Glad to see it's still on the air!

This is what happens when rumors are spread on radio message boards. The top 20 countodown has always been my favorite specialty show on the station.

Bruce

 

[andreajesus]

I thought CBS-FM cancelled the countdown. Glad to see it's still on the air!

This is what happens when rumors are spread on radio message boards. The top 20 countodown has always been my favorite specialty show on the station.

Bruce

PRECISELY, my friend, PRECISELY!! I'm also GLAD to see that the countdown is CONTINUING!! (new host is good as well... )

Andrea

 

[mcmannors]

when they played Melba Moore's "You Stepped Into My Life" - I was like WOW! i was on the phone with my friend and i'm explaining to him that back around that time, Melba Moore was recording BIG hits and...

"BIG" hits? Definitely a matter of opinion...

While I realize that there are other charts out there besides POP, nothing Melba Moore recorded hit the Pop Top 40. "You Stepped Into My Life" peaked at number 47 on Billboard's Hot 100, and "This Is It" peaked at number 91. I wouldn't exactly call those BIG hits. I also realize that an artist could be bigger in a certain region than the rest of the country, however I don't recall Moore being that "big" in NYC, except on maybe the old 92-KTU. I was working at WKRB (Kingsborough Community College) around the time "You Stepped Into My Life" was around, and I don't recall it being as "big" as many other dance songs released around that time. If CBS-FM played Patrick Hernandez, Gonzales, Instank Funk, Gary's Gang, or Chanson, I would have no problem. But Melba Moore? i don't know about that...

 

[andreajesus]

when they played Melba Moore's "You Stepped Into My Life" - I was like WOW! i was on the phone with my friend and i'm explaining to him that back around that time, Melba Moore was recording BIG hits and...

"BIG" hits? Definitely a matter of opinion...

While I realize that there are other charts out there besides POP, nothing Melba Moore recorded hit the Pop Top 40. "You Stepped Into My Life" peaked at number 47 on Billboard's Hot 100, and "This Is It" peaked at number 91. I wouldn't exactly call those BIG hits. I also realize that an artist could be bigger in a certain region than the rest of the country, however I don't recall Moore being that "big" in NYC, except on maybe the old 92-KTU. I was working at WKRB (Kingsborough Community College) around the time "You Stepped Into My Life" was around, and I don't recall it being as "big" as many other dance songs released around that time. If CBS-FM played Patrick Hernandez, Gonzales, Instank Funk, Gary's Gang, or Chanson, I would have no problem. But Melba Moore? i don't know about that...

1) Yet I recall that B91 (I used to listen to WKRB in the late 70's/early 80's ) played the Melba Moore track A LOT...
2) I thought I recall Joe Causi played "I've Got My Mind Made Up" by Instant Funk one time on his "Saturday Night 70's" show on 101 (i think it was from his "personal collection"... )
3) I listened to 'KTU in the mid to late 70's, and i don't even recall Melba Moore being played...senior moment, i guess...

Andrea

 

[adma]

Maybe a deeper question is: how many (and what kinds of) 20 year olds in 1979 would have been so engaged/fixated on "current" Melba Moore? Basically, she was a Hair alumnus who was better known on the theatrical or daytime-TV circuit, but with this minor exception was out of the loop of anything pop radio related. It'd be like fixating on Wayne Newton or Jack Jones, practically.

Makes me wonder if andreajesus had any friends...

 

[andreajesus]

Maybe a deeper question is: how many (and what kinds of) 20 year olds in 1979 would have been so engaged/fixated on "current" Melba Moore? Basically, she was a Hair alumnus who was better known on the theatrical or daytime-TV circuit, but with this minor exception was out of the loop of anything pop radio related. It'd be like fixating on Wayne Newton or Jack Jones, practically.

Makes me wonder if andreajesus had any friends...

very positive, aren't we, adma?? but first of all...it was a hit, it was a GREAT record, why are you knocking her?? besides which, if you remember 1979 AT ALL, it was a time where you had artists of EVERY GENRE recording disco songs, including Ms. Moore - she just happened to be one of the few outside the traditional genre who had HITS!!

Andrea

 

[scooty430]

I thought CBS-FM cancelled the countdown. Glad to see it's still on the air!

This is what happens when rumors are spread on radio message boards. The top 20 countodown has always been my favorite specialty show on the station.

Bruce

As the guy who started the "rumor," let me say that the reason I thought it was gone was because all mention of it had been removed from the website. In the past, it had its own page, and you could even download the old episode. Just checked now, and there is still no mention of it.

Glad to hear it is still on! I guess now you have to tune in live.

 

[mcmannors]

including Ms. Moore - she just happened to be one of the few outside the traditional genre who had HITS!!

Andrea

What exactly is your definition of a "HIT"?? Are you familiar with songs like "Sausalito Summernight" by Diesel? "Get Used To It" by Roger Voudouris? "You're My Girl" by Franke & The Knockouts? All of those songs were played on WKRB and each one charted a lot higher than any Melba Moore record ever did. Yet I do not call them "hits", because they really weren't, in the grand scheme of things. My friends and I loved those songs, however a small circles of friends does not make a "hit" in real life.

 

[adma]

What exactly is your definition of a "HIT"?? Are you familiar with songs like "Sausalito Summernight" by Diesel? "Get Used To It" by Roger Voudouris? "You're My Girl" by Franke & The Knockouts? All of those songs were played on WKRB and each one charted a lot higher than any Melba Moore record ever did. Yet I do not call them "hits", because they really weren't, in the grand scheme of things. My friends and I loved those songs, however a small circles of friends does not make a "hit" in real life.

Though I'd exempt "Sausalito Summernight"--though it was only a modest chart hit, it's proven infectious enough to become something of a Jack-FM-type standard, sort of the "Little Green Bag" of its day (right down to its Netherlandish origins). And like "Little Green Bag", I can see it in the future coopted for Tarantino-type cinematic or commercial purposes...

 

[BobSmolarek]

Melba Moore's song was a big "New York" hit, that type of music was huge in New York in those days. I remember hearing it on WKTU and we all knew how gigantic WKTU was then. WABC was so scared that they went totally disco for what seemed like a couple of weeks. I still remember listening to George Michael and he was playing disco song after disco song. Disco was super huge in New York, rock was on the ropes and it looked like rock might die in New York City.

 

[lalumia]

the Moore track was a big NYC/east coast disco/club hit, people of a certain age heard it everywhere they went if they were into night clubbing;
and they shouldn't present the restricted/hemmoroidal WABC charts with songs added on that should have been on their survey but weren't, it is revisionist;
just simply play a track like the Moore track as a Dance Club flashback,or some sort of identifier';
there was a point ,when Disco 92 first clobbered WABC in the ratings, that 77 did knee jerk themselves by playing seven minute versions of "Do ya Wanna Funk" on the Harry Harrison show in the morning, I remember scratching my head at the time(in my mid 20s),thinking"I guess they think this will solve their problems"; it didn't;
I also remember a great NYC hit that 92KTU was playing called "So Lonely" by Get Wet,which had a 60s retro sound to it and should have made it all the way(it broke into the upper 30's on the Billboard Hot 100)

 

[mcmannors]

Melba Moore's song was a big "New York" hit, that type of music was huge in New York in those days. I remember hearing it on WKTU and we all knew how gigantic WKTU was then. WABC was so scared that they went totally disco for what seemed like a couple of weeks. I still remember listening to George Michael and he was playing disco song after disco song. Disco was super huge in New York, rock was on the ropes and it looked like rock might die in New York City.

Bob, I understand that there are regional hits on occasion, however the Melba Moore song was a regional hit in a "niche" format. Was it strong enough to cross over to the "mainstream" hit stations at the time? If not, I don't think that CBS-FM should have played it last week. An example of an appropriate regional hit that could be played on a countdown of a classic hits/oldies station of today would be "Ah! Leah!" by Donnie Iris on 3WS in Pittsburgh or "Tender Years" by John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown band on B-101 in Providence. Both of those songs were "mainstream" hits, not just limited to niche stations like "disco" or "AOR".

BTW, just for the record, Andrea did not recall ever hearing KTU playing the Melba Moore record. ;D

 

[BobSmolarek]

I think the Melba Moore record was big enough and probably sold very well in New York so yes I think it was right for WCBS to play it. Another one that was a "New York" monster was There But For The Grace Of God Go I by the group Machine. WCBS should play this too. That Steve Dahl Disco Demolition night NEVER would have happened in New York, Dahl probably would be demolished by the New York crowd.

 

[mcmannors]

I think the Melba Moore record was big enough and probably sold very well in New York so yes I think it was right for WCBS to play it. Another one that was a "New York" monster was There But For The Grace Of God Go I by the group Machine. WCBS should play this too. That Steve Dahl Disco Demolition night NEVER would have happened in New York, Dahl probably would be demolished by the New York crowd.

We played the Machine record at WKRB in regular rotation on the Top 40 shows (I recall Gary Hopkins doing a great talk up of it! ;D), but the Melba Moore record was limited to the "disco" shows only. I would think that if it Moore had the same popularity as Machine, it would have been played on the Top 40 shows as well. Who knows?