(Pictured: Marty Robbins, in a promotional photo for the 1976 Academy of Country Music Awards show broadcast.)
A while back, I threatened to start a blog about 1970s country, and several amongst the readership said they’d read it. This trip inside the Top 100 country hits of 1976 from KLAC in Los Angeles is for y’all.
99. “Fly Away”/John Denver
67. “Country Boy”/Glen Campbell
56. “Hurt”/Elvis Presley
47. “Come on Over”/Olivia Newton-John
Lots of songs on this chart crossed over to the pop chart. All of these made the pop Top 40. Spoiler alert: there are others to be covered below.
78. “Afternoon Delight”/Johnny Carver
76. “Save Your Kisses for Me”/ Margo Smith
32. “Misty Blue”/Billie Joe Spears
Contemporaneous country covers, sprouting up as a song hit big on the pop charts, used to be a thing. That there would be one of “Afternoon Delight” was a mortal lock.
72. “Here Comes the Freedom Train”/Merle Haggard
16. “The Roots of My Raising”/Merle Haggard
4. “Cherokee Maiden”/Merle Haggard
“Here Comes the Freedom Train,” about the Bicentennial exhibit that criss-crossed the country from April 1975 through April 1977, was Haggard’s lowest-charting single since 1965 (!), and it still made #10 in Billboard.
70. “I’ll Go Back to Her”/Waylon Jennings
61. “Suspicious Minds”/Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter
15. “If You’ve Got the Money”/Willie Nelson
13. “Remember Me”/Willie Nelson
5. “Good Hearted Woman”/Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson
The Waylon and Willie outlaw country legend kicked into overdrive in 1976, with the compilation album The Outlaws, the first country album to get the RIAA’s new platinum certification for one million sold, and Willie’s The Sound in Your Mind, which was Billboard‘s #1 country album of 1976. Allow me to recommend yet again Outlaw: Willie, Waylon, Kris, and the Renegades of Nashville, an excellent history of the movement, by Michael Streissguth.
68. “Somebody Loves You”/Crystal Gayle
46. “She Never Knew Me”/Don Williams
39. “Among My Souvenirs”/Marty Robbins
34. “El Paso City”/Marty Robbins
20. “Say It Again”/Don Williams
11. “Til the Rivers All Run Dry”/Don Williams
9. “I’ll Get Over You”/Crystal Gayle
Gayle, Robbins, and Williams are not usually mentioned among the first rank of country superstars, but they ought to be. “I’ll Get Over You” and “El Paso City” have been favorites of this blog since always. “She Never Knew Me” is quintessential Williams: brilliant storytelling as natural as breathing.
64. “Hank Williams, You Wrote My Life”/Moe Bandy
35. “Golden Ring”/George Jones and Tammy Wynette
I don’t have much to say about either one of these, but “Hank Williams, You Wrote My Life” and “Golden Ring” are about as country as country can be.
63. “Broken Lady”/Larry Gatlin
49. “If I Had to Do It All Over Again”/Roy Clark
29. “Faster Horses”/Tom T. Hall
17. “You’ll Lose a Good Thing”/Freddy Fender
10. “(I’m a) Stand by My Woman Man”/Ronnie Milsap
I’m gonna sing along with a lot of songs on this chart and nobody can stop me.
53. “The Man on Page 602″/Zoot Fenster. Behold an artifact of a viral sensation. On page 602 of the 1975 Sears Fall/Winter catalog was a picture of an underwear model, and it sure looked like he was accidentally displaying a bit of his junk. Alas, “The Man on Page 602” is not very good, but the fact that it got any traction at all indicates just how sensational the sensation was.
42. “Me and Ol’ CB”/Dave Dudley
27. “Convoy”/C. W. McCall
9. “The White Knight”/Cledus Maggard
As 1975 turned to 1976, CB radio songs were thick on the ground, and the top two below are additional artifacts of that time.
26. “I Don’t Want to Have to Marry You”/Jim Ed Brown and Helen Cornelius
7. “Sometimes”/Bill Anderson and Mary Lou Turner
If you turn on country radio today, you won’t hear many songs about adultery. Not so in the horny 70s. “I Don’t Want to Have to Marry You” is about two people who either want to do it or don’t, and/or want to get married before they do it, or don’t. “Sometimes” is a song I’ve written about before. Bill Anderson, who is now the longest-tenured living member of the Grand Ole Opry (60 years) since the death of Stonewall Jackson last month, had #1 hits with two different duet partners, Jan Howard and Turner.
2. “One Piece at a Time”/Johnny Cash
1. “Teddy Bear”/Red Sovine
Both of these also crossed over to the pop charts, although “Teddy Bear” spent but one week at #40. Sovine is also on this chart at #73 with “Phantom 309,” a truck-driving ghost story also recorded by Tom Waits.
Today, KLAC is a sports station, carrying the Dodgers, Clippers, Chargers, and UCLA football and basketball, but its history includes 23 years as a country station, from 1970 to 1993. My history includes several years as a country radio DJ, and most of these songs were heard on my shows at one point or another.