SHAKEDOWN, 1979 (June)

I’m really glad about the positive reception being afforded to this series….I’ve long been of the view that there was no finer year for singles than 1979, but then again, I would imagine most music fans will look back on the music they were listening to in their formative teen years and look to make a case that it was ‘the best.’   What did the month of June bring us, aside from my 16th birthday?

One other good thing about 1979 is that it didn’t clash with any major football tournament that summer, which spared us the possibility of Saturday Heroes finding themselves in a recording studio to inflict torture on us.  Except for the fact that the highest new entry on the chart in the first week in June, entering at #55, was Head Over Heels In Love with the singer being Kevin Keegan, ex-Liverpool but now plying his trade with Hamburg in Germany, and who in 1979 had been voted as the best player in European football.  I’ll spare you the song, but you can, if you want to be masochistic, find it on YouTube.  It spent six weeks on the chart and peaked at #31.

There wasn’t too much to get excited further down the charts in terms of new entries, bar these two:-

mp3: Janet Kay – Silly Games (#65)
mp3: The Tourists – Blind Among The Flowers (#66)

Janet Kay has proven to be the classic definition of a one-hit wonder.  The London-born singer was just 21 years old when Silly Games was released.  It was one of the big hits of the summer months, spending 14 weeks in the chart, peaking at #2.  It’s a song written by Dennis Bovell, who was recently the subject of this wonderful guest ICA from Khayem.  It has all led to Janet Kay being unofficially crowned as the Queen of Lovers Rock, and while she never again had a single breach the charts, she has enjoyed a long and illustrious career in music and theatre, leading to her being awarded, in 2023, an MBE for her services to music.

The Tourists is where it all began for Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, who would conquer the planet in the mid-80s as the driving force behind Eurythmics.  Their first band was more of a traditional rock sort of combo, and Blind Among The Flowers was their first single, eventually peaking at #52.  There’ll be more from this lot later in the year.

The chart of 10-16 June saw the first chart entry from another of the new bands emerging as part of what was a real explosion in post-punk in the UK.

mp3: The Ruts – Babylon’s Burning

The Ruts were from London, so this was an instance when the A&R men didn’t have to look too far. The band formed in 1977, and they began to make a name for themselves from the fact that they brought reggae influences to their brand of punk.  John Peel was a big fan, as indeed was fellow Radio 1 DJ David ‘Kid’ Jensen, both of whom offered sessions at the beginning of 1979.  Their debut single In A Rut was issued on a small indie label, but led to an offer from Virgin Records, a label which was really hoovering up many of the emerging bands.  Babylon’s Burning was their first release for the new label.  It’s a genuine classic of the era, eventually reaching #7 and spending 11 weeks on the chart. As with The Tourists, there’ll be more later in the year.

This was also the week when a Leeds-based post-punk combo enjoyed their first chart hit

mp3: Gang Of Four – At Home He’s A Tourist

There’s a similar pattern here.  Gang Of Four were championed by Peel.  The debut single had come out on an indie label which led to an offer from a major label, in this instance, EMI.  This was the first single for the new label. To my surprise, this has proved to be the biggest hit that Gang of Four ever had in terms of a single, entering at #65 and peaking the following week at #58.

June appears to be a month when very few new songs of any genre came into the charts.  The week of 17-23 June saw no new entries into the Top 40.  The highest new entry was at #53, and like Janet Kay, was a song which was omnipresent in the summer months but ended up being the only hit for a singer who is still going strong today.

mp3: Rickie Lee Jones – Chuck E’s In Love

Rickie Lee Jones was 24-years old at the time. Chicago-born but California- based, she made her name performing in coffee bars and jazz clubs.  She was also, for a period of some two years, in a relationship with Tom Waits.  She was signed by Warner Bros whose A&R men felt that Chuck E’s In Love had the potential to go what we would now describe as ‘viral’.  It certainly did, thanks to a massive marketing push via radio and TV stations in the US, leading to it becoming a Top 5 hit on the Billboard chart and making its way across the Atlantic shortly afterwards.  It would spend 9 weeks in the chart and peak at #18.  None of her later singles, and there have been dozens in the decades that followed, ever bothered the chart compilers.

June 1979 closed with Tubeway Army hitting the top spot in the singles chart. A small selection of the songs featured last month as well as earlier in the post were keeping Mr Numan company, but for the most part, it wasn’t a great month.  A tune with a great bass line came in at #53

mp3: Chic – Good Times

This would eventually get to #5 and thus prove to be the latest in what seemed to be a conveyer-belt of hit singles for Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards which showed no sign of slowing down.  This, however, proved to be that last of the mega-smashes, and the last time they would enjoy a Top 10 hit.

So, returning to the question posed at the start. What did the month of June bring us, aside from my 16th birthday?  The answer, it appears, is not all that much……

I’ll be back soon with the companion piece to the series looking at singles from June 1979 which didn’t make the charts.  I’ve had a sneak look ahead to the chart of the first week of July 1979, and there’s a couple well worth highlighting, so please tune in again around the same time next month.

JC