Throwing back to the week of October 24, 1975, we find a trio of repeats atop the Billboard Hot 100: Chicago’s ‘If You Leave Me Now,’ Rick Dees’ ‘Disco Duck,’ and The Steve Miller Band’s ‘Rock’n Me.’
That brings us to #4 and Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,’ a folk rock song that ultimately peaked at #2 for two weeks in November. This was Lightfoot’s second-highest charting song, after his sole #1 hit, 1974’s ‘Sundown.’
Back in March, in a Throwback Weekends post about Johnnie Taylor’s ‘Disco Lady,’ I noted that it was the first #1 hit with the word “disco” in its title. I went on to write that only one other such song reached #1 in the future… and here we are.
‘Disco Duck,’ a novelty track by Memphis disc jockey Rick Dees, spent a single week atop the Billboard Hot 100 exactly 60 years ago.
Throwing back to the week of September 26, 1976, we find two splendid only-in-the-70s tracks atop the Billboard Hot 100: Wild Cherry’s ‘Play That Funky Music‘ and England Dan and John Ford Coley’s ‘I’d Really Love to See You Tonight.’
As both have been featured already, that brings us to #3, Walter Murphy’s disco take on one of the world’s best-known classical pieces: ‘A Fifth of Beethoven.’
Throwing back to the week of September 12, 1976, we find one hit wonder Wild Cherry atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Play That Funky Music.’ The song spent three weeks at #1, giving the funk rock band their only Top 40 hit.
Wild Cherry, founded by 20-year-old Rob Parissi, started as a rock band in the early 70s but didn’t find much success. Parissi split up the band in 1974 and reformed it with a new lineup a year later.
Throwing back to the week of August 29, 1976, we find the Bee Gees’ ‘You Should Be Dancing‘ claiming the #1 spot of the Billboard Hot 100 in its sole week atop the chart.
At #2 was soul singer Lou Rawls with ‘You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine,’ his top-charting single on the Hot 100. The track reached #1 on the R&B and Adult Contemporary charts but peaked at #2 on this one.
