Tag: 1978

Feature LP

Thursday 1am ET: Feature LP: Atlanta Rhythm Section – Champagne Jam (1978)

Champagne Jam is an album by the southern rock band Atlanta Rhythm Section, released in January 1978. The single “Imaginary Lover” was the band’s second Top 10 hit, peaking at #7 in the U.S. and #9 in Canada.

Ronnie Dobbs, a fictional character portrayed by the comedian David Cross, is fond of saying, “Let’s have us a champagne jam!”, a reference to the song “Champagne Jam”.

“Large Time” – 2:55
“I’m Not Gonna Let It Bother Me Tonight” – 4:06
“Normal Love” – 3:22
“Champagne Jam” – 4:31
“Imaginary Lover” – 5:05
“The Ballad of Lois Malone” – 4:30
“The Great Escape” – 4:47
“Evileen” – 3:32
“NITP” – 7:21

Max20th Century

Monday 6pm: Max 20th Century – 1978 (Part IV)

Country Music Events 1978
March 4 — The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) telecasts the first complete Grand Ole Opry show from the new Grand Ole Opry House as it happened from 6–9 pm. The show featured Del Reeves, The Willis Brothers, Billy Grammer, Lonzo and Oscar, Bill Monroe, Porter Wagoner, Roy Acuff, The Crook Brothers, The Fruit Jar Drinkers, Ronnie Milsap, Grandpa Jones, George Hamilton IV and others. The show would run over about 18 minutes the first night. The telecast would repeat from 1979 to 1981.
March 25 — “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson becomes the last song for 12 years to spend four weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart. There wouldn’t be another four-week No. 1 until “Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart” by Randy Travis in April 1990. The trend of fewer (and shorter) multi-week runs at No. 1 on Billboard, even for the year’s biggest hits, is the result of changes in radio programming and the magazine’s reporting methods.
May 6 — Bob Kingsley takes over hosting duties of “American Country Countdown,” a stint that will last 27 years. He had been a producer of the radio countdown show since 1974.
May 24 — The United States Postal Service issues a 13-cent commemorative stamp honoring Jimmie Rodgers, one of the genre’s pioneers. The Rodgers stamp, designed by artist Jim Sharpe, is the first in the Postal Service’s long-running Performing Arts Series.
September — The Donna Fargo Show premieres in syndication. The new show’s debut comes around the same time Fargo was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She receives successful medical treatment and with her husband’s help, makes it back to excellent health
October 4 — One of Nashville’s most mysterious crimes involves the reported abduction and beating of Tammy Wynette. Media reports said that Wynette had been abducted by a masked man at a shopping center before the beating. No suspects were ever named or arrested. While Wynette would insist the story was true, her daughter raised doubts, claiming the incident was fabricated to cover physical abuse from her newlywed husband, songwriter/producer George Richey
October 21 — Fans of Mel Street are saddened when the honky tonk-styled singer, who had long battled clinical depression and alcoholism, committed suicide on his 43rd birthday. He had signed a recording contract with Mercury Records earlier in the year.

Max20th Century

Wednesday 6pm: Max 20th Century – 1978 (Part II)

May 6 – The Knack is formed (first album released in 1979).
May 13 – Barry Gibb becomes the only songwriter in history to have written 4 consecutive #1 singles on Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart.
May 18 – The Buddy Holly Story, starring Gary Busey, is released. It would win the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score, and earn a nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Busey) and Best Sound.
May 25 – In a performance used for The Kids Are Alright, The Who play their last show with Keith Moon.
June 10 – The Rolling Stones begin their 25-date US summer tour in Lakeland, Florida.
June 13 – The Cramps play a free concert for patients at the Napa State Mental Hospital.
June 16 – The film adaptation of the musical Grease, opens in theaters and is a box office hit.
June 20 – Grace Slick splits with Jefferson Starship the day after a disastrous concert in Hamburg, Germany, in which a heavily intoxicated Slick verbally abused the crowd and groped various fans and bandmates.
June 29 – Peter Frampton is nearly killed in a car accident in The Bahamas, suffering multiple broken bones, a concussion, and muscle damage.
July 1 – The first Texxas Jam is held over the July 4 long weekend at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The first day features Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush, Heart, Journey, Head East, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Eddie Money, Van Halen and Walter Egan. Sunday consists of Willie Nelson headlining his sixth annual Fourth of July picnic.
July 19 – Dead Kennedys play their first concert, at the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco, California.
July 21 – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a much-hyped musical film starring Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees performing the music of The Beatles, opens in theaters. The film is savaged by critics and proves a box office disappointment.
July 29 – Glenn Goins, one of the lead vocalists for the band Parliament-Funkadelic dies of Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age of 24.
July 30 – Thin Lizzy officially announces that Gary Moore has replaced Brian Robertson on guitar.
August–December
August 26 – 80,000 concertgoers attend Mosport Speedway in Ontario for the “Canada Jam Festival”, featuring sets by the Doobie Brothers, Commodores, Kansas, Village People, Dave Mason, the Atlanta Rhythm Section and Triumph.
August 28 – 67,000 Funk fans assembled at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois to attend the first annual Funk Festival, billed as “One Nation Under A Groove”, featuring A Taste of Honey (band), Parlet, Con Funk Shun, the Bar-Kays, and Parliament-Funkadelic.
September 7 – The Who drummer Keith Moon dies in a central London flat after a prescription drug overdose at the age of 32.
September 14–16 – The Grateful Dead perform three shows in Giza, Egypt, very close to the Sphinx and Great Pyramid.
October 12 – Nancy Spungen, the American girlfriend of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious, is found dead in a New York hotel room of a stab wound. Sid is arrested and charged with her murder.
October 24 – Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards pleads guilty to a reduced charge of possessing heroin in Toronto in 1977. The more serious charge of drug trafficking is dropped and Richards is given a one-year suspended sentence as well as ordered to play a charity concert for the blind.
October 29 – Michael Schenker plays his final show with UFO in Stanford, California before leaving the group to rejoin Scorpions.
November 21 – French pop star Dalida performed a concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
November 25
A now sober Alice Cooper releases the album From the Inside, which tells of his stay in rehab for alcoholism.
Aerosmith cuts a concert short after Steven Tyler suffers cuts to his face from a bottle that shatters upon hitting a stage monitor.
Donna Summer becomes the first female artist of the modern rock era to have the number one single (Mac Arthur Park) and album (Live and More) on Billboard charts simultaneously.
November 27 – Def Leppard’s permanent drummer Rick Allen joins the band at the age of 15.
December 2 The seventh edition of the OTI Festival, the Latin American spin-off of the Eurovision Song Contest takes place in Santiago, Chile. The winning country is Brazil, represented by Denisse de Kalafe with her song “El amor…Cosa tan rara” (Love…Such a strange thing)
December 31
Matthias Jabs joins Scorpions, replacing Uli Jon Roth.
The seventh annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve special airs on ABC, with performances by Barry Manilow, Village People, Chuck Mangione, Tanya Tucker and Rick James.
CBS airs New Year’s Eve with Guy Lombardo for the final time, nearly two years after the band leader’s death and ending a 22-year run that began in 1956.
The Winterland Ballroom venue in San Francisco closes with a New Year’s Eve performance by the Grateful Dead, New Riders of the Purple Sage and the Blues Brothers.
Iron Maiden records a demo, consisting of four songs, at Spaceward Studios in Cambridge which would eventually become The Soundhouse Tapes.
Also in 1978
Kenny Rogers continues his highly successful solo career with the single (and album) “The Gambler” and will go on to star in no less than five movies based around the song.
In the UK, singles sales are at their all-time high this year, boosted by the simultaneous peak of the disco and punk phenomena and the success of singles from the movie Grease.
Mozambique holds its first National Dance Festival, involving half a million people.
November – Iron Maiden hires lead singer Paul Di’Anno.
New Edition formed in 1978 in Massachusetts, USA.

General / Archived Posts

Monday 6pm: Max 20th Century – 1978 (Part I)

January 14 – The Sex Pistols play their final show (until a 1996 reunion) at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom.
January 16 – Elton John appears on this week’s People (magazine) without his trademark glasses. John will still wear glasses occasionally for the next ten years until wearing them permanently again.
January 21 – As Saturday Night Fever becomes a cultural phenomenon, the soundtrack hits #1 on the Billboard Charts, where it will stay until July.
January 23 – Terry Kath, guitarist and founding member of rock band Chicago, dies from an accidental gunshot wound to the head from a gun he thought was unloaded, in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles; he is 32 years old.
January 25
Electric Light Orchestra kick off their “Out of the Blue” world tour in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Bob Dylan makes his directorial debut in the surrealist film Renaldo and Clara, shot during his Rolling Thunder Revue tour.
January 26 – Workers at EMI’s record processing plant in England refuse to press copies of The Buzzcocks’s second single “What Do I Get?” because of its flipside, “Oh Shit”. The single is eventually pressed and goes on to become the band’s first hit.
January 28 – By request, Ted Nugent autographs his name into a fan’s arm with a bowie knife in Philadelphia.
February 4 – Elton John appears as the guest star on The Muppet Show.
February 10 – Van Halen debuts with a self-titled album; Eddie Van Halen introduces a powerful new sound and technique to world, while David Lee Roth is ushered in as the front man.
March 18 – California Jam II is held at the Ontario Motor Speedway in California. Over 300,000 fans come to see Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, Santana, Dave Mason, Foreigner, Heart and more.
April 22
In the Eurovision Song Contest in Paris, France, victory goes to Israel’s entry “A-Ba-Ni-Bi”, performed by Izhar Cohen & The Alphabeta.
The “One Love Peace Concert” is held in Kingston, Jamaica, headlined by Bob Marley, making his first concert appearance since December 1976.
Steve Martin performs the original “King Tut” on Saturday Night Live; also this night, The Blues Brothers make their first appearance on the show.
May 6 – The Knack is formed (first album released in 1979).
May 13 – Barry Gibb becomes the only songwriter in history to have written 4 consecutive #1 singles on Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart.
May 18 – The Buddy Holly Story, starring Gary Busey, is released. It would win the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score, and earn a nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Busey) and Best Sound.
May 25 – In a performance used for The Kids Are Alright, The Who play their last show with Keith Moon.
June 10 – The Rolling Stones begin their 25-date US summer tour in Lakeland, Florida.
June 13 – The Cramps play a free concert for patients at the Napa State Mental Hospital.
June 16 – The film adaptation of the musical Grease, opens in theaters and is a box office hit.
June 20 – Grace Slick splits with Jefferson Starship the day after a disastrous concert in Hamburg, Germany, in which a heavily intoxicated Slick verbally abused the crowd and groped various fans and bandmates.
June 29 – Peter Frampton is nearly killed in a car accident in The Bahamas, suffering multiple broken bones, a concussion, and muscle damage.
July 1 – The first Texxas Jam is held over the July 4 long weekend at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The first day features Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush, Heart, Journey, Head East, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Eddie Money, Van Halen and Walter Egan. Sunday consists of Willie Nelson headlining his sixth annual Fourth of July picnic.
July 19 – Dead Kennedys play their first concert, at the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco, California.
July 21 – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a much-hyped musical film starring Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees performing the music of The Beatles, opens in theaters. The film is savaged by critics and proves a box office disappointment.
July 29 – Glenn Goins, one of the lead vocalists for the band Parliament-Funkadelic dies of Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age of 24.
July 30 – Thin Lizzy officially announces that Gary Moore has replaced Brian Robertson on guitar.