See Radio Faux Show Volume 1 #22 and Radio Faux Show Volume 1 #38 for the first two parts of this series, featuring artists from A-C and D-F.

For this week’s show we get to use the greatest reference book ever published, Joel Whitburn’s Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits. I know that the world has gone online for everything now, and I am not one of those who thinks you need to feel the pages and smell the paper of a book to enjoy reading. But a good reference book like this is not only easy to use, but worth owning just so you can randomly open up the pages and discover songs you don’t know. We own the 7th and 9th (final) editions at our house. This book is a must have in any serious music book collection.

Why is it the Top 40?

Why not the Top 50 or Top 34? The answer is simple. When the format was invented, 40 songs was the number of songs that could fit in the radio time slot. In other words, the technology drove the output. Other similar questions include why are singles usually 3 to 4 minutes long? That is about how long a song can be to fit on one side of a 45 RPM 7 inch record. Why do old vinyl double albums have sides 1/4 and 2/3? This allows you to put both records on your record player and have the disk changer play the first two sides without having to get up to go flip them over. Then you can do the same with sides 3 and 4. Why is the max length on a CD around 70 minutes? Same thing (although probably more technical).

Songs for this week’s theme:

Why care about songs that peaked at # 40?

If you listen to enough songs that peaked between # 21 and 40 on the Billboard charts, you will find that there isn’t a big difference in quality. In fact, I would argue that the number of weeks that a song stays on the charts probably tells you more about it’s quality than how high it charted. But, it is called the Top FORTY. So, songs that peak at number forty ONE don’t make it. So, maybe that doesn’t sound all that important, except that there is another piece of historical trivia that get’s thrown around all of the time: One-Hit Wonders. That means, literally, an artist that has exactly one song that reached the Top 40. When you read through the list of songs that peaked at number forty, you start to notice a trend. Many of them are one-hit wonders. Therefore, for many artists, getting that lucky bump up from number forty one to number forty is an invitation to immortality. And if being a one-hit wonder isn’t that important, then how do you explain the fact that we all know this?

Two-Hit Wonders

Two of the songs on this week’s show are by artists who would have been included in that magical club of one-hit wonders if they wouldn’t have had this other song peak at #40 on the pop charts (Luther Ingram and Rickie Lee Jones). I’m sure that at the time they were happy to have a hit, and probably thought it meant there would be more to come. Unfortunately, there weren’t, and this short-term gain kept them off of that historical one-hit wonder list. In both cases, the artists are actually very well known for their other hit, so it is surprising that their chart success ended here.

One-Hit Wonders

There are three one-hit wonders on this list, and none of them are in the canon of great one-hit wonder songs. The Gunhill Road song is a sort of novelty hit that doesn’t age well and the Jomanda track is a house music single that sounds like a song that peaked at #40. The third song on this list, “Crazy Eyes For You” by Bobby Hamilton, isn’t even available for streaming, but here it is if you want to listen. It is nothing special – a 17-year old singing a mid-tempo doowop inspired rock song – but apparently it was featured in an episode of Orange Is The New Black.

Final Hit

Only one of the songs on this week’s show was the final Top 40 hit for the artist. Andy Gibb ruled the Top 40 from 1977 to 1980, and every single before his final one hit the Top 20. Unfortunately for him, and many other pop stars of the late ’70s, fame and success are fleeting. His popularity disappeared in a flash when his final hit peaked at #40 in April of 1981.

Bob James is one of the most prolific musicians in the history of recorded music. His 70-year career as a keyboardist spans session work, solo work, collaborations, and the group he co-founded (Fourplay). A discussion of his career can go in so many directions that I will focus on the two that are most interesting to me, neither of which are part of his work as a straight-ahead jazz pianist, pop keyboard session musician extraordinaire, or R&B keyboard master. You can learn about all of those aspects of his work yourself.

Smooth Jazz

My favorite recordings by Bob James are his classic run of smooth jazz albums from 1974 to 1986. Starting with his third album, One, and up through his 1986 collaboration with David Sanborn, Double Vision, James released around twenty albums that define the smooth jazz genre. During this twelve year span, he expanded upon earlier fusion work of jazz keyboardists like Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea to develop the form of music that everyone now identifies as smooth jazz. I won’t go into all twenty of these albums, but three deserve special attention.

Touchdown was released in 1978 and it was James’ breakthrough, mostly due to the use of its opening song “Angela” as the theme for the now-classic tv sitcom Taxi. Up until this album, James had focused on a sound that straddled the line between fusion and smooth, but this album is the one that broke smooth jazz out into its own category for all artists who followed.

The 1979 album One on One was James’ first co-credited album with another smooth jazz master, guitarist Earl Klugh. James had worked previously with Klugh, most importantly on Touchdown, and this record expanded on the sounds of that album. It is now considered a smooth jazz masterpiece, with its variety of styles and textures and effortless move between groove, beauty, emotion, and power.

Prolific session saxophonist David Sanborn had already worked with James on some of his recordings, including Touchdown, but they had never recorded an album as co-artists until 1986. Double Vision marks the end of James long run of smooth jazz masterpieces but he goes out with a record that bridges his earlier ’70s work with the new sound of R&B/pop music that would dominate the late ’80s charts.

Hip Hop Samples

Bob James may be the most sampled musician in all of rap recording. This is no surprise if you listen to his ’70s recordings and realize that the early days of hip hop drew extensively from the instrumental music of the ’70s and he was not only extremely popular, but also a master of deep grooves and breaks. Most important was his decision to work with one of the greatest session drummers, Steve Gadd, on so many of his recordings, leading to tracks that can’t help but get deep into the groove. The list of important samples attributed to Bob James are extensive, and include two tracks that make up the foundation of hip hop sampling.

“Nautilus” is the final track on the album One and was sampled on Erik B. & Rakim’s sampling masterwork “Let The Rhythm Hit ‘Em” and Slick Rick’s “Children’s Story,” as well as tracks by Run D.M.C, Ghost Face Killah, DJ Jazzy Jeff, and others.

When you hear the first four bars of “Take Me To The Mardi Gras” from the album Two you are taken aback when it turns into a smooth jazz masterpiece instead of “Rock the Bells” by L.L. Cool J, “Peter Piper” by Run D.M.C., or “Hold It Now, Hit It” by Beastie Boys. Many others have sampled it as well, making it one of the most sampled tracks in history.

Hits

All of the theme-related songs

Marvin Gaye “What’s Going On”

Tommy James & The Shondells and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts “Crimson and Clover”

The Temptations “Papa Was A Rolling Stone”

2 for “Two”day

Marvin Gaye “The End Of Our Road” and “What’s Going On”

Rick James “Give It To Me Baby” and “Cold Blooded”

Tommy James “Crimson and Clover” and “I’m Comin’ Home”