Monday, April 14 through Friday, April 18 is WYEP’s Decades Week. On Monday, all the music played from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. will be from 1975. On Tuesday, it’s all 1985. 1995 takes center stage on Wednesday. Relive 2005’s best music on Thursday. And wrap up the week with a journey back to 2015.
Let’s preview some of the songs that will be heard on WYEP on Monday, April 14, from 1975.
Some of the biggest names in rock music were making a splash that year. Paul McCartney’s Wings released “Venus and Mars/Rockshow” as the third consecutive hit single from their 1975 Venus and Mars album (following “Listen to What the Man Said” and “Letting Go”). “Venus and Mars/Rockshow” peaked on the U.S. pop chart at #13 in December.
Bob Dylan had his first top 40 hit in a couple of years with “Tangled Up in Blue,” which made it to #31 in April.
Both The Staple Singers and Earth, Wind & Fire topped the pop chart with some great tracks. EW&F hit the top slot in May with “Shining Star,” while The Staple Singers did it again to close out 1975, with “Let's Do It Again,” which peaked on December 27.
And Janis Ian completed a remarkable comeback with her iconic single “At Seventeen.” After a hit at age 15 with 1966’s “Society’s Child,” Ian seemed like her commercial career had faded—until she hit #3 on September 13 with “At Seventeen.” One month later, she was performing that song on the debut episode of Saturday Night Live.
Some of 1975’s music is very much locked in the era of the Gerald Ford presidency. Van McCoy’s “The Hustle” topped the pop chart, as did “Jive Talkin'” by the Bee Gees (although it was also included on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack two years later). Noted television composer Mike Post had a hit for the first time in 1975 with his theme for the James Garner detective show “The Rockford Files.”
You may not be familiar with English artist Johnny Wakelin, but his song “Black Superman (Muhammad Ali)” hit #21 on in the U.S. pop chart in September of 1975, just shortly prior to Ali’s famous “Thrilla in Manila” boxing match against Joe Frazier (and inspired by the previous year’s iconic “Rumble in the Jungle” fight against George Foreman).
Another song from 1975 we’ll be dusting off is James Brown’s disco-flavored remake of his 1970 track “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine.” The re-recorded “Sex Machine” made it to #61 on the pop chart and #19 on the R&B chart.
