Summer’s End: Let’s Kiss & Say Goodbye …
Ah yes,
Summer love often ends with a kiss of your fingertips and a wistful wave across
a sandy beach. Movies and their soundtracks have memorialized the image for
decades. Who remembers the inimitable Blue Hawaii—where it’s always
Summer. Elvis’s
comeback film from his stint in the Army glorified Hawaii in its title song of
the same name, and continued to personify Summer with its, “Can’t
Help Falling in Love” (1961).
For
the “younger” 39ers, other Summer
standouts are Grease and its “Hopelessly
Devoted to You” (1978 set in 1959) and Dirty Dancing with “The Time of My Life” (1987;
set in 1963). Yep, melodious melancholy typifies our Endless Summers.
But
in September 1976 we didn’t stay sad for long, as a silly song, written
by an equally silly Disc Jockey began its silly slide up the charts. Like with
most novelty tunes, at first, we couldn’t stop laughing every time we
heard the quirky quackery in Rick Dees’ “Disco
Duck.” It all happened … 50 Years Ago this Month …
º SEPTEMBER 1976
Radio News & Muse ♪
What was your fave DJ playing when you turned on your tinny
transistor radio 50 Years Ago? Enjoy the memories of what and who you were listening to … September
1976!
This is our final promotion for B-100/San Diego,
California (for a while), I promise. But how can you not chuckle when you see
their cover image of the happy Disco Duck? Listed as “The B-100 Disco Duck,”
the music chart’s cover is a classic … "I'm Da Disco Duck ... It'll
quack you up ... You'll go quackers!" DJ
Rick Dees’ tune was on its way up at #13 on “San Diego’s Stereo Favorites,
Volume Two/Number Ten” for September 24, 1976, but it doesn’t even get a
mention on our Featured Radio
Survey, WPEZ-FM/Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Since its survey is at the
top of the month (09/03), perhaps next month?
Rick was an enterprising
young broadcaster with a comedic flair and popular on air at WMPS AM/Memphis,
Tennessee, when he conceived and recorded the infamous Duck tune. It became a
nationwide hit—everywhere except Memphis. His station wouldn’t let him
play it, considering it a conflict of interest. Other local stations refused to
promote a rival station. It hit the top without them. WPEZ-FM/Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, however, was still listing Summer
hits of dancing and love. Their standard hippie cover art image, promoted their
Gumball Rally, while the music chart—Vol. 3 #32, September 3, 1976” was
combined with lyrics for “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” currently #2, by Elton
John and Kiki Dee. What rounded out the top three tunes? “Play That Funky
Music” (Wild Cherry) scored #1, while Lou Rawls lamented in #3, “You’ll Never
Find Another Love.” No dingy Disco Duck on that chart!
September 1976 brought a number of changes to
restless Radio stations. Sometime during the month, Fairchild Industries split
Minneapolis, Minnesota’s, WYOO station
frequencies to create WAYL with the AM sector while the FM station happily
began a simulcast of the venerable KDWB’s Top 40 format (since 1959; the
station launched in 1951).
September 6th: Expanding Rock & Roll’s
worldwide presence, DWRT-FM/Manila, Philippines, signed on the air making 99.5 RT that
country’s first Top 40 Radio station; meanwhile, KXOL/Dallas,
Texas, got tired of Rock and flipped to Country. Fast-forward 50 Years
and it’s now a Spanish-language Christian radio format.
September 17th: When your band is just a
year old, it’s always satisfying to wow your audience … well, it is easier with
a captive audience … literally. On this date, the Sex Pistols British
punk rock band captivated their fans in England’s
Chelmsford Prison, Essex. That’s one way to get a standing ovation. Then again,
it’s easier in that venue, when your top song in the setlist is “Anarchy in the
U.K.”
September 18th: On the other hand, another
Brit band in Queen style made
U.K. headlines and likely impressed the royals with a jolly big free concert in
London’s Hyde Park that featured “Bohemian Rhapsody.” 150,000
thrilled fans attended.
September 18th: What else happened on this
day? Trying to combat the rise of Disco in a Rock-oriented music landscape, the
short-lived (1975-1978) Rock Music
Awards
presented its second annual show on CBS. Peter Frampton snagged Rock Personality of the
Year and the venerable Fleetwood
Mac
aced everyone else out of the Best Group and Best Album categories.
September 20th: Back in the ‘70s, we loved
seeing our fave music artists on TV. The Captain and Tennille knew that when they
collaborated with ABC for their self-titled musical-variety
show.
Premiering on this date, it barely made six months before cancellation in March
1977. Maybe TV wasn’t all they thought it would be …
September 25th: What were Bono, The Edge,
English-Irish musician Adam Clayton, and Irish music artist, Larry Mullen Jr.,
doing on this date? They hung out playing music together in Dublin and tagged
themselves Feedback. You came to know them as U2. It would be a few years (1980) before they caught the
attention of US music lovers with “I Will Follow.”
September 29th: About this time, pioneering
Rocker, singer Jerry Lee Lewis, would
have liked to stay out of the news … Lewis, known most of his life not only for
great music, but much-reported public drunkenness, nearly killed his own bass
player. That would have been a sad situation for commonly known wild man, “The
Killer.” While drinking, he fired a very big gun at a very small Coke bottle.
The bullet missed the bottle and hit Norman
(Butch) Owens in the chest. Apparently 1976 (as recorded by a 2022
report)
was a less than stellar year for Lewis who had more than one police run-in.
♪ September 1976
Song of Note ♪
Summer’s
end invokes musical nostalgia and meaningful memories from throughout life. I
don’t know if it’s the searing heat or relaxed attitude, or a lot of
margaritas, but Summers are often profound and memorable. I asked three other
Boomers who were “there” in 1976 to choose three song title options from
our September Featured Radio
Survey that “speak” to them, for our September Song of Note.
One was unanimous. As the
songwriter describes it, “… it’s the love triangle situation we’ve all been
through …” especially if you’ve experienced a Summer Love. The Manhattans’ “Kiss
and Say Goodbye” is the quintessential end-of-Summer song.
As bass singer and songwriter, Winfred
Lovett, said in his lyrics ♪ …
When you turn and walk away | don't look back | I wanna
remember you just like this | Let's just kiss and say goodbye … ♪
With a deep, lovesick sigh, the
tune ranked #15 on the WPEZ Top 30 chart and was the group’s only #1 Pop
hit. It even topped their first popular hit from eleven years prior (1965), “I
Wanna Be (Your Everything).”
The other two contenders were
close! “Moonlight Feels Right” by Starbuck, was sitting at #24 on WPEZ ♪ … And
watch the moon smiling bright | I'll play the radio on southern stations
| 'cause southern belles are hell at night ♪ … and a
bouncy Bee Gees Disco tune that belied its risqué lyrics, at #6, “You Should Be
Dancing” ♪ …
What you doin on your back aah | You should be dancing, yeah | Dancing,
yeah ♪ …
instead of … ???
♪ September 2026 Music Events
& More ♪
Enjoy National
Piano Month (not to be confused with World Piano Day, March 29th)
Piano Month is listed on all the calendar sites, but there is no official link.
However, we found a site that urges you to learn or renew your interest in playing
the piano. If that isn’t a desire—set your playlist with a day of
piano-driven Oldies! Either way, have fun …
September 15th: Raise your hand—how many
still have or at any age, collected (or even heard of) old 8-track tape
players? Dust it off! It’s National
8-Track Tape Day! (Note: others think it’s on April 11th; we
respectfully disagree.) And dang! We often can’t even get 1 official link, but
this day is so popular, it has 2! They both feature great history, with the
first is on its Day and the second is right
here … Enjoy!
September 25th: Our Song of Note
is one to celebrate … on National One-Hit Wonder Day! Not an official
link in sight, but … let’s take a nostalgic trip with Blast From Your
Past to its September 1, 2020
article when I featured three one-hit wonders from the KPOI/Hawaii
Featured Radio Survey.
♪♪ BFYP Featured Radio Survey ♪♪
September 3, 1976 ~ WPEZ/Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania … the station prided themselves on “The Station That
Brings You The Concerts” and a Top Twenty list of exciting albums, like the top
3: #1, Frampton Comes Alive (Peter Frampton), #2, Wild Cherry (Wild
Cherry) and #3, Average White Band’s Soul Searchin’. Were they your
faves too? … 50 Years Ago this Month in Rock & Roll Radio! Where were you that groovy day when your radio played …
Rock SEPTEMBER
1976 and … Rockin’ into Fall!
BFYP Book 1 (1954-1959)
on Amazon
BFYP Book 2 (Swinging
‘60s) on Amazon
Share your Golden Oldies
R&R fun on X: @BlastFromPastBk
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
LinDee
Rochelle is a writer and editor by trade, and author by way of Rock &
Roll. Two books (of three planned) are published in her Blast
from Your PastTM series, available on Amazon: Book 1 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The First Five Years 1954-1959TM
(eBook only; coming soon in updated print edition) and Book 2 – Rock & Roll
Radio DJs: The Swinging SixtiesTM
(eBook & print). Coming soon-ish … Book 3 – The Psychedelic Seventies!TM
Note: FYI – All links in the BFYP site are personally
visited, verified, and vetted. Most are linked to commonly accessed
sites of reputable note. Occasionally, since I often feature real people and/or
singular sources there may be an unsecured link. As with everything
cyber-security, use at your own discretion and risk. This site is wholly owned
by LinDee Rochelle & sponsored by PenchantForPenning.comTM.
No compensation is received for any mentions of businesses, products, or other
commercial interests. *All holiday and special event days are found at Brownielocks.com’s calendar site.
Enjoy!
RE: AI – The Blast from Your Past site has
never and will never (knowingly) be written or assisted, by Artificial
Intelligence. It’s just stupid ol’ “I” and I enjoy
writing these articles. They soothe my soul. So why would I hand that
indulgence over to an artificial, soulless entity that can’t feel pleasure?!
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