Ramblin' with Roger

Hot Country Singles of 1976

Tina Turner was an inspiration

These are the hot country singles of 1976, or at least the first half of them or so. There are a total of 40 of them on the Billboard charts, a function in part of the labels’ and maybe even disc jockeys’ desire to create more and more number one hits. No song hit the top of the charts for more than three weeks.

Good Hearted Woman – Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, 3 weeks at #1. “In 1969, while staying at the Fort Worth Motel in Fort Worth, Texas, Jennings was inspired to start writing the song when he saw advertising in a newspaper promoting Tina Turner as a ‘good-hearted woman loving a two-timing man’, a reference to Ike Turner.” Per here.

Teddy Bear – Red Sovine, 3 weeks at #1

One Piece at a Time – Johnny Cash, two weeks at #1. I own this silly song on two different CDs, a greatest hits compilation and a disc considered a comedy collection

El Paso City` – Marty Robbins. I found a Robbins greatest hits CD in my late FIL’s collection and kept it. This song refers to Robbins’ big hit El Paso.

(I’m a) Stand by My Woman Man – Ronnie Milsap, two weeks at #1

I Don’t Want to Have to Marry You – Jim Ed Brown and Helen Cornelius, two weeks at #1

You and Me – Tammy Wynette, two weeks at #1

Someone Somewhere (Don’t Know What He’s Missin’ Tonight) – Loretta Lynn, two weeks at #1. I remember this song well, though I never owned it

Good Woman Blues – Mel Tillis, two weeks at #1

Thinking of a Rendezvous – Johnny Duncan, two weeks at #1

Sweet Dreams – Emmylou Harris, two weeks at #1. I had several Harris albums in the 1970s but not this song.

One week

All of the other songs are one week at number one. In chronological order:

This Time I’ve Hurt Her More Than She Loves Me – Conway Twitty

Sometimes – Bill Anderson and Mary Lou Turner

The White Knight – Cletus Maggard. A trucking song I had NOT known.

The Roots of My Raising – Merle Haggard

Faster Horses (The Cowboy and The Poet) – Tom T. Hall

Till The Rivers All Run Dry – Don Williams

That’s enough for now. More in a few days.

Alison Krauss and Union Station, ALB

featuring Jerry Douglas

Every 23 years or so, my wife and I go to the Palace Theatre in Albany to see Alison Krauss and Union Station, featuring Jerry Douglas, perform. We last saw them in 2003; Alison is one of my wife’s “K girls,” along with Diana Krall.

Since my wife’s birthday is in July – she really is difficult to buy for – the concert, on July 22, a day before Alison’s 55th birthday, was the obvious choice. The show was called Arcadia, in honor of the 2025 album that the band talked about here; it had been 14 years since the band had put out a music collection.

The opening act was Theo Lawrence, a young country singer, mostly alone with his acoustic guitar, who performed tunes from his most recent albums Chérie and Pickin’ & Singin’, which he was later selling vinyl copies of. He had an authentic country timbre for a dude who had been, according to a review, born in France. They were solid songs that could have come out six or seven decades earlier. Lawrence was joined for a couple of solid songs by Phil Hollie, a friend who has joined him on tour.

Main event

Alison Krauss and Union Station performed a bunch of songs I presume were from the Arcadia album – guess what my wife is getting for Christmas. The group played more melancholy songs and less bluegrass than I remembered from last time.

Texas-born singer Russell Moore was great. She still had her longtime banjo/guitar picker, Ron Block, and bassist Barry Bayles. The new kid on the block was the mandolinist Jacob Burleson, a solid, confident player.

Of course, dobroist Jerry Douglas was Jerry Douglas. A concert highlight was his unaccompanied solo spot on a medley of “American Tune” (Paul Simon) segueing into “Spain” (Chick Corea). But my favorite part of the show was the encore, where the band members sounded like they were standing around backstage warming up; it reminded me of the Million Dollar Quartet standing around.

At various points, the house lights would come up, and Alison would share stories about the various band members, which was highly entertaining.

One criticism of the show was that it was a bit warm, okay, hot in the Palace with what appeared to be a packed house.

Here’s Maggie Aulman review on the Metroland site. Oh, and in honor of Alison’s 55th natal day, here’s Coverville 1587: The Alison Krauss Cover Story.

More 1976 pop #1s

TV and movie themes, dance, and a rue story

Here are more 1976 pop #1s. The first group includes songs that reached #1 on the Billboard charts but spent 7 weeks or fewer in the top 10.

Boogie Fever – Sylvers (Capitol), gold record

Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To – Diana Ross (Motown)

You Should Be Dancing – Bee Gees (RSO), gold record

Let Your Love Flow – Bellamy Brothers (Warner Curb)

Convoy – C.W. McCall (MGM), gold record, novelty; also #1 CB and RW for three weeks each

Welcome Back – John Sebastian (Reprise), gold record. Theme from Welcome Back, Kotter TV show

Love Machine (Part 1) – The Miracles (Tamla). Post Smokey

Theme from S.W.A.T. – Rhythm Heritage (ABC), gold record, instrumental;

Saturday Night – Bay City Rollers (Arista), gold record

Rock’n Me – Steve Miller (Capitol)

#1, non-BB

The next grouping contains the songs that reached #1 on the pop charts in Record World (RW) and/or Cash Box (CB) but NOT on Billboard.

All By Myself – Eric Carmen (Arista), #1 on CB and RW, #2 for three weeks on BB, gold record

Dream Weaver – Gary Wright (Warner), #1 on CB and RW, #2 for three weeks on BB, gold record

Right Back Where We Started From – Maxine Nightingale (United Artists), #1 on CB and RW, #2 for two weeks on BB, gold record

The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald – Gordon Lightfoot (Reprise), #1 on CB, #2 for two weeks on BB. “The true story of an ore vessel, named after a Milwaukee civic leader, that sank in Lake Superior on 11/10/1975.”

Get Up and Boogie (That’s Right) – Silver Convention, #1 on CB and RW, #2 on BB, gold record

Lonely Night (Angel Face) – Captain and Tennille (A&M), #1 on CB and RW, #3 for three weeks on BB, gold record

Love To Love You Baby – Donna Summer (Oasis), #1 on RW; #2 for two weeks on BB, gold record

Lowdown – Boz Scaggs (Columbia), #1 on CB, #3 for two weeks on BB, gold record

Let ‘Em In – Wings (Capitol), #1 on CB, #3 on BB, gold record. “Phil and Don.”

More, More, More – Andrea True Connection (Buddah) – #1 on RW, #4 on BB, gold record

Sacrilege

‘Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.’

I’ve harped on the notion of Christian nationalism, specifically as sacrilege. Individuals and denominations trouble me. The Atlantic highlights a charismatic group in Tennessee, largely behind a paywall.

“Their version of the Kingdom mapped neatly onto the political goals of social conservatives, libertarians, and, more recently, the MAGA movement. The Kingdom would have limited government, free markets, two genders, one kind of marriage, and one kind of God. The ‘right now’ part, meanwhile, offered an urgent paradigm for mobilizing grassroots believers out of the Church and into electoral politics, government, education, and all other realms of life where they were to assert God’s dominion.

“New apostles and prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation spread these ideas through decentralized networks of churches, international prayer ministries, schools, revivals, and prayer rallies, attracting followers who could find a sense of power and purpose in building the Kingdom. Leaders spoke of believers as ‘warriors’ or ‘God’s army’ or even ‘special forces,’ and churches as ‘military bases,’ and certain apostles as “generals.” They believed that being a Christian meant being in a constant state of spiritual warfare.”

Separation of church and state

It is one thing for a church to believe this, as wrongheaded as I think it is. But I draw the line when representatives of the US federal government promulgate it. FOTUS sharing an AI-generated image on Truth Social depicting himself kissing a golden statue of Jesus Christ, with an American flag in the background, is truly gagworthy. It doesn’t take a religious scholar to compare the relic to the “golden calf” from Exodus, idolized while Moses was bringing the Ten Commandments.

However, I was more appalled by the Department of Defense regularly inserting Biblical messaging into the cheerleading for war.

The Rev. Benjamin Creamer has been a particularly insistent challenger of this attitude. This past weekend, “the official account of the DoD posted Isaiah 6:8, which reads, ‘Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me.’

Along with the post were images of soldiers and war machines that had the caption “send me” in the middle of them.

Creamer writes: “I found it ironic how they conveniently skipped Isaiah 2:4 where he writes about the Lord’s desires for the world: ‘Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.’

“If you will recall, the Department of Homeland Security did a recruitment video for ICE with the same exact passage. It was a video of Shia LaBeouf from the movie Fury quoting this passage from Isaiah.

“It shouldn’t matter our political affiliation; this should disturb every American.”

DoD head

This is not a recent trend with this regime. Baptist News noted: “On May 23, during a commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.,” and “while in France for the 82nd anniversary of D-Day,” Hegseth claimed the verse. “The Pentagon later released a video of Hegseth’s participation in D-Day commemorations titled ‘The Boys of D-Day Said: ‘Send Me.’’” It included not only his quotation of Isaiah 6:8 but an anti-immigrant screed.”

Creamer: Our military is meant to defend the Constitution, not the scriptures of a particular religion. Even scriptures we Christians hold deeply sacred and holy.

“It should also deeply disturb us Christians in the way the Bible is being used by departments like the Defense and Homeland Security. When they equate recruiting ICE agents and sending our military to war with answering the call of the Lord, and they are in charge of where those agents and our military are deployed, who then is ‘The Lord’ in that scenario? They are equating service to them as being the same as service to the Lord.

“That is heresy. That is idolatry. That is blasphemy. It is taking God’s name in vain…

“There is also a deep irony in using Isaiah 6:8 to encourage people to fight wars because Isaiah repeatedly warns against trusting military power.

Examples include Isaiah 2, which envisions a future in which, ‘They shall beat their swords into plowshares…” Isaiah 30 criticizes Judah for relying on military alliances instead of trusting God. Isaiah 31 specifically condemns reliance on horses and chariots from Egypt.

“A recurring message throughout Isaiah is to trust God, not military might.”

Movie review: Toy Story 5

Jessie faces Lilypad

My wife and I went to see the movie Toy Story 5 on a weekday afternoon at the Spectrum 8 in Albany because I had to. I’ve seen Toy Story (1995) and Toy Story 2 (1999) in the cinema well before we had a child. When we watched the third film (2010), we didn’t take the kid. For the fourth (2019), the three of us all saw it at the movies, but not together. I even saw a couple of TV specials, Toy Story of Terror! (2013) and Toy Story That Time Forgot (2014). But I never saw the Lightyear (2022) movie.

So I guess I’m as invested in the TS universe as others are in the ones for Star Wars, Marvel Cinematic, or LEGO.

Bonnie, the eight-year-old who inherited Andy’s toys in TS4, is rather content with playtime, which is represented wonderfully in a handmade-looking style. But her parents are concerned. They buy her a new smart tablet, Lilypad, so Bonnie can chat with her dance class members. Has Bonnie outgrown her toys?

On the outskirts of town, Blaze, a nine-and-a-half-year-old, loves animals: a horse, Daffodil, and the family pig, Jimmy Dean. (The name cracked me up.) She has a display of her model horse collection in her room and still enjoys playtime occasionally.

Sheriff Jessie and the other toys, including her deputy, Buzz Lightyear, worry that Lilypad will usurp Bonnie’s attention. The action goes from there, including the return of Woody. A unit of high-tech Buzz Lightyear toys crash-lands on a deserted island, and they too end up in the main plotline.

The cowgirl

This is very much a Jessie story. There’s a brief reprise of When She Loved Me from Toy Story 2 early on, which was a hint for me. How much has the cowgirl mattered over the years?

At the same time, the movie seemed to be set up to bash online technology, yet in the end found a place for it.

Rotten Tomatoes gave Toy Story 5 a 92% (critics)/94% (fans) positive rating. It “largely sidesteps franchise fatigue” through its redirected focus. We liked it a lot, and even got a little, er, emotional. Aside from the core characters, most of the TS tribe was underutilized, but it would have made the story too bloated.

It was strange, though. There was a father and child in the theater, but they left early on, leaving us to see the film by ourselves, which was too bad; I like getting audience reaction.