Dec 23 | This week in 1973

#1 at KUPD/Phoenix: “Rock On” by David Essex, a very cool record that still sounds cool today. It appeared on the soundtrack to a film from earlier in the year titled That’ll Be The Day, which also starred Essex as an up-and-coming rock & roller in the 1950s.

The movie co-starred another part-time actor, Ringo Starr, who was riding high with two hits in the top 30: “Photograph” (#13), with a big assist from George Harrison; and its follow-up, “You’re Sixteen” (#18), a cover of Johnny Burnette’s 1960 hit, with Paul McCartney on kazoo and Harry Nilsson on backing vocals. Both are from the #1 album, Ringo.

Also charting are McCartney & Wings with “Helen Wheels” (#17), lead single from the album Band On The Run (#13), and John Lennon has the album Mind Games at #11, whose title track just dropped off the KUPD hit list this week.

Besides “Rock On,” the rest of the top 5 demonstrates the variety of music played on mainstream pop/rock radio in those days:

Among the cooler songs this week:

  • The Joker” (#6), the future classic rock radio mainstay by the Steve Miller Band;
  • Hello, It’s Me” (#10), Todd Rundgren’s remake of the 1968 song by his group Nazz;
  • Sorrow” (#24), David Bowie’s version of the Mercys’ 1966 U.K. hit, from his albums of cover songs called Pin-Ups (#16);
  • Meadows” (#29) by future Eagle and future Ringo brother-in-law Joe Walsh, the follow-up to his classic “Rocky Mountain Way,” both from the album The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get.

Of local interest, Phoenix native Stevie Nicks and her then-boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham are at #25 with “Don’t Let Me Down Again,” from their pre-Fleetwood Mac album Buckingham Nicks. Tucson’s Linda Ronstadt is at #26 with her big hit “Love Has No Pride,” which was a little hit for Bonnie Raitt the year before.

Finally, at #18 on the album chart is Bruce Springsteen with his pre-stardom opus, The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle. Thanks to persistent local airplay, primarily on the Bill Compton-era KDKB, the Boss was selling out concerts at the Celebrity Theater long before Born To Run made him famous.

Almost all the LP’s songs earned heavy airplay on KDKB, among them “Rosalita,” which would become a longtime concert favorite.  And a 1978 live version filmed at Veterans’ Memorial Coliseum right here in Phoenix (Zonarama was there!) would be in heavy rotation during MTV’s early years in the 1980s.

A 1978 Rolling Stone cover story reported on that July 8th concert. Excerpts:

Phoenix was the first town outside of the New York-New Jersey-Philadelphia-Boston region where Springsteen became popular. In the words of [keyboardist] Danny Federici. “This is the first place I ever felt like a star.” . . .

Bruce dedicates the show to the town in memory of the time “when this was about the only place I could get a job,” and the crowd gives it back.

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