Burn, baby, burn.Ģ/ Bee Gees – How Deep Is Your Love: Again from the biggest movie of 1977-78. Coincidentally, I’ve previously noted that I want this song played at my funeral. This time around, it made the mainstream charts, reaching Number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. So we’ll start the list with the most obvious:ġ/ The Tramps – Disco Inferno: Although initially released in 1976 (when it reached Number One on the Billboard Dance charts), it became an even bigger hit in 1978 with a 10 minute 54 second version via the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. It falls within the Golden Era of disco, rich with lush orchestrations, before the 80s ushered in synthesizers. In terms of music, 1978 is one of my favourite years, just as the 1970s is one of my favourite decades. OK, maybe it’s more what I was and would have been listening to during the same period but same same. If you were wondering just what these passengers might have been listening to within Sonny’s encompassing velvet confines, here’s just such a list. The nights were blocked out with celebrities, models, disco dollies and more executive types who, depending on their proclivities, travelled from high-end restaurants to Studio 54, Plato’s Retreat or any of a number of bath houses where cleanliness was not a prerequisite. His dayswould be blocked out by stockbrokers and other Wall Street types, pre-generational Masters of the Universe, hoovering up lines of cocaine as they shuttled around town. But I like to think that Sonny had a parallel existence in some other reality, cruising the streets of New York City as a treasured member of a prestige limousine service. In reality, the Lincoln was shipped off to Rotman Lincoln-Mercury, a dealership in Maquokta, Iowa, about 300 kilometres west of Chicago. There was portent in the air they knew this was something special, despite this plant having largely concentrated on Lincolns since it opened in 1957 (and it was a Town Car that was the last off the assembly line when the facility closed in 2007). On Thursday 15 June 1978, Sonny Corleone was welcomed to the world, rolling off the Ford assembly line in Wixom, MI, to the cheers of hundreds of assembled factory workers. Protective of all who come in contact with him but sensitive enough to show a girl a good time (at a wedding, no less). Powerful as much as powerfully built, dependable and loyal. He’s (and here I’m referring to the car) that’s kinda guy. So the first issue to address is….why the hell Sonny Corleone? Just to be clear, I’m not talking Mario Puzo’s ill-fated member of the fictional crime family but my 1978 Lincoln Continental Town Car. The result was a can’t-miss slice of soft rock that became a #1 pop hit in 1977, starting Gibb’s career with a bang and setting the stage for a string of hits that continued through the end of the 1970's.Happy Birthday!!! Sonny Corleone (no, the other one) turns 40. Gibb tops it off with a sweetly melodic lead vocal that crosses over into Bee Gees-styled falsetto on the chorus (the Bee Gees-styled sound is further enhanced by the prominent backing vocals of Barry Gibb, who also penned the song). Andy Gibb’s recording of "I Just Want To Be Your Everything" perfectly captures the essence of mid-1970's soft rock with its glossy production, which marries acoustic guitar textures and ethereal washes of synthesizer to a light but insistent beat that borders on disco. The lyrics present a twist on the usual love song premise - the song’s narrator isn’t trying to win over some mysterious object of desire but trying to earn the devotion of someone who hasn’t made up her mind about him: "Open up the heaven in your heart and let me be/The things you are to me and not some puppet on a string." The music reflects the narrator’s inner tension by contrasting verses that rise and fall in a pensive fashion with a chorus whose rapidly ascending style mirrors the anxious quality of his pleas. The first was "I Just Want To Be Your Everything," a soft-rock tune with plenty of Bee Gees-style hooks. One of the key beneficiaries of this generosity was Andy Gibb, the youngest Gibb brother, who went on to enjoy a string of three #1 hits penned by his brothers. By 1977, the Bee Gees were writing so many hits that they could afford to pass a few off to other artists.
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