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John's Journey Back in Time
Image: John's Journey Back in Time.
Every week John Hayes takes a nostalgic trip back in time and rediscovers the hits and the headlines.

This week we visit Boxing Day December 26th 1976


CHART


1
WHEN A CHILD IS BORN - JOHNNY MATHIS (Quire rightly - on top of the charts for the festive period)
2
Under The Moon Of Love - Showaddywaddy (The rock and rollers showing that rock and roll was still so popular)
3
Money Money Money - Abba (A simple song - but what a hit)
4
Somebody To Love - Queen (How could you get drama on a piece of plastic? Listen to this from Queen)
5
Portsmouth - Mike Oldfield (Clever arrangement and so popular at the time)
6
Livin' Thing - Electric Light Orchestra (From the LP A New World Record which set them on the road to super stardom)
7
Love Me - Yvonne Elliman (Jesus Christ Superstar gave her a big break in the early seventies)
8
Dr Love - Tina Charles (He came running every time she was in pain!)
9
Living Next Door To Alice - Smokie (An awful version of the song was re-released with some chap swearing all over it and thinking he was funny)
10
Bionic Santa - Chris Hill (For 25 JJBIT points what was the name of other Santa he took into the charts in 1975?)
11 Don't Give Up On Us - David Soul (This guy sold records by the bucket load but now never heard on the wireless)
12 Lean On Me - Mud (Who wrote this song - for 50 JJBIT points?)
13 Fairy Tale - Dana (All Kinds Of Everything had done it for her and Ireland - though she was born in London!)
14 Little Does She Know - Kursaal Flyers (No points for saying where these lads came from…wonder if the launderette in the song was in the town they heralded from?)
15 Grandma's Party - Paul Nicholas (Would go on to star in TV shows)
16 If You Leave Me Now - Chicago (The year's sixth best selling song)
17 Wild Side Of Life - Status Quo (The classic Rockin' All Over The World was just a few weeks away, released in early '77)
18 Get Back - Rod Stewart (Interesting version of the Beatles outdoor on the roof classic)
19 Things We Do For Love - 10CC (For 10 JJBIT points can you name their other Top 10 hit in Britain in 1976?)
20 Lost In France - Bonnie Tyler (When it was first heard on the radio some said - is that Rod Stewart?)


THE US HITS

1
You Make Me Feel Like Dancing - Leo Sayer (Had just left the UK Top 20)
2
Tonight's The Night - Rod Stewart (This is the original version with the French woman in it - she's been removed from later edited versions - go and check your compilation!)
3
You Don't Have To Be A Star - Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Junior (Would be a Top 10 hit in the UK in the spring of 77)

NEWS HEADLINES

It was Christmas of 1976 and two northern Irish women were celebrating after winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
Betty Williams and Mairead (pronounced MAU…REED) Corrigan had bridged the religious and political divide to found the Ulster Peace Movement. They held meetings and rallies to call for an end to violence and a plea to people of the province to live and work together in peace.

In November, thousands had attended a demonstration in their support through London. The leader of Catholics in England and Wales, Cardinal Basil Hume and the Archbishop of Canterbury both spoke at the rally.

Also winning a Nobel prize was the American writer Saul Bellow.

It was December twenty nine years ago and Kurt Waldheim was given another five years as head of the United Nations.

The death was announced of one of Britain's best loved classical music composers. Benjamin Britten died at his home in Aldeburgh at the age of sixty five. Introducing children to music was important for him - among his pieces was The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. His musical works also included Peter Grimes and Billy Budd. Many of his works were written for his lover Peter Pears.

A punk rock group became household names virtually overnight when they swore their way through a television programme on ITV. The appearance of the Sex Pistols led to the suspension of the TV presenter Bill Grundy from his show Today. Grundy had told one of the group to repeat the swear word he had uttered. The Sex Pistols ad been unleashed. They would go on to lead the punk music revolution in Silver Jubilee year.

THE EAST LONDON GIRL TREATED TO STARDOM BY DR LOVE

image: Tina Charles

Tina Charles was born in the London Hospital in Whitechapel nearly fifty two years ago to actor Charles Hoskins and his wife Hilda. There was an early scare for her health when she contracted and then successfully fought off meningitis.

From the age of four, Tina was already showing signs of wanting to entertain. Her parents would find her with a hair brush in her hand singing in front of the mirror for hours on end.

It was at the age of fifteen that she made her first public performance. She was the lead singer in a band playing a concert for US soldiers at a military base in Middlesex.

She remembered how afterwards, despite not being allowed in the bar, having her first Singapore Sling.

That performance kicked things off. The CBS record label got her to record three singles, none of which were hits. At the same time, she got a starring role on The Two Ronnies, where she covered original hits. The Radio Times reported that her version of Ike and Tina Turner's River Deep Mountain High was "as good as the original."

Tina was also performing six nights a week at the Empire in Leicester Square and went on tour supporting Engelbert Humperdinck and Tom Jones, both with the Decca label.

By the age of nineteen Tina had worked with Kilburn and the High Roads - later to become Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Then in 1975 she had a share in her first Number One. She was a backing singer, with Linda Lewis on the single Come Up And See Me Make Me Smile.

That led to her part on the single I'm On Fire by the chart act 5,000 Volts, for which she received the sum of two hundred pounds. But the financial fee wasn't all. It helped introduce her to one of the decade's most successful producers - Biddu.

A new recording deal with CBS saw her release - You Set My Heart On Fire. That didn't sell too well but her second release took off.

It was 1976. Tina was twenty two years old and I Love To Love was Number One. It sold two million copies around the world. Tina had made it.

Over the next two years, she toured the world, releasing single after single and enjoying hit after hit, including Dr Love which is featured in John's Journey Back In Time today.

image: Tine Charles album cover

Tina remembers that "it was like a whirlwind. I didn't have time to think. The only country I never made was Australia but I had a good reason."

That good reason was becoming a mother. Max was born in June 1977 in London. To devote more time to her son, Tina decided to stop touring at the end of 1977 and turned to session singing instead.

However two years later, Tina and husband Bernard Webb were divorced.

The eighties were lean years music chart wise apart from a remix of I Love To Love which sold well across Europe. In France it made Number Two, but back in Britain it made No.67 in the singles charts.

In 1993 Tina married again - this time to Tetoo. With children Monty and Suzie, they live in Surrey.

Join John Hayes for his Journey Back In Time, a nostalgic look back at music and memories from a chosen year, this Sunday from 9am on 103.5 & 95.3FM - BBC Essex.

MISSED AN EDITION OF JOHN'S JOURNEY? WANT TO CHECK WHAT WAS IN THE CHARTS? TAKE A LOOK AT OUR ARCHIVE SECTION.

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