The time around Christmas is often referred to as the ’silly season’, particularly when it comes to Christmas songs. Chris Hill’s contributions to Yuletide mirth certainly prove the rule.

Over the Christmases of both 1975 and 1976, this British DJ released two novelty records which both entered the UK Top 10. Each of the discs were what was known as “break-in” records. With Hill acting as narrator, he interspersed his words with small sections of other well-known hits of the era.

Firstly in 1975, he brought us Renta Santa which peaked at Number 10. You would have to know the personalities of the mid-1970s to really “appreciate” the humour of both this and his follow-up hit in 1976, Bionic Santa. They were a bit of fun at the time and make for nostalgic listening today.

See also:

Christmas Songs of the 1970s

UK Christmas Number One Songs of the 1970s

A couple of years later, he released Disco Santa, but this one did not go down so well with the record buying public. It bombed, spectacularly.

More about Chris Hill

© 2011, Richard. All rights reserved. Any links to this post must give credit to British Music.

Maybe it’s just nostalgia (or age), but when it comes to bands like CCS and songs like Tap Turns on the Water, then there truly must be a category called “they don’t make good music like that any more”.

Listening, as I did, to the funk and soul coming out of America during the early 70s, it was refreshing to hear a British outfit turning out a similar feel to its music. CCS (an acronym for Collective Consciousness Society) was a blues, funk, rock fusion with heavy doses of brass thrown in. Add to the mix the deep, gravelly vocals of British blues man Alexis Korner and it was a recipe for some stomping good tunes.

Unfortunately, CCS was not around for long. Formed in 1970, the band only lasted around three or four years, but in that time it left a legacy of tracks that are held in affection by those around during the period who appreciated them.

The band released three albums and seven singles, four of which made the UK Top 40. The first was an instrumental reworking of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love (used as the theme to the BBC’s Top of the Pops), followed by the 1971 Top 10 hit Walkin’.

The band’s biggest hit, however, was the follow-up: Tap Turns on the Water. Heavy on the bass and brass, it has one of the most fantastic intros to any record from the 1970s. Add to that some slightly risque lyrics and this tune had dance floors full during 1971.

During 1972 and 1973, two more less successful songs became minor hits, but nonetheless maintained the trademark CSS sound: Brother (used as the theme to Tom Browne’s Solid Gold Sixty Sunday afternoon radio show) and The Band Played the Boogie, a title that ideally describes the group and its music.

For those wishing to delve further into the sound of CCS, CCS: A’s, B’s & Rarities is a great place to start. Here are those hits:

© 2011, Richard. All rights reserved. Any links to this post must give credit to British Music.

This is what could quite easily be described as a lost hit from a time when the glam rock boom was in full flight in the UK in 1972. This is the sublime Journey by the much underrated singer, Duncan Browne.

It was the only hit by Browne of any substance: his only other foray into the UK chart was in 1984 with Travelling Man, a track used for a British TV programme of the same name. However, that one failed to breach The Top 40.

By contrast, Journey reached Number 23 and, in my opinion, should really have gone higher. Many have called it a timeless track and there is no doubting that statement.

Although Duncan Browne went on to move into the glam rock world with the band Metro, as well as co-writing the track Criminal World which was included on David Bowie’s album Let’s Dance, it is without doubt that Journey will be his most remembered song.

Sadly, Browne died at the age of 46 in 1993.

[Read the reviews for Duncan Browne's album - Original album recording remastered]

© 2011, Richard. All rights reserved. Any links to this post must give credit to British Music.

Let’s take a trip back to November/December 1971 when John Kongos was rocking the UK Top 10 with the superb Tokoloshe Man.

Kongos was born in South Africa, but for the purposes of this post, he has become British. Mainly because the majority of his work was created in the UK, and well, I just love listening to his two hit songs from this period.

Tokoloshe Man was not his first excursion into the British charts. Earlier in 1971, his first hit He’s Gonna Step On You Again peaked at Number 4 and looked set to put Kongos on the road to a run of best selling records during the 1970s. But, it was not to be. Follow-ups, such as Great White Lady and Higher Than God’s Hat, failed to sell and his chart career came to an end almost as quickly as it had begun.

However, all was not lost. In 1990, The Happy Mondays resurrected both of these songs. The first was re-titled Step On and became the group’s biggest hit, while Tokoloshe Man was covered for a compilation album.

However, let’s enjoy the original from almost forty years ago:

Kongos by John Kongos is now available at iTunes.

© 2011, Richard. All rights reserved. Any links to this post must give credit to British Music.

The long, hot summer of 1976 in the UK brought forth one of the best soul/pop songs of the decade: You to Me Are Everything by The Real Thing.

A cross between a love song and a dance track, this single was the biggest song of the quartet’s career, reaching Number 1 towards the end of that June and staying there for three weeks. Chris and Eddie Amoo, Ray Lake and Dave Smith became the UK’s most successful black act of the 1970s, scoring another eight Top 40 hits during the decade.

Proof that you cannot keep a good song down, a remixed version of You to Me Are Everything reached the UK Top 10 in 1986, reaching a peak of Number 5.

However, here’s the group’s performance of the song from a 1976 edition of Top of the Pops:

© 2011, Richard. All rights reserved. Any links to this post must give credit to British Music.

In a career that saw the British funk and soul group Hot Chocolate score more than twenty UK Top 40 hits, So You Win Again was their only song to hit Number 1 on the British music charts.

The band had come close to the top of the charts with such songs as Emma, You Sexy Thing and No Doubt About It, but it was this one that finally ascended to the summit in July, 1977. Led by vocalist Errol Brown, here’s the song many of us were dancing to that summer: So You Win Again.

© 2011, Richard. All rights reserved. Any links to this post must give credit to British Music.

Was it really 32 years ago that Pop Muzik was a hit record? Yes, it was back in May, 1979 that Robin Scott reinvented himself as pop group M and had a chart hit both in the UK (N0.2) and later, in Canada and the USA.

Scott had actually tried for success previously with the song Moderne Man, again under the pseudonym M, but this had failed to take off. However, Pop Muzik appealed to the masses, becoming one of the first synth-pop hits predating the 1980s onslaught of this style of recording.

M could not follow-up the success of this single, particularly in America where it became the perfect One Hit Wonder: a Number One and nothing else ever.

So, let’s step back to 1979 and enjoy once again a song that was hard not to sing along to or get out of your head.

Pop Muzik by M

© 2011, Richard. All rights reserved. Any links to this post must give credit to British Music.

© 2011, Richard. All rights reserved. Any links to this post must give credit to British Music.

A track that was never intended to be a Christmas song sailed up the UK music charts in December, 1980. Stop the Cavalry by Jona Lewie was, in fact, a protest song against the stupidity of war. However, a line from the song and its Yuletide sounding arrangement instantly turned it into a Christmas hit.

The track is now a regular on the radio each December, and deservedly so.

© 2010, Richard. All rights reserved. Any links to this post must give credit to British Music.

Competition for a good Christmas chart placing was intense  in 1973, with several major artists releasing Christmas songs. Step Into Christmas by Elton John was one of them.

With such a big name attached to the track, it was expected to rise into the UK Top 10, but possibly suffered from a late release date and the hype surrounding other Christmas songs of the time. History shows that Elton’s effort did not even make the Top 20, eventually peaking at a lowly Number 23.

In America, Billboard refused to allow the disc on the chart, so its success there remains something of a mystery. It was no doubt popular as my research shows that it appeared on the Cashbox chart, as well as an especially created Christmas listing.

Statistics apart, Step Into Christmas has always been a favourite, possibly because it’s one of those tracks that is not heard as often as its contemporaries. And Elton’s nod to the Phil Spector Wall of Sound gives it a sound reminiscent of a decade earlier.

You can enjoy Elton John, along with other big selling Christmas hits at the Best Christmas Songs of the Seventies.

YouTube Link to Step Into Christmas - Elton John

© 2010 – 2011, Richard. All rights reserved. Any links to this post must give credit to British Music.