The Year in Music

The music biz entered 1979 as confident as Goliath, despite a sales slump in the last six weeks of the previous year--a time when it normally does 33 to 40 percent of its annual business. It had much empirical justification for its hubris, having grown steadily fatter for 15 glorious, flamboyant, wasteful years. Its annual growth rate had averaged over 20 percent since 1975, and in 1978, led by the fantastic 42,000,000 sales rung up internationally by two high-priced releases--the sound tracks from Grease and Saturday Night Fever--it had matured into a 4.2-billion-dollar juggernaut of an industry that could brag of being bigger than the movies and all spectator sports combined.

Perhaps because the multinational corporations that had come to dominate the business were staffed by youngish execs who had never known times to be anything but bullish, there was also a notion, surprisingly widespread within the industry, that it was recession-proof. Confident that the success of the two 1978 blockbusters had staked out a new sales plateau to which all could aspire, the record companies flooded the retail (continued on page 222) Year in Music (continued from page 186) stores with plastic in the closing weeks of 1978--plastic that soon came dribbling back to them in the odious form of "returns." In the first months of 1979, sales continued to be negligible, with industry people blaming a host of Lilliputian tormentors such as bad weather, the gas shortage and a ten-day truckers' strike. Retailers complained about the fitful flow of records from the major companies and the absence of what the trade calls superstar product.

In the meantime, expenses were rising, as OPEC jacked up the price of oil, forcing hikes in the cost of polyvinyl chloride and polystyrene--the raw materials for LPs and 45s, respectively. A paper shortage made it more expensive to get record covers printed. Small companies found it harder to get bank loans and harder yet to pay them back. The high cost of fuel, and its relative scarcity, made life hellish for groups on the road. Studios and pressing plants jacked up their rates. Most critically, people were not going to concerts or buying records in any significant numbers, and the companies were starting to wonder if the Grease and Saturday Night Fever albums hadn't been the business equivalents of comets that flash by once in a generation. When the figures for the first quarter of the financial year were tallied, all the biggies were hurting. CBS--which in the opinion of some industry people had needlessly burdened itself by paying several huge advances--showed a 47 percent drop in income, despite an 11 percent gain in revenues. Warners was down six percent. RCA reported substantial losses. MCA, another heavyweight with oversized muscles, lost $1,759,000 in the first six months of the year--a different story from 1978, when its profit over the same period was $5,517,000. The industry, as Pickwick's Chuck Smith said, was afflicted with "a general mood of gloom." Executives debated one another in the pages of Billboard, with Arista's Clive Davis bravely maintaining that the slump had been caused by the incompetence of his colleagues--shipping records that hadn't been sold, promoting records that hadn't been cut, paying artists huge sums in expectation of great deliveries--rather than the fickleness of the public or any dearth of creativity. The distemper of the times was chronicled by the mounting lawsuits, not only between artists and record companies but also among record companies, retailers, concert promoters, radio stations and licensing organizations. It seemed as if the goose that had produced gold and platinum nest eggs so steadily over a 15-year period had suddenly disappeared and all the other denizens of the barnyard, with goose feathers protruding from their teeth, were standing around accusing one another of foul play--a wonderful sight for antiestablishment cynics.

But the goose hadn't died, any more than the duck in Peter and the Wolf; if you listened closely, you could still hear it honking somewhere. For the record companies were struggling to right themselves. Huge mergers took place in the silent sea of corporate invisibility as MCA bought out ABC, RCA took over A&M's distribution, Arista was sold to Germany's Ariola-Eurodisc and United Artists to England's EMI. Phonogram and Polydor combined sales forces. As the companies whittled away at budgets and payrolls, the familiar self-congratulatory ads stopped gracing the pages of the trade papers--or the billboards over Hollywood's Sunset Strip. Promo records, not to mention the traditional champagne, balloons and T-shirts, stopped flowing. Heads rolled at CBS, RCA, MCA, Casablanca, Motown, Elektra/Asylum and ABC; suddenly, there were more than 600 bright young record-company people beating the sidewalks in search of jobs. The howls and screams of the wounded found a forum in People, which gleefully detailed the tribulations of the rock group America, forced to relinquish its private jet; of Journey, forced to drink Bud instead of Heineken; of Rod Stewart, whose record company refused to promo a concert tour with the usual $40,000 party; of Maria Muldaur, who was taken off the road by her company.

Poor babies. They were just learning, the hard way, what they should have known all along--that "artists" are not the guiding lights of the music industry but, rather, its chattel. MCA's Al Bergamo complained in August that "The animals are in charge of the zoo; we've got to get them back in their cages." By the fall of the year, CBS Records Division president Bruce Lundvall could announce to a convention of radio programers that the record business was "on the road to recovery"--and, at the same time, joke that an accountant's eye-shade would make an appropriate new logo for his company (some of his former employees and recording artists might have suggested a scythe). Record sales were up again, as long-delayed new albums by Dylan, Fleetwood Mac, Cheap Trick, Led Zeppelin, Boz Scaggs, Bruce Springsteen, the Eagles and Pink Floyd finally made their appearance. Meanwhile, a score of new acts had climbed aboard the charts, a situation that boded well for the industry, especially since many of the acts were New Wave rocksters whose records had been produced on comparative shoestrings; The Knack, for example, cut its LP at a minuscule $18,000, but it went gold in 13 days. And not only was the New Wave really making a dent in the market place--after several years of talking about it--but special-interest varieties of music, such as classical, jazz, blues, Gospel and the purer strains of country-and-western, had also prospered during the "slump"; many of the same companies that had just cut back on their operations were launching new labels in an attempt to diversify their income by exploiting those hitherto neglected fields. Execs were now referring to the setbacks of early 1979 as "a necessary shaking out" and predicting that the industry would be stronger as a result. The consensus was that they were entering a period of relatively modest but firmly based growth. And why not? The mergers had made the monoliths more monolithic, the slump in mainstream pop/rock had helped them realize there were bucks to be made elsewhere and their new emphasis on controlling their expenditures made them, at least theoretically, more capable than ever of implementing their corporational dreams of maximum profit and constant growth. In the world of show business, where everything is done with mirrors, it had taken a recession that was something of an illusion itself to cure everyone of the old illusion that he didn't have to care about the price of gasoline.

Jet fuel, however, didn't seem to be as much of a problem. Not only was the industry dominated by multinational companies such as CBS, Polygram, WEA, RCA and EMI, and fighting international problems such as piracy, bootlegging, counterfeiting and home taping--have you noticed the price of blank tape going up yet?--but the artists themselves kept crisscrossing the globe, as Sweden's Abba toured America and B. B. King, followed by Elton John, toured Russia. The Boston Symphony Orchestra toured Communist China--busy expanding its own recording facilities--and then, upon its return to Boston, cut an album with two Chinese soloists. Frank Zappa went to Vienna, not for psychoanalysis but to have several orchestral works premiered by the Vienna Symphony. Pink Lady, with Kiss in the Dark, became the first Japanese act to hit the U. S. charts since 1963 (remember Kyu Sakamoto and Sukiyaki?), while Rita Coolidge went to Tokyo to cop first prize in Japan's international singing contest. Billy Joel, Kris and Rita, Weather Report and other CBS superstars spent three days in Cuba for the company's Havana Jam, otherwise known as the "Bay of Gigs"; the Cuban group Irakere, now a CBS act, traveled north to wow critics in the States.

America was also laid waste by a new generation of British rock acts, including Joe Jackson and The Clash and The Police. A sign of the times--and proof that the international teenage conspiracy still packed enough revolutionary punch to turn an occasional duck-tailed country squire into a millionaire--was the success of Virgin, a fan magazine whose owners started selling records by mail order. They now own a chain of retail stores, their own 600-seat theater in London and their own Virgin island, on which they were last seen building a studio.

In circling the globe, of course, one always takes the chance of running into cranky religious leaders such as Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who banned music altogether, claiming it "stupefies people listening to it and makes their brains inactive and frivolous." Pope John Paul II didn't seem to share the Ayatollah's viewpoint; in fact, he became a recording star, as Infinity Records pressed 1,000,000 copies of Pope John Paul II Sings at the Festival of Sacrosong, an album recorded the previous June in Kraków. Meanwhile, religious music was in what they call a growth mode all over America, with record sales, air play and concerts up--this, while the secular labels were losing money. Billboard speculated on the psychology of people turning to religion when times get bad but admitted that Gospel music was also getting the benefit of sophisticated marketing and production, not to mention friends in high places. Pat Boone, for instance, owns Lamb and Lion Records, which released Dan Peek's All Things Are Possible, the first "Christian" song on a "Christian" label ever to hit Billboard's pop chart. MCA launched a religious label, with California's Lieutenant Governor Mike Curb at its helm, proving that under the right circumstances, music, politics, religion and business can all lie down together. Warners also moved into the Gospel field, signing the highly regarded Andrae Crouch. L.A. got its first Gospel-entertainment supper club, The Fisherman. Little Richard was spotted back on the Gospel trail, preaching against rock music, drugs and homosexuality. There were rumors that Bob Dylan was going to become a Christian, that he had become a Christian--that he had, in fact, become one in Pat Boone's swimming pool. In Nashville, construction began on Gospel Land, U.S.A., a park and museum that would eventually display sculptures of 100 "distinguished Gospel individuals." Tupelo, Mississippi, got the Elvis Presley Memorial Chapel, unveiled on the second anniversary of the singer's death (the doctrine of transubstantiation also got a boost as the spirit of Elvis became the spirits of Always Elvis Frontenac Blanc d' Oro, a four-dollar wine marketed by Colonel Tom Parker, his manager, for whom death has been no impediment to profit).

The growing involvement of rock with world affairs--a function of aging?--was dramatized when the Bee Gees topped an all-star cast including Donna Summer, Rita Coolidge, Olivia Newton-John, John Denver, Abba and Andy Gibb in a benefit concert for UNICEF. The United Nations later asked the Beatles to do another benefit; at presstime, they were still trying to talk Lennon into it. Jackson Browne, Joan Baez, Gil Scott-Heron and others drew 18,000 to the Hollywood Bowl for Survival Sunday II, a concert aimed at stopping the opening of a 1.4-billion-dollar nuclear power plant at California's Diablo Canyon. Opposition to nuclear power also motivated the 300,000 people who flocked to Madison Square Garden in September to see Browne, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Peter Tosh and others perform in the biggest benefit since George Harrison's concert for Bangladesh in 1971. Party politics and rock intersected when California governor Jerry Brown took Linda Ronstadt on a ten-day tour of Africa and when Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh ran for President on a platform of free gas for everyone.

The delusions of grandeur and the problems of overexpansion that plagued the music biz as a whole were concentrated in the hermetic world of disco. Early in the year, radio stations scrambled to adopt disco formats; later on, as disco stood accused of "spotty performance" in the Arbitron ratings--radio's equivalent of the Nielsens--the stations were just as eager to drop it. Meanwhile, disco representation on the lists of best-selling albums had plummeted (16 percent in three months, according to Cash Box). All the enemies of the genre came out of the closet, as record-company execs started complaining--in The Wall Street Journal, among other places--about the expenditures needed to produce disco hits by artists who couldn't last. Promoters complained that disco, a producer's medium, simply had no stars once you got past Donna Summer, Chic and the Village People. The Black Music Association charged that disco, while based on the traditional dance beat of rhythm-and-blues, had failed to create wider opportunities for black artists, who were being forced into disco styles by the record companies (some of which were reportedly considering segregation of their disco branches into "black" and "white" disco) and were increasingly underrepresented on the charts, despite the disco-inflected comebacks of a few artists such as Gene Chandler, Edwin Starr and Peaches & Herb. It was claimed that disco was driving other forms of black music off the radio and that the discos had taken the place of clubs that used to present live jazz, blues or soul music. Latin-record producers blamed their shrinking sales on the encroachment of disco. Furthermore, Billboard reported that doctors were treating ever-increasing numbers of disco patrons for hearing loss caused by the high-decibel sounds; that plastic surgeons were doing an increasing amount of bridgework on the damaged noses of people who'd been snorting coke in the discos; and that an increasing number of podiatrists were expressing concern about the long-range damage done to the feet of women who insisted on boogieing on stiletto heels.

In June, sociologist Dr. John Parikhal told a conference of disco station managers that rock is aimed at young men who are fearful of sex and that its violent rhythms reflect their frustration; disco, with its smoother rhythms--to which women could relate much better, Dr. Parikhal asserted--could expect a rough backlash from the fans of rock. It came a month later in Chicago, the macho capital of the Midwest, as local rock deejay Steve Dahl drew 70,000 would-be members of his "disco destruction army" to watch him blow up disco records in Comiskey Park; the 50,000 who gained admittance chanted, "Disco sucks," set bonfires and otherwise effed around until White Sox owner Bill Veeck was forced to cancel the second game of a double-header. Meanwhile, a Chicago rock bar was selling T-shirts with the legend death to the bee gees. They'd already gotten the message in far-off Rhodesia, which banned disco on its radio stations. Said Harvey Ward, former director general of Rhodesian Broadcasting, "It's what the Watusi do to whip up a war. What I've seen in the discos is just what I've seen in the bush. It turns a group into a malleable mob."

And there were those who thought disco could self-destruct without help from its enemies, as its rhythmic impetus petered out in such disparate (and possibly desperate) oddities as Bobby Vinton's disco version of Pennsylvania Polka and a record released in Canada by CBS, You'll Like the Whip, that featured the sounds of cracking leather followed by those of orgasm.

On the other hand, maybe Vinton's record signaled that disco had achieved such a level of squareness that its longevity was assured; after all, Ethel Merman, Helen Reddy, Andy Williams, Barbra Streisand and Count Basie also cut disco records in 1979. So did Rod Stewart--and Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? quickly went platinum. Disco deejays were recruited for jobs by record companies and radio stations. New York's Cotton Club and Stork Club both went disco. So did the grand ballroom at Knott's Berry Farm in California. Several disco musicals hit Broadway or were Broadway bound, including the horrific Phantom of the Disco. Disco roller rinks proliferated all over the States, reviving a tradition of skating to music that went back to the 1870s. Houston came up with the first disco in a record store. There were new developments in gadgetry, including liquid dance floors, $100-a-pair shoes with lights that flashed in time to a dancer's movements and, in San Juan, the first freestanding, completely prefabricated disco--a fiberglass dome that took three years to make. In Europe, Belgian Railways introduced the first discos on rails, for the winter-sports tourists.

It would be a mistake, of course, to assume that all forms of black or black-inspired music other than disco were suffering. Blues made something of a comeback, thanks to the comic antics of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, the promotional zeal of Chicago's Alligator Records and the reawakened interest of black disc jockeys. A growing young audience for jazz--composed largely of music students and would-be performers--purchased the offerings of an increasing number of independent record labels and supported a growing number of festivals, including the two-day Playboy Jazz Festival that packed the Hollywood Bowl in June (highlights included Joni Mitchell's tribute to the late Charles Mingus and a reunion of former Mingus sidemen). Such major companies as Motown and MCA started new jazz labels and Jazz Alive! continued to be the most popular show on National Public Radio, which also introduced a new program featuring pianist Marian McPartland in a series of duets and interviews with fellow pianists.

There were rumblings of discontent in the world of commercial black music, however, as the Black Music Association and Atlanta's Reverend Hosea Williams, afraid that black concert promoters were being driven into extinction, put pressure on major black acts that were doing business exclusively with white promoters. Certainly, there was mucho business to be done--Mighty Three Music, the publishing arm of Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Thom Bell, was running 30 percent ahead of 1978, when it was tops in the soul field and number eight over-all--and the record companies were taking notice, as RSO, MCA, Elektra/Asylum and EMI got funkified.

Business was consistently bullish in Nashville--even when CBS' over-all records operation was struggling, its Nashville division was running 181 percent ahead of projections for the year. The number of stations playing country music, nationally and internationally, increased 25 percent. The Grand Ole Opry broadcast live on public television and the success of country crossover artists, rather than having a repressive effect, seemed to pave the way for a resurgence of traditional country music, represented on the charts by Hank Thompson, Hank Snow, Eddy Arnold and Ernest Tubb, among others. Hank Williams, Jr., switched record labels, started singing about his daddy and became something of a legend himself. In 1979, country even went Hollywood, where a spate of big-budget films were either released or in the works--films such as Coal Miner's Daughter, Urban Cowboy, Middle-Aged Crazy, The Cowgirl and the Dandy, Red-Headed Stranger, Take This Job and Shove It that starred country singers, were about country singers or were based on country-and-western songs. The trend went along with the movies' ongoing glorification of rock via such paeans to adolescence as Americathon, The Warriors and Rock 'n' Roll High School.

Speaking of The Warriors, the year had its share of violence and bad karma. Disco singer Grace Jones was robbed in her Manhattan penthouse by a gunman who claimed to be a fan. Record producer Jack Nitzsche, who had worked with Neil Young and The Rolling Stones, was busted for allegedly raping actress Carrie Snodgress with a gun barrel. Punk rocker Elvis Costello distinguished himself while touring the U. S. by giving his St. Louis sponsor an on-stage insult and by getting his glasses knocked off by Bonnie Bramlett in Columbus, Ohio. Lou Reed scuffled with David Bowie, his soon-to-be producer, in a London restaurant. John Denver's neighbors, charging hypocrisy, demonstrated against his reported installation of a 4000-gallon gas tank at his home outside Aspen and his declared intention to sink three 2000-gallon tanks into the ground at his nearby ranch. The city of Burbank banned a series of rock concerts that it feared would draw crowds of "homosexuals, antinuclear demonstrators and dopers." Dark clouds continued to follow The Rolling Stones, as a 17-year-old boy who had been living in the South Salem, New York, home of Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg shot himself to death in their bedroom, a reported victim of Russian roulette. And how about The Who? A mob of its fans rushed to claim seats at a concert in Cincinnati in early December, and 11 were trampled to death.

Death took no holiday--does it ever?--as Minnie Riperton died of cancer at the age of 31 and Van McCoy of a heart attack at 38. Donny Hathaway was 33 when he fell from a New York hotel-room window. Lowell George died of an accidental drug overdose at 34, shortly after leaving Little Feat and starting a solo career. Former Wings guitarist Jimmy McCulloch was found dead in his London apartment at 26. The casualties in jazz were a bit older, and distressingly numerous. Trumpeter Blue Mitchell died of cancer at 49; guitarist Grant Green and bandleader Don Ellis had fatal heart attacks at 43 and 44, respectively. Trombonist Frank Rosolino was 52 when he shot himself to death and vocalist Eddie Jefferson was 61 when shot to death, in Detroit, by parties unknown. A pair of giants were lost when Stan Kenton, 67, fell victim to a stroke and Charles Mingus, at 56, died of a heart attack in Mexico, where he had gone to seek treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Classical music lost a popularizer in Arthur Fiedler, who died at 84 after selling 50,000,000 records in his long career as conductor of the Boston Pops, and a propagator in pianist/teacher Nadia Boulanger, who died in Paris at 92; country music (bluegrass, too) lost a pioneer when guitarist Lester Flatt died in Nashville at 64.

The survivors continued to live within easy reach of their barristers. Dylan was sued for defamation of character by Patty Valentine, a witness in the Hurricane Carter case. Penny McCall, who had been Peter Frampton's girlfriend until they busted up in the summer of 1978, sued him for half his assets. Ike Turner sued Fantasy Records for holding up the release of two albums, including the last one he'd made with Tina, and Porter Wagoner sued Dolly Parton, his former partner, alleging breach of contract and asking for $3,000,000. Mid-song International Records sued John Travolta for $1,000,000, claiming he bailed out of some contract options. Mike Maitland sought $14,000,000 in damages from MCA after he had been ousted as its president. Todd Rundgren sued the British musicians' union over what he called "restrictive strangle holds" on the rights of visiting musicians to play and broadcast. Rod Stewart had a writ issued in London to prevent the British branch of Warner Bros. from raising the price of an album. Bruce Springsteen and CBS sought $2,000,000 from an alleged California bootlegger. Helen Reddy sued to get away from Capitol, claiming breach of contract--for which she asked $1,793,000. Donald Byrd and the Blackbyrds sued each other, with the trumpeter asking $250,000 in damages and the group looking for $3,000,000. Rock singer Tom Petty filed bankruptcy papers; so did CTI Records. Phonogram sued Arista to stop release of material by the Ohio Players. Ted Nugent and Pink Floyd sought $1,000,000 in punitive damages from a trio of Chicago concert promoters who, they said, skimmed off the ticket receipts. Woolfsongs Ltd. wanted $100,000 in exemplary damages from 20th Century-Fox over royalties it claimed were due Alan Parsons. Nick Mathe, fired as Rickie Lee Jones's manager, sued her for 15 percent of her earnings over a two-year period. Arif Mardin wanted $1,000,000 in damages from RSO after it used the studio version of Jive Talkin', which he produced, in Saturday Night Fever. The Government filed criminal charges against four radio stations in Maine for playing copyrighted music without a license; ASCAP and BMI both sued people for allegedly operating juke-boxes without a license. CBS, seeking a "better deal" from the licensing companies, sued ASCAP and BMI, claiming their policies of blanket licensing amounted to price fixing (the Supreme Court felt otherwise), and a group of Christian stations also sued to get around blanket licensing, claiming it forced them to support authors of immoral songs.

A great deal of litigation centered on the Beatles. Apple Corps sued to stop further performances of Beatlemania, the successful Broadway show, and to stop a proposed Beatles movie and TV series; Apple asked for $60,000,000 in total damages. It also sued Capitol and EMI for $16,050,000 in damages, claiming the Beatles had been shortchanged by those companies. Former Beatles manager Allen Klein paid half a million for the rights to He's So Fine in hope of collecting damages that might result from a suit against George Harrison, who had been found guilty of plagiarizing the song in his 1970 hit My Sweet Lord. Meanwhile, Klein was appealing a $5000 fine and two months in prison for filing false income-tax returns in 1970. Later in the year, the comebacking Sly Stone was also accused of income-tax evasion. And just to keep rock from getting too respectable, Chuck Berry was busted for tax evasion just after he performed for President Carter at the White House. Proving that while a new decade may have been upon us, it was the same old story for prophets who insisted on living at home.

And now, here's how the year looked to you. The results of your voting:

Records of the year

Best Rhythm-and-Blues LP: Briefcase Full of Blues / Blues Brothers (Atlantic). Double-platinum proof that maybe blues boys John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd can sing the whites. Don't forget what Jake advised on the album: "Buy all the blues records you can!"

Best Pop/Rock LP: Breakfast in America / Supertramp (A & M). This successfully different blend of art rock and slick pop, often bound together by a wiggly sax that sounds like a water snake at play, has taken Supertramp from the wings to stadium center stage.

Best Jazz LP: Rickie Lee Jones (Warner Bros.). Chuck E.'s in love, and so were you with this new back-street-jazz voice, which sounds like Tom Waits with a melody and vocal cords.

Best Country-and-Western LP: The Gambler / Kenny Rogers (United Artists). From folkie to first edition to this one, Kenny Rogers has shown he knows when to hold 'em and knows when to fold 'em.

Best Rhythm-and-Blues LP

Best Pop/Rock LP

Best Jazz LP

Best Country-and-Western LP

Music Hall of Fame

We haven't seen the future of rock 'n' roll, but we have seen the Hall of Fame results, and the winner's name is Bruce Springsteen. From nowhere in 1978 to number four last year, the Boss now joins the giants. Placing close behind him in second slot is Mr. Rust himself, Neil Young--up from seventh last year. Repeating in third place is Miss Wet, Barbra Streisand. Among new entries to the top 20, the saddest are Lowell George at number ten and Charles Mingus at number 14--and the most attractive addition, Joni Mitchell, at number 18.

Your Hall of Fame picks:

Readers' Poll

With a few exceptions, it was business as usual across the board, with most of last year's winners right back on top.

In pop/rock, several newcomers turned up in the female-vocalist category--Deborah Harry at number three, Rickie Lee Jones at number five, Nicolette Larson at number eight and Karla Bonoff at number 14. Paul McCartney took over top-composer slot from Billy Joel and Led Zeppelin deposed Steely Dan as the favorite group--both up from number eight last year. Also in the group voting, Supertramp soared to number two from nowhere last year; ditto the Doobie Brothers to number three and Bruce Springsteen to number seven. Other notable new entries were The Cars, Blondie and Dire Straits. Intrusion of New Wave came from Elvis Costello in the male-vocalist and composer categories and Joe Jackson on keyboards.

Veteran R&B vocalist Teddy Pendergrass didn't make the top 20 last time, but this year he's number four. The only other notable changes in R&B came in the group voting. The Blues Brothers made it to number two, truly out of the blue(s). The other new entries were all disco tinged--Sister Sledge, Chic, Peaches & Herb, Boney M, Raydio and GQ.

The big news in jazz was the welcome appearance of Rickie Lee Jones right at the top of the female vocalists. And Joni Mitchell at number three is another new face in this particular slot. Pat Metheny turned up at number five for the first time among the jazz guitarists, as did Jaco Pastorius at number four on bass, Ralph MacDonald, at number three on percussion and Spyro Gyra as the number-three group.

And gambling really paid Kenny Rogers this year. On the strength of his best-selling album The Gambler, Rogers--who didn't make the finals last year--knocked off Gordon Lightfoot as favorite country-and-western composer. Otherwise, it was pretty much the same group portrait you painted last time.

Pop/Rock

Male Vocalist

Female Vocalist

Guitar

Keyboards

Drums

Bass

Composer

Group

Rhythm-and-blues

Male Vocalist

Female Vocalist

Composer

Group

Jazz

Male Vocalist

Female Vocalist

Brass

Woodwinds

Keyboards

Vibes

Guitar

Bass

Percussion

Composer

Group

Country-and-western

Male Vocalist

Female Vocalist

Picker

Composer

"The goose that had produced gold and platinum nest eggs so steadily had suddenly disappeared."

1980 Playboy Music Poll Results