Which artist spent the most weeks in the charts in 1977?
Pop chart archaeologists are generally doomed to learn the same lesson over and over again: the realities of our record-buying tendencies rarely match up with the historical narratives curated by music critics.
For a typical Far Out reader, the year 1977 instantly brings some crystal clear images to mind: the debut albums from Talking Heads and The Clash; the Eagles’ Hotel California; Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours; David Bowie’s Low; ‘God Save the Queen’ and/or ‘We are the Champions’ as your preferred get-up-and-go single; ABBA and Boney M dominating the disco universe. This was even the year that Elvis Presley died, leading to several songs by The King racing back up the charts.
And yet, if you actually dig into the archives and look at which records were moving across shop counters in that legendary year in rock history, you will be faced with a very different picture.
It could easily be argued that no entertainer had a bigger year in 1977 than a fellow by the name of David Soul. The 34-year-old American was not only entering his third season as the lovable police detective ‘Hutch’ on the hugely popular US TV series Starsky and Hutch; he also had a new film coming out (the UK-produced The Stick-Up) and one of the biggest albums on the pop charts, as his debut 1976 self-titled release was a surprising sensation on both sides of the Atlantic.
It was really in the UK that Soul took on almost an Elvis-like status, though, as he collected three top ten singles in ‘77, including the second-best selling single of the entire year, ‘Don’t Give Up On Us’, which spent four weeks at number one and was only beaten in total sales by that year’s Christmas number one, Wings’ ‘Mull of Kintyre.’
Soul’s other 1977 singles included another number one in ‘Silver Lady’ and a number two with ‘Going In with My Eyes Open’.
All told, David Soul and his heartfelt, sappy ballads spent a whopping 25 weeks in the UK top ten in 1977; a full six weeks more than the next best effort, which was the 19 weeks tallied by the retro novelty act Showaddywaddy—another set of legends we all think of when we think of ‘77.
And in the US charts?
Things weren’t any less embarrassing in the States, where even the Eagles and ABBA couldn’t stay atop the charts for as many consecutive weeks as that year’s biggest hits: Andy Gibb’s ‘I Just Wanna Be Your Everything’; the Bee Gees’ ‘How Deep is Your Love; Debbie Boone’s ‘You Light Up My Life’; and Barbara Streisand’s ‘Evergreen (Love Theme from A Star is Born)’.
Sap doesn’t just come from trees. It was the secret lifeblood of the record industry for decades, always producing the biggest sales even while rock journalists and cultural historians ignored it entirely.
One person who didn’t take his 1977 success for granted was David Soul himself. The actor/singer, who later moved to London and became a staple on the West End before his death in 2024, talked with a reporter in the spring of ‘77 on the set of Starsky and Hutch, just as his first album was taking over the world.
“I think one of the most exciting moments of my life was when I heard the record [‘Don’t Give Up On Us’] on the radio as I was driving to the set,” Soul said. “I kept jumping up and down in the car and shouting ‘That’s me, that’s me!”
Well, that’s endearing at least.
