7 of the 70s: 9/24/14 (1977)

It's Hump Day 70s party-time, and this week I've got seven more nuggets from 1977, the year Voyager 1 is launched.

Mary MacGregor - "Torn Between Two Lovers"
from the album Torn Between Two Lovers (1976)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 
Songwriters: Phil Jarrell, Peter Yarrow

Peter Yarrow of  folk-rock trio Peter, Paul & Mary co-wrote and co-produced this tale of complicated love and recruited a different Mary to sing it. A Lee Remick/George Peppard TV movie followed.

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Barbra Streisand - "My Heart Belongs To Me"
from the album Streisand Superman (1977)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4
Songwriter: Alan Gordon

This song, one of her biggest hits of the 70s, is mostly forgotten today, but it really is a gem of an affirmation of a woman in control of her feelings.

Jennifer Warnes - "The Right Time Of The Night"
from the album Jennifer Warnes (1976)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6
Songwriter: Peter McCann

This sometimes muse of Leonard Cohen had her first big hit with this record, written by an artist who had his own top-10 hit the same year with "Do You Wanna Make Love", and mixed by Val Garay, who would go on to produce Kim Carnes' "Bette Davis Eyes"...

Helen Reddy - "You're My World"
from the album Ear Candy (1977)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #18
Songwriters: Umberto Bindi, Gino Paoli, Carl Sigman

This translated cover of an Italian pop song was first a hit for British singer Cilla Black in the 60s, then released with even more success by the feminist-friendly Australian chanteuse..

Deniece Williams - "Free"
from the album This Is Niecy (1976)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #25
Songwriters: Sue Greene, Henry Redd, Nathan Watts, Deniece Williams

This easy-going soul jam was co-produced by Maurice White from Earth, Wind, & Fire, and topped the British charts for a couple weeks.

Carpenters - "All You Get From Love Is A Love Song"
from the album Passage (1977)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #35
Songwriter: Steve Eaton

Oh Karen, how I miss you so. This light yet mournful take on romance was one of their best uptempo numbers.

Linda Ronstadt - "Someone To Lay Down Beside Me"
from the album Hasten Down The Wind (1976)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #42
Songwriter: Karla Bonoff

A track from the album that won her a Grammy for best pop vocal performance, with a song that's close to my own heart.