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You're listening ad free on Amazon Music. Hey there Hit Parade listeners. What you're about to hear is Part one of this episode. Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. Would you like to hear this episode all at once the day it drops? Sign up for Slate Plus. It supports not only this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts. Just go to slate.com hitparade+ you'll get to hear every Hit Parade episode in full the day it arrives. Plus Hit Parade the Bridge, our bonus episodes with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics, and pop chart trivia. Once again to join, that's slate.com hitparadeplus thanks and now please enjoy part one of this hit Parade episode. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is the Song Number One? Series on today's show? 38 years ago, in the summer and fall of 1985, Songs Without Words were doing very well on the charts. In less than five months, 33 instrumentals cracked the top 20 on the Hot 100, including German keyboardist Harald Faltermeier's theme from the film Beverly Hills Cop, Axl F. And super producer David Foster's love theme from St. Elmo's Fire. Thanks to movies and TV shows, instrumentals had had a pretty good first half of the eight. But after Jan Hammer's number one hit, Miami Vice Theme became 1985's third big instrumental. We would never see so many vocal free singles place so highly on the charts again. To this day, Miami Vice Theme remains the last purely instrumental chart topper in Hot 100 history. This was a surprising turn in fortunes for instrumental hits, which had been chart toppers for decades. Whether they were easy listening. Or soulfully grooving, Hard rocking. Or beckoning you to the dance floor with just a few instructional words. But after the mid-80s, instrumental hits were like comet sightings. Rare, fleeting, fluky. And the rise of rap turned instrumentals into beats. Nowadays, instrumental hits are less musical mementos and more like memes. But it's possible that the rise of the superstar DJ is bringing the instrumental back. Today on Hit Parade, we will consider the strange chart history of the instrumental, its survival into the first decades of the rock era, its symbiosis with the big and small screens, its rise during the age of disco and the synthesizer, and its descent into kitsch. And speaking of kitsch we will also reckon with the man who sold more instrumental recordings than any artist did it after the genre had peaked and turned instrumental music into a kind of athletic sport. Yep. I mean, this guy. And that's where your hit parade marches today, the week ending July 11, 1987, when Kenny G reached number four on the Hot 100 with Songbird. While his LP duotones became his first platinum album, it most certainly would not be his last. But how did the man born Kenneth Gorlick defy the odds for instrumentalists in the 80s, the 90s, and the 21st century? And does his success explain anything about the trajectory for the wordless hit across chart history? We will attempt to answer all these questions, no matter how mellow you're feeling. So put your feet up and pour yourself a beverage. Maybe something with tequila. Tequila. And we will set a mood, drop a groove and provide a soundtrack that's better than your dentist's office. Stick around. So there I was one month ago at the movies, settled into my seat for the video game meets car racing flick Gran Turismo. I've raced this track a thousand times in the game. Let me drive it my way. I was on a break from researching this instrumental hits episode of Hit Parade and looking for some loud, mindless entertainment. And dear listener, while watching Gran Turismo, I did not expect to see or hear this. You hearing this? Yeah. What? What the hell is that? It's Kelly G. Who's Kenny G? Dude, we have a huge race tomorrow. It's just chilling out. I'll turn it down. Sorry. As you may have heard, Gran Turismo is based on the true story of video gamer turned pro racer Jan Mardenboro. And it turns out this scene is not dramatic license by the movie movie makers. Mardenborough really did play Kenny G's music to chill himself out before a big race. I couldn't have asked for a better illustration of the quiet potency of instrumentals even in the 21st century. Now, it must be said Mardenborough mostly liked Kenny G's music for its mellow lilt, not its lack of words. The film also reveals that his other favorite pre race music is Celtic New Age queen Enya, who does sing even though many of her fans do not always comprehend her work. Enya, like Kenny G, is what you might call a pure mood. In any case, Martinborough, who came of age in the 2010s decades after Kenny G's heyday, represents how many young people regard instrumental music in the streaming age as functional music for mood enhancement. A recent Billboard report estimates the so called functional audio market, defined as quote, not designed for conscious listening, engineered to help people achieve a certain cognitive state, as generating around 120 billion streams annually. Some of this functional music is generated by an algorithm, and some is associated with artists who are not quite household names. Lance Allen, an acoustic guitarist who bills himself as the the Guitar Lancer, records soothing covers whose Spotify plays rival those of more famous artists. Allen's 2020 cover of Casey Musgrave's 2018 hit Rainbow, thanks in part to its inclusion on some Spotify mood playlists, has racked up 5.3 million streams, a higher total than some of Casey Musgrave's own deep cuts. But none of these algorithmically friendly tracks are chart hits. They don't generate the radio airplay or singles sales that fuel the Billboard charts. And that's the main difference between instrumentals today and in generations past. Now, I don't want to overstate the case. The top 40 was not awash in dozens of vocal free hits back in the 60s and 70s, but it was more plausible decades ago for catchy instrumentals, even actual jazz like Dave Brubeck's classic Take Five, a number 24 hit in 1961 to score on the Hot 100. These wordless hits were bops. And about the word wordless, let's establish some ground rules. Can we call a song in instrumental if it has some vocals? I think of instrumental hits as a little bit like One Hit Wonders, and not just because composer Bill Conti never scored another top 40 hit after his one chart topper, the Rocky Theme. Gonna Fly Now As I explained in our One Hit Wonders episode of Hit Parade, there are pure One Hit Wonders artists who really did only hit the hot 101 time, like Soft Sell or Naina or Bismarckie. And then there are de facto One Hit Wonders acts who can fairly be categorized as such despite coming back with a low charting follow up hit like Dexie's Midnight Runners or Aha. Similarly, there are many pure instrumentals like Dave Brubeck's Take Five. But some instrumental hits do have a few words. Gonna Fly Now. Gonna Fly now is one of the well wordier instrumental hits in chart history. It has three 10 word choruses sprinkled throughout the song, but it lacks a verse and its main hook is musical, not vocal. Go ahead, try to sing the Rocky theme from memory. You're probably going to sing the main melody, not the lyrics. As far as Billboard and the late chart historian Joel Whitburn are concerned, Gonna Fly now is categorized as an instrumental. So even if a song briefly invites you to drink tequila, or instructs you to do the Hustle or do the Harlem Shake, or even leads a stadium in a massive chant of hey. Even in those cases, any song without a full verse and chorus is generally categorized as an instrumental. Whereas a song of very few words that does have a refrain like, say, Laid Back's top 30 electro dance jam from 1984, White Horse if you wanna ride, don't ride the white horse, that would not be considered an instrumental. The vocal, however terse drives the song White Horse is quirky and sparse, but it's got enough vocalizing not to make the instrumental category. Honestly, this is not an exact science. There is an element of I know it when I hear it that is fairly subjective. But for the purposes of this podcast episode, I am regarding Joel Whitburn's roster of Billboard chart books as bible for what songs qualify as instrumental. Even moaning as on Chakacha's top 101972 hit Jungle Fever doesn't disqualify a song from instrumental status. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's travel back to the mid-1950s and the start of the rock era. It's important to keep in mind that in rock and roll's early days, the term pop music as most listeners understood it, usually involved a big band or an orchestra. Which explains how just weeks into the so called rock era, less than three months after Bill Haley topped the charts with Rock around the Clock, the number one song on Billboard's best sellers chart was this. Autumn Leaves by pianist Roger Williams didn't sound anything like rock and roll. Williams cascading keyboard runs were meant to sound like falling foliage. What was most notable about the first instrumental number one of the rock era, it topped the chart in October 1955, was that it was a new arrangement of a song written with vocals both in French and English. Traditional pop singer Jo Stafford had first recorded the English version of the jazzy standard in 1950, but I miss you most of all, my darling, when autumn leaves start to this was the deal with early instrumental hits. The song didn't have to be American, but the melody had to feel instantly familiar. For example, Cuban bandleader and mambo king Perez Prado also hit number one in 1955 with his arrangement of Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White. By the way, Andrew Lloyd Webber would later borrow this Latin style melody with for a track in his 70s musical Evita. Instrumental music was at first a respite from rock and roll. Even after the likes of Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Chuck Berry started Scoring hits in 1955 and 56, Billboard's pop charts were still topped by orchestral easy listeners like Nelson Riddle's shimmery take on the Portuguese standard Lisbon Antigua. Or Les Baxter's the Poor People of Paris, a twee arrangement of a French song originally called the Ballad of Poor Jean. It took until late 1956 for an instrumental that sounded like rock and roll to scale the charts. That's when R B bandleader Bill Doggett took his Honky Tonk to number two on Billboard's Best Sellers in Stores chart, a predecessor to the Hot 100. Critic Dave Marsh later called Honky Tonk the best rock and roll instrumental of the 50s and the recording was inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. Honky Tonk seemed to pry open the charts for wordless rock and roll jams. In 1957, arranger and instrumentalist Bill justice helped pioneer the so called twangy guitar sound with Raunchy, another number two bestseller. Apparently Raunchy was a rite of passage for young rock fans learning to play guitar in 1958. Famously, the story goes, a teenage George Harrison auditioned for a young John Lennon and Paul McCartney to join the Beatles by playing on the top of a Liverpool double decker bus, his rendition of Raunchy. Other early rock instrumentals included the aforementioned aforementioned tequila by LA session group the Champs, a number one hit in early 1958 that was originally recorded as a B side and is now a party staple. And I might add for those who think of the the 1985 film Peewee's Big Adventure. When this song is played, Rest in peace Paul Rubins. In 1959, R&B organist Dave Baby Cortez took his fluky party jam the Happy Organ to number one. Generally, the rougher the rock instrumental, the less likely it was to top the charts. Although looking at the glass as half full, it is remarkable that guitar legend Link Ray got all the way to number 16 on the best sellers chart in 1958 with his classic coruscating Rumble. But arguably the first rock guitarist to make a consistent chart career out of the instrumental was the man who branded himself as the king of twang. The New York born Arizona raised electric guitar maestro Duane Eddy. On his hit Rebel Rouser, which ranked number six on the first ever Hot 100 in August 1958 and was credited to Duane Eddy and his twangy guitar, Eddie codified the reverb heavy style that would not only become his trademark but would define the sound of the late rockabilly years. AllMusic's Richie Unterberger called Eddie, quote, perhaps the most successful instrumental rocker of his time and the man most responsible, along with Chuck Berry, for popularizing the electric rock guitar, unquote. The other thing about Dwayne Eddy, who by the way, as of 2023 is still with us, is that he generated hits. Between 1958 and 1961, Eddie scored a dozen top 40 singles, including the 1959 number nine hit 40 Miles of Bad Road, And in 1960, his cover of the theme to TV's Peter Gunn, a number 25 hit. As we discussed in our TV Tunes episode of Hit Parade, the hit Peter Gunn's soundtrack was the handiwork work of composer Henry Mancini, but many now associate the song more with Dwayne Eddy. He even remade it in the 80s with the alternative synth pop group the Art of Noise. Doing Wayne Eddy's success also helped open the door to a wave of surf guitar instrumentalists, including Seattle Guitar combo the Ventures, who took Walk don't run to number two in 1960. And later on California group the Surfaris, would reach number two in 1963 with the iconic Wipeout. But as the 50s turned into the 60s, the easy listening instrumental wasn't disappearing, it was morphing. Brooklyn duo Santo and Johnny took their dreamy sleepwalk, a steel guitar fantasia that sounded like rock but lilted like orchestral pop, to number one in 1959. Perhaps the dreamiest number one of the period was 1960s top single Percy Faith and his orchestra's Theme From a Summer Place, which spent nine weeks at number one. And I mentioned in our Hits of the Year episode of Hit Parade. The paradox of Theme From a Summer Place. It was old People Music for Young People, a song from a teen drama starring Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee that was gentle enough to be enjoyed by your parents or even your grandparents, as parodied in this scene from a classic 90s episode of the Simpsons. From a Summer Place From a Summer Place the theme From A Summer Place is the theme. Next, at the start of the 60s, the instrumental was a mainstay on the charts, occasionally a main dish, but more often a spicy, quirky side dish. Whether it was TV band leader Lawrence Welk with his bubbly Calcutta, a number one in 1961, German jazz bands leader Bert Campfort, who took his sultry bop Wonderland by night to number one also in 1961, Or the even bier, the stripper composer and bandleader David Rose's burlesque anthem, which hit number one in the summer of 1962 and lives on decades later as a punchline in countless movies and TV shows when an actor is doing a comical striptease. The Stripper was one of three instrumental number one hits in 1962, the high water mark in Hot 100 history. The other two number ones that year, Mr. Acker Bilk's Stranger on the Shore and the Tornado's Telstar, can be heard in our British Invasion episode released earlier this year. As you can probably tell, the thing about instrumentals is they adhered to no one genre. They could be as sultry as Wonderland by Night, as silly as the Stripper, or on the 1962 number three hit green onions by the Stax Records session band Booker t. And the MGs strutty. In most cases, these instrumental hits were hard to follow up. Booker T and the MGs did have an enduring career, but it took them several years to return to the top 10. Burt Campfort and David Rose didn't return to the top 10 at all, but there was one instrumental 60s act that towered above all others in terms of chart performance. He, or should I say they, cracked the code. More on them in a moment. As we discussed in our Milli Vanilli episode of Hit Parade, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass was one of the great fake it till you make it bands in pop history. When Albert, a Los Angeles based trumpeter, attended a bullfight in Mexico, he was inspired to compose a Latin flavored instrumental called the Lonely Bull. He credited the track to the Tijuana Brass, even though there was no such group. Alpert, who has no Latin heritage whatsoever, recorded the basic track by himself, overdubbing his trumpet to resemble a full group of mariachi. In the fall of 62, the Lonely Bull was a surprise hit, reaching number six on the Hot 100. Alpert now needed to form an actual Tijuana Brass which could record in the studio and perform on the road. Truthfully, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass were always Latin adjacent. Alpert seemed to have picked up on the fact that after all those prior number one instrumentals that were vaguely French, vaguely Cuban and vaguely German, Americans liked their instrumentals exotic, not authentic. So, for example, a typical Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass single would be their Latin inflected cover of the American pop standard A Taste of Honey. Albert's Honey was a number seven hit in 1965. What was more remarkable was what Albert's albums did. The Tijuana Brass scored five number one LPs on the Billboard album chart from 1965-68. More than any 60s act except the Beatles. The Brasses run was led off by Whipped Cream and Other Delights, an LP more legendary for its cover than its contents. Model Dolores Erickson buried up to her cleavage in a pile of shaving cream. That sexy cover helped Alpert sell 6 million copies of the whipped cream LP. When a 60s dude bought a herb Alpert LP filled with swinging instrumentals, he was buying a piece of bachelor friendly software for his hi fi hardware. In other words, he was buying a lifestyle. Spanish flea, a number 27 hit in 1966 and four years afterward, the theme song to TV's the Dating Game helped push Alpert and the Brass's album go in places to number one. Not long after that, Team Alpert hit number one again with the what Now? My Love album, whose title track was a number 24 hit. Albert even recorded a James Bond theme. Well, the theme to a Bond spoof anyway. 1967's Casino Royale starring Peter Sellers, the Tijuana Brasses Casino Royale single made the top 30 and anchored yet another number one Herb Alpert LP. Sounds like. The great irony of Alpert's career was that he only finally scored a number of number one single when he sang on a record. 1968's this Guy's in Love with youh, which we have referenced in several past Hit Parade episodes. This Guy's In Love with youh anchored the Tijuana Brass's fifth and final number one album, Beat of the Brass. Even with that vocal anomaly, Herb Albert had already taken the instrumental further than any prior artist, making it a must own for the age of the long playing album. He would make an instrumental comeback a decade later, but by 1968, other artists on the Hot 100 were ready to pick up the mantle of instrumental pop. Paul Mariot's Love Is Blue, a harpsichord inflected instrumental cover of a French song that in its vocal version had placed fourth in 1967's Eurovision Song Contest, was the stealth smash of 1968. Love is Blue spent five weeks at number one on the Hot 100 and even came in second on Billboard's year end survey behind only the Beatles. Hey Jude. One can safely assume that Mauriotte's baroque arrangement of Love Is Blue jived with the hippie culture of the day. In general, 1968 was a good year for instrumentals. Classical Gas, a classical folk and flamenco instrumental by guitar virtuoso Mason Williams was a number two hit in the summer of 68, And South African trumpeter Hugh Masakela took his cowbell inflected Grazing in the Grass to number one that same summer. Masakela's hit was so popular it inspired a rarity in the world of instrumentals, a hit cover that added words rather than subtracting them. R and B vocal group the Friends of Distinction wrote new lyrics to the song and took it to number three the following summer. By the way, if this version of the song sounds familiar, it's been used in numerous adverts over the years, as well as the Will Ferrell comedy Anchorman. As the World Goes. As in the 1950s, the late 60s was a good time for earworms. Built out of catchy instrumental hooks, the Chicago soul jazz ensemble Young Holtz Unlimited took soulful strut to number three in early 1969. Good luck getting that horn riff out of your head. It's been sampled literally dozens of times across hip hop and pop. The instrumental also made a huge comeback at the end of the 60s into the early 70s thanks to movies and TV. As we noted in a previous hit Parade, Henry Mancini took the love theme from Romeo and Juliet, his cover of Nino Rota's signature melody from the Franco Zeffirelli film of Shakespeare's romantic tragedy, to number one in the summer of 60. Surf rockers the Ventures remember them made a comeback in 69 with their chugging theme to CBS TV's Hawaii Five Zero, And veteran piano duo Ferrante and Teicher took their arrangement of the theme to the Jon Voight movie Midnight Cowboy, winner of 1969's Best Picture Oscar, to number 10 in early 1970. Speaking of Jon Voight three years later, a fleet fingered song used in a memorable scene in Voight's film with Burt Reynolds. Deliverance called Dueling Banjos, became a cultural phenomenon played by bluegrass musicians Eric Weisberg and Steve Mandel, and Dueling banjos reached number two on the Hot 100 and the Deliverance soundtrack LP went to number one. By some measures, the 1970s was the high water mark of the instrumental. Wordless hits from seemingly any genre could come out of left field and climb the charts like the hugely unexpected hit Dueling Banjos. Some of these anomalous hits came from movies. 1973's Best Picture winner the Sting, for example, produced a number three hit with Marvin Hamlisch's retro arrangements of the Scott Joplin ragtime standard the Entertainer. One of the movies the Sting defeated for best picture the horror classic the Exorcist generated an incongruous hit of its own when the eerie prog rock instrumental Tubular Bells by British composer Mike oldfield reached number seven in the spring of 74. But instrumentals were hot enough in the early 70s that they didn't necessarily need a Hollywood connection. The world of R B generated Dennis Coffey and the Detroit guitar bands Scorpio, a riff machine filled with drum breaks that would later be sampled heavily by rappers. Scorpio peaked at number six in early 1972. Keyboardist Billy Preston, who famously backed the Beatles on Get back, became a 70s hit maker with both vocal and instrumental hits. Among his instrumentals were Space race, a number four hit, strutton, a number 22 hit, and out of Space, which got all the way to number two. Two in the summer of 72. Instrumentals were where nerds could innovate. Popcorn, a composition written to demonstrate the capabilities of the Moog synthesizer, was covered by Moog player Stand Free and his group hot butter in 1972. There, popcorn reached number one across Europe and number nine in America. Avant garde jazz arranger Ymir Deodato took his Prague funk cover of Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss to number two in 1973. Although Zarathustra was made famous in the late 60s as the theme to the Stanley Kubrick film 2001 A Space Odyssey, Deodato's arrangement was a hit entirely unaffiliated with the movie. Multi instrumentalist Edgar Winter took his riff heavy beast of a single Frankenstein, so named because it comprised lots of different parts fused together into one monster song, to number one in the spring of 73. And speaking of riff, rockers lodged in the top 10 the same week Frankenstein was number one was hocus pocus by Focus, a Prague rock band from Amsterdam, Peaking at number nine on the Hot 100. Hocus Pocus by Focus. Come on, admit it, that's just fun to say, was a truly bizarre composition. It featured not only heavy guitars but also accordion flute, scat singing and most memorably yodeling. German synthesizer pioneers Kraftwerk scored their only American Top 40 hit in early 1975 with their celebration of the open road Autobahn, a number 24. Five hit. The genre that arguably benefited most from the flurry of hit 70s instrumentals was disco. Some have argued that the first disco number one on the Hot 100 was Barry White's composition Love's Theme, credited to his Love Unlimited Orchestra. The plush Philly soul dance floor hybrid, which reached number one in February 1970. Four did not feature even a word of Barry White's legendary bass voice. Later in 74, the Philadelphia International Studio Band MFSB took their theme to TV's Soul Train to number one. The chugging TSOP or the sound of Philadelphia, which featured wordless vocalizing from R B troupe the Three Degrees, was like Love's Theme simultaneously both Philly soul and proto disco. The following year, the Scottish funk rock combo Average White Band took their syncopated classic Pick up the pieces to number one on the Hot 100. Again, as with Love's Theme and TSOP, pick up the Pieces was rooted in vintage R and B, but pointing the way for disco. Then, six months after average white band, the Hot 100 was topped by the ultimate dance floor instrumental, and no one mistook it for anything but disco. Van McCoy was a songwriter, producer and a R man man for more than a decade for the likes of Gladys Knight, the Shirelles and Aretha Franklin before he wrote the Hustle on a lark. It was an instructional record capitalizing on an elaborate form of partner dancing that was taking off in New York City nightclubs. McCoy, a fan of classical and ballroom music, admired the dance's old school steps. Written and recorded in under an hour while McCoy was finishing a session with his Soul City Symphony, the Hustle became a phenomenon. Though it spent only one week at number one in the summer of 75, the hustle announced once and for all that disco was happening. It also opened a lane for other, more shamelessly disco instrumentals like Walter Murphy's a fifth of Beethoven, a number one in 1976, And I kid you not, a disco arrangement of the Star wars theme by Italian American Domenico Monardo, AKA Mako. Mako took his medley Star Wars Theme Cantina band to number one in late 1977, the year anything affiliated with Star wars couldn't fail. By the late 70s, instrumentals were still frequent chart visitors, generating hits for instrumentalists from all corners of pop. Jazz flugelhorn player Chuck Mangione took his indelible soft rock jam Feels so good to number four in the summer of 78. I'll bet King of the Hill's Peggy Hill was so pleased, Canadian pianist Frank Mills scored his own Top five fluke hit a year later with Music Box Dancer, an easy listening staple that reached number three in May 1979. And later that same year, none other than Herb Alpert made an improbable chart comeback at number one, this time with an actual instrumental. As I explained in our TV Tunes episode of Hit Parade, Alpert's sultry Rise rode a recurring plot on the soap opera General Hospital between the characters Luke and Laura all the way to the top of the Hot 100. Rise hit number one in October 1979, just as disco was petering out on the charts. And while dance music would continue to produce instrumental hits like Giorgio Moroder's influential Italo disco and technopop classic Chase, a number 33 hit, The dance floor would not be the main venue for instruments instrumentals in the 1980s. You might say the most influential instrumental at the end of the 70s was instead morning Dance, an easy listener by the jazz fusion band Spyro Gyra. Though it Only reached number 24 on the Hot 100, Morning Dance topped Billboard's adult contemporary chart in the summer of 79, foreshadowing the next wave in mass appeal instrumental pop. But that wave would take several more years to materialize. When we come back, smooth instrumentals morph into smooth jazz as the top 40 evolves toward lyrical technicians and away from lyric free pop. And one curly haired man sells truckloads by giving the people the mellow melodies they call crave. Non Slate plus listeners will hear the rest of this episode in two weeks. For now, I hope you've been enjoying this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Melanfi. That's me. My producer is Kevin Bendis. Derek John is executive producer of Narrative Podcasts, and we had help from Joel Meyer. Alicia Montgomery Montgomery is VP of Audio for Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of shows@slate.com podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I love forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. We'll see you for part two in a couple of weeks. Until then, keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Melanfi.