4 Unforgettable One-Hit Wonders from 1976

Who doesn’t love a good one-hit wonder? We really shouldn’t get on these acts for never being able to follow up that one big smash. Instead, we should celebrate them for bringing joy to our lives with that single indelible song.

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1976 produced a bumper crop of one-hit wonders. Here are four that still enchant us today, even if the artists who recorded them didn’t have that same kind of staying power.

“Play That Funky Music” by Wild Cherry

Wild Cherry had been plying their trade as a cover band in the Ohio area for several years when they struck it big. Their lone hit came when an audience member, frustrated with the band’s insistence on playing rock in a disco-heavy era, asked them for a funkier song. The proverbial light bulb popped up over the head of the Wild Cherry’s Rob Parissi, who quickly wrote the song. “Play That Funky Music” was a compromise of sorts for the band. They resisted going the all-out disco route. But they could live with this track as more of a funk-rock joint. Sadly, they didn’t deliver any songs nearly as memorable the rest of the way. But at least their one hit was a big one, peaking at No. 5.

“Afternoon Delight” by Starland Vocal Band

Considering they were a one-hit wonder, Starland Vocal Band ended up with some accolades that others like them couldn’t boast. For instance, they won the Best New Artist award at the 1977 Grammys. And they also hosted a network variety show for a while. Such was the pull of “Afternoon Delight”. Bill Danoff, who, with his wife and fellow Starland member Taffy Nivert, had written John Denver’s iconic “Take Me Home, Country Roads”, based the song’s title on a menu item he found at a restaurant. Using cheeky but benign innuendo, he made that title suggest a daytime rendezvous for loving couples. Those four-part harmonies made this No. 1 hit sound deceptively wholesome.

“Love Hurts” by Nazareth

The legendary songwriter Boudleaux Bryant wrote this ultimate tearjerker with the golden harmonies of The Everly Brothers in mind. Although Phil and Don recorded it in 1960, they were prevented from releasing it as a single due to an argument with their publisher. Most artists who covered the song over the years chose a gentle take on the lyrics. But Dan McCafferty of the Scottish hard rock band Nazareth decided to sing it as if his heart was being removed from his chest without anesthesia. His larynx-shredding performance gave the song the boost it needed to hit the Top 10 in 1976, by far the best these Scots ever did stateside.

“Right Back Where We Started From” by Maxine Nightingale

Many hitmakers in the early 70s came out of the theater scene, including several, like Maxine Nightingale, who passed through some incarnation of the musical Hair. After earning fine notices in several shows in Great Britain, she secured the chance to record a single. Songwriters J. Vincent Edwards and Pierre Tubbs wrote the song specifically with Nightingale in mind. And she sang the absolute stuffing out of it, her voice soaring in and out of the horn-filled arrangement with confidence and enthusiasm. It should be noted that Nightingale ended up scoring other hits in her native England. But “Right Back Where We Started From” remains her signature pop achievement.

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