November 4, 1977: Rod Stewart releases Foot Loose and Fancy Free. It includes "You're In My Heart," which hits Number 3 in his native Britain, Number 4 in America, and Number 1 in Canada and Australia. Steve "the Colonel" Cropper of Booker T. & The M.G.'s plays lead guitar on it.
Of this song, "Rod the Mod" said, "It's about 3 women, 2 football teams, and a country, Scotland."
Although born in London, his ancestry is entirely Scottish, and, as we would say today, he identifies as Scottish.
Of the 3 women, he has only publicly identified 1: Swedish actress Britt Ekland, with whom he'd recently broken up. The year before, he'd hit Number 1 in the U.S. with "Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)," on which Ekland can be heard speaking French at the end. Apparently, another of the women who inspired "You're in My Heart" was "a big-bosomed lady with a Dutch accent." (Theoretically, this could have been Mariska Veres, the Dutch singer who led the band The Shocking Blue, who hit Number 1 with "Venus" in 1970. But, as far as I know, she and Rod never met.)
The football (soccer) teams are definitely known: Celtic Football Club of Glasgow, and Manchester United, dominant teams in Scotland and England, respectively, as his music career was beginning in the 1960s. Celtic were the 1st British team to win the European Cup (the tournament now known as the UEFA Champions League), in 1967; Man United, the 1st English team to do so, in 1968.
I am of the firm belief that, while there have been better singers in rock and roll, nobody sings a rock and roll song better than Rod Stewart.
Foot Loose and Fancy Free is the best album released on this day. But it is not the most influential. On the same day, The Ramones released Rocket to Russia, which includes "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" and the closest thing the Queens-based band would ever have to a hit single, "Rockaway Beach," which hit Number 48 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart.
UPDATE: It took me until 2024 to think of this, but the 1970s were Schrödinger's Decade. There was too much overwrought music, and, at the same time, not enough of it.
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November 4, 1977 was a Friday. This was also the day that The Incredible Hulk premiered as a 2-hour "backdoor pilot" TV-movie on CBS. I have a separate entry for that event.
Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 9 games played in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 95-92 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.
* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Philadelphia 76ers, 107-104 at the Rutgers Athletic Center (now the Jersey Mike's Arena) in Piscataway, New Jersey. Bernard King scored 41 points for the Nets, but the Sixers had a better team effort, getting 29 from Doug Collins, 21 from George McGinnis, 17 from Darryl Dawkins, 14 from Lloyd Free (later to rename himself World B. Free), and 11 from the man the 1974 and 1976 ABA Champion Nets had to let go just to be able to afford the NBA's entry fee, Julius "Dr. J" Erving.
* The Denver Nuggets beat the Boston Celtics, 109-107 at the Boston Garden.
* The Washington Bullets beat the Phoenix Suns, 113-96 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.
* The New Orleans Jazz beat the Golden State Warriors, 105-102 at the Superdome in New Orleans.
* The Buffalo Braves beat the Chicago Bulls, 100-92 at the Chicago Stadium.
* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Houston Rockets, 110-108 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.
* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Kansas City Kings, 111-110 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City.
* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Indiana Pacers, 111-99 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.
There were 2 NHL games played that night. The New York Rangers beat the Vancouver Canucks, 5-1 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. And the Atlanta Flames beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 5-2 at The Omni in Atlanta.
And there were 4 games played in the World Hockey Association:
* The New England Whalers beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 4-3 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena).
* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Birmingham Bulls, 4-2 at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center in Birmingham, Alabama.
* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Houston Aeros, 7-6 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.")
* And the Edmonton Oilers beat the Indianapolis Racers, 3-1 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.
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