When Winter and his band were seen playing it on TV, he had a keyboard slung around his neck. It wasn’t even supposed to be included on the They Only Come Out at Night album - Winter figured it was a B-side at best - and was only added when the label realized there was space. The Edgar Winter Group had an unlikely AM and FM hit in 1972 with Frankenstein, which was loaded with synth, guitar and percussion fireworks. Rock stations also had their share of instrumental hits. How many people were chased from Top 40 AM radio to FM by incessant plays of The Entertainer (1973, adopted from Scott Joplin’s ragtime original in 1904) from The Sting soundtrack? Or Franks Mills’ saccharine-sweet Music Box Dancer (1974)? And the less said about Chuck Maginone’s once ubiquitous flugelhorn hit, Feels So Good (1978), the better. Things could get very light and fluffy (read: annoying), too. He’d have another massive hit with Cotton’s Theme (1973), better known as the title music for The Young and the Restless. When Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci captured the world’s attention at the Montreal Olympics, the piece was retitled Nadia’s Theme and became a top 10 hit in Canada and the U.S. The Theme from S.W.AT., released in November of the same year and credited to Rhythm Heritage but was actually the work of composer Barry De Vorzon.

The theme from The Rockford Files by Mike Post in May 1975. TV shows supplied many hit instrumentals. A few years later, Walter Murphy, now known as the composer of the themes for Family Guy and American Dad, scored by taking Beethoven’s Fifth and turning it into an early disco hit called A Fifth of Beethoven. In 973, Brazilian Eumir Deodato had a number three hit in Canada with his Fender Rhodes piano version of Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra (1886). Updates to classical compositions were quite the thing. Bandleader Tom Parker sped it up, gave it a beat, and brought in guitar bits supplied by Vic Flick, the guy who put the twang in the James Bond theme. Another early purchase for me was Apollo 100’s Joy (1971), a modern rendition of Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Man’s Desiring, the big hit of 1732. Once I started looking, I realized that the Top 40 charts were very friendly to instrumentals.

As long as you love me instrumental