One single was a stopgap between two albums for one artist, and another was the elusive chart-topper a band would finally achieve after several hit singles. Both were released in the summer of 1976, a year that would bring a few significant changes in both careers.
The first single is Elton John’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” which didn’t appear on any of his albums (though it was intended for the Blue Moves album), and was a duet with singer Kiki Dee. The song was written by John and Bernie Taupin, under the pseudonyms, “Ann Orson” and “Carle Blanche” (which was a pun on the expression “a horse and cart, blanche”). “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” was John’s sixth number one single in America, but was his first in the UK, and had truly lived on in pop culture, with moments including John performing the song on the Muppet Show in 1977, and again with RuPaul in 1992.
About a month later, another notable number one hit came from Chicago. The song was “If You Leave Me Now,” and it appear on the band’s album, Chicago X (the one with the cover of a chocolate bar bearing the band’s logo). Written by Peter Cetera and produced by James William Guercio, the song would become significant for the band, as it would become their first number one single in both the US and UK, going platinum in winning three Grammys. Like John’s hit, “If You Leave Me Now” has also lived on in pop culture, appearing in movies including Three Kings and Happy Feet.
Perhaps the common link between John’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” and Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now,” is the fact they were not only chart-toppers, but it was during a time when both acts were in the middle of a run of consecutive number one albums, that both began in 1972, and with each their fifth album. And for both, 1976 would be the year that run would end, when John’s album Blue Moves, and Chicago’s X both peaked at number three, thus breaking both consecutive runs at five albums each.
