Time Machine Week 32

It's September 7th, 1970.  Yesterday a group of Palestian terrorists hijacked a 747 in Amsterdam and had it fly first to Beirut, and then Cairo.  Once in Egypt about 4:30 AM local time, the terrorists evacuated the 173 passengers and crew and blew the plane up.

"The hijackers told us the plane would be blown up, but they said it so politely and with such smiles that we couldn't take this too seriously," Cornelius Van Aalst, the flight's service supervisor, tells reporters in Cairo, after the ordeal. The hijackers were very friendly," according to Van Aalst, showing "exemplary manners" and helping to carry an injured woman in a blanket from the plane.

Ironic in all this was an ad in the Beirut english-language Daily Star, distributed on the street even as the hijackers were refueling there:

 

 

Later that same day, the Chicago White Sox set a dubious record in a doubleheader against the Oakland A's.  In game 1, they used, in addition to the starting eight, 3 pinch hitters, one pinch runner, a backup catcher, and 5 pitchers.  In game two, in addition to the starting eight, they used 6 pinch hitters (2 of which went in at first base and another in right field), a pinch runner, a backup shortstop, and 7 pitchers.  This gave a record total of 41 players used in two games.  The payoff?  The A's raced off to 6-0 leads in both, Joe Rudi homered in both, and Oakland won 7-4 and 7-5.

 

 

Rudi:  "Yeah, bring 'em on, bring on yer whole team... oh, you did?"
 



 

Welcome to this week's Time Machine, where among the usual good stuff. we sprinkle in Bobby Womack, Sam Cooke, the World Classic Rockers (who?), and the man who shot Liberty Valence  beat up Phil Spector.  All this and a new top dog.  Before we get started, a couple of notes- one good, one not so much.

 

 

Joe South, known for Games People Play and Walk A Mile In My Shoes, died of a heart attack at home Wednesday at the age of 72.  Don't it make you want to go home, now, don't it make you want to go home...

And 50 years ago this week, the Four Seasons cleared in a single bound such acts as Tommy Roe, Little Eva, Elvis, Nat King Cole, Neil Sedaka, Ray Charles, and Sam Cooke with their very first hit, as Sherry leaps from #12 to #1 in just their 4th week on the charts!

The hot 100 has 15 new members this week, including:  Ray Price's For The Good Times ("Lay your head... upon my pillow...); The James Gang's Funk #49 ("Sleep all day, out all night, I know where you're going...") debuts at #89; Simon and Garfunkel's last hit before they break up, El Condor Pasa, comes in at #60; and Glen Campbell's cover of It's Only Make Believe comes in at #55.

The birthday gang kicks off with Toni Basil's Mickey and ABC's The Look Of Love turning 30.  Hitting 35 years old this week are Rita Coolidge's We're All Alone, Linda Ronstadt's cover of Blue Bayou; and the iconic song of the era, Styx's Come Sail Away.  Turning 40, but claiming it's only 29, is Helen Reddy's I Am Woman; turning 45, the Young Rascals' How Can I Be Sure, the Youngbloods' iconic song of their era, Get Together, and a song that's been going through my mind (for no good reason) ever since I mentioned the Walker Brothers yesterday, the Soul Survivors' Expressway To Your Heart.  Turning fifty is a song I mention for Laurie's sake, Jimmy Dean's Little Black Book.  And turning 55 is Johnny Mathis' double sided classic Chances Are/The Twelfth Of Never.  Blow out the candles...

As we shift to the big movers, going up is one of the two songs I mentioned for being pokey in its ascent last time.  Sugarloaf's Green Eyed Lady zips up 29 spots to #61 this week.  (The other, Christies' Yellow River, is still in a lower gear, climbing 6 to #77.)  The Big Dropper is a former Where Are They Now and a one-week-peeker at the top 40, Lost Generation's The Sly, The Slick, And The Wicked.  It drops 29 to #68.

Our oldies feature this week is George Olsen and his Music.   George started out as a Drum Major at the U. of Michigan, and after a tour of Broadway formed his own orchestra. They forged a career that stretched from 1925-34 and charted 49 top 40's, 35 top tens, and seven #1s.  These included Their biggest hit, 1933's The Last Round-up, and 1926's Who? Who? was part of an eleven song-streak in 1926-7 in which they charted 3 #1s, 3 #2s, 2 #3s, and 3 #5s.  Unlike many of the other bands of the era, no future big stars were members- except for a lead vocal on In The Market For You (#9, 1930) by none other than singer and budding actor Fred MacMurray.

One former member who went on to form his own band was Orville Knapp.  Orville's orchestra was just getting big in 1934-6 when Knapp, an avid pilot, stalled his plane out and crashed.  Knapp's widow asked Olsen to take over the band, and he held them together for a couple of years.  But the members weren't exactly happy having Orville replaced by an outsider, several members branched out on their own, and Olsen disbanded the group in 1938.

Our Where Are They Now feature at #50 is a song called Screaming Night Hog.  Since we're two years prior to Deliverance, you would figure aright that this must be a Steppenwolf song.  Now, Steppenwolf was an intricate part of the big Mynah Birds/Rick James/ CSNY/ Buffalo Springfield soap opera we told here January of last year.  The band itself was formed in 1963 from the ashes of Canadian group the Sparrows.  They lasted till 1972, then reformed 1974-6.  After that, a mosaic of bands played under the Steppenwolf banner (one of them played just a couple miles from my childhood home once), most of which had little or nothing to do with the real thing.  The peak of this mess came in 1978, when one such group which actually had some real members of the original group were brought under the management of one David Pesnell.  This grouping was in the works of making an actual album, to be produced by future convicted murderer and HOF producer Phil Spector.  But Spector and Pesnell didn't get along, and one night they actually got into a fistfight which landed Spector in the hospital for three days.  Police dropped charges once they found out that Spector instigated the bout (surprise!)

The band's name was finally brought under the control of founder John Kay, who either plays in or licenses out anything SW-related.  Kay still plays with the band occasionally, even after a "final gig" played back in 2007.  Drummer Jerry Edmonton co-controlled the name with Kay until his death in 1993.  Goldy McJohn, who was a feature in the aforementioned Mynah Birds story, lives and occasionally performs in West Seattle.  Rushton Moreve was fired from the band in 1968 when he refused to return to L.A. because his "old lady" convinced him that a huge earthquake would soon dump California into the sea.  He died, appropriately enough, in a motorcycle crash in 1981.  His replacement, Nick St. Nicholas (a former Sparrow- go read the story, already!) and fellow member Michael Monarch are members of the World Classic Rockers, an all-star band a-la Ringo Starr's All-Star Band.  Former members of the WCR include Spencer Dvais, Mark Lindsay, Donovan, and Denny Laine; other current and formers include Randall Hall (who spent time with Lynyrd Skynyrd), Anysley Dunbar (who was a drummer for Frank Zappa's Mothers, Journey, Jefferson Starship, and Whitesnake), Fran Cosmo (studio stand in for the late Brad Delp of Boston), Bobby Kimball (Toto), and Joey Molland (Badfinger).

Six new songs enter the top 40.  Up 3 spots to #38 is Dave Mason with Only You Know And I Know.  Leaping from63 to 37 is Hotlegs' novelty hit Neanderthal Man.  Remeber when Elvis was the WATN feature with the song The Next Step Is Love, only to have the flip-side, I've Lost You, pass it into the top 40?  Well, now it makes the 40 as well, up 7 to #36 (while I've Lost You moves up a notch this week to #18).  Melanie leaps 13 to 34 with Peace Will Come (According To Plan).  A 12 spot climb to 32 for Mike Nesmith's First National Band with the haunting Joanne.  And it's Susan Jacks and the Poppy Family climbing 17 to enter the 40 at #31 with That's Where I Went Wrong.

One song enters the top ten- and one song RE- enters the top ten.  Thus, two must fall,  Those two are Signed Sealed Delivered (I'm Yours), from 5 to 11, and If You Let Me Make Love To You, from 10 to 12.

The Carpenters re-enter the top ten at #10, up one, with (They Long To Be) Close To You.

Blood Sweat And Tears are up 5 to #9 with Hi-De-Ho.

Bread slides down from 4 to #8 with Make It With You.

25 Or 6 To 4 to #7, up 1, for 60601, er, Chicago.

CCR moves up from 9 to #6 with Lookin' Out My Back Door.

Diana Ross hasn't climbed high enough yet; Ain't No Mountain High Enough goes from 7 to #5.

Clarence Carter moves from 6 to #4 with Patches.

Which brings us to this week's six degrees.

Spill The Wine drops from the top spot to #3 for Eric Burden and War.  Instead of doing it the easy way through Burden, I decided to look at some of the other members.  Trouble is, most of the members either stayed in the War family or joined the splinter group Low Rider.  Lonnie Jordan, an all-purpose player, is the only founder still with the band itself; but even he had a side project with several of the Low Riders called The Other Side Of War.  They were supplimented by HOFer Bobby Womack in this venture.  Womack got his start when his brother and he formed a band called the Valentinoes, under the wing of Sam Cooke.  Their one big chance was with a country sounding song called It's All Over Now.  But DJ Murray the K played it for the Rolling Stones; and soon later, their cover had outstripped the original.  Womack's first reaction was, "Let Mick Jagger get his own song!"  But then he got his first royalty check; and once he had his eyes popped back in, he was quoted as saying, "Mick can have whatever he wants!"

Which got me wondering, just how much an act made off a 45.  I wasn't able to find an easy answer, because the process is quite complicated.  As far as I can figure, the going royalty rate now is 9.1¢ a song.  Then it gets broke down into "100 units" with 50 units to the songwriter and 50 to the publisher, who gets the expenses and what have you taken from ther side.  In addition, if the songwriter signs a co-publishing deal, he gets another 25 units out of the publisher's take.  Also, I found a tweet about the new economics of streaming music.  The tweeter says that iTunes pays around $.0033  a stream, and some other streamers pay as high as .0097 per.  However, another site claims that iTunes pays 10¢ per download to artist and 2.5 ¢ to the producer.  That would work out to $100K per million downloads.

Mungo Jerry moves up a notch to #2 with In The Summertime.

And that means the new #1 song isssssss.........

Edwin Starr with War!!!  Good God, y'all!


And that's another week in the can!  See you next time.