Time Machine week 50

Welcome to a very irritating (to me) Time Machine.  What makes a Time Machine post irritating to its "labor of love" author?  Let me tease the ways.

-One hot hundred debut worth mentioning- and it has debuted before, and will debut again;

-a six degrees that never gets past the first degree;

-three biggest movers and 2 biggest dropper;

-four birthday songs;

-one of the slowest moving songs ever to hit the top 40 (you thought Yellow River was bad...);

-and 60% of the top ten DOES NOT MOVE!

Oh, and the opening teaser?  The most notable thing I found about January 11th, 1971, was that the NEXT day, the first sound of a toilet flushing  was heard on TV.  Remember what show that was on?  Answer coming later.  (Gotta have SOMETHING to keep you here!)  So climb in, and... no really, climb aboard... please?

First off, let's deal with the debut that wouldn't die.  If Cashbox had been up and functional this time last year, we would have seen the original entry into the countdown of Superstar, the theme from Jesus Christ Superstar, performed by Murray Head and the Trinidad Singers.  It spent 7 weeks attempting to climb the charts, giving up at #67.  This week it starts its second attempt at #99, and in March, it will give up a second time at #50.  In about 9 weeks it will begin a third climb that will finally bring it into the top 40.  So while Jesus was dead three days before resurrection, JCS will be resurrected twice, making three journeys before reaching the light of day.

That said, and noting that it was one of only 4 hot hundred debuts on the week, we move onto the birthday songs.  In 1983, Cashbox took the first two weeks of the year off, so we'll likely have a mess of birthday songs next week.  In 1978, we follow up a no debut week with a 6-debut week, the most noteworthy of which turning 35 were Natalie Cole's Our Love and Dave Mason's Let It Go, Let It Flow ( which was most noteworthy for being the title cut from the lp that brought us We Just Disagree).  At least turning forty are a couple of classics- the O'Jays' Love Train and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's Lucky Man.  And turning 45 is the Cascades' Rhythm Of The Rain.  Blow out the candles...

As our debuts dwindle, our big movers multiply like rabbits.  Going up, twelve notches apiece, to claim the big climber spots, are Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band with (seriously)  Solution For Pollution, at #66; Emitt Rhodes, a one-hit wonder who is actually back in the studio trying for #2 as we speak, with Fresh As A Daisy at #69; and one you've actually heard of, The Osmonds' One Bad Apple at #77.

"We've got to pitch in.... to clean up America..."

The big droppers both fell 20 places- Flaming Ember's recent top 40 I'm Not My Brother's Keeper, and Andy Kim's Be My Baby.

At #50, our Where Are They Now is one of the great American groups, Grand Funk Railroad with Mean Mistreater.  The original band started with Mark Farner and two fellows who had connections to ? and the Mysterians, Don Brewer and Mel Schacher.  Craig Frost was added just as the band came into national prominence, but it was short lived.  A hard fight to rid themselves of their producer contributed to their first breakup in 1976.  Farner went into a solo career, while the others for a short while formed a new band named after their hometown of Flint.  From 1981-3 they reunited without Frost, who went on to become a longtime member of Bob Seger's Silver Bullet Band.  After they split again, Farner went on to some success in contemporary Christian music, while Brewer would go on to the Silver Bullet Band as well, replacing Dave Teegarden (of Teegarden and Van Winkle fame).  In 1996-8 they reunited again, and play together from time to time.  Farner actually continues to tour with his band N'rG, while Brewer and Schacher with help from former .38 Special-er Max Carl and former Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick continue to tour as Grand Funk Railroad.  Frost continues whenever Seger tours with the SBB, and Brewer joined them on tours in 2006-7 and 2011.  Farner had to have a pacemaker installed in October 2012.

 

 

One thing that actually went right on this is that we had a decent crop of top 40 debuts.  Eric Burden and War came in at 40, up 9, with They Can't Take Away Our Music.  At 37, up 7, is Runt, AKA Todd Rundgren, with We Gotta Get You A Woman.  Little Sister, who earlier hit with You're The One, move up 7 to 36 with Somebody's Watching You.  Up a big 9 spots is Dave Edmunds, at long last, with I Hear You Knocking.

And then there's the debut at #39.  It debuted in the hot 100 eleven weeks ago at 95, stayed there the next week, and then began an old, slow soft-shoe up the charts- 7 spots, then 5, then 6 three weeks in a row.  Then all of the sudden it looked like it was finally going to hang onto the bullet, jumping 10, and then 11.  Last week it again slowed, moving up 3 to 41, and this week it climbs two spots to #39.  Who is this?  Mr. Bojangles by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.  (Should have caught that from my lyric clue- "the old soft-shoe".)

Our lookback is one of the great ladies of music who became one of the great ladies of TV- Dinah Shore.  She was born Frances Rose Shore, and had to choose between developing her musical talents and her degree in sociology from Vanderbilt. She did auditions all over New York, usually doing a popular song called Dinah- and a DJ who forgot her name called her "the Dinah girl", and the name stuck.  Despite being turned down in auditions by Benny Goodman and both Dorsey brothers, she managed to hook onto a radio show, singing with Frank Sinatra.  That got her noticed by Xavier Cugat, and she sang with his band for a while.  That opened the door to a 1940-60 career that boasted 4 #1s and 30 top tens.  Her home life stabilized by a 19-year marriage (1943-62) to western star George Montgomery, she racked up a streak in 1946-7 in which she hit the top ten 9 times, including the #1s Gypsy and The Anniversary Song.

She began doing variety and music shows through the sixties, and she had two long running shows in the 70s- Dinah's Place (1970-4) and Dinah! (1974-80).  She became almost as famous for a long relationship with Burt Reynolds.  Her biggest hits were 1944's I'll Walk Alone (from the movie Follow The Boys) and 1948's Buttons And Bows.  Ironically, her last charting single was I Ain't Down Yet- which hit #103 in 1960.

Burt and "the Dinah girl".

Two songs enter the top ten, two drop out.  Falling are Tears Of A Clown (7 to 17) and No Matter What (9 to 32).

Bluesman King Floyd moves up a pair to #10 with Groove Me.

Van Morrison also climbs two to #9 with Domino.

Led Zep rises two as well with Immigrant Song, to #8.

The Partridge Family arrests their fall this week, climbing back up a notch to #7 with I Think I Love You.

My intended six degrees victim was the first of six straight songs that hold their place from last week, the Supremes.2 with Stoned Love.  While couldn't find a good link up to anything, I did learn some very interesting things about the song itself.  It was supposed to be Stone Love, and represented the kind of solid love that would be needed to keep two people together (or end the Vietnam War, which was the songwriter's original intention).  That songwriter was a teenager named Kenny Thomas, who had participated in a talent search on CKLW.  Motown producer Frank Wilson went to his house, and Kenny played the song to him on a guitar with only two strings.  They then played it for Supreme Mary Wilson, and with a little arrainging they recorded a demo.  Of course, Berry Gordy pitched one of his famous bitches that he didn't like it, but they got the song recorded.  At this point some idiot at the record factory enters the picture, putting Stoned Love instead of Stone Love on the label.  Which of course got it instant popularity in the counterculture and problems with radio stations playing it because it was "a coded reference to drugs".  But quality rises to the top, and here we are in the top ten.

Now I wanna tell ya--of a great love--ohh
It will light up
It will surely light up--darkened worlds
If you just believe...

Stoned Love, Mmm..
Oh yeah
A love for each other will bring fighting to an end
Forgiving one another
Time after time doubt creeps in
But like the sun lights up the sky with a message from above
Oh yeah, I find no other greater symbol of love--

Yep, sounds like a drug song to me.

With everybody holding their places from here on, I'll just remind you:  Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is by Chicago at 5, Santana's Black Magic Woman at 4, The 5Ds with One Less Bell To Answer at 3, Dawn's Knock Three Times at #2, and with a fourth week at #1...

George Harrison with My Sweet Lord!!!

And the show that had TV's first toilet flush?

Of course, Archie Bunker on All In The Family!  See you next week!