Time Machine week 13

Today we land on February 20, 1968- a day that wasn't a big deal unless you were Brit director Anthony Asquith (you died), or a protester at Alcorn A&M (you got tear gassed by the cops), or a looter in Hue (Soldiers were given orders to shoot you on sight).  But one thing the world rejoiced to see was a list of 10 ways a man should treat his wife in public.  The list came from author and Presbyterian minister Dr Charlie W Shedd, and was published today in the Chicago Tribune.  Among his wise bon mots were...

1. When you enter the room, take her arm and come in smiling. If you look happy, she will, and God knows the world needs encouragement. (Willing to bet on THAT one?)

2. Walk proud! Act like you are thinking "How could I be so fortunate?" If you stick out your chest she will too. Most women look better that way.  I like a woman with her chest sticking out...

3. Say something nice when you introduce her. I mean about her. This is good practice and it lifts her spirits. If you make her feel good, you feel good also.   You really had to explain that?

4. When you sit down to dinner, hold her chair! Then pat her on the shoulder and smile. Keep smiling till she looks up. She'll soon catch on and it becomes a ritual. This is a very good thing.
She'll soon catch on to you're up to something, more like it...

5. When the conversation lags ask her a question! Be sure you choose one she can answer. Make it one of her favorite subjects and always wait for her reply. Never forget, smart people make others feel smart.  And of course, you ARE smarter than her...

6. Never, and I mean never, fuss over little points in her story. Who cares whether the roses were true pink or only a faded red? If she is all wrong, somebody else can set her straight. But not you.  Someone that's a bigger jackass than you can set her straight.

7. After dinner, if you get separated, look her up once in a while. Be sure she is pleasantly situated, Tell her you missed her and ask if she is all right.  Let's see.  Marlin, Marvin,..oh here, Martin!

8. When you are ready to go, hold her coat, take her arm, and open the car door for her! Not many men do and she knows. it. This makes her somebody special.  Might wanna put the coat ON her...

9. On the way home take her hand and tell her how proud you were to have her along. A very good procedure. It pays off later.  Depending on what you're hoping for tonight...

10. Sometime when you are with her mother alone, tell her how much you appreciate her daughter. No woman alive could keep this to herself, and nothing does more for your wife than a compliment coming in side- ways!   This sounds like the lead into a bad porn movie...

Welcome to Time Machine, the week the Troggs' Love Is All Around debuted on the charts.  This week, I have three unknown songs... and a story about one (or 2) that includes the Sons Of Liberty, the lead singer of the Archies, and the OTHER band called Eighth Day!  Also, another walloping victory for the panel's #1 pick, and the first ever three time act on the shuffle ten!  Pat your wife on the shoulder, smile, and climb on in!


Frankly, I'm still laughing at the list, so give me a moment to clear my eyes and I'll intro this week's panel.  We have longtime friend KQV Pittsburgh, WOR New York, WQXI Atlanta, KFRC San Fran, KOIL Omaha, KGB San Diego, WKY Oklahoma City, KXOK St Louis, old friend WKNR Detroit, WGEM Quincy IL, WKIZ Key West... and a little troublemaker called WCOL Columbus, Ohio.  And I'm going to get to them and the unknown songs first for reasons that will soon become apparent.  Not the least of which is that one of our unknown songs is at #1 on their chart!

That song, which is also a song that debuts on the Cashbox hot 100 this week, is by a duo by the handle of Gene and Debbie.  Gene was Gene Thomas(son), who had tried to chart on his own and never topped #50.  He became a writer then, until he met a young lady whose name was either Debbie Neville or Nevills (depending on the source) who was also looking for an in.  They had a hit with the single Playboy, which would eventually hit #17:






Though he stayed in the business for quite a while, he rarely surfaced, mostly when people covered his song Sometimes.  Debbie seems to have vanished from the sight of man after the single.

At this point, I'll fess up to another reason that I jumped to this one...the two songs that got #1 votes from the panel but didn't hit the final four were  Playboy by Gene and Debbie- and Judy In Disguise by John Fred and the Playboy Band!

Well, now that THAT cat is out of the bag... let's see how the top four came out...

Dionne Warwick's Valley Of The Dolls Theme (which also tried to sneak into the shuffle ten) comes in 4th, with 15 points but no #1 votes.

1910 Fruitgum Company's bubblegum hit Simon Says got 15 points and the #1 from Key West to finish third.

Otis Redding's posthumous hit Dock Of The Bay gathered 23 points- some 24 behind the leader- and the #1 from, not surprisingly, San Francisco.

And at #1... geez, you KNOW you have to wait on that!


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And now- the next installment of the Great Nineties Countdown!  This week, we're at 25-21.

25- The Passengers (U2, Brian Eno, Luciano Pavarotti), Miss Sarajevo, 1995.  This benefit for the victims of the Yugoslav Civil War, absolutely the most haunting song you'll ever hear, was never released in this country, though it got AOR airplay.


Is there a time to run for cover
A time for kiss and tell
Is there a time for different colours
Different names you find it hard to spell
Is there a time for first communion
A time for East 17
Is there a time to turn to Mecca
Is there a time to be a beauty queen

Here she comes... surreal in her crown...

24- Duncan Sheik, Barely Breathing, 1997. It hit #16 on the pop charts.


'Cause I am barely breathing
And I can't find the air
Don't know who I'm kidding
Imagining you care

And I could stand here waiting
A fool for another day
I don't suppose it's worth the price
It's worth the price, the price
That I would pay...

But I'm thinking it over anyway
I'm thinking it over anyway...

23- B52s, Roam, 1990.  One of the best all around party songs ever- next to Love Shack, Baby!  It was #3 on the hot 100s.

Take it hip to hip rock it through the wilderness
Around the world the trip begins with a kiss...

22- Follow You Down, Gin Blossoms, 1996.  I told you these guys would be back... and they will be back again.  It hit top ten on all three charts, including #9 pop.

How you gonna ever find your place

Running in an artificial pace

Are they gonna find us lying face down in the sand

So what the hell now, we've already been forever damned...

21- Good, Better Than Ezra, 1995.  This was my theme song through the end of the century, and helped me through my divorce.  #30 pop, #1 Alternative.

Sitting around the house, 

watching the sun trace shadows on the floor.

Searching for signs of life, but there's nobody home.

Well, maybe I'll call 

or write you a letter.

Now, maybe we'll see on the Fourth of July.

But I'm not too sure, and I'm not too proud.

Well, I'm not too sure and I'm not too proud to say...

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The other unknown song comes in at #5 on the Columbus chart, and it's by a band called Eighth Day.  Now we ran into Eighth Day a while back- another name for the band 100 Proof Aged In Soul, so they could have two singles climb the chart at the same time.  But that isn't the band in question.  No, this band was not a soul band at all, but started out as a folk group from Ohio called- believe it or not- the Sons Of Liberty.  The SOLs were basically that, until they heard of a guy that knew a guy, and one thing led to another, and the guy set up a trip to New York and an audition for the boys with Gene Allen (who wrote Bobby Vinton's Mr Lonely) and Ron Dante (the all-purpose man otherwise known as the Archies and the Cuff Links, and later Barry Manilow's producer).  Singing their original songs, they wowed the pair.  The next step was the adding of two female singers by the producers, and the guy who knew the guy knew two girls from the same area that would work perfectly.  Marketing them as competition for the Mamas and the Papas, they got their names changed to Eighth Day and began work on an album.

Thing was, as often happened back then, the producers didn't especially care for them to do their original stuff- they wanted them to record Ron Dante songs.  One of them was the song that became the hit- which I could not find- called Hey, Boy.  Another was one of the ones the band thought would be a hit, called Brandy (Doesn't Live In This Town Anymore).

You can here more of their music (and it is worth it) on the Eighth Day Home Page (it plays in the background of the page).  Anyway, they got about halfway through the recording when three of the four Sons said, this is bogus and went home.  The girls (who later told a SOL that "We never made a dime") and the remaining SOL were then joined by another band who would become Eighth Day, originally called Opus 4.  Opus 4's claim to fame was Rob Parissi, whom you know best as the dude that sang Play That Funky Music for Wild Cherry.  But things didn't go well.  The O4 treated the girls like crap, Dante hated Parissi's voice, and the remaining five songs Dante ended up singing lead himself.

The remaining SOLs were SOL for a while, but finally managed to record a single, called Love Babe.  It did well in some regional markets, but with no idea how to distribute, it "kind of died off."  In the meantime, the owner of the record company Eighth Day was signed to  (Kapp Records), sold out to MCA when the lp was released, but MCA basically plundering equipment and didn't bother to promote the act.  So no one got nowhere, a lot of good music got wasted, and MCA looks like a bunch of real idiots.  Here are the SOL, without the girls, and their "hit".  And thank you to the combined authors of the above referenced page for all that info!






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Next, the six degrees, and they start at the Hotel California.

Don Felder is the Eagle who composed the melody line to Hotel.  One of Don's first bands was also one of Stephen Stills' first bands- an outfit called the Continentals.  (geez, the Continentals, the Sons Of Liberty, you'd think this was a July 4th post!)  Now Stephen, in addition to being both a solo artist and a member of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, also did some session work, and one notable example of that was on Bill Withers' classic Ain't No Sunshine.  Much of the rest of Bill's band on that tune was Booker T and the MGs, with Booker T doing the production work.  Now everyone knows that Bill repeated the phrase "I know" some 26 times on that song... but that's not a record, because the song that gets the six degrees spot, for having no votes from the panel despite being at #5 this week on CB, repeated the word "no" 31 times- not once, but twice!  And that would be the Human Beinz with Nobody But Me!


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A quick perusal of the You Peaked archives (non- top tens that hit their highest this week) shows us the Faces' Itchycoo Park at 13, the Strawberry Alarm Clock's Tomorrow at 14, To Give (The Reason I Live) by Frankie Valli at 21, and Henson Cargill's Skip A Rope at 22.

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And this week's shuffle top ten:

Stone Temple Pilots make their second trip into the ten, with a song called Big Empty.  It only made #50 pop in 1994, but was top ten both MSR and Alternative.

At the other end of the spectrum, the family that was the inspiration for the Partridges, the Cowsills, score a #9 slot with their number two from my kindergarten year (AKA 1967), The Rain, The Park, And Other Things (AKA I Love The Flower Girl).

I was amazed to see that Elvis hadn't entered the building- until now.  His 1970 top ten The Wonder Of You comes in at #8.

Another surprise to me was that Glen Campbell hadn't graced the shuffle ten until now.  Gentle On My Mind was released twice, and people were screwed in the head both times.  In '67, it made the country charts at 30, but only 62 pop.  The next year, it made the pop top forty at 39, but only got to 44 country.  Here, it gets a well-deserved # 7 spot.


Asia's hit The Smile Has Left Your Eyes comes in at #6 this week.  It was 34 pop/25 MSR (and played like a top ten around here) back in 1983.

Toad The Wet Sprocket was just on the Great 90s Countdown last week at #28 with the song Good Intentions.  This week, they get the #5 slot on the shuffle ten.

What was Huey Lewis' follow up to the News' first big hit, Do You Believe In Love?  If you said Heart And Soul, take one giant step backwards!  They hit #36 pop with one of my favorite chorus sing-a-longs in 1982, Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do.  And this week, they are at #4 on the shuffle ten.

Roseanne Cash returns to the ten with the first song of hers I knew, Seven Year Ache.  It hit #1 country in 1981, kicking off a 5 top ten/3 number one run on the country charts, which was followed one song later by a 7 number one/9 top ten run.  It made #22 pop, and comes in this week at #3.

And the Steve Miller Band, who took Fly Like An Eagle to #3 in week one and The Joker to #9 in week seven, become the first act with three songs in the shuffle ten.  This week, they place Jungle Love, their 1977 #23, in at the runner-up slot.


And at #1- Survey Says....

Paul Mauriat with Love Is Blue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It collected 8 number one votes, plus the Cashbox title!

And, shuffle says....

Men At Work, with It's A Mistake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This early 80's cold war tune was the last of their string of American top 40s, peaking at #6 in 1983.


And that's a wrap!