Time Machine week 22

And today the musical Tardis lands in May 1st, 1964, where the height of excitement was in Dartmouth, where two programmers ran the very first program in BASIC.  If you are a computer geek, this is big news.  Me, I took FORTRAN in college instead, and got a D.  (Retook it the next year and passed by cheating- and the teacher being on maternity leave.)  Also, 1,000 students protested in front of the Soviet mission to the UN because of the ban on making matzoh balls.  (Well, there were other things too, so it was a good deal more serious than that.  But hey, the article I found in the New Republic played it for the cheap laugh too, so don't sue me...)

Welcome to this week in 1964 on Time Machine- which I thought would mean another Beatle-centric post.  Well, there WERE four different Beatles tunes on the panel's 25 songs, and 11 on the Cashbox hot 100, there ended up only one in the panel's top four- and that top four is the tightest race in our history, with FIVE songs within 6 points of each other!  Also, an Andy Griffith Show six degrees, two of the most unknown unknown songs we've ever featured, and a whopping seven songs get #1 votes!  And, I'll add a video to one of the best songs to hit the shuffle ten- and two acts get their fourth hit in the ten!  Grab your yarmulke and let's go!


First of all, let us intro the panelists this week.  In addition to semi-regulars WKNR Detroit, WLS Chicago, WAVZ New Haven, and KTKT Tuscon, we have WILS Lansing, WMCA New York, KIMN Denver, KLIV San Jose, WOMP (could there be better call letters?) Bellaire OH (right on the WV line), WRAW Reading, KJR Seattle, and WHB Kansas City.  I mentioned that they managed to net us a big number of songs- 25- as well as seven #1s, including The Beatles' Love Me Do (which just missed the top 4 by a point and had #1s in Detroit and Seattle) and Can't Buy Me Love (Kansas City), as well as a song titled My Girl Sloopy by the Vibrations, which is the same song as Hang On Sloopy, just done by an R&B outfit- and got the #1 from Bellaire.  And the panel's top four:

With 18 points and the #1s of San Jose and Reading, our six degrees guest last week, Louis Armstrong with Hello Dolly!  He was at #2 nationally.

With 22 points and the #1 vote from Lansing, Mary Wells with My Guy, the Cashbox top dog.

Also with 22 points, and the #1s of New York and New Haven, the Beatles with Do You Want To Know A Secret, the #3 nationally.

And at #1 with 23 points... stay tuned....


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Two of the 25 songs on the panel chart never charted nationally on the main chart.  One of them was a single that got local attention in Detroit by a young black man with a white band named Gino Washington.  He was at WKNR's #2 spot with  Gino Is A Coward.  Apparently he was part of a large group of young soul singers in the Motor City, but outside of this and another record, never made a blip on the radio.  The other act did have some chart action, but this was not one of them.  They were a duo called Bob and Earl- and originally the Bob was Bobby Day, who later hit with Rockin' Robin.  He had left the duo long before, and by this time Earl (Nelson) found a new Bob (Relf).  They actually wrote and first recorded the tune Harlem Shuffle, which peaked out at #44 for them ( The Stones would take it into the top 5 22 years later).  This song is called Puppet On A String, and Bob and Earl were at #3 on the Tuscon chart with it:






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How about some Bottom's Up?

The songs I knew and loved, from the bottom of the chart up:

10- Chuck Berry, Nadine, Sinking at #45 in its tenth week.

9- Billy J Kramer, Little Children, up to #51 in week number 3.

8- The Four Seasons, Dawn (Go Away), the former top dog slipping to 53 in its 14th week.

7- The Beach Boys, Fun Fun Fun, dropping to 54 in its dozenth week.

6- Dionne Warwick, Walk On By, up to 56 in its third week.

5- The Beatles, PS I Love You (which was also the flip to Love Me Do), debuting at #57.

4- Barbara Streisand, People, which had taken a month to get to #67.  It would take two big steps to enter the top 40 the next two weeks.

3- The Beatles, Roll Over Beethoven, dropping after a short 7 weeks to 77.

2- The Dixie Cups, Chapel Of Love, debuting at #79.

And #1-

The King with Kissin' Cousins, which sat at 84 on its way out after an 11-week run!


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This week, the six degrees starts with- The Andy Griffith Show!

Cue the whistling!  Cue the whistling!

One of the frequent guests on the show were the string-picking Darling Family, which outside of sister Charlene and papa Briscoe, were an actual bluegrass band with several hit albums called the Dillards.  A session drummer who worked for them in the mid sixties, Dewey Martin was let go by the group but given a tip for a band who needed a drummer.  That band became Buffalo Springfield, and he was the last of the members to join and one of the last to leave.  Before that he spent a few months with the Standells when their drummer- and vocalist- Dick Dodd left.  By the way, Dick Dodd was a Mouseketeer when he was 9 years old- and while a member, bought a drum kit off Annette for $20 and had Cubby's dad teach him to play!  Anyway, the Standells, before the fame that came with their hit Dirty Water, were in a movie called Get Yourself A College Girl.  This movie starred eminent college girls Nancy Sinatra and Mary Ann Mobley, and also featured the Dave Clark Five doing a couple of their non-hit songs.  And it is the DC5 that are the six degrees victim, as their national #7, Glad All Over, got no love from the panel.  (However, their national #4 Bits And Pieces pulled in 9 points on 3 votes.)

Mary Ann (front), Nancy (right)

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And now- the shuffle ten!

The Vogues get their first trip to the ten- their #29 Land Of Milk And Honey (one of a group of non-lp singles that did fair to middling between their 1965 hit Five O'Clock World and 1968's Turn Around, Look At Me) from 1966 is at #10.

The Beach Boys nail down trip #4 with their number 7 classic from 1963, Surfer Girl at #9.

At #8 is one-hit wonder Mark Dinning with his 1960 chart topper, Teen Angel.

The follow-up single to Boston's top ten Don't Look Back comes in at #7- the #31 from 1978, A Man I'll Never Be.

One of two country crossovers on this week's ten, Kenny Rogers gets his second solo in the ten at #6, the country chart topper (32 pop) from 1978, Love Or Something Like It.

The only good thing about the "office music" station that took over here at 103.9 is it taught me the song at our #5- Mark Cohn's 1991 #13, Walking In Memphis.

Now, Muriel plays piano
Every Friday at the Hollywood
And they brought me down to see her
And they asked me if I would
Do a little number
And I sang with all my might
She said, "Tell me are you a Christian, child?"
And I said, "Ma'am, I am tonight!"


Most of you here know the top ten hit for England Dan and John Ford Coley, Love Is The Answer.  Some of you might not know that this song was originally done by Todd Rundgren and Utopia, on their 1977 lp Oops, Wrong Planet.  Todd wasn't a big single promoter, and the song was released but didn't chart.  But it should have, and that is a great album.  Here though, it comes in at #4 to give Utopia their second shuffle ten hit.

At # 3 is simply one of the most gorgeous songs to ever make the shuffle ten.  An lp cut from 1969's Wheatfield Soul, here's the Guess Who with their fourth song in the ten.





One of my big shuffle ten surprises was that the song at #2 never charted on the big board.  From 1965, the Four Seasons with Connie-O.


And at #1?  Survey says...

Terry Stafford with Suspicion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Terry was at #6 on Cashbox this week.


And shuffle says:

Bocephus himself, Hank Williams, Jr, with Family Tradition!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It only managed to sneak up to 104 on the pop chart, but was a #4 country hit in 1979.


And that's a wrap!  See you next trip!