Time Machine week 31

Happy Independence Day!  The musical Tardis is celebrating in 1979, where we find on July 3rd President Jimmy Carter signing a "presidential finding" authorizing funding for the mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan.  It seems the plan to draw the Soviets into their own "Vietnam", launched by Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski, was bearing fruit, and now it was time to give weapons to those same fun people who later gave us 9-11.

Wait a minute, you say?  You thought it was George W Bush that got us involved in Afghanistan?  Heh, that's what happens when you get your news from MSNBC.

Wow, that's amazing!  Weird, wild stuff.

This week, I have a very special Time Machine in store for you.  In place of the shuffle ten and this week's summer 100s, we'll have a special Fourth of July countdown.  In addition to losing the ST for a week, we'll also be saying-

-to the six degrees feature!  And we're gonna Turn Off The Light on the unknown song feature, and if that ain't enough, the top four of the Bottom's Up not only aren't debuts, but they have a combined 51 weeks on the chart!  Who lives?  Who dies?  Hop in and find out for whom the bell tolls... it might be ringing for you!!!!!!

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This week's panel includes KFI Burbank, KRUX Phoenix, WAVZ New Haven, CKLW Detroit, WHB Kansas City, WRKO Boston, KFRC San Francisco, WDRC Hartford, WCED DuBois, PA, WLS Chicago, WYSL Buffalo, and CHUM Toronto.  They collected 22 different tunes in their top fives and 6 #1s,  including ELO's Shine A Little Love (Phoenix) and Charlie Daniels' The Devil Went Down To Georgia (Kansas City)- which just rising up the charts at #67.

The panel list included 4 of the summer 100 (all of which are in the already-mentioned category), including three of the top four.

At number four, the national #9, which got #1s from Buffalo and Toronto and 20 points, Supertramp's The Logical Song.

At number three, the national #3 with 22 points and the #1s of Detroit and Chicago, Donna Summer's Hot Stuff.

At number two, the national #5 also with 22 points but three top dogs (New Haven, Boston, and DuBois), again with the Donna Summer, this time Bad Girls.

As usual I will hold the identity of the panel's #1 for later, but I would mention the geography of the number ones in the panel -each has #1s from the same geographical area.  And number one?  Does it continue the trend?  Quick detective work tells you it captured the number ones of two California cities...

...and Hartford.  And seeings as their geographic area tells us that they should have had Bad Girls at the top, they were one of the stations that didn't even give it a top five.  Just being difficult, I see.

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Our unknown song comes to us from New Haven, where they had at #5 a song that was at #84 that week on Cashbox and would reach a Billboard peak of #48 (though it made #2 R&B).  It may have been unknown to me, but it likely isn't to anyone who is familiar with the sensational voice of the late Teddy Pendergrass:

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Now, I had a little trouble this past weekend gathering my info for this post.  Saturday, Cashbox's website was going through one of their semi-annual "this account is suspended" periods they are so famous for.  So I went to Billboard for the Bottom's Up, and found that it was difficult to get a read on what exactly was a debut, because BB's archive doesn't list the "weeks on chart" at the time, but in total.  Thankfully, CB was paid in full by typing time, but the problem still remained- a full half of the BU crew were songs dropping from the chart after ten-plus weeks, including the top four!  In fact, they pushed one debut- The Cars with Let's Go- right out of the list!  So, without further ado-

-let's go Bottom's Up!

10- Dionne Warwick's I'll Never Love This Way Again, at 78 after 2 weeks.

9- Heaven Must Have Sent You by Bonnie Pointer claims this spot, at #80 also after 2 weeks.

8- The first of the Methuselahs of the BU comes next, sitting at 83 after 17 whopping weeks- one of my all-timers, England Dan and John Ford Coley's Love Is The Answer.

I remember reading somewhere an interview with Jim Seals of Seals and Crofts speaking about his brother, "England" Dan Seals, in which he said that if Dan and John would have had success first, then his act might have been named "England Jim and Dash Ford Crofts"!  Well, I always thought it was funny.

7- Patrick Hernandez' disco hit Born To Be Alive is next, sitting at 87 after four weeks.

6- Waylon Jennings (curiously just billed as "Waylon") is also in his fourth week, at #89 with Amanda.

5- Maureen McGovern claims the sole debut on the BU this week, with a song that was originally the theme to a TV show I watched all the time back in the day- Donna Pescow's "Angie".  The song is Different Worlds, and it sits at 90.

4- Here comes the over the hill gang, led off by another of my all-timers.  The Beach Boys sat at 92 in week #10 with Good Timin'.

3- Tipping the scales at 16 weeks, Barbara Mandrell with If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don't Want To Be Right) is at #94.

2- With a dozen weeks under its belt, Deeper Than The Night by Olivia Newton-John lies at 97.

And the top bottom, weighing in at 13 weeks:

...Nigel Olsson with A Little Bit Of Soap, hanging on for dear life at #99!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Yes, there is a July Fourth countdown coming up, but for now let me just share what it's going to be.  See, as I said CB had one of its semi-annual forgot to pay the bills moments this past week.  So I had to take advantage of the harder-to-deal-with Billboard archives.  Somehow or another that led me to this thought.  What if I did something with the #1s on the 4th of July?  And when the CB site came back, I thought, why not combine them?  So what you get is not just Cashbox, not just the Martin era, but a combination:  the number one songs on the 4th, with BB and CB total weeks at #1 combined, from 1960 to 1985!  16 such songs totalled 4 weeks or more- three of those without any help from one side or the other.  Stay tuned to see who they are!

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 And now, It's Goodbye Cruel World for the six degrees.  That song was one of two top tens in the early sixties for singer/actor James Darren, who also hit with Her Royal Majesty.

James concentrated more on the acting after his last top 40 hit, Mary's Little Lamb in 1962.  One of his acting spots was the 1978-9 season cliffhanger/premiere of Hawaii 5-0, in which he shared a duet with my top lady, Yvonne Elliman, on her AC hit from 1977, I Can't Get You Outa My Head.  Yvonne lent background vocals to many of Eric Clapton's hits in the seventies, including Lay Down Sally.  A co-writer on that song was guitarist George Terry, whose other credits including being part of the Bee Gees' studio band on lps like Spirits Having Flown.  Now, on Cashbox, had it been open at the time, the highest song that got no love from the panel would have been Kenny Rogers' She Believes In Me...but since it wasn't, a song that had already plummeted on CB (down to #30) was the lonesome loser on Billboard.  That song, from Spirits Having Flown, set several records for the brothers:

-9th #1 song in the decade;
-6 consecutive singles going to #1, a mark only the Beatles could match;
-3 consecutive #1s each from 2 consecutive albums, the only time that had ever been done;
-and put them 4th all time in both #1s and total weeks at #1.

The song?  Love You Inside Out.  Backwards and forwards, but not on the panel picks...

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Alright, here's the moment you've been waiting for (at least, maybe kinda sorta)!  The top sixteen #1s of the Fourth of July, by combined CB/BB weeks, from 1960-85!


15th (tie), 4 total weeks:

Jackson Five, The Love You Save, 1970
Wings, Silly Love Songs, 1976

10th (tie), 5 weeks:

Everybody's Somebody's Fool, Connie Francis, 1960
Quarter To Three, Gary US Bonds, 1961
I Can't Stop Loving You, Ray Charles, 1962
Ring My Bell, Anita Ward, 1979
Funkytown, Lipps, Inc., 1980

7th (tie), 6 weeks:

Windy, The Association, 1967
Love Will Keep Us Together, Captain and Tennille, 1975
Bette Davis Eyes, Kim Carnes, 1981

5th (tie), 7 weeks:

Sukiyaki, Kyu Sakamoto, 1963
Don't You Want Me, Human League, 1982

4th, 8 weeks, This Guy's In Love With You, Herb Alpert, 1968

3rd, 9 weeks, It's Too Late, Carole King, 1971

2nd, 12 weeks, Flashdance (What A Feeling), Irene Cara, 1983

And the tops of the charts this week?  Fourth of July chart says...

... Andy Gibb, Shadow Dancing, 13 weeks, 1977!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The other number ones included The Stripper, Mr. Tambourine Man, I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch), I Get Around, Paperback Writer, Strangers In The Night, In The Ghetto, Theme From Romeo And Juliet, Song Sung Blue, Give Me Love, Sundown, Afternoon Delight, Undercover Angel, Gonna Fly Now, Coming Up, The Reflex, Dancing In The Dark, Heaven, and Sussudio.

And survey says...

(where have I heard THIS before)... Anita Ward's Ring My Bell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Next week, all the proper parts will be back in place, and we'll be stopping off in... 1966!  Be there or be square!!!