Time Machine week 32

This week we go back to the ho-hum normalcy on Ti... Hey, waitaminit!  We're going back to 1966!  The sixties, dude!  And today, Martin Luther King is in Chicago, addressing a crowd variously described at 35-45,000 at Soldier Field.  The message is a broadside against housing discrimination, and the pivot point was:

We must not wait for President Johnson to free us.  We must not wait for the Supreme Court and Congress to free us.  We must not wait for Mayor Daley to free us...'the battle am in our hands' ."

He then marched to city hall where he posted a list of demands to real estate agents, financial institutions, the Mayor and others, for the removal of discrimination in housing, hiring, and wages.

Meanwhile on Time Machine, the shuffle ten returns...and half of it are album cuts!  Also, the summer 100 returns, with those who had multiple hits on the countdown; the tightest race bar none in panel history; a nutty anomaly on the Cashbox countdown; a much younger Bottom's Up than Last week, and a six degrees that starts with...

DR. ROBOTNIK!!!

A sonic of a different sort there, eh?  Climb in the musical Tardis and let's go!

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This week's groovy panel features for the first time not one, but TWO hoosier stations!  WBOW from Terre Haute (trust me, it's in Indiana), and WJOB Hammond (an ironic name for a station in a city currently with 7.0 unemployment).  Also this week we have WNWC Arlington Heights/Chicago; WTRX Flint MI; KNUZ Houston; WOKY Milwaukee; KJR Seattle; Our old pals WSGN Birmingham; WAKR Akron OH; KYNO Fresno; WLOB Portland ME; and KFWB Los Angeles.  And they put on a show the likes of which the panel has never seen before!  Each of the top three had a number one from the last three stations I checked; and for the first time there was a flat footed tie for second, with 27 points and two number ones!  Their votes included one for the Cryan Shames with a really good forgotten tune, Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice- which was a week away from cracking the national chart at #121; and the first chart hit for the Grass Roots, Where Were You When I Needed You.

Another oddity in the panel songs was a song we had in a recent story, Younger Girl by the Hondells.  Despite only being at #38 on Cashbox (its peak, while on Billboard it stopped at #52), it was at #5 in Terre Haute... but in Milwaukee, it was another version, by the Critters (known for Mr. Dieingly Sad) was at #5!  The second version peaked this week at 21 on Cashbox, but only 42 on Billboard.  There wasn't a whole lot of difference in the two, which means two good tunes divided but did not conquer.

Oh, and the number ones that didn't make the panel four:  Tommy Roe's Sweet Pea was tops in Seattle, The Platters' I Love You 1,000 Times topped Birmingham, and The Cyrkle's Red Rubber Ball was capital in the rubber capital of the world, Akron.

So anyway, onto the panel's dogfight.

At #4, with the number one from Fresno, it's the nation's #2 song, the Beatles with Paperback Writer.

One half of the second place tie, with the #1s of Terre Haute and Portland, is the nation's #1, Tommy James and the Shondells with Hanky Panky.

The other half of the tie, with the number ones of Arlington Heights and Hammond, the Troggs with Wild Thing, the nation's #7.

And if you think that's an odd selection, wait till I let you in on the (just barely) number one song on the panel list, and I'm going to let you in on it JUST a little early....

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But first, I had a slew of good candidates for unknown songs, but the winner is the #3 in Terre Haute, which in true Indiana tradition had dropped off the chart nationally at #56 a week ago.  The band in question was called Dee Jay and the Runaways, from "Spirit Lake in the state's Northwest corner".  And the band prolly should have went with the spelling Dee, Jay, and the Runaways, as the "Dee" was drummer Denny Storey, and the "Jay" was bass player John Senn.  Senn was the one who put together a investor group to build a state of the art studio in the state (in Milford), and their one big hit wonder, childrens-story-themed single came from it:

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This was certainly a week for unusual songs, and something I noticed in researching the Bottom's Up sure fits the bill.  You see, four weeks ago, Johnny Cash entered the charts with a tune called Everybody Loves A Nut:

Everybody loves a nut
The whole world loves a weirdo
Brains are in a rut
But everybody loves a nut...

Along comes a dude named Leroy Pullins, a fella trying to sound like Roger Miller and whose only known biographical info comes from the liner of one of his two albums.  Anyway, he seemed to be replying on the chart to Johnny with his one hit wonder- I'm A Nut!


I'm A Nut, I'm A Nut
My life don't ever get in a rut
Woot-woot-woot-woot
The head on my shoulders is sorta loose
and I ain't got sense God gave a goose
and I ain't crazy -but- I'm a Nut...


Johnny sat at 70 this week, while Pullins was at 77.


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And while we're on the subject, let's go Bottom's Up!

10- Bob Dylan comes in here with I Want You, at 45 after 2 weeks.

9- The first of our three debuts comes from a band shortly to star in our summer 100 feature- the Rolling Stones, coming in at 46 with Mother's Little Helper.

8- Here comes irony- a song done by one guy on the shuffle ten shows up here by someone else!  I'll hold the info until we hit the shuffle, just to build up the suspense.

7- Bobby Hebb's Sunny is at 54 after 5 weeks.

6- Neil Diamond claims this spot, at 60 after 9 weeks with Solitary Man, in its first try at the top 40- but it wouldn't make it until it's re-release in 1970.

5- A song I fell in love with when I first heard it during my "One Hit Wonders' Next Hit" feature a while back, the Ides Of March with You Wouldn't Listen, at 61 after five weeks.

4- Manfred Mann's Pretty Flamingo sits at 68 after 2 weeks.

3- The Lettermen are at #82 after three weeks with Only Have Eyes For You.

2- Our second debut comes in at #71 this week- the Loving Spoonful with Summer In The City.

And the top bottom?

...The Happenings with See You In September, debuting at #88!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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So it's time to let you in on another dozen songs from the summer 100!  There were a lot of acts with multiple hits on the countdown, but none more than the Rolling Stones.  They were the kings of summer, with FIVE hits in the countdown!  They put Jumping Jack Flash at #48; Honky Tonk Women 35; Paint It, Black, at #26; Miss You at #11... and one more in the top ten!  The Beatles couldn't match this- they managed just A Hard Day's Night at #28 and Get Back at #76.  Elvis couldn't do it; his lone score was In The Ghetto at #80.  The Beach Boys, ditto; they landed I Get Around at 22.

Three other bands that we haven't yet gotten to hit twice each.  Three Dog Night hit with One at #74 and Shambala at #85.  The Rascals, Young or otherwise, hit with Groovin' at #29, and People Got To Be Free at #56.  And the third has one of their two hits at the panel's number one slot- and I bet you wouldn't guess who it is in a million years!  So here, with the early panel #1...

Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs with Lil' Red Riding Hood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week's panel #1 sits at 66 on the summer 100, while Wooly Bully lays at 99.

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And now, it's time to play a little Sonic the Hedgehog....

On the cartoon Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Dr. Robotnik was voiced by one Long John Baldry, who played in the 60's with a few great up and comers.  In 1965-6, he was in a band called Bluesology, along with a young piano player named Reginald Dwight.  Dwight wrote their hit UK single Let The Heartaches Begin, and went on to become famous as...

...yep, Elton John.  Before that, he was in a band called Steampacket, whose vocalist was a young Rod Stewart.  Another member of that band was a keyboardist who became famous as a jazz artist and session man named Brian Auger.  Brian lent the harpsichord to the Yardbird's track For Your Love.  It was a harpsichord, because after they called him in, they found that their recording studio didn't have a keyboard, a piano, anything for him to play- except an old harpsichord.

Anywho, the 'Birds had a manager named Simon Napier-Bell, who co-wrote the English lyrics to a song first featured at the San Remo music festival, a song that sat at #5 this week on the Cashbox chart but got no love from the panel- Dusty Springfield's You Don't Have To Say You Love Me.


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And now, the return of the shuffle ten!

One of my all timers at our 10 spot, Henry Gross's Shannon.  It was #6 in '76.

Jackson Browne places his second S10 at our 9 spot, after placing it at #13 in 1983- Lawyers In Love.

And now, the song that hit both the Bottom's Up and the shuffle ten, by different artists.  On the BU, Jack Jones hit the top 40, landing this week at 48 in its 6th week.  Here, Andy Williams recorded it on the lp of the same name in 1971.  That song, at our 8 spot, is The Impossible Dream (The Quest).

Our second of five album cuts comes from the cult classic Odyssey And Oracle by the Zombies from 1968.  The cut is called Beachwood Park, and lands in the 7 spot.





Jethro Tull hits their second S10 from 1971s Aqualung.  The tune, a compliment to the title cut, was Cross-Eyed Mary, and lands at our 6 spot.

Laughing in the playground -- gets no kicks from little boys:
would rather make it with a letching grey.
Or maybe her attention is drawn by Aqualung,
who watches through the railings as they play.


A "letching gray", BTW is British for "dirty old man".  Personally, I'm among those that thought it said the little boys would rather make it with electric trains.  Learn something new every day.


Neil Young hits his fourth S10 with the hit Old Man from 1972, which made it to #31 here but was top five in Canada.  And so it is here, landing in spot 5.

Paul Revere and the Raiders' 1966 hit Good Thing is next.  #4 then, #4 now.

Alan Parsons Project's great 1980 lp The Turn Of A Friendly Card leads off with an instrumental called The Gold Bug.  It buzzes into the #3 slot, giving them 3 S10s.

Bob Dylan has now been in the Shuffle Ten twice, and both times from his 1981 CC album Shot Of Love.  This week, the title cut- which made #38 on the mainstream rock chart- is our runner up.

And with the panel number one already taken care of, that brings us to our Shuffle number one, and the S10's first appearance for Flogging Molly!  From 2004:






Well, that oughtta get yer blood up!  Next week, the second to last summer 100 post (in other words, everyone that's left except the top ten), and we travel to... 1962!