Time Machine week 79

Okay, here's the situation:  I am going to be making several short stops here on June 24, 1969, because of a little incident that happened Tuesday night.  You see, Hurricane Scrappy was going full tilt through the living room, in his most adrenalized "Hulk smash" mode.  He decided to jump up on the couch, and that the best available path there was skull first through my chin.  Didn't faze him in the least- it was ten minutes later he figured out I wasn't playing with him anymore- but I ended up with a mild concussion that has left me less than mentally cognizant ever since.  I missed Wednesday and made it through about 3 hours of Thursday before throwing in the towel.  Thus, I am going to do this here thing the "low-impact" way in hopes I might still get a decent report out of this.

However, I am not the worst off this day, as a Dominicana airlines DC-4 cargo plane made a spectacular and fatal crash landing down the middle of 36th Street in Miami today.

The four man crew and six on the ground, including the two teenage sons of the owner of what may have been this auto shop were killed.  And another boy killed there was the cause of a court case in which the jury awarded the family $1.8 million.  It was fought on appeal on the grounds that a "disinterested witness" testified that Lloyd's of London (who insured Dominicana) had already paid claims on damaged cars at a nearby car lot- and that testimony was somehow prejudicial and should have caused a mistrial.  REALLY?


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Hopefully, though, I won't crash us on this week's Time Machine trip, the centerpiece of which is FOUR debuts on the M10!  I have just a buttload of new songs in my feed- including a couple from the blogosphere that might be trying to sneak in later down the road- and there's no way that there isn't going to be a high turnover in the lower rungs, while this week's #s 1 and 2 prepare to carve up Summer 2016 between them!  And here with that first debut at #10 this week , is the third single from the Jayhawks' Paging Mr Proust lp:






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And the final segment before I make landing number one, I believe, will be the intro of our lovely Panel of the week:  WFIL Philadelphia, WIFE Indy, WLCY Tampa, KXOL Ft Worth, KISN Vancouver, WA, KYNO Fresno, CKLW Detroit, WCFL Chicago, WHBQ Memphis, WPOP Hartford, WCOL Columbus, and KDWB Minneapolis.  They racked up 21 different songs, including an amazing 8 songs that garnered double figure points this week- thus I'll be giving you the very first Panel Eight!And even those ten missed two of the #1 votes- the Buchanan Brothers with Medicine Man (Memphis) and Elvis' In The Ghetto (Tampa, and the national #1)!  The low charter this week, if I did this right, was Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline, which was stopping in at #55 at this point.  Just to contrapose against last week- when half of 32 songs were #41 or below, this week had just 4 out of 21 outside the top 40.


And with that, the Panel, er, Eight...

At #8, with no #1s and 11 points, the Beatles and Get Back, which was #4 on the big board this week.
At #7, also with 11 points but including the #1 from Fresno, Desmond Dekker and The Israelites, which was #9 on Cashbox this week.
At #6, with 16 points and the #1s of Hartford, Columbus, and Vancouver, Zager and Evans' In The Year 2525, the national #35.
At # 5, 4, and 3, a three way tie for 17 points and a single #1:
- CCR's Bad Moon Rising, the national #3. (#1 from Ft Worth)
-Three Dog Night and One, the national # 5. (Indianapolis)
- and Blood Sweat and tears with Spinning Wheel, the national # 8. (Detroit)

At #2, without a #1 vote, but 4 #2s, and 18 points, the national #7, Oliver and Good Morning Starshine.

And with three #1s and 24 points, the national runner-up... stay tuned.

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Okay, one quick 45-minute nap later, let's look at M10 debut #2.  This is the flip side of the "Property Brothers" Johnathan and Drew Scott's hit Hold On from earlier this year, and they ratchet up the fun at this week's #9 spot:





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Trying to find famous classical English men of music is like finding a needle in a haystack, since they are so overshadowed by the great German composers.  However, and I'll blame it on the concussion, my eyes were drawn to a certain name- one Dr. William Crotch.  Crotch was a virtuoso almost from birth, and an excellent composer of hymns, critic, and artist.  His theory on music split it into three categories- the sublime ("Simplicity and its opposite, intricacy, when on a large scale (for example a large chorus)" is what he saw here, as in his beloved church hymns), the beautiful ("Softness, smoothness, delicacy... symmetry... simple harmony..." one would think he would put Pet Sounds here), and the ornamental ("...the result of roughness, playful intricacy... eccentric and difficult melody, rapid, broken, or varied rhythm...wild and unexpected modulation"; for example, Tangerine).  He had one quote, which I blew a lot of brain cells getting to, that I really think says it all:


Music has been called the Language of Nature; but it is a very imperfect language- it is all adjectives and no substantives...

William Crotch, 1775-1847

And now, let us adjure to the adjectives and...

10- Smoky Robinson and the Miracles hit the top 20 here about 4 years before with Tracks Of My Tears.

9- And it was back in March CCR peaked in the US of A with Proud Mary.

8- I hadn't really heard this one before, but it was #85 this week here on its way to #63- the Beach Boys and Break Away.  Funny thing is, the Boys charted higher on the UK chart with EVERY single they did on both sides from Sloop John B in '66 till Rock'N'Roll Music ten years later.

7- Thunderclap Newman's one big hit, Something In The Air, would chart at only #37 in November here, but become a cult classic, while hitting the top in the UK.

6- A song I can empathize with today- Tommy Roe's Dizzy, which had been #1 here in March.

5- The #1 song in the US of A this week- In The Ghetto by Elvis.

4- Last month, Booker T and the MGs took their instrumental Time Is Tight to #8 here.

3- Here's a case of "Well named, sir"- Jethro Tull's Living In The Past, which would not cross the ocean until June of 1973, four years later.

2- The Edwin Hawkins Singers were already on the way down, sitting at #29 after a successful top ten tour with Oh Happy Day.


And Tops of the Pops?

The Beatles with The Ballad Of John and Yoko (John's first attempt at an "aw, poor me" song), which was at #12 in the States this week, and got only a #3 from Vancouver from the Panel.


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Time to get ready for another break in typing, but first here is the debut at # 8 from a brand-new LA band called the Pom Poms:





(Note to Shady:  The girl to vote for here is named Marlene Gold.)

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1985 was at the beginning of my "country phase", and so the list of songs that were nominated for Song of the Year at the 1986 Grammys were big hits on my Country10 at the time.  Song of the Year is a writers' award, and the songs that earned their writers recognition included three #1s on the Billboard country chart:  The Judds' Love Is Alive, Alabama's 40-Hour Week (which became a Bud commercial as I recall), and one of my all-timers, Roseanne Cash's I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me (which she and Rodney Crowell wrote after Seven Year Ache didn't win).  Also on the list was Mel McDaniel's Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On and a cut from the Highwayman lp by Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson, Desperadoes Waiting For A Train.  That song had a deep meaning for me and led me to buy the album, which was highlighted by the title cut, which hit #1 and won the grammy for writer Jimmy Webb.  Webb had also won this award, on the pop side, back in '68 for a song taken to near the top by the 5th Dimension, Up, Up, and Away.  Their version hit #7 in '67- while another made it to #71 the next year.  That version was by South African instrumentalist Hugh Masekela, who had hit #1 with his original version of Grazing In The Grass.  It was the Friends Of Distinction who would write words to that tune and take it again into the top ten- and this week it sits at #10 on Cashbox, the highest song without a Panel vote.


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And now, the M10!

You've heard 10, 9, and 8- the debut at #7 is the just-released debut from the Monkees new lp Good Times!  The second single from this great album:




This video is even COOLER than the last!  The ending segment was the best!

In a week that might have had as many as five or six debuts, the band Whitney manages to hang on, improving its position to #6, up a pair, with Golden Days.

Dami Im becomes a victim of the numbers game, slipping a spot to #5 with Sound Of Silence.

Krewella takes that spot, moving up one to #4 with Surrender The Throne.

The first single from Good Times! falls a notch to #3- the Monkees and She Makes Me Laugh.

The battle at #1 is one of the hardest choices I have ever made, but case/lang/veirs and Honey And Smoke get held off one more week, moving up a spot to #2.

And at #1?  M10 says:

Tangerine with You'll Always Be Lonely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Last week it became one of six M10 songs to spend three or more weeks at #1... this week, it becomes one of 3 to spend a fourth week.  And, becomes the tenth song to top the 50-point mark!

And, the Panel Pick?

...Henry Mancini with the Love Theme From Romeo and Juliet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


So one #1 Dr Crotch would term "ornamental"... and one he'd prolly put in the "sublime" category!  Next week, we'll go to the beautiful year of... 1976!  Be there!