Time Machine co-ordinates VIXIV4418470

It's the early morning of August 4th, 1970, and we find the Doors' Jim Morrison peacefully sleeping-  on the front porch of an elderly lady named Elenor Brough.  After trying to wake him up with no luck, she called the police to dispose of the unconscious Lizard King.  Imagine this happening in this day and age- not so much the "Morrison wouldn't be able to get away from Paparazzi" angle, but think of the wicked selfies Elenor could have taken....

"An' all the money I'd have had to pay to get them destroyed.  Whew!"

And with that, we move merrily on to this week's Time Machine- a week in which the Panel battle was a two-song game of "anything you can do, I can do better", with almost 63% of the vote split between them!  Also getting from the Supremes to Stevie Wonder- through the Stones and Peter Frampton!  And a bit about the difference between a Billboard chart and a Cashbox chart!  And, a cameo by Wayne Newton! Get yer mojo risin' and let's go!


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This is one of those rare occasions that a currently charting single on today's Billboard charts actually makes the M10!  The Killers have nine top 10 alternative songs, and this week they sit at #7 with a song that comes onto the M10 at #10...







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This week's 70-station Panel started out with a five-song dogfight that quickly turned into a two-song classic that was decided by virtually the last two votes!  So let's get this started with our POTMs, Denny Zager and Rick Evans!  Thanks for stopping in, guys.

Denny:  Delighted.
Rick: Thank you, Chris.

Now I read that you guys got your start in the musical wasteland that is Nebraska...

Rick:  "Wasteland"'s a bit unfair...
Denny:  Really?  It's 47 years later and all we have is 311, Mannheim Steamroller, and Randy Meisner.
Rick:  Well, Randy was with the Eagles...
Denny:  Randy got FIRED from the Eagles...

How about I just apologize for my... er, unfortunate turn of phrase and let you guys do the Panel Picks.

Denny:  Not a problem.  Our first contestant is Mashmakhan, with their hit As The Years Go By, which actually is a couple weeks away from getting national notation.

Rick:  Next is Freda Payne's Band Of Gold, which was #5 on Cashbox this week.

Denny: An odd choice from one station- or multiples, I guess, because you really shouldn't know it only got the one vote yet- is a song by the Youngbloods called Darkness Darkness.  It peaked at #87 for 2 weeks in May, so this goes in Chris's "Didn't get the memo" category.

Rick:  Mungo Jerry was at #10 nationally with In The Summertime.

Denny: Jeez, who did the alphabetizing here?  You've got the Carpenters with Close To You here between the Is and the Ls!
Rick:  Well, it does start with the subtitle "They Long To Be..."
Denny:  So instead of 3 places wrong one way, it would be five wrong in the other direction!
Rick:  I was just trying to help...
Denny:  ANYway, that song by either title or any other misspelling you want to bring in, sits at Cashbox's #1 spot.

Rick: Robin McNamara was at # 8 with Lay A Little Loving On Me.

Denny:  Bread was at #2 with Make It With You.

Rick: Three Dog Night gets on the Panel picks this week, too!  They were at #11 with Mama Told Me (Not To Come).

Denny:  Clarence Carter was at #27 with Patches.  I always liked Strokin' better.
Rick:  Denny, that song is nasty!
Denny:  Oh, don't be a sissy.  Take yer turn.

Rick:(Grumbles) Eric Burdon and War were at mmmbl mmbl mutter...
Denny:  I can't HEAR you...
Rick:  I SAID ERIC Burdon and War were at #4 with Spill The Wine.  I am NOT a sissy!
Denny: Oh, grow up.  Chicago was at #22 with 25 or 6 to 4.

Rick:  And Edwin Starr was at # 9 with War.

Wow, great job, guys!  So now let me thin the herd a bit As I said, at the very start, five songs were going at it pretty good, until two of them broke away.  So that five were by Mungo Jerry, the Carpenters, Bread, Edwin Starr, and War.  In other words, 5 of the 7 CB top 10s.  So make your pick, and if you are nice, I might even narrow it down to the Big Two after while.


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So if you were paying attention at all, you might just have said to yourself, "I'll bet last week's clue...

...might have been referring to the Carpenters..."

And you would be right- they were in that 15th-place tie in our countdown of the top acts of Summer!  Following them at #14 was another "one song wonder" in our countdown:

...Bill Haley and his Comets!  Say, is that second-lowest dude Eddie Haskell?   Maybe not.  Anyhow...

Starting this from the fifties as I did, there are a lot of old time acts like that one that hung in the top ten for a loooong time before dropping back.  And one of them, the one at #13, is the highest female soloist...

...Connie Francis!!!!  Next, an act that added old hits to a later comeback to make #12....

...Paul Anka!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And rounding out the list for this week... with just two more times left to go- at #11....

...another act that combined older and newer to make the list, the Bee Gees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next week- or actually in two weeks- we start the top ten, and one of the acts is in amongst the Panel Picks this week!

Two weeks, you say?  Yes, because next week is the Mighty Martin Vacation 2017 and all yer gonna get is an M10 update... if I get to it!


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And speaking of the M10, here is a debut at #9, the second M10 hit for Amber Bain, AKA The Japanese House...







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So coming up in the StatPack at the #101 this week is a tune by Vanity Fare (Early In The Morning, Hitching A Ride) called (I Remember) Summer Morning.  It peaked later on at #61 on CB- but only at #98 on Billboard.  Why the discrepancy?

Well, in researching this, I found a LOT of comments by former record store owners who said CB reflected their sales a LOT more accurately than the Billboard charts, who would climb songs slower and then drop them precipitously.  This was because for most of their ME competition, CB weighed especially the top end on sales, while BB was a bit more airplay heavy.

One famous example of that discrepancy was the Beatles I Saw Here Standing There.  BB charted it at #14- while CB had it at #100 -yes, one hundred- for one lousy week.  The source that pointed that out (and I confirmed) also added, " Now you may be tempted to say that it had something to do with the fact that it was a B side, but the problem there is that all of the other B sides of the period, and all of the other Beatles B sides, charted fairly similarly on Billboard and Cashbox. This discrepancy sticks out like a sore thumb."

There are others- like the Spinners and Dionne Warwick on Then Came You.  It hit number one on both charts- but three weeks apart, and it was #43 on CB when BB put it at the top.

But the biggest difference came in December 1992, and it involves our good buddy, Wayne Newton.  Come on in Wayne...

YEAH!  Back again!

The story goes that on a concert series in Vegas, a depressed Elvis Presley wrote some lines down in a letter, which he threw away.  People being what they are, and Elvis being Elvis, somebody fished the letter out of the trash, and eventually it got shown to Wayne, who turned it into a song called The Letter.





On Cashbox- which in the 90's was in deep disarray- it hit #1 and spent 30 weeks on the chart, with a subscript of "curb album cut", whatever that means.  But nowhere on any BB chart- nor anyone else's chart anywhere- did this song appear.  Speculations as to how this could happen are a dime a dozen, but whatever it was, it was the greatest chart discrepancy between the two ever.

NOTE:  I just jumped back in time to let you know that you're choices are between the #1 song by the Carpenters and the #2 song from Bread.  Okay, see you in as little bit!


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6D time, and we start out with the song Ain't No Mountain High Enough.  This was done twice by Diana Ross- once as a duet between the Supremes and the Temptations, and once as her first solo hit.  Among the chorus singers- and there were quite a few- on this second cover were Brenda Evans and Billie Calvin, two ladies who would later make up 2/3 of The Undisputed Truth.  They had the big hit with Smiling Faces Sometimes- which would have been a Temps hit, except they recorded it sung by Eddie Kendricks, who would walk out mid-show before it could be released, and they had nobody who could do Eddie's part on tour.  In fact, they lost Eddie right after Just My Imagination hit the top.  And that tune in turn was covered by the Rolling Stones on Some Girls in 1978.  The year before, with the band in flux over legal problems involving Keith, Mick added vocals to Peter Frampton's cover of Signed Sealed Delivered, an old Stevie Wonder hit that was not only Stevie's first Grammy nomination, not only the first single with his female backup group featuring future wife Syreeta Wright, not only the first single he produced himself- but, at #3 this week in 1970, our 6D victim.

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Stat Pack part two:  The Dells, best known for their two versions, 10 years apart, of their doo-wop hit O What A Nite, were our #70 in '70 with Long Lonely Nights.  The UK #1  was Elvis with The Wonder Of You, and Mungo Jerry had the biggest hit simultaneously on both sides, with In The Summertime being #10 here and #6 there.

Oh, and I'm up to 52 songs I knew on the hot 100.


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Finishing the M10:

Amber Coffman at #8, up one, with No Coffee.

Northern Faces climb 3 to #7 with Cops Come.

Bantug up 2 to #6 with Wine Beeline.

Two songs arrest their fall and move back up.  courtship. does it with Sunroof going back to #5, and Quiet Hollers returns to #3 with Funny Ways.

Public Access TV will need that trick next week, as Monaco slips to #4.

Moving into the runner-up spot is Cotton Mather with Girl With A Blue Guitar.

And at the top for a second week:

...Foster The People with Sit Next To Me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The last two weeks 1 year ago a song that I had told myself, "Either this goes nowhere or straight to the top," was at #1- Agnes Obel's Familiar.  Foster The People, of whom I said much the same about initially, repeats that trick these last two weeks.


Oh, I completely forgot to let you know the Big Two, didn't I?  Let me go back in time and fix that.  There, all better.  Who did you pick?  The winner is....

The Carpenters!!!! that means that, in two weeks, I'll have Karen Carpenter on Time Machine!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I am tres excited!  Tune in next week for a quick M10 update, and be here in two for 1971!