Time Machine co-ordinates VIXXIII45110656

We move today to October 6th, 1956.  "Today in 1956, Dr. Albert B. Sabin announced that his live-attenuated oral polio vaccine was ready for mass testing. The announcement came during a time when polio epidemics ravaged cities worldwide. Ultimately, a successful Sabin vaccine was used to eradicate polio throughout the world." (from the Sabin Vaccine website)

Welcome to this week's Time Machine, where I glean one more week of minutiae on the lp #1s before the big reveal; a feature this week brought up by one otherwise throwaway comment; and the domination of this week's UK chart by that boy from Michigan (?).  And we go on a "Chart-along with Mitch!"  Off like a (polio) shot we go...


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First thing's first:  I wanted to do a little chat about these charts I so love to play with, vis-a-vis the recent death of Tom Petty.  Now, my all time favorite- and the song from which I took the lyrics at the end of my eulogy- is from his very first lp, the song American Girl.  It was released at the time, and didn't chart... later on, after he and the Heartbreakers were a household name, they re-released it and it bubbled under at #109.

And yet... go on Spotify, and see his most played tracks.  American Girl is tops, leading Mary Jane's Last Dance by not quite a million plays, and 10 million ahead of any other of his songs. But, the "charts" couldn't register it.  It is a very subjective game we play here, my friends.

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That said, let's bring in this week's POTM, Mitch Miller!  Ready to do this, Mitch?

Well, you know, I don't know if I can handle this.

Dude, we had EIGHT stations.  There are FOUR candidates.  What can't you handle?

Well, most of it isn't really my kind of music.  I'm not a big fan of... well, that rock and roll stuff.

Yeah, I read a quote by you where you said,   "Rock 'n' roll is musical baby food: it is the worship of mediocrity, brought about by a passion for conformity."  I'm sure there are tons of rock fans who might think that applies more to you than to them.

But, MY style of music is about nuance, about style.  It is more than just making noise on a guitar, or a...a drum...

And one of your more popular songs was a crib of This Old Man, correct?

SLAM


Sigh, well, that's another one that worked out so well.  Anyway, like I said, four songs, four chances to get this one .  And one song got the only more than ones out of this!  So was the big winner:

 Hugo Winterhalter and Canadian Sunset, the #2 song this week;
Elvis and Don't Be Cruel, the top dog;
Jim Lowe and The Green Door, at #9;
or Bill Doggett and Honky Tonk at #3?


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So, Bobby G  mentioned last week that Lucinda Williams's tumble from #1 to #4 was kinda big of a drop.  So I decided to look into the statistics of the thing.  In the Martin Era 2.0, the most common occurrence was a drop to #2, not surprisingly.  In fact, the ME2.0 50's period saw it be a drop to #2 over 70% of the time.  That number slowly started to widen as the years went on, though.  It wasn't until Sonny James and Young Love dropped to #6 in 1957 that anyone dropped that far;  it would only match that 3 times over the next 6 years.

Like every other subject in music, the Beatles changed everything.  Can't Buy Me Love became the first to drop all the way to #7.  And while that remained an aberration for a while, the years 1964-66 saw a dramatic shift; drops to #2 only happened 37% of the time, while drops to #3 were at 35%, and even drops to #4 were at 16%.  Then things smoothed out again, but the drops to #2 escaped the sixties with only a 53% occurrence.

The change of decade skewed things again- drops to #3 led 37%-27% from 1969-71.  And again, things settled for a bit- until 1974, when Helen Reddy's Leave Me Alone became the second #1 to drop all the way to #8.  It got worse than that later, but for now, let me close the first part of this story by telling you what the overall was.  From the years of the ME2.0, the average place dropped to by a #1 song were-

#2, 44.4%; #3, 24.6; #4, 15.5;  #5, 8.9; #6, 3.9; #7, 1.5; #8, 0.7; #9 (yes, there were some that dropped that far), 0.3;  #10 (egads!), 0.1.  Later on, I'll give you the biggest dropping songs, along with how the M10 stacks up.


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Speaking of the M10, the week's lone debut comes from The Japanese House, at #10...






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So this week's first category of #1 lp trivia is those that were live lps.  There were 14 ME2.0 Live lp #1s, and the first man to score one- in fact, he scored the first two-

-was Bob Newhart, with his comedy lps The Button-Down Mind Of Bob Newhart, and The Button Down Mind Strikes Back.  Also here were the Allan Sherman comedy discs My Son The Folk Singer, My Son The Nut, and My Son The Celebrity.  Music wise the first was Judy Garland's Judy At Carnegie Hall; then we get more Rock-Era-ish with:

Recorded Live, The Twelve Year Old Genius by Little Stevie Wonder
The Beach Boys Concert, which was the first and only official live disc from the original line up before Brian stepped away from the live act
At San Quentin by Johnny Cash
4-Way Street by Crosby Stills Nash and Young
The big Elvis comeback lp, Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite
Frampton Comes Alive!
Wings Over America
and Barry Manilow Live.

Now, the last subject I thought I might take on definitely includes the Little Stevie Wonder lp- dumbest names for a record.  I give Stevie a second nod here with the most long winded title devised purely for its alliterative value, Fulfillingness's First Finale.
Others I take note of (or shots at) are:

Cat Stevens, Catch Bull At Four.  It has some deep far east religious significance, but to an unwashed American savage, it sounds like he's getting off work and he's gonna get chewed by his wife when he gets home.

Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only The Piano Player from Elton John.  One wonders if he was wearing the duck suit at the time.

Goat's Head Soup, the Rolling Stones.  I think they put that big picture of pissed-off Billy Preston in the gatefold just so you wouldn't laugh.

Planet Waves, Bob Dylan.  Can't decide whether this is an astronomical phenomenon I'm unfamiliar with, or a workout club for surfer dudes.

Captain Fantastic And The Brown-Dirt Cowboy, also Elton John.  I could prolly also through in Honky Chateau here too, but why overload?

And let's wrap it up with Songs I Sang On The Jackie Gleason Show by Frank Fontaine, who would have also been one of two acts I never heard of until I learned he was Crazy Guggenheim.  Now that list is just left with Johnny Maddox, who had the second #1 of the ME2.0 with Crazy Otto.


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So our six degrees vic this week were the sister duo of (real names here) Patience and Prudence with Tonight You Belong To Me at #4.

This was an oldie but goodie and charted several times when first composed- Franklin Baur took it to #5 and Irving Kaufman to #11 in 1926, Gene Austin (one of the first crooners) to #1 and jazz dude Roger Wolfe Kahn to #11 in 1927.


After P&P got it to #4 in '56, it got another flurry of life, with the Lennon Sisters and Lawrence Welk (in their only official record team-up) taking it to #15, and Karen Chandler and Johnny Wakely (one of the last singing cowboys) to #49 later in the year.  Finally, Dottie West (of duets with Kenny Rogers fame) took it to 30 on the country charts in 1977.

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Meanwhile over in the UK, Anne Shelton was on top with Lay Down Your Arms, which almost got banned for being anti-war while the British were knickers-deep in the Suez Crisis.  The highest song making appearances on both sides was Doris Day's Whatever Will Be (Que Sera Sera), which was #2 there and #7 here.  But the biggest oddity I saw was that Bill Haley and his Comets were at #5 with Rockin' Thru The Rye.
And at #12 with Rock Around The Clock.
And tied for 13th with Razzle Dazzle.
And at #16 with The Saints Rock 'N' Roll.
AND at #20 with See Ya Later Alligator!

So to re-assess: BH&C had 14 top 30's in the US of A.  They had 5 in the UK THIS WEEK.

Yeah, let's see the Beatles do... they WHAT?  Uh, never mind...

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So before we go to the M10, how did it stack up statistically?  Well, drops to #2 dominate here as well, just not as much.  30.5% for a drop to #2; #3, 25.4; #4 was actually higher than 3, 27.1; #5, 8.5; #6, 6.8; and the lone #9 (Strawberry Runners' When We Were Good), 1.7.


So who dropped the furthest on Cashbox?

Four dropped from #1 to #8- the aforementioned Leave Me Alone, plus Gary Puckett and the Union Gap and Lady Willpower, Freddy Fender's Before The Next Teardrop Falls, and BTO with You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet.

Two songs fell to #9- David Geddes' Run Joey Run and Harry Chapin's Cats In The Cradle.

And the only song to drop to #10...





Eddie never made it to the top on Billboard, and they had a much more savage list of biggest droppers, with Billy Preston's Nothing From Nothing and the Spinners/Dionne Warwick's Then Came You falling to FIFTEEN, and Barry White's Can't Get Enough Of Your Love Baby, Andy Kim's Rock Me Gently, Stevie Wonder's You Haven't Done Nothing, and BTO again dropping to #12.

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The rest of the M10:

Darius Rucker moves up a spot to #9 with Don't.

Dark Side Of The Gym is stuck again- this time at #8.  I listened to The National's lp, Sleep Well Beast, Wednesday night- a lot of mellow, slightly odd (and some more than slightly) songs that would be a great curl-up with sweetie by the fireplace music... but, using my favorite Tom Petty quote, "The A&R man says, I don't hear a single..."


Alvvays moves up 2 to #7 with Your Type, and down 3 to #5 with In Undertow.  Win some, lose some.

Two more down for Lucinda Williams and Six Blocks Away to #6.

Jana Kramer sneaks up one more spot to #4 with I've Done Love.

Ducktails swoops from #6 to 3 with Light A Candle.

Bet you weren't expecting this- Dent and Frankie slip to #2 with Across The Multiverse.

And the new #1 on the M10...

...Squeeze with Innocence In Paradise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the Panel?  C'mon, you hafta ask?

Elvis and Don't Be Cruel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next week, 1957!  Get yer Chevy ready!