Time Machine co-ordinates VIXLVII4814659

Today we return to Ye Olde Time Machine and go to April 6th, 1959.  Today, the film Gigi won 9 Academy Awards, including best original song- and that fact plays heavily into what we have going today!

" I bet he has a special feature planned for us..."

  Well, sorta, Louis Jordan!  But it's a bit more complicated than that- and it sproings (I meant to type "springs", but that works too) out of our 6D this week!  I got way too much to bring up to spend a lot of time on the teaser, so let's go!

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This week, I bring in Danny Flores, AKA Chuck Rio, the leader of the Champs!

How's it going?

Ey, is going, is going.  So whatta I'm doing here?

Well, you read off this list of songs that got #1 votes on various charts this week.

An' you come all the way back to 1959 to get me ta do THAT?

Si, senor.  Ready?

Ai, sure...

Okay, here's the list- 10 candidates from 24 stations...

Orale.. ey, how come Elvis Presley is on here twice?

"Because I'm the King..."

Ey, not the King of Chicanos, ese..

Please, do NOT start a fight with Elvis.  I'll end up paying for it.  He's on there twice because he had a two-sided single, and both sides charted at #1 for the week somewhere!


Ah, okay. So he had A Fool Such As Heem at #8 on Cashbox...

Um, maybe read them the way they're written...

Orale.  A Fool Such As I.  And the other side, I Needee Your Love Tonight*  was at Numero 16.

(*I hope God and you all will forgive me for my terrible fake Spanish accent stuff...)

Ey, was that about?

Never mind, you didn't hear that...

Oh, okay.  Next ees ... what the heck ees the Cheeldren's Marching Song?

You know- "This old man, he played one..."

Eef you say so.  This was by Cyril Stapleton, and he was at # 32.

Next, The Fleetwoods was at #2 with Come ESoftly To Me.

Dodie.. ey, wha kinda name ees Dodie?

I think it's a nickname.  Her real name was Geraldine...

Okay... ah, Dodie Stevens was # 6 with Peenk Shoelaces.

Frankie EFord was numero 21 with a Sea Cruise.

ESmoke Gets Een Your Eyes by the Platters was at #77... how'd that happen?

They were #1 on a the chart out of NSW, Australia, but were in their 20th week on the charts here and on the way down.

Crazy stuff, ese.  Travis and Bob were at #36 with Tell Him No.

Fabiano was at ... hmm? Oh, lo siento.  Fabian was at #27 with ETurn Me Loose.

And the last one ees Frankie Avalon with Venus.  Eet was at the tippy top!

Thanks, Danny!  So here's the gig:  Only three songs got more than one vote, so not a very close race this week.  So choose from the Fleetwoods, Elvis with A Fool Such As Heem, er, I, and Frankie Avalon.

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A lot of what comes next starts with the 6D, so let's do that now.  This story had a pair of "almosts" in it- the first one is how Jose Feliciano was ALMOST a guest guitarist on the Carpenters' #3 hit For All We Know.  He recorded an acoustic part that had to be replaced by an oboe when Feliciano's agent greedily pulled the plug.    That song was written by Jimmy Griffin and Rob Royer.  Griffin and Royer were founding members of Bread- but Griffin himself was replaced for the Lost Without Your Love reunion tour by one Dean Parks.  Parks was a longtime session hand who would later be guitarist for Randy Travis on his #1 cover of It's Just A Matter Of Time.  This song, originally written for and ALMOST recorded by Nat King Cole, ended up being sung by Brook Benton- and Benton had it at #3 this week, without any Panel Love.


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Two things before I link this into the bigger upcoming story- and the first has been a long time coming.  A cache of old Johnny Cash letters and poems were recently published by his son, John Carter Cash, under the title Johnny Cash- Forever Words.  Now, he has brought in an a-list of stars to put these poems to music, in an lp by the same name.  And one of them- the first single, in fact- makes the chart as my lone debut this week.  And the star who made it into a song is a lady I have wanted to get on the M10 for a long, long time.  At #6 this week, here is Roseanne Cash...





The second thing is, I decided to find out if the Martin Era 2.0 Cashbox charts had an "Iron Ceiling" like the one the M10 has had the last 4 weeks.  And the answer is yes- a couple of them.  I'm dividing this story up because the ME 2.0 covers half the '50s, and the way songs moved on the charts back then was WAY different.  The '50's iron ceiling record was EIGHT weeks- from Thanksgiving 1956 to my sister Jenny's 5th birthday in January 1957.  And the 3 songs were Jim Lowe's The Green Door- which spent 7 of those weeks at #3- Elvis's Love Me Tender, which spent the first of those weeks at the top; and Guy Mitchell's Singing The Blues, which rode the top for the other seven weeks.

Now, the '60's never broke 4 weeks- hitting 4 six times- but the '70s in the ME2.0 hit one set that spent 5 weeks as the iron ceiling.  All five of those weeks saw Three Dog Night at the top with Joy To The World, and 4 of the five saw Ocean's Put Your Hand In The Hand at #2, while the Jackson Five squeezed up one spot in the last week with Never Can Say Goodbye. 

Do WE still have an Iron Ceiling?  Wait and see...

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So the one part I left off of the 6D story was that, like the song Gigi, For All We Know won an Oscar for best original song!  So I did a little digging, and I'm gonna share PART of the story with you this week, and the rest next week.

I researched the list of winners in that category- the entire list, from 1934 to today, asking where did the most successful version of the song chart?  And it quickly divided itself into 4 categories, three of which I'll tell you about this time.

The first category was the 21-year span that came BEFORE the ME 2.0; then the ME 2.0; then the 11 years directly after the M10 cut off; and finally the 29 years since then.  Those first twenty-one years, every one of the songs charted; and 15 of the 21 were #1 hits, like White Christmas and Somewhere Over The Rainbow.  In fact, the first one not to hit #1 was 1941's The Last Time I Saw Paris- and it was the last time a song won that wasn't specifically written FOR a movie won- all because the writer complained he didn't deserve to win!  Kate Smith, BTW, took that particular song to #8.

Skipping over the ME 2.0 songs which we'll feature next week, the following eleven years I grouped together because all but TWO of them hit #1!  They were:

1977- You Light Up My Life
1980- Fame
1981- Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do)
1982- Up Where We Belong
1983- Flashdance (with Maniac from the same movie as runner up)
1984- I Just Called To Say I Love You
1985- Say You Say Me
1986- Take My Breath Away
and 1987- I Had The Time Of My Life

1978's winner was Last Dance, which crapped out at #3, and the 1979 winner that was not released as a single.

The final segment was a real reflection of both the descending quality of the songs and the changing of the music industry.  Of the 29 winners from 1988 on:

- Only 3 #1s, and 9 total top tens;
- 6 that charted but didn't hit the top 40, including 2 below-100s;
- and 10 that didn't chart at all!

So how did the ME group do?  Tune in next week...

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A blazing-fast Stat Pack:

I knew 20 this week.

The #59 in '59 was Johnny Nash with As Time Goes By.

At #100 we had Billy Grammer- the dude that did an early country hit that got carved into my memory from numerous wedding receptions of my childhood, Gotta Travel On- with a song called The Kissing Tree.  Gosh, I HOPE he was just kissing a girl under the tree, and not the tree itself...

And on the UK charts, the top was pianist Russ Conway with Side Saddle.

The honky-tonk style tune, composed and played by British popular music pianist Russ Conway, was written as part of the score for a television musical adaptation of Beauty and the Beast.[3][4] Conway, sitting in the TV rehearsal room, was asked to write a last-minute tune for one small scene set in a ballroom. He wrote 16 bars as an "olde-world gavotte" and hastily titled it "Side Saddle" in the margin.  (WIKI)

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And now, the M10...

Shilpa Ray hangs on by her teeth for an 8th week, pausing at #10 with Rockaway Blues.

The Cambodian Space Project moves up 1 to #9 with Summer Wine.

Tired from beating against the ceiling, Major Murphy tumbles 4 to #8 with No. 1.

The ceiling falls partway... Beach House slides to #5 with Lemon Glow.

A new Ceiling in the making?  Right after Roseanne's debut at #6, we have a pair of 2-notch movers:  Alvvays to 4 with Not My Baby, and Lucius to 3 with Eventually.

Holding at #2, Mikaela Davis' Little Bird.

And a second week at the top for...

Sunflower Bean and Twenty Two!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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And your winner this week, and their second tour of duty as POTM, but with a different song this time...

...The Fleetwoods and Come Softly To Me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Be back next week when we make it into the '60s!  Nuff Said!