Time Machine co-ordinates VILVIII49362971

Today as we sail into June 29th, 1971, we see a sad sight.  Soyuz 11 was a Soviet mission to the first space station, Salyut 1.  The whole Salyut 1 adventure had seemed cursed;  the first attempt to dock failed and that crew had to come home.  The second - this one- had its original crew scrubbed when one crew member showed signs of tuberculosis.  The back-up crew became the new crew, and they docked successfully- to find a cabin that smelled of electrical burning; a fire eventually broke out that pretty much cut short the trip.  Before they left, the would-have-been captain warned them to seal a certain valve manually, because he didn't trust the timer on the explosive bolts that would kick off the succession of events that would lead to a separation of descent module from service module.

When the capsule landed at Baikonur sometime after 7 PM our time (after 2 AM Moscow time on the 30th), they found the astronauts dead of asphyxiation- and the previous commander, Alexey Leonov, was eventually proven right.  The bolts, which were supposed to fire separately, fired simultaneously, causing one thing that led to another thing, and the seal that should have kept air pressure in the cabin failed.  They were dead within seconds- Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev.  Leonov later proved that the manual closing of the valve would have taken more than a minute- far more than the 20 seconds of life they had left when it failed.


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So let us leave that sad scene, and get back to earth and the music!  Tragedy comes but life wins out.  As a comic book philosopher once told a personification of death, "We have always defied you by living- TRULY living- under death's shadow."  So what say we go live!?

This week, we have two new songs- one by a returning favorite- on the M10, as well as two songs that dropped last week and move back UP this time around!  Plus, how many singers have to walk past a recording studio to make the 6D song?  A Panel winner that had as many votes as there were TOTAL contestants; the Beatles return for another POTM round; and an upcoming announcement of at least one of the many things prepared for that Anniversary Episode in just 7 weeks!  So let's shoot for the stars!

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First off, let me break tradition and give you this week's higher debut first, just because I am so excited for it!  Now this is from an lp that has spent a bit of time out there, and we had already had one hit from it.  However, I was lazy about getting around to checking the rest of the lp.  But, I have finally done so, and thus, from the lp Backlash, I give you the riotous return of... Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears!





Joe comes in at #8 this week!


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Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles!

Hello, boys!  Ready to do this?

J: Ready as we ever are, I suppose...

R: Except that we hit the buffet bar first this time!

Hope you stayed away from the sausage casserole- I hear there's something up with that.  Anyway, 21 songs from 57 stations- and our winner snagged 21 of those votes!

R:  Well, why don't you just bloody give it away?

G: Really, you should just leave this to the professionals...

P:  John, why don't you have a go first? 

J: Very well, wot, 5 tunes apiece?  Let me have the list...

All right, we have Black Night by Deep Purple.  Some station in Australia that really rocked!  You lot peaked it at #66 in December.

Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds- is that a banking firm?  They had Don't Pull Your Deposit at #9.

R:  John, I believe that says Don't Pull Your Love... do you need those granny glasses checked again?

J:  I KNOW what it says, idiot.  I just think it's ridiculous to name your band after four guys.  What if we called ourselves, Johnathon, Paul, Richard, and Beldevere?

G: Hey!

P:  Actually John, it was three guys...

J:  Fine, Johnathon, Richard and Paul...

G: Hey!

J: The next tune is Dave and Ansell Collins- good Lord, now it's two mates- At #55, and #44 at home, with Double Barrel.

Oh, and I like this one- Beginning Of The End with Funky Nassau at #16.

Finally- for me- Three Dog Night were at #21 here and #25 back home with Joy To The World.

G:  Wasn't that at #1 for several weeks?

J: Oh, who cares?

P: Panties in a bunch, John?

J: No... but my stomach's a bit queer... DON'T SAY IT, Ringo!

G:  All right, let's get back to it.  I have the Partridge Family with I'll Meet You Halfway at #6..

R:  You'll meet me at 3?  It's half past now...

G: At #7 are the Raiders with Indian Reservation.

Then it's -oh good heavens, it's you, Ringo!

R: Oh, good show, me!

G: You are at #3 with It Don't Come Easy...

J: A Badfinger song with his vocals... urrrp!  Uggh..

P: John, did you have the casserole?

J:  I'm... afraid so.  Excuse me please...

G:  AHEM.  Carole King was at #1 with It's Too Late.  

And my last one, Delaney and Bonnie and Never Ending Song Of Love at #50.

R: Is that the number that Sheri Lewis and Lambchop do at the end of their show for the wee ones?

G:  No, that's the Song That Doesn't End- and please, take the list and don't bother singin... oww!

R:  Georgie had some sausage as well!  Anyway, I start out with The Carpenters with Rainy Days And Mondays at #2...

G: OWWW!  

R: Really, you sound like you caught something from Yoko...

P:  DON'T get that started...

R:  Very well.  Some obscure band from LA calling themselves Red Eye had a song called Red Eye Blues at #1 in North Dakota, wherever that is.  At some point it peaked at #78, though our host never found out when.

P:  Nice job, lazy sod...

(George jumps up, runs for door, trips over chair, scrambles to his feet and runs off...)

R:  That will leave a mark...

P:  Somewhere...

R:  All right, then, we have the Laurenco Marques song of the week, South African Country and Western star Clive Bruce with a catchy little number called Sally Sunshine.

Then, it's Eighth Day with She's More Than Just A Woman at #12...

And my final song...

G:  Excuse me, Chris, do you have a change of trousers anywhere about?  I'm a 32 American...

Seriously?  Down past the buffet, turn right, jump down three stories, turn left at the fountain.

G:  Thank you...

P: Well, there's your mark, Ringo...

R:  AS I was saying, my final song is the Five Man Electrical Band- oh, John would have loved that one- with Signs at #41.  Paul?

P: Your turn to get sick?

R: No, I fancied the dessert table instead.  You?

P:  No, Linda makes me eat veggies and stay away from grease.  Anyway, I have the Undisputed Truth with Smiling Faces Sometimes at #91.  Ninety-one?

Then comes that bit from Andrew Lloyd Webber, Murray Head and the Trinidad Singers with Superstar at #27.

John Denver was at #44 with Take Me Home Country Roads.

The Dramatics were yet two weeks from debuting nationally here in the States with Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get.

We have James Taylor's You've Got A Friend at #17.

And some blessed station cast an invalid vote for Carole King's entire Tapestry album.

R:  On a singles chart?

Yep, they had a couple of lps in their top five singles.  Thanks my friends.  And... see that you collect your mates and clean up the mess- especially George's Trousers.

R: EWW!

P:  Don't you have a mate that does that sort for you?

No.  Nardole's still not speaking to me after I made him listen to Alfalfa a couple weeks ago.  So anyway, let me give you all a fighting chance here.  Choose from It's Too Late, Indian Reservation, Rainy Days and Mondays, I'll Meet You Halfway, and Joy To The World.


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So one member of the Panel picks this week- General Norman Johnson of the Chairmen Of The Board/Eighth Day was a co-writer of our 6D song.  It was originally going to be a song called Stick-Up (which itself would be reworked into a follow up), but Johnson didn't like how it was going, and when the studio engineer mused that someone should write a song about the section of the paper he was reading (wanna guess which one?) Johnson reworked the tune, lyrically and musically.  The first attempt by the Invictus records /Hot Wax records studio to record it was by a band called Glass House, whose leader was Freda Payne's sister Scherrie.  The General wasn't thrilled, and so Freda and Scherrie tried it together and again he wasn't happy.  Just then Edna Wright of a new girl group called the Honey Cone walked past, and the Paynes invited her to try.  This one was a winner- and now you know the engineer was reading the Want Ads, which was at #4 this time without Panel Love.


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Debut #2 is the first M10 for a new band (to me) called Wet:






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Kicking off the stat pack here's that announcement:  I will MC, but NOT host, the 500th Time Machine post!  Instead, the show will be hosted by two very familiar faces:

Elvis and Wayne!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!







You KNOW it's gonna be big now!





Anyway, I knew 37 tunes this week- I'm a bit disappointed in myself...


At #101 was our old pal Brian Hyland with a Leonard Cohen tune, So Long Marianne.  IMHO he didn't put a lot into it, and the charts bore it out- it stalled at #120 on Billboard.

Bob Dylan had the #71 in '71 with Watching The River Flow- written with and produced by Leon Russell.  It became the second straight Dylan single to miss Billboard's top 40 by one spot.  On Cashbox, it would top that by ten, stopping at #31.

The big mover was Davy Jones with Rainy Jane, leaping from 86 to 62 for 24 notches.  Ironically, after peaking at #32 for two weeks, he was knocked out of that spot by Watching The River Flow, which would hit its high mark the next week.

And the UK #1- one of my all time favorite Time Machine band discoveries, Middle Of The Road with Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep.


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The remainder of the M10:

The Derevs move up one notch twice- to #9 with It's A Derevolution Baby, and to #2 with Now You Know My Name.

Two of last week's droppers move back up- The nine-week, two time #1 Jeannie Becomes A Mom by Caroline Rose (which now moves into the 13th All-Time slot) from 8 to 7, and Phantogram's Saturday, which returns to whence it came, from 5 to 7 and back to 5.

Family Of The Year spends its 7th week on the chart at #6- down 2- with Let Her Go.

The Jayhawks nudge up a notch to #4 with Everybody Knows;  Shilpa ray gives a notch to #3 with Shoot This Dying Horse.

All of which means that the #1 is just more of the same...

...Caroline Rose, that is, with More Of The Same!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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And now our Panel pick:

If you took the Partridges or 3DN, congratulations!  Each one got you 3.5% of the vote!

If you took the Carpenters, well you got 5.3%...

And the Raiders?  Well, they netted you 15.8 %.

But if you wanted the winner- with a whopping 36.8 %.... you wanted...

...Carole King and It's Too Late!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Next week, 1972- and maybe another anniversary announcement!