I'm just going to leave this here...
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Today we go to May 17th, 1969- a day in which the world apparently took it easy after the worldwide celebrations of my 7th birthday (AKA nothing happened). And we are going to do things a bit differently (again), first off, by announcing that NEXT week's guests will be...
...yes, the Beatles, as Get Back dominated this week in a way that has never really been seen on a Panel poll before. They captured 62% of our vote for their hit (featuring Billy Preston), Get Back. Thus, you'll get to guess who came in second- a much tighter and harder race than that for 1st! Also, three new M10 debuts, another 6D on the fly, and whatever else I can find to shoehorn in here- and, yes, Bobby Goldsboro as our guest...
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First up, the debut at #10, which I've been trying to get on here for a couple of weeks. It is done by Canadian second-cousins Kacy Anderson and Clayton Linthicum, better known as Kacy and Clayton. From their 2017 lp The Siren's Song, here are Kacy and Clayton...
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Okay, we're here with Bobby Goldsboro...
Hi, thanks for having me...
Now Bobby, I have seen some of your future credits, and they are impressive... but music wise, you're not exactly everyone's cup of tea. I see you started out on the road to stardom playing guitar for the Big O...
Yes, early on before I got out on my own, I did tour with Roy Orbison...
But that road to stardom wasn't always smooth. Wiki lists the record for one artist peaking on the bubbling under chart as 14 for one act (Ray Charles), or under multiple names (Don Everly with one on his own and 13 with his brother, and the George Clinton Empire with 3 as Parliament, one as The Parliaments, 3 as Funkadelic, once as Brides of Funkenstein, twice as Bootsy's Rubber Band, once as William "Bootsy" Collins, and 3 under Clinton's own name)...
Where are we headed with this?
Well, Cashbox has you with 14 Bubbling Unders as well; Billboard gives you 11...
See, there you are. Eleven it is. But I was really close a couple of those times...
Yep, you had a 101 and a 102...
But now, compare that to my top 40s...
Well, how about that? Eleven there as well....
Really? Wait, though, that was the Cashbox chart, right?
No, Cashbox you had 10, plus one at #41.
Sigh, ups and downs, it is...
But, you did win the POTM, and thus get the high honor of doing this week's list of the second-placers behind Get Back's huge win... and you got it by winning a savage battle with Archie Bell...
"Yeah... and we ain't too happy about that..." |
A: Uh, three..
B: And how many Bubbling Unders?
A: Uh, three...
B: Oh ho ho ho ho....
Okay, so before we get all karma and symmetry here, how about you do the one hit wonders first, and then the rest can be in the final?
Fine! Let's see here... The actual #1 song this week, the Cowsills and Hair... The Hawaii 5-0 theme by the Ventures, at #11... CCR's Bad Moon Rising, just rising itself at #46... Peter Sarstedt's Where Do You Go My Lovely, a big hit in Australia which just fell off of CB last week after hitting #70... We Can't Go There by the Unchained Mynds at #96... Elvis's In The Ghetto at #24... and the flip side of Get Back, Don't Let Me Down, at #57.
Alright, so our finalists have a grand total of 18, to Get Back's 41 out of 66. But here they are, such as they are...
So you vote for second from...
Another Australian hit, Russel Morris with The Real Thing (which peaked here on Billboard at #107)...
Simon and Garfunkel's The Boxer at #4...
Mercy with Love (Can Make You Happy) at #5...
The Guess Who with These Eyes at #6...
Edwin Hawkins Singers and Oh Happy Day at #10...
...and Ray Stevens with Guitarzan at #9.
Thanks, Bobby, for being a good sport! There you have it. Which song gets beat 41-5 this week? Take your guesses, as you listen to the M10 debut at #9 this week- this is new from Moon Taxi...
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All right, time for the LIVE 6D!
Okay, so what does our 6D song have in common with Richard Harris's McArthur Park, B Bumble and the Stingers' Nut Rocker, the Rip Chords' Hey Little Cobra, the Ronettes' Be My Baby, Guantanamera by the Sandpipers, No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In) by the T-Bones, and even Nino Tempo and April Stevens' Deep Purple? How about the most prolific guitarist maybe of all time, the Wrecking Crew alumnus Tommy Tedesco! Yes, this virtuoso played on all these songs, as well as another song that was recorded in two cities- his part in LA, the vocals in Vegas. This is a song that came about because the lead singer of the act in question lost his wallet. Yes, lost his wallet; and it was found by a man involved in a new musical, to which the singer was invited. in fact the whole band was invited- a band that was being put together as the "Black Mamas and Papas", if you can believe that! The next day, their producer got a call in which the band was so excited they were talking over each other, basically all saying, "We HAVE to do this song!"
So the producer saw the show next, and devised a way to make it a hit, by combining the song they liked with a fragment of another song in the show. And when the leader of the group laid down the vocal for that second part- improvising the whole way- no less a songwriter than Jimmy Webb, just passing through that day, told the producer- Bones Howe- "My God, that's a number one record!" And he was right.
And to answer all of your questions: The leader who lost the wallet was Billy Davis, Jr. The show was, of course, Hair. And the #1 song- at #2 this week without a Panel vote- was Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In by the 5th Dimension.
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High Debut at #8- and the 398th M10 song- comes to us from the 2002 lp The Remote Part- this is Idlewild...
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That song peaked at #9 in the UK back then, which is as good a way as any to kick off our Stat Pack. I say that because on two different spots on their chart for this week, you have a song listed at a particular spot, up from another particular spot- followed by a different song at that SAME spot, with a different 'last week' position- followed by the FIRST song a second time, but with the same last week number. Confused? Here's the first example: it has our 6D song, Aquarius/Let The Sun Shine In, at #22, up from 25. Then, also at #22, it has a totally different song, up from 28. Then, that is followed at #23 by Aquarius again also up from 25. The same thing happens at 30-31, but then the pattern changes- at 36 and 47, they simply repeat the position number twice, skipping the next one and going on to the second following (36-36-38 and 47-47-49). So I declared the whole thing suspect and recorded nothing but the #1 song this week.
Which, of course, was Get Back.
At the #69 in '69 we had Dionne Warwick with The April Fools, an eventual (and just barely) top 40 from the Jack Lemmon movie of the same name.
At #101 we have a sighting of the Bob Seger System and Ivory. Not bad, but not on a level with fellows from the same lp Ramblin Gamblin Man and 2+2 is?
The big mover is a former M10 song- Dusty Springfield's The Windmills Of Your Mind, going from 75 to 47, 28 spots.
Our special debuts this week include Andy Kim's Baby I Love You at #86, Oliver's Good Morning Starshine at #78, and Jr Walker and the All-Stars with What Does It Take at #74.
And which song would I have had at the top that week, based on my known tastes back then and chart positions? I would say Love (Will Make You Happy). I've always loved that song, and how it made me feel back then.
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The remaining M10:
Well, I didn't listen- I kept around Maybird's Don't Keep Me Around, though the former #1 slips to #7 this week.
The two hot debuts from last week each climb 3 spots- Skindred's That's My Jam to #6, and King Leg's Seeing You Tonight to #5.
And the next pair move up one each- ELO's Long Black Road to #4, and Criminal Hygiene's Hardly News to #3.
I guess I will have to come up with one of my nicknames for the duo at the top- The Dig hold at #2 with Moonlight Baby...
And the top, for a second week-
...Tame Impala with Eventually !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, ready to see who came in second? If you took Russell Morris, Simon and Garfunkel, or Ray Stevens, congrats! You got 3% of the vote.
Edwin Hawkins netted you 4.5%...
The Guess Who logged in with 6%...
But our winner- well, winner of the worst whupping in TM history- with 7.5%...
....Mercy and Love (Can Make You Happy). Unfortunately, their cries for mercy went unheeded...
...so tune in next week for the REAL Beatles- and since I hired Horace Bellbottom* to work for me...
... I think we can guarantee they'll be here to help with 1970!
* As the esteemed barrister Bellbottom doesn't exist, I decided to co-opt the closest thing to my thoughts on him Google could provide. Henceforth, the part of our lawyer will be played by one Horace Bell, who had a rather lengthy and interesting adventure of life himself- and did eventually become a lawyer, though he would have had to have lived to at least 138 to ever work for Apple Records.
Some pretty good memories here, I was never much of a Beetles fan
ReplyDeleteThen you'll prolly love what I do to 'em next time...
DeleteChris:
ReplyDelete---An excellent pick to open the TM...
---Kacy and Clayton...not a bad song. She sounds a little like Alison Krauss
---I didn't know Goldsboro toured with Orbison.
---Moon Taxi...like the song, and like the lyrics even more.
---That was a marvelous 6D...had no idea where this was going until I saw Billy Davis Jr...!
---Idlewild...not as good as the first song you had here, but not bad.
---ELO is still moving up the M10.
And Tame Impala still #1...good for them
---Totally missed the 2nd place song (behind GET BACK).
I chose The Guess Who (These Eyes). S&G was my second choice.
(besides, I proved Mercy WRONG through several lifetimes of love lost...but that's a whole other story...heh.)
Another very good rise this week.
Keep those hits comin' up there, brother.
So I guess that means I actually got the 6D to work properly for a change, eh?
DeleteYasureyoubetcha!
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