Time Machine week 48

Before we start, I want to mention the passing of Fontella (Rescue Me) Bass.  I am currently planning on a Time Machine look at the musicians we've lost this past year, coming next week.

Today is December 28, 1970- and nothing has happened of note for the last two days- or will happen for the next two.  But oh, what happened three days from now!  That was the day that Paul McCartney filed suit to dissolve the Beatles partnership.  It wasn't a step he desired, despite all that had happened this year- he was advised it was the only means at his disposal to prevent financial "guru" Allan Klein from raping what was left of the Beatles' fortune.  Paul had never liked Klein, and in fact refused to sign the paperwork putting Klein in charge.  So Paul began to dig into Klein's manouvering, and found a lot more than what the press and the other Beatles saw as sour grapes because Paul wanted to put his father-in-law John Eastman in charge.  He found a more-than-a-year long stretch that no one at Apple records could produce ANY accounting documents.  He found that, although Klein's contract allowed him 20% of any INCREASE in royalties he managed to negotiate, he was taking 20% of the TOTAL royalties.  And while his claim was tenuous to any royalties on the members' solo projects, he intended to take a cut there as well.  When Paul found out, he directed EMI not to pay any of the royalties from his solo lp to Apple, to put them "on hold" until he found out what was going on.  EMI did this, but gave an accounting of the amount to Apple, and Klein deducted "his cut" from the Beatles' general fund!

It was pointless to explain this to the others, especially with Lennon and Harrison's utopian view of their fellow man.  They learned later, when Klein tried to keep Yoko Ono from recording on Lennon's album, and when his last minute finigling put some of the funds from Concert For Bangla-Desh in limbo for decades- while he sold promo copies of the lp and pocketed the money himself. Then, they too, sued Klein.   Somehow, I don't think either of them went to Paul afterwards to confess what fools they were.

Paul WAS right- who'da thunk it?

Welcome to Time Machine, your weekly time-trip into the world of music how it was, and other interesting tidbits.  This week, a salute to a man who spent 65 years with one woman and 44 years with one record label (Hint, it ain't Gene Simmons), A Where Are They Now featuring a rock'n'roller who retired to become an evangelist (still not Gene Simmons), and a six degrees that meanders its way through Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers, George Benson, and Anita Baker (but not Gene Simmons).  Plus a top ten that has NO new entries!  So if you're not too busy celebrating that the world didn't end (or sitting in misery that the world didn't end), climb aboard!

This week's show sponsored by Gene Simmons- JK

This week, a week that we turn over zero % of the top ten, we turn over a fifth of the hot hundred!  However, I'll be mentioning just five of the 21 debuts.  The Osmonds come in at 95 with One Bad Apple.  A worse apple awaits at 94 for you death metal pioneers- Bloodrock's classic D.O.A.  Let Your Love Go comes in at 76- and not the Bellamy Brothers' song from '76, but Bread's totally different single from... well, from this week in 1970.  Gordon Lightfoot comes in at 69 with If You Could Read My Mind.  And at 71, well there's a funny thing about #71.  You see, this holiday marked the first appearances of three Christmas classics- and they all spend their last week of the season on the charts this week.  The Carpenters' Merry Christmas Darling moves up 9 to #41- and that's where it stops after 3 weeks.  The Jacksons' Santa Claus Is Coming To Town shoots up 14 to #51- and that's where it dies after 2 weeks.  And this week, Joe Feliciano spends his one and only week this season with Feliz Navidad at... #61? No, #71!  How's that for weird coinkydinks?

That leads us to one of our smallest hauls of birthday songs we've yet had.  Turning 30, which is of note if you watched the Brian Setzer Orchestra on Fox's NFL pregame this week, are the Stray Cats with Stray Cat Strut, as well as Duran Duran's Hungry Like The Wolf and The Who's Eminence Front.  Turning 35 is Clapton's Lay Down Sally; turning 40 are Lobo's Don't Expect Me To Be Your Friend, The Spinners' Could It Be I'm Falling In Love, and the Eagles with Peaceful Easy Feeling.  And wrapping us up with a song that turns 45, Paul Muriat's orchestra with Love Is Blue.  Blow out the candles...

Our big climber this week belongs to Jackie Moore, with Precious Precious moving up 19 to 43. I've a feeling we'll learn a little more about Miss Moore in a couple of weeks. The big dropper was I'll Be There, who can fight off gravity no longer and tumble 33 spots to 47.

Another act we'll probably be hearing more of is our Where Are They Now victim at #50.  Joe Simon is in that spot, with a tune called Your Time To Cry (I haven't listened to this yet, so I'm not sure if he's talking about Judy or not*).  While a bigger name on the R&B chart, he did get 8 tunes into the top 40, including the three that hit #1 R&B- 1969's The Chokin' Kind, 1972's Power Of Love, and 1975's Get Down, Get Down (Get On The Floor) (which hit 13, 11, and 8 respectively).  The Choking Kind was designed as a country tune, written by Harlan Howard, who also wrote the immortal I Go To Pieces for Patsy Kline.  In the late 70's he bowed out of the music business and went into evangelism, becoming a licenced Bishop (obviously not a Catholic bishop) and running a congregation and a foundation in Flossmour, Illinois.  This spring, he quit putting off a problem breathing and went to the hospital, ending up having life saving quadruple bypass surgery in late March. (*longtime Leslie Gore fans will get that one.)

Oh, YOU know who that miserable little slut Judy is...

We have 6 new members of the top 40 this week.  At 39 we have the male version of Judy, Stephen Stills, with Love The One You're With climbing 10 spots.  Rare Earth moves up 9 to 38 with Born To Wander.  Los Angeles one-hit-wonders Redeye go from 42 to 37 with their hit Games.  Edwin Starr hits the 40 with his unwillingly typecast follow-up to War, Stop The War Now, climbing 9 to #36.  Eternal optimist Curtis Mayfield also climbs 9 to 32 with (Don't Worry) If Ther's A Hell Below, We're All Gonna Go.  And with a bit of irony after that one, the high debut, climbing from 44 to 31, is Lynn Anderson with Rose Garden.

Jeez, Curtis, it ain't THAT bad...

Our lookback falls on someone who was a big hit in the 40s- and has the #27 single this week as well!  Perry Como (first name Pierino) was the first of the horde of Como children born in the US of A.  He became a musical prodigy as a young child, but it was the other talent he was prodigious at that was his first goal.  He set his sights on becoming the best barber in Cannonsburg, PA, and by age 14 had his own shop.  He was soon hiring on, and his specialty was singing to wedding party customers as his boys gave the groomsmen the full treatment.  He was content with this life, marrying the woman he'd be with for the next 65 years, Roselle, in 1933.

Somewhere along the line, he was heard by bandleader Freddy Carlone who offered him a shot as his vocalist.  It would mean leaving his newlywed wife at home and trading a $125 a week job at his Barbershop for a $28-a-week salary as vocalist for Carlone.  He went home to ask his father, whom he thought would smack him upside the head and say, "What're you thinking?"  Instead, his papa told him if he didn't try, he'd never know if he could have made it.  So he tried. 

Shortly thereafter, he got an offer from the Ted Weems band, who offered him $250 a week.  He was going to turn it down out of loyalty, but Carlone told him to go for it.  Weems had just gotten a record deal and a radio show, and the radio guy told him "lose the singer, he sounds too much like Bing Crosby", which Weems promptly said he stays or the deal's off.  However, they did work on his singing style (which Perry admitted it was hard to understand his words on).

In 1942 he quit Weems' band and went home, willing to say, "It was fun, but it's time to get to work again".  While he tried to arrange a place for a new barbershop, he got contacted with a slew of offers- including what proved to be a long-term engagement of a radio- and later TV- show sponsored by Chesterfield Cigarettes.  Within a week, RCA Victor signed him to a recording contract- and he stayed with them for 44 years.  For their trouble, they got a singer that sold so many records, he asked RCA to stop keeping count, including 48 top 10s and 14 #1s, including his biggest, Don't Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes from 1952.  While his biggest year was 1949- 15 hits, 6 of them top ten, including the #1s Some Enchanted Evening and A-You're Adorable- his hottest period was a July 1945- June 1946 streak that saw him score 12 top tens, 10 top fives, and 3 number ones, including Prisoner Of Love and Till The End Of Time.

His time of constantly being on TV ran from 1948-67.  He retired in 1994 and passed in 2001, just 3 years after his beloved wife.

Perry with two of his great loves- barbering and his son Ronald.

NO songs come into the top ten, so none fall out!

Gypsy Woman slides from 5 to 10 for Brian Hyland.

Badfinger blasted its way into the countdown, hit a wall, and now bounce back from 6 to 9.

The Supremes vol. 2 move up a notch to 8 with Stoned Love.

The Partridges flutter down three to 7 with the former top dog I Think I Love You.

Chicago edges up one to 6 with Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

Santana moves up from 8 to 5 with Black Magic Woman.

Dawn shoots up 6 to #4 with Knock Three Times.

And our six degrees contestant is at #3.

Tears Of A Clown, which slips a notch, Was the brainchild of Stevie Wonder and his writing compadre Hank Cosby.  They had come up with the tune, including the circus-like calliope section, but had no words.  They took it to the 1966 Christmas party at Motown, and played it for Smokey.  Smokey took the circus riff and came up with words.  It was an lp cut on their lp Make It Happen, but was never released until summer 1970, when Smokey was considering retirement and Motown UK wanted something to release.  It topped the charts there, and of course did so here as well a few months later.

One of the stand out lyric lines, "Just like Pagliacci did/I keep my sadness hid", he took from another song he wrote, My Smile Is Just A Frown (Turned Upside Down), that was a minor hit for one Carolyn Crawford.  Carolyn's career never really took off, and she spent a couple of years with a group called Chapter 8 in the mid-seventies before giving up.  She was replaced by the much more famous Anita Baker, who of course had her own stardom including the breakout hits Sweet Love and Giving You The Best That I've Got in the eighties.  The second was written by one Skip Scarborough, whose repertoire of love compositions include a song we had in the top ten not long ago, the Friends Of Distinction's Love Or Let Me Be Lonely, along with LTD's R&B hit Love Ballad which George Benson later covered for a top 20 hit, and one of my faves, Bill Withers' Lovely Day.

Sliding into the runner-up slot are the 5Ds with One Less Bell To Answer.

Which means that we have a repeat top dog this week....

....George Harrison with My Sweet Lord!!!!


Next week, we'll look back at who we lost in 2012... along with hopefully some other cheerful and more funny bits.   See you next year!!!

Time Machine week 47



Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don't they know it's the end of the world....

 

 

Welcome to an End Of The World Time Machine!  Today we're going to celebrate today's impending apocolypse by a special Skeeter Davis salute!  She's getting the where are they now treatment AND a six degrees that will connect her to of the most famous "non-official" college football themes of all time!  Plus my own personal end of the world music list, and a top ten that has a 40% turnover and a new #1!  And lots of exclamation points!  Hurry up and get in before it all ends!

 

 

I do a lot better on this weeks hot 100 debuts- out of 14, I'll mention 5.  Bobby Goldsboro comes in at 88 with Watching Scotty Grow.  Judy Collins' a capella Amazing Grace hits at 80.  The Grass Roots score at 76 with Temptation Eyes.  Coming in at 68 is a song we mentioned a few weeks back as being in the British top 5- Dave Edmunds' I Hear You Knocking.  And at 65, the Jackson 5 hit with their version of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.

 

 

That brings us to a good crop of birthday songs.  Turning thirty this week are Bob Seger's Shame On The Moon, The Pretenders' Back On The Chain Gang (perhaps appropriate to an end of the world countdown- "And I'll die as I stand here today/knowing that, deep in my heart,/they'll fall to ruin one day/for making us part..."), and Musical Youth with Pass The Dutchie.  Turning 35, ABBAs The Name Of The Game, Raydio in Ray Parker Jr.s first big break with Jack And Jill, and the beautiful Heatwave ballad Always And Forever.  Turning 40 this week are a couple of pairs of oddly matched songs.  One the one hand, you have Christian and Jew (the Doobies' Jesus Is Just All Right and Don McLean's Dreidel), and on the other you have good relationship/bad relationship (Anne Murray's Danny's Song and Edward Bear's Last Song).  Turning 45 are the Beach Boys with Darlin', Boyce and Hart's I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight, and for you Neil Young Decade fans out there, Buffalo Springfield with Expecting To Fly.  Del Shannon hits fifty this week with Little Town Flirt, and hitting fifty-five is the big hit for Tom and Jerry, Hey Schoolgirl.  The sharp among you know this as the first hit single for the duo later known as Simon and Garfunkel.  Blow out the candles...

 

 

Our fast climber this week is, not surprisingly, the Carpenters' Merry Christmas, Darling, which rises 25 to #50.  (Any other week, that would mean a Where Are They Now appearance!)  The big droppers- and there are two- are a pair of tunes falling 32 spots, after  just exiting the top 20.  Two weeks ago, Canned Heat was at #17 with Let's Work Together, and Wilson Pickett was at #14 with Engine Number 9.  This week they are at 54 and 57, respectively.  So there's an end-of-the-world bonus- Big droppers and almost but not quite shoutout in one fell swoop!

 

 

No's time for a where are they now for Ms. Davis.  She started her career as a trio with two other girls (unrelated to her) who called themselves the Davis Sisters.  One of them was prevented from touring, so it became a duet with Betty Jack Davis.  They had a huge country crossover hit in 1953 called I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know.  It spent 8 weeks on top of the country charts, and no less an expert than Billboard's Joel Whitburn named it the #65 country hit of all time.  Unfortunately, as it was climbing, they got into a terrible car accident.  Betty was killed and Skeeter was seriously injured.

 

Skeeter and Betty Jack

 

Betty's sister Georgia joined the act for a time, but in 1956 Skeeter decided to retire to get married.

 

 

She returned as a solo act in a couple of years, and racked up 4 pop and 24 top 40 country hits, including the last to chart, the ironically named #12 from 1973, I Can't Believe It's All Over.  Sometime that year, on her way to the Grand Old Opry, she observed Nashville police dragging in a group of "Jesus freaks", and that night dedicated a gospel song to them.  Shocked by such a blatent display of free speech, the Opry kicked her out for a year and a half.

 

December 15, 1973-Skeeter Davis was suspended by the Grand Ole Opry. As Skeeter said, "Hank Williams got kicked off the Opry for drinkin' too much old wine. Me? I got kicked off for singing about the new wine." What happened was that Skeeter was on her way to the Ryman for an Opry performance when she witnessed the arrest of what were known as "Jesus freaks", which was another name for the young people who were protesting not only in Nashville, but around the country. The arrests enraged Skeeter and on the Opry that night, she expressed her rage and by talking about it, singing about it and weeping about it. When she came off the stage after her performance, she was dismissed from the Opry. Later, a newspaper account of it said, "Her support of the 'Jesus loves you' street people made headlines, made enemies, made for a quick review of the unwritten rules against editorial comments on the Opry. She was stunned when told she was no longer a member." 18 months later, she was invited back to return to the Opry.

She later told an interviewer, " I felt so unloved (when the Opry exiled her)... it seems to me I've been a rebel all my life, too."

Skeeter passed from cancer in 2004 at the age of 72.


We have six top 40 debuts this week.  BJ Thomas avoids more teasing from me by hitting with a short-titled song, Most Of All, up 8 to #40.  Also up 8 is former Monkee Michael Nesmith and the 1st National Band with Silver Moon at 39.  Climbing 7 to #35 is a song I gave a rather dubious mention to when it hiot the hot 100 a few weeks back- Melaine's cover of Ruby Tuesday.  Gladys Knight and the Pips climb 7 also with If I Was Your Woman.  The Bee Gees rocket up 20 places to #34 with Lonely Days.  And Barbra Streisand climbs 8 to #33 with Stoney End.

How to explain this next feature?  I grew up in the sixties.  Between Vietnam, the Bomb, and the ecological collapse, a lot of people thought the world would end at any moment.  Some songs, like Barry McGuire's Eve Of Destruction, talked about it directly.  Others but brushed the subject.  And in my pre-eight-year-old mind, there were certain songs that reminded me of the impending end whether they had anything to actually do with it or not.  Leaving out our theme song for today, this is a "top ten" (based on how much they had this feeling for me) of my "end of the world songs".  Feel free to scratch your head as we go along.

10- Hurdy Gurdy Man, Donovan.  This was actually a later entry into the group.  When you look into who the hurdy-gurdy man was, it kinda creeps you out, like when you learn what "ring around the rosie" was about.

9- Love Child, Supremes.  I mentioned before how I always heard "worn, torn" as "war-torn", and I imagine that's how this got here.

8- Keep Searching (Follow The Sun), Del Shannon.  Songs about sunsets and songs that are the last big hit by an artist both have that kind of pull that drag them here, and this one has both.

7- California Nights, Leslie Gore.  See above.

6- Downtown, Petula Clark.  Long time Fort Wayne residents will get this- everytime I hear this song, I think of Wolf and Dessauers, Hutner's Paris, and the way Christmas used to be.

5- This Guy's In Love With You, Herb Alpert.  I think it's his sad horn here.

4- We'll Sing In The Sunshine, Gale Garnett.  Because it always reminded me of the #1 on the list.

3- Walk On By, Dionne Warwick.  I think it's the horn here, too.

2- Eve Of Destruction, Barry McGuire.  Self explanitory.

1- What The World Needs Now, Jackie DeShannon.  This one's pretty self-explanitory, as well.


We have 4 new top ten songs, so four jump ship. The quartet of droppers are Share The Land (6 to 11), 5-10-15-20(25-30 Years Of Love (7 to 12), I'll Be There (10 to 14), and Heaven Help Us All (9 to 16).

Since there's no connection to the top ten (and thus no reason to interrupt it), we'll do the six degrees next.  The lyrics to The End Of The World were written by one Sylvia Dee, who was memorializing her father's death.  She had other songwriting credits as well, including the lyrics to a song on the Elvis soundtrack Blue Hawaii called Moonlight Swim.  Her Co-writer here was Ben Weisman, who Elvis claime wrote more songs he recorded (57) than anyone else.

Among the credits on Blue Hawaii was Floyd Cramer on piano.  In addition to being one of those in-demand session men, Floyd had some hits under his own name, including the 1960 instrumental Last Date (which, ironically, the King's Are You Lonesome Tonight kept out of the #1 slot).  That song, in ever widening irony, was given lyrics by Skeeter in 1960, and the result- My Last Date With You- also peaked at #2 in 1960.  Boudleax Bryant, half of the husband/wife songwriting team of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, assisted in these lyrics.  F & B Bryant had a few well known songs to their credit- Love Hurts, which Nazareth covered with great success; several songs for the Everly Brothers, including All I Have To Do Is Dream and Bye Bye Love; and the unofficial theme song for the U of Tennesee, Rocky Top!

Rocky Top, you'll always be... home sweet home to me...

And that brings us to our top ten this week.

Climbing 5 spots to #10 are Dawn with Knock Three Times.

The Ross-less Supremes edge in from 12 to #9 with Stoned Love.  I think this is now the Colorado state anthem...

Up 5 to #8 is Santana with Black Magic Woman.

The high top ten debut is Chicago, up 4 to 7 with a song from the BJ Thomas school, Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

Climbing a pair to 6 is Badfinger with No Matter What.

Brian Hyland's Gypsy Woman dances down a spot to #5.

Former top dog The Partridge Family's I Think I Love You slips a pair to #4.

The Fifth Dimension moves two to #3 with One Less Bell To Answer.

The Miracles drop a spot to #2 with Tears Of A Clown.

And that means the new #1 song this week is....

George Harrison with My Sweet Lord!!!

Well, if you made it this far and the world hasn't ended, and you wonder why, here's a possible explanation which I shamelessly stole from Facebook...



Time Machine week 45

It is December 7th, 1970.  In Warsaw, Poland, West German chancellor Willi Brandt is brought before the Warsaw Ghetto Monument, which commemorated the heroic but futile uprising of the Jewish Ghetto against the Gestapo in 1943, in which 13,000 were killed in the battle and the remaining estimated 50,000 residents were sent either to Treblinka or to the concentration camp Gesiowka built on the razed ruins of the ghetto.  Overcome by emotion, Brandt simply knelt at the monument.

The site Facing History and Ourselves (ww2.facinghistory.org) added this:


Filled with emotion on the day of the ceremony, and taken by the enormity of the moment, Brandt spontaneously dropped to his knees before the commemoration monument, a profound act of apology and repentance. Although he spoke no words, the image of this silent apology, seen in the news by so many Poles and Germans, had a powerful effect on both nations. Later, when Brandt described the moment, he wrote that he felt as though he "had to do something to express the particularity of the commemoration at the ghetto monument. On the abyss of German history and carrying the burden of the millions who were murdered, I did what people do when words fail them."²
Welcome to a Time Machine that was a bit of a struggle.  I had two new top tens that I really didn't know, as well as four top 40 debuts, and a deceased Where Are They Now contestant.  Not to mention when I looked at the potential six degrees victim, I saw that only one song fell within the top ten- and I did them earlier!  Be that all as it may, I still got you the musical career of Barney Miller, two sightings each of Eric Clapton, Gary Wright, Tina Turner, and Paul Nicholas, a six degrees that links the Who to Carol Channing, and the hot new old game show, So You Wanna Lead A Band?  Well, let's get on with it!

We have 12 hot hundred debuts this week, and I'll mention 5 of 'em.  The one-hit wonders from Providence, RI, Wadsworth Mansion, come in at #99 with that one hit- Sweet Mary.  Black Sabbath nudges in at 97 with Paranoid.  At 82 is a song I had to play when I saw it, to see how it sounded.  Frijid Pink, who made top ten with their House Of The Rising Sun a few weeks ago, come in at 82 with a pretty good version of Heartbreak Hotel.  Stephen Stills' anthem for cheaters everywhere, Love The One You're With, comes in at #78.  And the high debuter for the week was another one I just had to check out- Melanie doing her take on the Stones' Ruby Tuesday.  If you are a big Melanie fan, it's pretty good... otherwise, ummm....

That brings us to a decent crop of songs celebrating birthdays this week.  Turning thirty, we have Sammy Hagar's Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy and Culture Club's Do You Really Want To Hurt Me. Hitting 35 are the Bee Gees and Staying Alive, Foreigner's Long Long Way From Home, and my favorite Meat Loaf tune- You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth.  Turning 40, we have everyone's favorite reptile, Elton John's Crocodile Rock (oops, I guess that makes three EJ sightings!), along with David Bowie's Jean Genie. Hitting 45 are Aretha Franklin's Chain Of Fools ( I think that was her backup singers before the Heavyweights), The Royal Guardsmen with Snoopy's Christmas, The Lemon Pipers with Green Tambourine, the Classics IV with Spooky, and a song I burned a while back and you might like if you're a Jefferson Airplane fan, Watch Her Ride.  Blow Out The Candles....

Top climber this week is in the top forty... the big droppers are twain:  Indiana Wants Me at 55 and Cry Me A River at 51, both dropping 33 spots.

Which of course brings us to WATN, and the late George Harrison, who moves into the #50 spot with Isn't It A Pity.  Since we know where he's at (non-spiritually speaking), I thought I'd actually look at the song itself.  Written by George in 1966 or so, it is claimed that Lennon vetoed its inclusion on three Beatles lps- Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, and Get Back.  Thus it was that George gave it the full treatment on All Things Must Pass.  Two versions were recorded- the seven minute long single on side one, and the 5 minute alternate on side six.  The first one- which by the way, was the side that hit #1 on the Canadian charts, where My Sweet Lord was the a-side here- was produced by Phil (Wall Of Sound) Spector and orchestrated with an orchestra and men's choir by John Barham.  And performed by one of several "casts of thousands" we'll be hitting up today.  It is generally recognized, but not confirmed, that Eric Clapton played electric guitar on both versions.  There were at least two piano players- Tony Ashton and the Dream Weaver, Gary Wright, as well as "fifth Beatle" Billy Preston on the organ.  At least three accoustic guitarists supported George's lead accoustic line- Pete Ham, Tom Evans, and Joey Molland, all of Badfinger.  BF drummer Mike Gibbins added tambourine, while another "fifth Beatle" claimant, Klaus Voorman, played bass.  Ringo Starr handled drumming chores, and two unconfirmed stories add Peter Frampton to the accoustic backup and Maurice Gibb to the piano players.

There are six top forty debuts this week- three of them I'll have to listen to later to see if I know, and one I listened to last week, as it was the Where Are They Now song.  And of course, one is this week's big mover.  The first of the "have to listen to" set is a band called Crow with a tune they pulled from the BJ Thomas School of Long Titles- Don't Lay No Boogie-Woogie On The "King Of Rock'N'Roll"- and it moves up a pair to #40.  The next is yet another of the 50% of Neil Diamond tunes that hit the top 40 and I never heard of them- it's called Do It, and debuts at 39, up 8 spots.  The one from last weeks' WATN, the Chairmen Of The Board's Pay To The Piper, moves up a dozen to land at #38.  The final "do I know this?" song is Tom Jones' Can't Stop Loving You, and it moves from 48 to 37.  Three Dog Night comes up 6 to #35 with One Man Band, and the week's big mover- a 27-notch jump from 56 to 29- is Dawn and Knock 3 Times.

You don't know MY song?  Some expert...

Our lookback feature begins its romp through the 40's this week, and we start off with Swing And Sway With Sammy Kaye.  Sammy was born Samuel Zarnocay, Jr, in a suburb of Cleveland, OH.  He was a clarinetist and played alto sax (but never soloed) as well as leading his band, which at first was known as the Ohioans.  They came into demand, doing what was called "sweet music" to differentiate from the more jazz style of others, in the mid thirties.  The Manager of the Statler Hotel in NYC paid for elocution lessons to moderate Sammy's heavy Czech accent.  It was around this time the band got the name they are known by- Sammy explained that he would used various lines for the annoucer to bring them on stage with, such as "Music in a romantic (or sentimental) way, played for you by Sammy Kaye", or "And now, we swing and sway with Sammy Kaye."  Fans started calling him "swing and sway", so they decided to stay with that.

One of his popular gimmicks started when a girl in the audience one night persuaded her beau to challenge Sammy to let him lead the band in a song.  He decided to do that at many shows afterwards, calling it So You Want To Lead A Band, and offering batons as prizes to the winner.  It even became a short lived TV show for the band.  They racked up 37 top tens and 5 top dogs, including The Old Lamplighter from 1946 and Harbor Lights in 1950.  Tony Alamo was the vocalist onthe latter, and no that's not the nutbag cult leader.  Actually, Tony's real name was Bernie Hoffman, but he changed it to cash in on the popularity of Italian crooners at the time.  Another former band member- albeit briefly- was Hal (Barney Miller) Linden in the 50's.

Kaye's band played at the inaugurations of both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.  Kaye died in 1987, but not before passing the baton to one Roger Thorpe, who continues to lead the group today.

Two songs I didn't know join the top ten, two I did know drop out.   Falling are Fire And Rain (5 to 19) and Somebody's Been Sleeping (6 to 23).  Also, our Yellow River gague is at 16 this week, up one spot on week #23.


Elvis holds onto the #10 slot with You Don't Have To Say You Love Me.

Stevie Wonder lands at #9, up 3, with Heaven Help Us All.

And at eight, our six degrees.


The Who hold at 8 with See Me, Feel Me.  This was from the first "rock opera," Tommy.  Tommy was made into a musical, and then into a movie by Bee Gees producer Robert Stigwood.  The Movie starred Roger Daltry in the lead as "that deaf, dumb, and blind kid", with the rest of the group playing themselves.  It also starred our second "cast of thousands", including Elton John, Eric Clapton, Tina Turner, and one Paul Nicholas, a British performer best known here as the man who gave us Heaven On The 7th Floor.  Nicholas was mainly an actor, though, and starred in stage productions in the UK of Grease, Jesus Christ Superstar, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

He also landed a part in the Bee Gees/Peter Frampton flick Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band (because no one gets mentioned just once today!).  This film, which swiftly went from "this generation's Gone With The Wind" to "thank God we broke even", had a closing scene reminiscent of the Sgt. Pepper lp cover, with everyone singing the theme.  And I do mean everyone- a PARTIAL list of those involved include:

Curtis Mayfield
George Benson
Peter (Herman's Hermits) Noone
Elvin Bishop
Alan (Undercover Angel) O'Day
Stephen (On And On) Bishop
Keith Carradine
Robert Palmer
Wilson Pickett
Bonnie Raitt
Helen Reddy
Rick Derringer
Minnie Ripperton
Donovan
Johnny Rivers
Seals and Crofts
Al Stewart
John Stewart
 Heart
Tina Turner
Frankie Valli
Dr. John
Bruce (Beach Boys) Johnston
Yvonne Elliman
Sha Na Na
Del Shannon
Grover Washington, Jr.
Hank Williams, Jr.
Wolfman Jack
Mark (Paul Revere and the Raiders) Lindsay
Gary Wright

oh, and- Carol Channing.

Up 4 spots to #7, The Presidents with 5-10-15-20 (25-30 Years Of Love).

Bobby Bloom climbs 3 to #6 with Montego Bay.

The Guess Who move 2 spots to #5 with Share The Land.

Again the Jacksons give little ground, slipping another notch to 4 with I'll Be There.

Brian Hyland, who was first discovered by none other than Sammy Kaye, climbs a notch to 3 with Gypsy Woman.

Smokey and the Miracles hold at 2 with Tears Of A Clown.

And for the third straight week, the number one song is...

...(AHEM) The Partridge Family with I Think I Love You!

Tune in next week for more fun!

Time Machine week 42

Today is November 16, 1970.  A slow news day, unless you are a monster.

This suspected Pleisiosaur washed ashore at Situate Harbor, Massachusettts during the night.  Much later, experts concluded it was in actuality a basking shark.

This monster, Hafez al-Assad (pronounced "haf-ass al ass-hat"), took over Syria on this date.  He was later discovered, like his son and current Syrian dictator-on-a-stick Bashar, to be just a turd on the pages of history.  Being a monster just ain't what it used to be.


Welcome to this week's Time Machine.  This week, one new song joins the top ten and two fall out (?), a big week if you're stoned, where Baron Longfellow is now- and who he is, and a new # 1!  Make sure your safety glasses are on in case I have to blow my nose, and lets go!

Thirteen songs debut this week, and I'm going to mention three now and one more in a little bit (and no, that doesn't mean it debuts in the top 40!)  James Taylor comes in with one of his best, Carolina In My Mind, at 93.  Dawn debuts at 87 with Knock Three Times.  And at #72, Three Dog Night with One Man Band.

This leads us to our birthday songs of the week.  Turning thirty Are Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with You Got Lucky, Air Supply with Two Less Lonely People In The World, and Michael McDonald's I Gotta Try.  Turning 35 are Elvis with My Way, Randy Newman's controversial (if you were an idiot) Short People, Sean Cassidy (not the Cassidys again!) with Hey Deanie (which was a neat song but a bad name for a girlfriend), Samantha Sang's Emotion, noted atheist Billy Joel's Just The Way You Are, and a dance hit by a band called Odessy you might remember, Native New Yorker.  Turning 45 is Johnny Rivers' most underrated hit, Summer Rain, and my personal vote for stupidest song of the sixties, John Fred and the Playboy band with Judy In Disguise.  Finally, hitting the big 5-0 is Go Away Little Girl- not by Donny Osmond, though he was (amazingly ) 5 years old at the time- but by Steve Lawrence.  Blow out the candles...

The road to the top 40 is a rocky one, and perhaps never more so than this week.  The Supremes sit at 54 with Stoned Love;  Barbra Streisand sits at 69 with Stoney End.  And debuting at 95 is an instrumental called Stoned Cowboy by a Miami outfit called Fantasy.  Formed in 1967 around twin brothers Billy and Bob Robbins, brother Billy soon went missing... his body wasn't found till years later, cause of death never determined.   16 year old Lydia Miller took his place as lead singer, and they did one lp before she went out to find success solo (which she never did).  The rest of the band renamed themselves Fantasy Year One, but never again hit the charts.

We have two big climbers and one dropper this week.  The dropper is (where have we heard this name before) Three Dog Night, falling 44 spots to 85 with Out In The Country.  And the climbing pair each rise 22 spots- Chicago's Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is to #42, and Santana's Black Magic Woman to #63.

And that brings us to our Where Are They Now feature, and this week we feature Baron Longfellow.  Who, you ask?  Why, that's a pseudonym for  Andrew Youakim!  Still blinking your eyes?  Okay, our number 50 song this week is by both of these men- AKA Andy Kim, who hits with his cover of Be My Baby.  Andy, a Lebanese-Canadian, had attained his first measures of fame as a bubblegum writer for the Archies- he had a co-credit on Sugar Sugar.  He soon had his first hit with Rainbow Ride, and followed it up with the #9 hit Baby I Love You.  He wrote his #1 Rock Me Gently in 1974, and by 1976 he stopped touring.  After a half-decade of inactivity (partly because he thought his actual dark Lebanese complexion was at odds with the image his songs gave of a blond-haired, blue-eyed Canadian), he emerged for a pair of mid-eighties lps under the name Baron Longfellow.  He also had a 1991 hit in Canada under just the name Longfellow with a single called Powerdrive.

A couple years later, he did a one-shot show that also featured the band Barenaked Ladies.  Ten years later, BNL singer Ed Robertson coaxed him out of retirement.  He is recording again, and has organized a charity Christmas Show in Toronto every year since 2006.

Andy Kim... he thought you were expecting some blond guy.

3 songs enter the top 40 this week.  Up 4 to 40, the future "Disco Lady"s man Johnny Taylor hits with I Am Somebody.  Climbing 8 to 36 is Ronny Dyson with I Don't Wanna Cry.  And up 10 spots to 33 are Woodstock stars Canned Heat with Let's Work Together.

Our look back this week is Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra.  Another Canadian act- and you know how we love Canadian acts- they got there start as the Orange Blossoms, playing at the Casa Loma Hotel in Toronto.  After getting a contract, they left the hotel and changed the name (having never played at the Casa Loma Hotel as the Casa Loma Orchestra), and moved to New York.  There, they were incorporated, with every member being a board member and stockholder, and each being responsible to the board for their performance.  For example, Gene Gifford, their arranger, was responsible for their early unique sound- but came before the Board in 1935 for his alcohol problems, and was bought out. Originally Glen Gray, the saxaphonist, was "first among equals" and not the leader; It wasn't until 1937 that he was "elected" to the lead.  The band's career ran on the charts from 1931-1945, and they recorded long after.  Their big year was 1934, when they hit the top 20 17 times, six of those in the top ten.  Their biggest hit was 1943's My Heart Tells Me (Should I Believe My Heart?), one of their 5 #1s and 30 top tens.

The band was featured from 1933-36 on the Camel Caravan, a variety radio show whose theme was the band's hit Smoke Rings.  The show itself went on until 1954, with various acts featured until Bing Crosby took over in 1939.  By the mid-forties, Gray found himself the owner of the corporation; ill health had him retire in 1950.  The band continued, though, under his ownership until his death in 1963.

I have three Almost But Not Quite shoutouts.  Teegarden and Van Winkle's God Love And Rock'N'Roll peaks at 14 this week; The Who's See Me Feel Me peaks at 16; and Blood Sweat and Tears' Lucretia McEvil drops this week to 24 after peaking last week at 17.  Also, a Yellow River progress report:  it moves from 32 to 25 in its 20th week on the chart-and third on the top 40.

One new song joins the top ten, but two drop out.  How does that happen?  Well, unlike last time, it's not a mistake on my part.  A song that had dropped out of the top 10 climbs back in this week.  So two songs drop- Lola, from 10 to 13, and It's Only Make Believe, falling from it's peak of 9 to 11.

Sugarloaf moves back up to #10, a one notch climb, with Green Eyed Lady.  Welcome back!

Free drops from 6 to 9 with All Right Now.

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles blast up from 12 to #8 with Tears Of A Clown.

Bread holds at 7 (drat! No "rising" joke this week!) with It Don't Matter To Me.

100 Proof Aged In Soul moves 2 to #6 with Somebody's Been Sleeping.

And that brings us to a slightly underdone six degrees.

I'll Be There, which drops from 2 to 5, was the first ballad for the Jackson boys.  Berry Gordy decided it was time to take a chance, and called in a new group of writers for the band, headed by Motown producer Hal Davis.  Hal would also co-write their first foray into a more disco flavor, the hit Dancing Machine off the lp G.I.T.  Get It Together.  This lp also had a former Temptations and Rare Earth song called Hum Along And Dance.  The Temps had it as the b-side of our recent WATN feature Unite The World, while Rare Earth had it on their acclaimed lp Ma.  Both the Jacksons and RE were instrumentals with basically the only words being one band member saying along the lines of, "Hey, why aren't there any words?" and another answering, "we didn't have time to write any!"  Which was basically the only contribution to the song on their lp, since Gordy didn't allow the Jacksons to play on their albums (which led to their leaving Motown soon later), and the only other thing they did was shout, "Play it!" at each other.  Of course, the Temps had the same thing on their cut, with the Motown studio band the Funk Brothers handling the music.

James Taylor holds at 4 with Fire And Rain.

The Carpenters step down to #3 with last week's top dog, We've Only Just Begun.

The Partridge Family climbs 3 to #2 with I Think I Love You. 

And the number one song this week...

R. Dean Taylor (the R stands for Richard) and Indiana Wants Me!!!!!


And that is another stitched together epic on Time Machine!  See you next time!

Time Machine week 41

It's November 9, 1970.  Some people will tell you that today's biggest news was the death of Charles DeGaulle.  Renegade general for Free France to trusted ally to the man who charted an independant course for France, not caring whose feathers got ruffled.
Or, for the more domestic-minded, you might say that the big news was the Supreme Court by a 6-3 vote refusing to hear arguments about a new Massachusetts law giving citizens the "right" to refuse to fight in an "undeclared" war.  Considering the era of declaring war died in Korea 20 years before, I've my doubt how long that lasted.
But I, your humble author have found the most far-reaching news of this day.  Today NASA launched the OFO- the Orbiting Frog Otolith rocket.  Despite the fact it was now 16 months after Armstrong walked on the Moon, now we decided to shoot a pair of bullfrogs into space to measure the effects of weightlessness on the inner ear (specifically the otolith part) and balance.  The frogs were "surgically prepared" (which included strapping them in to prevent movement- other than their heads, which were moved remotely by scientists- and hooking them up to IV nourishment) and sent off to orbit the earth.  The mission was a "success"- they found that there had been "changes" to the inner ear in space, that reversed themselves after 10-20 days.  Like they couldn't have figured that out from the men, chimps, and dogs who'd ALREADY been shot into space, but whatever.

Welcome to Time Machine, and I have a wealth of info on music and such for you today, including the case of the strangled aunt on the Where Are They Now, the mystery of the band leader who partnered with Batman to solve a crime, the connection between Free and the Travelling Wilburys,who came up with the old jingle "Raise your hand if you're Sure" and why it appears on a music show, and the Curious Case of the Talking Guitar.  Oh, and a new number one!  So let's have at it, shall we?

We start off as always with this week's hot hundred debuts, and out of 12 new songs on the overall chart, I'll mention 5 of them.  Coming in at 99 is an act billed Runt (because Todd Rundgren thought "Todd Rundgren" might be a bit of a mouthful) with the saga of LeRoy Boy and his dating troubles called We Gotta Get You A Woman.  At 91 we have Van Morrison (who'll reappear in a couple minutes) with Domino.  Santana breaks in at 85 with Black Magic Woman; at 66 is Neil Diamond's version of the Hollies big hit He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother.  And at 64, Chicago follows up 25 Or 6 To 4 with Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

I know, it's time for our birthday songs, and we have a bucketfull of 'em!  Turning 30 this week is the Michael Jackson/Paul McCartney duet This Girl Is Mine, along with Men At Work's Down Under, John Mellencamp's Hand To Hold Onto, Steve Winwood's Valerie, Phil Collins' cover of the Supremes' You Can't Hurry Love, Frieda (from ABBA) with I Know There's Something Going On, and Prince with 1999.  Turning 35 are Kansas with Point Of Know Return, Andy Gibb's Love Is Thicker Than Water, Earth Wind And Fire's Serpentine Fire, Van Morrison (see, I told you he'd be back) and Moondance, and a song about a talking guitar by the band Stillwater called Mind Bender:

My Daddy was a GIBSON
My Mama was a Fender
That's why they call me Mindbender
Mindbender. That's my name
You better believe it
It was a mind-bending thing


Turning 40 this week are Jethro Tull's Living In The Past, Eric Carmen and the Raspberries with I Wanna Be With You, Three Dog Night's Pieces Of April, Curtis Mayfield's Superfly, and Stevie Wonder's Superstition.  Turning 45 are the Monkee's Daydream Believer, The Bee Gees' Massachusetts, the Small Faces' Itchycoo Park, and Gary Puckett and the Union Gap with Woman, Woman.  Hitting the big 5-0 is the Drifters' Up On The Roof; and Chuck Berry's original on Rock'N'Roll Music and Jimmie Rodgers' Kisses Sweeter Than Wine hit 55.  Blow out the candles...

Our big mover this week, speaking of the Supremes (which I did if you were paying attention), are the Ross-less Supremes with Stoned Love, climbing 19 to #64.  The big droppers both fall 16 spots- El Condor Pasa, still in the top 40 to #30, and Three Dog Night's Out In The Country to just outside at #41. 

And that brings us to #50 and Where Are They Now with the dropping Unite The World by the Temptations, which peaked at 30 two weeks ago.  The Temps are one of the longest running bands in history, so I will focus on the quintet featured on this particular song. 

Otis Williams is the one surviving original member, and one of two who never left.  He was the group's organizer and leader, but never the frontman.  He is still touring with the band at the age of 72, with a group of younger men headed by Ron Tyson, brother of the Manhattans' David Tyson, and the third-longest tenured Temptation.

Melvin Franklin is the second longest.  He and Otis promised themselves, amidst the ever-changing lineups, that they would never leave, and Melvin stayed as long as he was physically able.  Cortisone shots for his years-long battle with arthritis gave Melvin scads of autoimmune problems, including diabetes, and in 1995 he fell into a coma and passed away.

Dennis Edwards had replaced lead singer David Ruffin by this time.  He was with the band from 1968 until Otis Fired him in 1977.  He returned in 1980, but building a tentative solo career led to him missing rehearsals- and shows- and he was replaced again by Allie-Ollie Wilson in 1984.  In the late 80's, he formed a project with two other former Temps singers- Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks- which fell apart when the others passed away.  He still leads "the Temptations Review featuring Dennis Edwards" with the son of another Temp, Paul Williams, Jr.

Kendricks was with the band from the beginning until a final blow-up with Otis and Melvin in 1973, and had solo success with the #1 (and now commercial jingle) Keep On Truckin'.  He did go back for a reunion tour in 1982, but was cursed with lung cancer, which took a lung in 1991 and his life less than a year later.

Paul Williams was considered by many the heart and soul of the group, but was a man dogged by mystery.  He left the band under mysterious circumstances shortly after this lp (along with Kendricks), and soon later was found dead in a Detroit alley.  He had just left his girlfriend after an argument.  He apparently shot himself in the head- but the family disputed this because he was found with the gun in his off-hand.  His royalty checks were to be divided between sons Paul Jr. and Kenneth.  Kenneth went to jail in 1989 for strangling his aunt with a phone cord and served 20 years.  He had asked his sister to save up his checks, but when he was released in 2011, found that she had spent them all- around $220,000 worth.  He is currently suing her.

We have 6 top 40 debuts this week.  The Guess Who leap 12 to #40 with Share The Land.   Recent WATN feature Mark Lindsay's And The Grass Won't Pay No Mind climbs from 41 to 39.  Up 5 to 38 is a song called Part-Time Love by Ann Peebles.  Ann, in addition to a reasonably successful R&B career, wrote the hits I Can't Stand The Rain for Eruption (#18 in 1978; she also released it and hit #38 in 1973) and I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down ( #13 in 1985) for Paul Young.  Up 8 to #37 is one Jake Holmes with So Close.  Jake is better known for being the writer of Led Zeppelin's Dazed And Confused, as well as for a string of commercial jingles that included "Be all that you can be" for the Army, "Be a pepper" for Dr. Pepper, and of course, "Raise your hand if you're Sure" for Sure anti-persperant.  Another recent WATN, Mashmakan's As The Years Go By, moves from 44 to 36 this week, and at 35, up 11, are Washington, DC soul group The Presidents with 5-10-15-20 (25-30 Years Of Love).

Our lookback, as I promised in last week's comments, features the Kay Kyser Orchestra.  Kay became a household word for the long-running (1938-49) radio quiz show Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge, but he also led- and sang for- a very talented band.  They racked up 41 top tens and 5 #1s from 1935-48, including the #1 Jingle Jangle Jingle.  He was known for making stars of band members, including future talk show host Mike Douglas- and one guy I always wondered about. 

You see, I grew up watching Gene Rayburn's Match Game, and one of the completely random terms often thrown in was "Ish Kabibble".  Ish Kabibble was actually the stage name of Kysers' cornet player and class clown, who got the name from a "made-up Yiddish" term "Ische ga bibble" which perported to mean "I should worry?"

In February of 1941, he became the first bandleader to perform in front of military personell.  Unlike many who faded away as the reached the end of their career, the Kyser band got hotter, with 7 of their last eight hits making top 10, 5 of those top 3, including the #1s Old Buttermilk Sky in September of 1946, and Woody Woodpecker in June of 1948.  His band also appeared in a handfull of movies playing themselves, often with plots revolving around them (including one where Kayser learned acting from John Barrymore and another where he had a "hypnotic eye").  In another ground breaking move, he appeared in Detective Comics #144, in which he and Batman discovered that he had a sax player who moonlighted as a crook.

Kyser became a Christian Scientist in the mid 40s after drugs failed to cure his arthritis.  He passed away in 1985.

Three songs enter the top 10, three fall out.  Dropping are Green Eyed Lady (5 to 11), Look What They've Done To My Song, Ma (10-13), and Cracklin' Rosie (7 to 18).


The Kinks slide down 2 to #10 with Lola.

Glen Campbell comes in at 9, up 2, with It's Only Make Believe.

100 Proof Aged In Soul climb a notch to #8 with Somebody's Been Sleeping.

Bread rises (another pun you'll never get tired of) from 13 to #7 with It Don't Matter To Me.

And here sits our six degrees victim, Free falling to #6, down three, with All Right Now.

Everyone knows that Free basically morphed in to Bad Company when singer Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke got tired of the soon to mbe deceased guitarist Paul Kossoff's drug problems.  Another member of Bad Co. was Boz Burrell, who had been the bassist for the ever-revolving door of Prog-rock band King Crimson.  Among Burrell's bandmates there was Bill Bruford, who was KC's fourth drummer and became the first drummer for Yes.  He was there for Yes' first 4 lps- which means he played on the hits Long Distance Runaraound and Roundabout- before moving on to KC.  There, he replaced Ian Wallace, who went on to have a big career as a studio guy, performing on such songs as Stevie Nicks' Stand Back, and- the Travelling Wilburys' first single, Handle With Care.

The Partridge Family pulls their bus up 10 spots to #5 with I Think I Love You.

James Taylor climbs 2 to #4 with Fire And Rain.

R Dean Taylor moves on up to #3 with Indiana Wants Me.

The Jackson Five step out of the top dog seat, going to #2 with I'll Be There.

Which means i have to find a new picture for th the new #1 song this week is...

... the Carpenters with We've Only Just Begun!!!!

Well, that was fun!  See you next week!

Time Machine week 40

NOTE:  Fumble fingers actually hit "publish" instead of "Schedule", so you get this today instead of tomorrow.  OOOPS!

The day is November 2nd, 1970.  Tonight the expansion NBA team the Cleveland Cavaliers will set an NBA record.  They have openned the season 0-10, a tally that will go to 0-15 before they finally win.  But tonight in Philadelphia, they became the recipient of the biggest can ever opened on a team in league history, 141-87.  Seven Philly players including Billy Cunningham hit double figures, including one guy (Bud Ogden) who would only average 2.4 points a game for the year!  The team would follow up a 15-game losing streak with streaks of 12 (which put them at 1-27), 9, and 7 (twice) to finish at 15-67.  Ironically, the Cavs broke that record in 1991 with a 148-80 rout of Miami- which in turn was ironic because it was losing LeBron James to Miami last year that sent them on a league-record 26 game losing streak.  Funny business, basketball.

Welcome to Time Machine, and don't say you didn't have your chance.  Nobody sent in any suggestions for the Martin Hall Of Fame, so you have to put up with my picks for the MHOF class #4.  Also this week, see if you have an Elephant's Memory, The Three Little Fishies make an appearance, and a certain slowpoke song finally joins us in the top forty.  So, away we go...

First category up is the top names.  Joining the list are three acts. 
With 11 top 40 hits, seven of them top ten, including the #1s A Horse With No Name and Sister Golden Hair- America!

With 30 top 40s, 15 top tens and a whopping 9 #1s starting with How Do You Mend A Broken Heart- the Bee Gees!

and with 11 top 40s, five of them in the top ten, and a pair of #1s neither of which was their most famous hit, Bohemian Rhapsody- Queen!

This week, we have 12 songs debut in the hot 100, but only one of them gets mentioned today, the one at #95.  The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band with the classic Mr. Bojangles.  Also light this week are our birthday songs- again- with but 5 of them, all turning 30 this week.  They would be: Supertramp's It's Raining Again; Don Henley's Dirty Laundry; Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing; Toto's Africa; and Peter Gabriel's Shock The Monkey.  Blow out the candles...

Next category is the top guys.  Again, I am adding three.  With 14 top 40s, 6 of them top tens, and the #1 Take Good Care Of My Baby- Bobby Vee!

With a smaller list of 6 top 40s, 2 top tens- but the big #1 American Pie- Don McLean!

And with 12 top fortys (but 82 on the country chart, with 12 #1s)- Johnny Cash!

Our big movers this week- and for a change, they don't include the Partridge Family! - are on the upside, the Guess Who, who move up 25 spots to 52 with Share The Land; and falling 25 to #61, Anne Murray with Snowbird.


The really good ladies are a bit harder to find.  So with 6 top fortys and the #1 Killing Me Softly- Roberta Flack!

At # 50 this week- and our Where Are They Now victim- is a group you've probably heard, but don't know by name.  They are Elephant's Memory, and they are at #50 with their biggest hit on their own, called Mongoose.  EM was an ever-changing Greenwich Village group, led by sax man Stan Bronstein and drummer Rick Franks, Jr.  Formed in 1967-8, they boasted a ranged of musicians over their short career- including for a short time, Carly Simon as vocalist.  In '69, they gained some fame with their songs Jungle Gym At The Zoo and Old Man Willow on the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack.  But their real fame came when John Lennon and Yoko Ono moved to GV and needed a backup band for some concert dates.  They picked the local boys (who became the "Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band" in concert), and they ended up being his band for the 1972 lp Sometime In New York City, which featured the infamously-named Woman Is The Nigger Of The World.  The band kind of drifted into obscurity by 1975.  I was unable to get anything about Franks, But Bronstein is in a bad way, nearly destitute and suffering from brain and lung cancer which has left him nearly incapacitated.  He is being aided by a musician's help group called Sweet Relief Mucicians Fund, and if you are interested in helping, you can reach them at sweetrelief.org.

Next up is the not quite rock'roll category, and I have a couple of biggies to add here.  With 229 top fortys (not a typo), 154 top tens, and 30 #1s- most famously White Christmas- Bing Crosby!

And with 54 top 40s, 15 top tens, and 3 #1s, not including the one Sherry denied him, Rambling Rose- Nat King Cole!

Our look back feature this week throws its spotlight on the Hal Kemp Orchestra.  Kemp started out with a UNC college band, the Carolina Club Band, from 1924-27.  He turned over the reins to classmate Kay Kaiser then to go pro.  From 1930-41 he charted 58 top 40s, 29 top tens, and 4 #1s including 1937s This Years Kisses.  This band was a classic case of turning a liability into a strength.  Vocalist Skinnay Ennis had problems carrying a note, so arranger JS Trotter overcame that by having him shorten the note, and filling the space with a stattacco muted trumpet that according to Johnny Mercer sounded "like a typewriter", giving them a sound unique.  The song they might be best known for came their way in 1939 when Kaiser (who had long since went pro and will be no doubt a lookback feature himself) came up with his #1 The Three Little Fishies.  Kemp's band recorded it as well and took it to #5.

In December of 1940, Kemp was seriously injured in a car accident.  In the hospital he quickly developed pneumonia, and died two days later at the age of 36.

Next up is the Chris's favorites category.  With 5 top 40s and 2 top tens- one of which, A Long December, you'll usually find on my New Year's Morning posts- Counting Crows!

And with 3 big top 40s, 2 of them top 10s, including Georgy Girl- The Seekers!

Four new top 40s to tell you about today.  Kenny Rogers and the First Edition hit at #40, up 12, with Heed The Call.  Yellow River finally makes it's top 40 appearance after 18 trudging weeks in the hot 100, moving from 50 to 39.  Elvis moves up 17 to #34 with his excellent cover of You Don't Have To Say You Love Me.  And at 32, up 10 spots, is Bryan Hyland with Gypsy Woman.

Our last category is the golden oldies, and with 33 top 40s, 11 top tens, and 3 #1s, including I Can't Stop Loving You- Ray Charles!

And there you have them- the class of Fall 2012!

Only one song joins the top 40, so only one falls- and that is Out In The Country, dropping from 9 to 25.  Also, an almost but not quite shoutout to El Condor Pasa, which peaked at 11 last week for Simon and Garfunkel, and slips to 14 this time around.

No six degrees this week, due to the MHOF and the fact that the only dropper in the top ten was the one we featured last week!

The New Seekers hold at 10 with Look What They've Done To My Song, Ma.

100 Proof Aged In Soul, a Motown quartet who featured Joe Stubbs, brother of the Four Tops' Levi Stubbs, comes from 14 to 9 with Somebody's Been Sleeping.

The Kinks remain at 8 for a second week with Lola.

Cracklin' Rosie slips from 3 to 7 this time around.

James Taylor moves up one- as do the next three songs- to #6 with Fire And Rain.

Sugarloaf moves to #5 with Green Eyed Lady.

R Dean Taylor is at 4 with Indiana Wants Me.

And the last song to actually move is All Right Now, from 4 to 3 for Free.

The runner up again this week is the Carpenters' We've Only Just Begun.

And spending their second week at #1- the Jackson 5 with I'll Be There!!!

But... rules is rules and you don't get yer picture posted for week #2.    Come back next week for more musical fun!

Time machine week 39

It's October 26, 1970.  Tomorrow, President Richard M. Nixon will sign the Controlled Substances Act, combining all the various anti-drug federal statutes into one omnibus law.  In an ironic aside, Black Sabath will also play their first American concert tomorrow, at Glassboro State College ( now Rowan) in New Jersey.

Welcome to this week's Time Machine.  In a twist, I'm going to do an inverted teaser this week.  So here are the answers we'll be questioning this episode:  the Jackson 5, Johnny Mercer, Yellow River by Christie, Al Capone's birthday party, still touring, 5, one, three, and 17.  Confused?  You won't be if you read on!


We have 11 hot 100 debuts this week, but how many are well known enough to rate a mention? (first question) The answer is, one. And that would be Elvis with his version of the Dusty Springfield hit You Don't Have To Say You Love Me.  So now we can slide right on into the birthday songs for this week.  And this is going to be a light one, as well.  How many birthday songs this week, Chris? (Second question) Well, the answer to that is, 5.

Turning 40 this week, we have Chicago with Dialogue parts 1 and 2, as well as King Harvest with Dancing In The Moonlight.  Turning 45 are Joe Tex's Skinny Legs And All, as well as Cher with You Better Sit Down, Kids.  And turning 55, Buddy Holly with Peggy Sue.  Blow out the candles...

Which already gets us to the big movers.  The fastest climber this week... is in the top 40, you'll just have to wait.  The biggest dropper is also one of my two almost but not quite tributes for the week.  Linda Ronstadt's Long Long Time, her breakthrough hit, falls from a peak of 26 down to 62, a 36-notch drop.  And while we're in the neighborhood, we'll say hello and goodbye to the other one as well:  the James Gang move up a pair to #60 with Funk # 49, but drop off the chart next week.

Which brings us to #50 and the third question- what Where Are They Now song could also be a How High Is It Now?  Answer, Yellow River by Christie, which finally makes a move, up 10 this week to #50 in its 17th week of meandering the lower reaches of the chart. (17 being the answer to question#4, how many weeks has it taken Yellow River to get to # 50?)  Christie was an English band formed around one Jeff Christie.  He was bassist, singer, songwriter, and bottle-washer for the band.  Originally joining him were guitarist Vic Elmes and drummer Mike Blackley.  Mike was the reason Yellow River became a hit; his brother-in-law was in the Tremeloes, and Jeff offered the song to them first.  They recorded the backing track and then changed their minds about recording it.  So they gave the backing track they'd recorded back to Jeff, and he used it on their version.  But while Mike was an excellent studio drummer, he struggled on tour, and was replaced by Paul Fenton, who would go on to do some studio work for T Rex.  Lem Lubin was added about this same time, but neither one stayed long, and by 1972 the original band had split up.  This after only having the one hit here and a follow-up, San Bernadino, which hit the top ten in England.

Jeff continued to field new line-ups into the mid seventies before becoming a solo act.  In the 90s, he re-formed the band with more new members, and was touring with them as late as 2009.  It was this group that entered the UK phase of the 1991 Eurovision song contest with a song called Nothing On This Earth, which placed 6th out of 8 in fan voting.  Elmes, who gained some fame by writing the guitar parts for the first-season Space:1999 TV theme, is also touring with a band called Christie Again.  Felton was contacted with other T Rex members by bongo player Mickey Finn to reform a new touring T Rex, and they are also still on the road (Thus, "still touring" is the answer to, "where are they now?").


Six songs enter the top 40 this week.  Tears Of A Clown leaps 15 spots to #40.  Bobby Bloom joins the party at 39, up 7, with Montego Bay.  At 38, up 3, is Englebert Humperdink with Sweetheart.  Wicked Wilson Pickett climbs 11 to #37 with Engine # 9.  Stevie Wonder hops from 53 to 36 with Heaven Help Us All.  And finally, at #34, and 18-notch climb, the big mover once again is the Partridge Family with I Think I Love You.  In fact, the next question- Just how many times has this song BEEN the big mover?- goes with the answer "3"- it was also the big mover the last two weeks!  Unless this feature ever goes to a top 200, I doubt this record will ever be broken.

Laurie:  Three weeks in a row is pretty impressive.
Keith:  Yeah, but I'm bummed.  Dave Edmunds looks more like Chris Martin than me.

This week's look backfeatures piano genius Fats Waller.  Fats, born Thomas Waller, was a jazz piano man and composer who's solo career spanned 1929 to 1942 (he died of pneumonia on tour in '43) and piled up 37 top tens and 6 #1s, including his biggest chart hit, 1937's It's A Sin To Tell A Lie.   However, he's probably best known for his composition Ain't Misbehavin'.  His recording was kinda buried by all the versions that came out that same year of 1929- Leo Reisman's Orchestra took it to #2, his good friend Louie Armstrong to #7, Gene Austin to #9, and Ruth Etting to #16- so he only charted it at #17.  Fifty-seven years later, Hank Williams, Jr., took it to #1 on the country charts.

But the neatest thing I learned about Fats was that one night in 1926, he was kidnapped by gangsters, hustled into a car, and driven to a speakeasy.  Once inside, he was brought to a piano and told at gunpoint  to play.  Turns out the answer to "Why was Fats Waller kidnapped" is that it was Al Capone's birthday party he had been "invited" to play at.  It is said he emerged three days later dead drunk, extremely tired, and thousands of dollars in tips richer.

"Just between us, it's good work if you can get it!"

 

Three songs enter the top ten, three fall out.  The droppers are Candida (3 to 15), (I Know I'm) Losing You (8 to 18), and Snowbird (10 to 26).

Look What They've Done To My Song, Ma!  They moved it from 11 to 10 for the New Seekers.

Three Dog Night holds at 9 with Out In The Country.

The Kinks dance up 6 to #8 with Lola.

James Taylor moves from 15 to 7 with Fire And Rain.

Sugarloaf moves from 7 to 6 with Green Eyed Lady.

R Dean Taylor sneaks up to 5, up one, with Indiana Wants Me.

Free also comes up one to 4 with All Right Now.

Which brings us to the six degrees contestant.

Cracklin' Rosie, which drops from the top spot to #3, was named for a wine popular with a Canadian first peoples ("native Americans") tribe.  A nickname for a sparkling rosé, the song Neil wrote after he heard about it was off his world-music lp Tap Root Manuscript.  This album contained one song not written by Neil- He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother, which the Hollies had a big hit with.  This song was written by Bob Russell (who also penned the lyrics to the old standard Sentimental Journey) and Bobby Scott.  The pair were brought together (in Russell's last dying days) by a songwriter named Johnny Mercer (which is the answer to "How do we connect Neil Diamond to Andy Williams..." oops! Let the cat out of the bag).   Mercer was a composer of an estimated 1,500 songs from early standards such as Hooray For Hollywood, Jeepers Creepers, and Tangerine, to later crooner ballads such as Frank Sinatra's Summer Wind, as well as Days Of Wine And Roses and Moon River for... Andy Williams.

"You can't get away from me THAT easily..."

The Carpenters have built their stairway up to the #2 spot, up 2 with We've Only Just Begun.

And our final question... "Who's the top dog this week?"

The Jackson 5 with I'll Be There!!!!

Remember, check out the MHOF bar at the top and figure out some nominations for next week's show (because frankly, I haven't started to yet)!