Thanksgiving Weekend, 1999 ... that's when it all started.
Thanksgiving Weekend marks the 13th Anniversary of Forgotten Hits.
We've decided to take the long weekend off ... but wanted to take a quick look back at the very first three Forgotten Hits we ever featured, some thirteen years ago.
The first, of course, was "Shape Of Things To Come" by Max Frost and the Troopers, a HUGE Chicagoland Hit (#4, 1968) that climbed as high as #16 nationally.
It comes from the movie "Wild In The Streets" ... and we've featured it numerous times over the years in conjunction with our various "anniversary" celebrations.
The SECOND Forgotten Hit we ever featured was "Mirage" by Tommy James and the Shondells. This record topped the charts here in Chicago in 1967 and reached #7 on the national charts.
Finally, our THIRD Forgotten Hit was "Rock Me" by Steppenwolf. You hear "Born To Be Wild" and "Magic Carpet Ride" virtually every single day ... yet this Top Ten Hit from 1969 is largely ignored.
Forgotten Hits began innocently enough when I emailed 35 friends that I had met through the AOL Oldies Music Chat Room. For months we had been playing oldies trivia and I (as usual) was complaining about how many great songs that we all grew up knowing and loving weren't getting played on the radio anymore.
Finally, with time on my hands Thanksgiving Weekend, I sent an email to 35 "roomies" and asked them "If I wrote a little something about some of these songs and artists once in a while, would you read it?" After a unanimous response, Forgotten Hits was born.
At first I figured I'd run something once or twice a month ... or, depending how much time I had ... or how creative I felt ... maybe even once a week. It's safe to say that things just exploded from there.
Over the past thirteen years (based on files recently restored after our computer crash), it would appear that this little "occasional newsletter" has now been published some 7500 times! And, since we launched the website in 2008, we're closing in on two million viewers! (Not too shabby after a modest start-up of 35 subscribers ... many of whom are still with us reading Forgotten Hits today!)
And we're still going strong. In fact, the main reason I've decided to lie low for the long weekend is to FINALLY finish up our Countdown of Your Top 20 All-Time Favorite Garage Bands.
That means we'll be kicking off our 14th Year with a bang by launching that countdown on Monday, November 26th. It's sure to be another Forgotten Hits Event that you won't want to miss ... and we're already working with a couple of different jocks on the list about playing back The Top 20 Winners on their radio programs.
So thank you, thank you, thank you for your continued support ... and the great word of mouth that has helped us grow over the past thirteen years.
I don't know if I have another thirteen in me, but this brand new series should prove that there's still enough relevance in Forgotten Hits to keep it worthwhile reading for a while yet to come.
Thanks again everybody!
kk
Kent Kotal
Forgotten Hits
