Sunday, May 26, 2019

May 26th


"Get Back" holds at #1 for the third week in the row.

 New to The Top Ten this week are "I Could Never Lie To You" by our very own New Colony Six (one of my favorites by them, by the way ... but then again I liked ALL their stuff!), up from #15 to #7, "In The Ghetto" by Elvis Presley (up thirteen places from #21 to #8) and "Grazing In The Grass" by The Friends Of Distinction, who climb up three places from #13 to #10.

Creedence Clearwater Revival continues to make big leaps up the chart, this week moving from #27 to #13 with their latest, "Bad Moon Rising," another move of fourteen places.

Also climbing eight spots or more are "Day Is Done" by Peter, Paul and Mary (#20 to #12), "Medicine Man' by The Buchanan Brothers (#23 to #14),"Love Theme from 'Romeo and Juliet'" by Henry Mancini #33 to #20), "Let Me" by Paul Revere and the Raiders (#30 to #21), "Love Me Tonight" by Tom Jones (#37 to #26), "See" by The Rascals (#38 to #28), "One" by Three Dog Night (#39 to #30) and "Israelites" by Desmond Dekker and the Aces (#40 to #31).

Interesting premiers include another song from the hit musical "Hair," "Good Morning Starshine" by Oliver (new at #32), "Black Pearl" by Sonny Charles and the Checkmates, a VERY popular group here in Chicago enjoying their first really big chart hit, thanks to production credit by Phil Spector and "But It's Alright" by J.J. Jackson, soon to be a pop and soul classic.






This week in 1969:  

May 20th - Elvis Presley sells his Circle G Ranch in Mississippi for $440,000 to the North Mississippi Gun Club.  (The property will eventually revert back to Presley when the purchaser defaults on his payments.) 

Also on this date, Peter Cetera, lead singer and bassist for Chicago was badly beaten at a Chicago Cubs baseball game at Dodger Stadium.  Cetera was reportedly jumped by four Marines, who badly beat him about the face.  He lost four teeth and spent five hours in surgery as a result of the incident, ultimately requiring his jaw to be wired shut for the next five months.  The reason?  They didn’t like the length of his hair. Chicago had moved to LA, seeking fame and fortune, and had just released their very first album, "Chicago Transit Authority," the month before.

May 21st - CBS announces that The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour is no longer just a replacement series ... it is given its own berth thanks to its excellent ratings and Glen's popularity.  (This earns Glen a raise to $15,000 per week!)  
May 24th – Five days after earning a gold single award, “Get Back” by The Beatles hits the #1 Spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 Pop Chart, becoming the group’s 17th #1 Single in America according to Billboard.  It will stay there for five weeks.

(Here in Chicao, it had already held down the #1 spot for the past three straight weeks!)  
Although Billboard would ultimately award them twenty #1 singles (a record they still hold to this day), both Cash Box and Record World awarded them more, most notably "Twist And Shout," a song that dominated the airwaves during the height of Beatlemania (and still gets played nearly every single day some 55 years later!)
Other National #1 Records that fell short on Billboard's list are "Nowhere Man" (#1 in Record World but only #2 in Cash Box and #3 in Billboard), "Yellow Submarine" (#1 in both Cash Box and Record World but #2 in Billboard) and "Something" (#1 in Record World but #2 in Cash Box and #3 in Billboard, even though it was the designated A-Side of the record.) 
For the first time ever (not counting the rush-released “My Bonnie” at the onset of Beatlemania, which featured The Beatles as simply the backing band to lead singer Tony Sheridan), "Get Back" singles out and credits keyboardist Billy Preston … the only non-group member to ever be credited on the label of a Beatles single.  (Preston was invited to join the sessions by his friend George Harrison.  He first met The Beatles back in 1963 when he was touring England as part of Little Richard’s band.)
 

The Guess Who make their first US television appearance on American Bandstand, where they perform their first US Hit “These Eyes” 

May 25th – “Midnight Cowboy” is released.  Despite an X-Rating, it will go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and won Best Actor nominations for both Dustin Hoffman and newcomer Jon Voight


Also on this date, The Hollies record “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.”  The session piano player on this track is a guy by the name of Elton John (although he was likely still calling himself Reginald Dwight at the time)

Also on May 25th, actress Anne Heche is born ...

 And Jimmy Dean opens his first sausage plant in his hometown of Plainview, Texas.   

May 25th - Sam and Dave perform "Born Again," "Soul Man" and "I Thank You" … while Mary Hopkin is on hand to singd "Goodbye" and "Love Is The Sweetest Thing" on The Ed Sullivan Show this evening.     

May 26th – As part of their bed-in at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, John Lennon writes and records “Give Peace A Chance” with a number of celebrity guests on hand (including Tommy Smothers and Petula Clark)
Also on this date, as the owner of The California Angels, Cowboy Gene Autry has to fire his very first baseball manager.  The unlucky culprit ... Bill Rigney.
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