Saturday, June 7, 2014

The Saturday Surveys (June 7th)

Here's a 1969 chart from KELP out of El Paso, Texas.

Nice to see The Spiral Starecase (misspelled on the chart) on top with their late-'60's classic ... they only peaked at #12 in Billboard (and #7 nationally).



A couple of Forgotten Hits Favorites can be found in The Top 20 ... "Mendocino" by The Sir Douglas Quintet and "Israelites" by Desmond Dekker and the Aces.  (I'm also partial to the #22 Hit by Sonny Charles and the Checkmates, "Black Pearl", one of the last hits produced by Phil Spector.)  Pretty cool to see The New Colony Six debut higher than The Beatles, too!










And check out the photo below of The Cowsills receiving their gold record for "Hair"!  Very cool chart!


Here's another cool chart, from KRLA this time, circa 1965 ... a two-pager listing The Top 50 Hits (plus 5 "extras") played by the station.  (Check out a couple of those "pick hits" ... one was chose by Bob Eubanks, who later went on to host The Newlywed Game ... the other by Dick Biondi who had recently relocated to LA from Chicago's WLS!  Bob's pick ... "Yes, I'm Ready" did a little bit better than Dick's.)



The Sir Douglas Quintet are represented on this chart, too, with their other big hit, "She's About A Mover".  Another Forgotten Hits Favorite sits at #31 ... "Laurie" by Dickey Lee. 





You'll find some great Two-Sided Hits on this list, too ...


"Satisfaction" / "The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man" by The Rolling Stones (second week on the chart and leaping from #41 to #9) ... they've also got a two-sided hit at #20 ("The Last Time" / "Play With Fire").

More surprising ... how about Them ... with three hits on the chart this week ... their version of "Here Comes The Night" sits at #8 and "Gloria" / "Baby Please Don't Go", listed as a two-sided hit, is at #16.

The Beatles are here (as one would expect) with their latest two-sided winner, "Ticket To Ride" / "Yes It Is" at #15 and Tom Jones is at #37 with "What's New Pussycat" / "Once Upon A Time".

Check out the #13 Record ... it's The Olympics' original version of "Good Lovin'", nine months before The Young Rascals would take THEIR version to #1.  And our buddy Billy Hinsche is new on the charts this week with the first big hit by Dino, Desi and Billy, "I'm A Fool".  Good stuff!







Here's one of the oldest charts sent in for our Saturday Surveys feature.

Dating back to June 9th of 1956, we got some pretty M.O.R. stuff here ...  Vic Damone at #1 with his version of "On The Street Where You Live" ... "I Could Have Danced All Night" by Sylvia Sims at #9 ... and several other titles that wouldn't really rank as "rock and roll" this early in the game.

And although this is only a Top Ten Listing, they still managed to slip in more tracks, thanks to a three-way tie for #3 between The McGuire Sisters, Pat Boone and The Chordettes ... a two-sided hit at #5 by The Four Lads and two two-way ties at #8 between Elvis Presley and Nervous Norvus ... (Elvis was also at #4) ... and #9 between the aforementioned Sims and Teresa Brewer ... giving you a total of fifteen titles in all on their Top 10 Tunes chart this week.

(I wonder how many of these surveys survived through till 2014 ... with the encouragement at the bottom to clip these photos out for your collection!)