Our FH Buddy Bob Hale was responsible for counting them down this day but his show was preempted by the non-stop news coverage coming out of Dallas ... where all of America's world was turned upside down.
Only 90 minutes earlier, President Kennedy had been officially pronounced dead at Parkland Hospital. Nationwide, all eyes and ears were on Dallas, looking for ANY new details that might help to make sense of this tragedy.
The WLS Silver Dollar Survey spotlights some great music from late-1963 ... personal favorites include "Wonderful Summer" by Robin Ward, "She's A Fool" by Lesley Gore, "Deep Purple" by Nino Tempo and April Stevens, "I Can't Stay Mad At You" by Skeeter Davis and "Fools Rush In" by Rick Nelson ... when's the last time you heard ANY of these on commercial radio???
Jumping ahead six years, we find this KXOA Chart from 1969 ... with a VERY unlikely #1 Hit, "Wasn't Born To Follow" by The Byrds. (This song never even made the Billboard Hot 100 Chart ... and was, in fact, the B-Side to their current, low-charting hit "Ballad Of Easy Rider" ... so this one comes as a COMPLETE surprise!)
The Band are charting quite high here, too, with their early chart hit "Up On Cripple Creek" ... it sits at #3 this week. In fact, quite a bit of this charts leans toward the "heavy hits" of the day ... Creedence Clearwater Revival, Three Dog Night, both The Beatles AND The Plastic Ono Band, A.B. Skhy, Crosby, Stills and Nash (with another B-Side, "Long Time Gone", the flipside of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes", which charts ten spots below it at #29), Janis Joplin, Santana, Thunderclap Newman, Blind Faith ... this looks like what would come to be known as FM Classic Rock several years later! (Even their Top Five Albums reflect this, with titles represented by Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, CCR and the Soundtrack to "Easy Rider".)
Meanwhile, odd-ball (by comparison!) tracks like "Jam Up And Jelly Tight" by Tommy Roe, "Cherry Hill Park" by Billy Joe Royal, "Love And Let Love" by The Hardy Boys and "Groovy Grubworm" by Harlow Wilcox can also be found on this week's Top 30. An eclectic mix to be sure!
The #1 Record was by Rene and Rene with their (mostly) foreign-language hit "Lo Mucho Que To Quiero", a song that also did pretty well here in Chicago. (We have featured this one a few time over the years and it always gets a good response ... a truly "forgotten hit" if there ever was one ... yet EVERYBODY seems to remember it once they hear it again ... and thus is the very essence of what Forgotten Hits is all about!)
Right behind it is Brenton Wood with "Me And You", a song that only "bubbled under" in Billboard (and at #121 at that!). Believe it or not, this one was LAST week's #1 Record in El Paso! (I'd never even heard it before ... and, listening to it now, it SURE sounds out of place in 1968! More like a doo-wop record with a spoken narration??? Wow!)
Thee Midnighters have TWO Top 12 Hits: "That's All" is at #4 this week and "Sad Girl" is at #12. Neither one of these records made the Billboard chart ... and once again harken back to a much older sound.
Boy, Clark Besch sure sent us some VERY interesting charts for this week's Saturday Surveys feature!
Yes, you've got The Beach Boys topping the KAFY "Boss 30" Hit Parade with their monster hit "Good Vibrations" ... but that one was #1 EVERYWHERE. So check out numbers 2 and 3!!! "Little Black Egg" by The Nightcrawlers (a garage band classic if there ever was one) holds down the #2 spot ... and one of Dave The Rave's all-time favorite bands, Richard and the Young Lions are ranked at #3 with their hit "Open Your Door".
Interesting to see The Sandpipers' version of "Louie Louie" in the Top Ten ... in fact, down from #3 last week to #7 this week ... and Brian Hyland's latest, "Run, Run, Look And See" jumps all the way from #23 to #10! (You won't find any "dirty lyrics" in The Sandpipers' version ... meanwhile, The Kingsmen's version of "Louie Louie" made our 1963 WLS chart featured above.)
Also on the chart is the Rare Breed version of "Come Take A Ride In My Boat" ... which would go to the top of the charts a year later when it was re-recorded as "Come On Down To My Boat" by Every Mother's Son!
