Where the heck did THAT record come from, amongst the biggest (and heaviest) hits of the day like "White Room" by Cream, "Fire" by The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by The Iron Butterfly, "All Along The Watchtower" by Jimi Hendrix and the Five-By-Five Hendrix remake of "Fire", down from #6 to #12 this week. (That places TWO songs called "Fire" in The Top Twelve!!!)
New on the charts (in the Preview Review section) is The Buckinghams with their latest, "Where Did You Come From".
Jumping ahead a year we find The Beatles topping the chart again with another two-sided hit, "Something" / "Come Together". Nice to see The Clique in The Top Ten with "Sugar On Sunday" ... but there are also a few surprises on this chart ...
How about "We Got To Get Together" by Paul Revere and the Raiders at #6, a record that never climbed any higher than #50 on the Billboard Chart. Or "Don't Shut Me Out" by Underground Sunshine, the follow-up to their God-Awful remake of The Beatles' "Birthday" ... the best this one could do was "bubble under" in Billboard at #102.
"Echo Park" by (misspelled) Keith Barbour, "Groovin' Is Easy" by The Charleston Esquires, "Girls It Ain't Easy" by Honey Cone, "Roosevelt And Ira Lee" by Tony Joe White and "Time Machine" by Grand Funk Railroad complete the list of oddities one wouldn't expect to see charting this high on a Top 30 Survey from 1969.
And don't forget to swing by the Burger Chef when you're done listening ... now serving food "good enough to leave home for"!!!
Our only venture into the '70's this week comes by way of this Musicland Top 40 Chart from 1972. The most popular record in all the land (well ... in all the MUSICland anyway) is "Convention '72" by The Delegates, a break-in record done up in the style of all those Dickie Goodman records of the '50's and '60's.
Quite honestly, by 1972 the break-in record had become a bit of a novelty novelty style ... you just didn't see a lot of these types of records anymore. (Three years later, Goodman would come back with a smash of his own when "Mr. Jaws" topped the chart here in Chicago ... and became a Top Ten National Hit as well.)
And, while we're on the subject of novelty records, Chuck Berry sits right behind The Delegates with his novelty smash "My Ding-A-Ling". (Honestly, this record hasn't aged well ... Berry was often described as both The Grandfather and The Architect of Rock And Roll ... this may have been a fun tune to perform in concert but the fact that this ended up being his biggest hit ever GREATLY diminishes his incredible body of work.) Nevertheless, we sure loved it in '72 ... I don't know of ANYBODY who didn't buy this record!
In '50's comeback style, Chuck is joined in The Top Ten by both Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson with their latest hits, "Burnin' Love" and "Garden Party". Another Forgotten Hits favorite sits at #19 ... when is the last time you heard "American City Suite" by Cashman and West???
