The Saturday Surveys (12-20)

Kicking this off this week with this 1966 chart from WQAM (who were already celebrating the oldies, 1966-style) the week before the big holiday!

The Music Machine sit at #1 with their Garage Band Classic, "Talk Talk" (hardly #1 material but hey, it was the '60's ... so anything goes!!!)

Obviously this is the case ... since Roger Williams is at #3 with "Born Free"!!!  (Not two songs you'd EVER expect to hear played back-to-back together!  Thankfully we had The Beach Boys breaking up this mismatch with their '60's classic "Good Vibrations", down from #1 the week before.

All kinds of goofy songs and mistakes can be found on this chart ... "Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron" ... by The PALACE Guardsmen?!?!  A couple of Monkees LP cuts at #23 (in addition to their legitimate hit at #18, here referred to simply as "Clarksville") ... they've also got "I'm A Believer" debuting at #37!

Being a South Florida station, I guess it's really no surprise to see wild man Wayne Cochran at #19 with his latest (up nine points from the week before), "Going Back To Miami".

DIDJAKNOW?:  WQAM reportedly stood for "We Quit At Midnight"!!!  That was the time this station signed off the air, picking up again at 6 am the following day.  (Maybe that's why their Million Dollar Weekend" ran from 3 pm to Midnight???)  Interesting!

I picked this 1963 chart from KDWB in St. Paul, Minnesota, because I like seeing a couple of two-sided hits in The Top Ten by a couple of our surfin' favorites, The Trashmen and The Beach Boys.  (The Trashmen top the chart with their classic "Surfin' Bird", backed with "King Of The Surf", while The Boys of Summer from California are sitting at #9 with their two-sided hit "In My Room" / "Be True To Your School" ... proving that not EVERY recording act in 1963 was sticking some disposable "filler" on the other side of their latest single.

"Popsicles And Icicles" by The Murmaids is at #2 ... this song was one of the very first chart successes for songwriter David Gates who, ten year later, would be topping a few charts of his own with his new group Bread.  Our FH Buddies The Rip Chords (another surfin' band apparently doing very well in land-locked Minnesota!) are at #10 with "Hey Little Cobra", their biggest pop hit.  You'll also find our pal Tommy Roe at #15 with "Everybody", down a notch from the week before.