"The Letter" by The Box Tops and "Never My Love" by The Association hold on to their #1 and #2 spots respectively on this week's chart. Gaining fast are "To Sir With Love" by Lulu (up from #9 to #3 … and a sure fire #1 hit), "Little Ole Man" by Bill Cosby (#8 to #4), "How Can I Be Sure" by The Young Rascals (#11 to #6) and "Gimme Little Sign" by Brenton Wood (#12 to #8).
Top 40 Hits earning a bullet this week include "Hey Baby, They're Playing Our Song" by The Buckinghams (up from #17 to #12), "Soul Man" by Sam and Dave (#22 to #14), "Expressway To Your Heart" by The Soul Survivors (#19 to #15), "A Natural Woman" by Aretha Franklin (#32 to #16, a jump of sixteen places), "Your Precious Love" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell (#27 to #17), "People Are Strange" by The Doors (#28 to #18), "It Must Be Him" by Vikki Carr (#30 to #24), "Lightning's Girl" by Nancy Sinatra (#36 to #25), "What Now My Love" by Mitch Ryder (#31 to #26), "Let It Out" by The Hombres (which jumps up eighteen spots from #46 to #28),"Let Love Come Between Us" by James and Bobby Purify (#38 to #29), "The Last Waltz" by Engelbert Humperdinck (#44 to #30), "Ode To Billie Joe" by The Kingpins (#49 to #33), "Child Of Clay" (#48 to #38), "Please Love Me Forever" by Bobby Vinton (#53 to #39) and "Love Is Strange" by Peaches and Herb (#63 to #40, a jump of 23 places).
John Lennon turns 27 today.
John Lennon turns 27 today.
We've got a brand new #1 Album this week as Bobbie Gentry's "Ode To Billie Joe" continues to take the country by storm. It is SO unlike anything else we've heard and the intriguing murder / suicide storyline continues to captivate its audience. (Truth is nobody really knows just WHAT the heck happened on The Tallahatchie Bridge … so speculation runs rampant!!!) The odd thing is by October 9th her single has slipped down to #5 on the Pop Singles Chart, having spent its four weeks at #1 in the month of September. But this record had mass cross-over appeal … kids, parents, pop and country all embraced it.
Producer Chip Douglas puts together a rough mix of The Monkees' new album (once titled "At Random" but now known as "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, Ltd.", the birth signs of each Monkee … and, since Michael Nesmith and Davy Jones shared the same birthday, thus "Jones" at the tail.)
The original line-up included some spacey sound effects called "Special Announcement" as well as the track "Goin' Down" that would be used instead as the B-Side of their next single.
The running order was also considerably different:
SIDE ONE: "Special Announcement" / "She Hangs Out" / "Salesman" / "Cuddly Toy" / "Words / "Don’t Call On Me" / "Goin' Down"
SIDE TWO: "The Door Into Summer" / "Hard To Believe" / "What Am I Doin' Hangin' 'Round" / "Peter Percival Patterson's Pet Pig Porky" / "Pleasant Valley Sunday" / "Daily Nightly" / "Star Collector". It will be re-sequenced into the running order we all know and love on October 19th.
Down 3 games to 1, Jim Lonborg is back on the mound for The Red Sox today … and he comes through with a 3-1 victory over The Cardinal's Steve Carlton. Roger Maris homered to give The Cardinals their only run of the game.
Legendary Disc Jockey Murray The K was fired from New York Underground Radio Station WOR-FM after the take-over of AM Programming Genius Bill Drake. The station had built its progressive FM radio format under the premise that (as Murray the K put it) “radio isn’t just for teeny-boppers anymore” … and they pushed the envelope by playing more and more extended album cuts and taking chances on records like “Society’s Child” by Janis Ian, album tracks by Bob Dylan, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Cream and Jimi Hendrix … and other tracks of his own choosing.
Drake wanted a tightly formatted playlist (in fact he cut the playlist down to about 1/3 of what it used to be and was soon spinning the same 30 - 40 tracks repeatedly throughout the day.) For whatever reason, Bill Drake’s formula worked on the AM Market and other stations quickly adopted the same format throughout the country, simply because it was proving successful.
But in 1967, FM radio was still brand new … an untapped resource for a whole new listening audience … and WOR-FM pulled the plug, literally cleaning house of any number of disc jockeys who previously had successful careers on the AM Dial and replacing them with more laid-back jocks who were now enjoying the freedom of pushing the envelope with more of these underground sounds.
Although Murray the K would go on to work for a string of other radio stations over the years, he would never recapture the audience and the excitement he did when following around The Beatles on their first US Tour or while making musical inroads on the FM dial.
Trumpet Player Doc Severinsen joined The Tonight Show band before Johnny Carson was even brought onboard as the new host. On October 9th, 1967, he took over the position of musical director, replacing long-standing head Skitch Henderson. Severinsen remained band leader until Caron’s retirement in 1992.
At the age of 39, Che Guevara was executed by Bolivian soldiers for attempting to incite a revolution in their country. Ernesto “Che” Guervara is described as a “physician, author, guerilla leader and Marxist revolutionary.” (What??? No mention of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn or Jones in this description???)
