The year is winding down as we reach the December 4th Chart for 1971.
Sly and the Family Stone hold on to the #1 spot for a second week ... as Bread inches ever closer, moving from #4 to #2 with "Baby I'm-A Want You." After breaking thru with "Make It With You" last year, this is now their FOURTH Top Ten Hit in just 18 months ... and during that same period they also hit The Top 40 with "Let Your Love Go" and "Mother Freedom," two (by Bread standards) rockin' tunes that didn't really fit their typical format of chart success. (Still, I loved each and every one of them. In fact, I still rank Bread as one of my very favorite groups of all time.)
"Have You Seen Her" and "Got To Be There" continue to creep up the chart, landing at #'s 4 and 5 respectively ... and Three Dog Night's got one of the week's most impressive movers again as "An Old Fashioned Love Song" breaks into The Top Ten on its fourth week on the chart, jumping from #17 to #9.
Big movers within The Top 40 include "Brand New Key" by Melanie (up from #31 to #17, a jump of 14 places), "Stones" by Neil Diamond, up ten spots from #30 to #20, "You Are Everything" by The Stylistics, also up ten places from #40 to #30, "Hey Girl" by Donny Osmond, up over twenty places as it jumps from #53 to #32, "(I Know) I'm Losing You" by Rod Stewart and the Faces (#45 to #33) and "Sunshine" by Jonathan Edwards (#54 to #38.)
Playing Favorites:
Brand new at #69 is "Day After Day" by Badfinger, probably my favorite single by them. You can really hear George Harrison's influence on this one. (It comes from their album "Straight Up," produced by Harrison and Todd Rundgren.)
The timeless classic "Let's Stay Together" by Al Green is new at #71. Although never one of my favorites (he has never topped "Tired Of Being Alone" in my mind!), I am certainly in the minority with this opinion ... I don't know ANYBODY else who doesn't absolutely LOVE this song!
As promised, The New Seekers enter the chart this week with their version of "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing," premiering at #74. It will prove to be the bigger hit ... although THIS week The Hillside Singers' version already has a 14 place head start at #60.
Donny Osmond's B-Side, "I Knew You When" breaks thru at #84 ... while Bob Dylan premiers at #90 with "George Jackson." Carly Simon is right behind him with her latest, "Anticipation." (Pass the ketchup please!)
This Week in 1971:
December 4th – The Montreaux Casino caught fire and burned during a performance by Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention. Incredibly, all 2000 patrons escaped without a single death. (Damage to the casino, however, was estimated at 12-15 million francs.)
The incident was later immortalized forever in Deep Purple’s huge 1973 Hit “Smoke On The Water.” (“Some stupid with a flare gun, burned the place to the ground.”) Here in Chicago, countless people thought the incident happened in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, thanks to the line “on the Lake Geneva shoreline,” never realizing that this really all took place in Switzerland! The casino was rebuilt in 1975.
