>>>In what system does “Tired Of Being Alone” by Al Green end up #12 for the year when it only peaked at #11 on Billboard? (Ken Freck)
>>>Just one of MANY anomalies we have seen on Billboard’s Year-End Charts over the years … but incredibly, it’s true. Looking at “Tired Of Being Alone” (which, as you mentioned, peaked at #11 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart … and only stayed there one week) … it finished at #32 in Cash Box for the year and did not make Record World’s Top 20 Biggest Hits of the Year list (which is all that they published in 1971.) In Dann Isbell and Bill Carroll’s book “Ranking The ‘70’s” … which uses a much more sophisticated version of the progressive point method I mentioned earlier … it is ranked at #57 for the year. To put that into the proper perspective, “Ranking the ‘70’s” awards it 2345 points for its #57 showing. Their #12 Record of the year … “Gypsys, Tramps And Thieves” by Cher … earned 5737 points … or nearly 250% more points than the Al Green hit. By absolutely NO measurement should this song have wound up as the 12th Biggest Record Of The Year in 1971!!! Perhaps the worst extreme was in 1965, when they named Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs’ hit “Wooly Bully” the #1 Song of the Year, despite the fact that it never even made it to #1 during the course of the entire year. No how, no way will you ever convince me that Sam’s two weeks at #2 earned more points than The Rolling Stones’ FOUR WEEK RUN at #1 with “Satisfaction,” the song that is most universally accepted as The Biggest Record of 1965! (Likewise for “Yesterday” by The Beatles, also a four-week #1 record.) Other MAJOR hits from ’65 include “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” by The Righteous Brothers, “Downtown” by Petula Clark” and “My Girl” by The Temptations. Does ANYBODY out there really believe that “Wooly Bully” was a bigger chart hit than any of these tunes??? (kk)
Jumping in on the Year-End
Charts controversy:
According to my progressive point system, applied to only the Billboard weekly charts in 1965: "Wooly Bully" earned 1001.07 points, compared to 1044.56 for "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and 1044.01 for "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'." Applying the same point system to only the Cash Box weekly charts for that year resulted in: 1051.77 for "Satisfaction"; 1003.54 for "I Can't Help Myself" (Four Tops); 996.58 for "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'"; 933.68 for "Come See About Me" (Supremes); 913.99 for "Help!" (Beatles); and 902.46 for "Wooly Bully." (Combining the two, "Wooly Bully" placed as #5 for the year.)
In 1971, "Tired Of Being Alone"
earned 678.40 points for the weekly Billboard charts and
673.34 points for the weekly Cash Box charts, placing it at
#47 for the year overall. (The year-end chart for 1971 published in Cash
Box placed "Tired Of Being Alone" at #32.)
–-Randy Price
EXACTLY!!! So in what universe does “Tired Of Being
Alone” earn a #12 ranking for the year in Billboard Magazine??? (kk)
From FH Reader Larry
Neal, the KOMA Year-End Chart for 1971 …
The Top 100 Songs of the Year … and no Al Green in sight!
Hi, Kent, et al,
I grew up in Grand Forks and Fargo, North Dakota. When I was a kid, we didn’t have a full time R&R station … we didn’t have one until 1972 or 73, I think.
We did get a wonderful dose of Canadian radio, and we also got to hear KQWB out of Fargo. It was a great station and, as you saw via the survey, they played a nice variety. They also had an FM station that did a pretty good job of album rock, too.
Both the AM and FM stations had great DJ’s, too.
Bill
Regarding Hello Again by Herb Oscar Anderson …
Herb was a
beloved morning DJ for decades in New York, on (sequentially) WMCA, WABC and
WCBS-FM.
His “Hello
Again” was something he played regularly on his shows. I believe he always
opened with it, but I’m not sure.
As far as I
know, it was never released as a recording you could buy.
The fact
that it appears on the Rewound Radio hit list is more a reflection of the
survey participants fondness for Herb the DJ, rather than thinking it was a
great rock’n’roll record.
Hope that
helps.
Tom Preston
Hey Kent!
Wow ... NICE job! 😊
That's really cool
coming from your site. Thanks so much!
One
of my goals with Rewound Radio is to show how much fun it can be even for those
who weren't there at the time. I don't want it to be just a nostalgia
thing. I know it's a long shot, but every so often I get e-mails from
younger people who think it's fun. That's when I know we're making it
work.
One thing about oldies -- it's the most fun music ever made.
Thanks again!
-- Allan
I have no doubt that the generations that have
come along since we all experienced this great music are falling in love with
it as well ... I see evidence of this all the time.
The fact that so many artists have been
selling their catalogs of late helps to ensure that this music will stay with
us for a long, long time to come. (These are huge, huge investments that
these companies are making ... the only way they will ever reach a payback is
by keeping this music out there in one form or another. That means new people being introduced to it
every day for many years to come.)
Like you always say … It’s not how old it is,
it’s how GOOD it is. (kk)
Hey, I just found your page about the Top
3,333 Classic Rock Songs after viewing your amazing Rewound Radio Top 77 page.
I always like great countdowns.
Anyway, would it be possible if you could
email me the complete Top 3,333 Classic Rock countdown list?
Thanks in advance. Here's wishing you a
Happy and Safe 2022.
Mark Williams
All this countdown talk has drummed up some
renewed interested in our TOP 3333 MOST ESSENTIAL CLASSIC ROCK SONGS OF ALL
TIME list from a couple of years ago.
You can view the website countdown here: CLASSIC ROCK
ESSENTIALS …
Or ask for a complete list via email … just shoot me
a note at kk@forgottenhits.com … and
we’ll get it right out to you! (kk)
From an exchange between FH Reader Rich Klein and Jon
Wolfert …
And this is why
us fanatics always want accuracy -- look at where Hotel California placed. When you
played the Eagles "highest" ranking song -- you played a different
song but I thought Hotel California at #18 was their highest charting single.
Rich
You are
correct about “Hotel California” ... but at the outset I said I would play a
group's highest ranking song "most" of the time. When it came
to the Eagles, I played their second highest song, "Take It
Easy." When I got to the Beatles on
that same list, I didn't play their top song either (“Hey Jude”) because I knew
it would be in another countdown at the end of the show.
Thanks and
happy new year.
Keep listening
to Rewound Radio!
Jon
Join me on
Sundays from 3-6PM Eastern for great jingles and the best music,
live on Rewound
Radio
Hi Kent,
I found your look at the Rewound Radio 2021
favorite tunes to be quite interesting.
Decades later, it seems that one person's
favorite oldies are another person's burnt out tunes.
Your comments on the Rewound analysis indicate
you are more than glad to hear songs you haven't heard in ages or perhaps never
before ("Hello Again.")
I've been compiling a register of songs from
the 50s and 60s that were hits or almost hits in some significant regional area of the U.S. and/or Canada, based upon
radio station surveys for many years. There are well over 8,000
song listings along with supporting data, a few of which showed up in your
Rewound analysis.
I've been retired from radio
for 15 years after having last worked for Sirius Satellite Radio (pre-merger)
for just over the first four years of its existence, primarily on the 50s,
60s and 70s channels.
With You Tube, it's possible
to listen to almost all of these compilation songs, which could be a fun
exercise in and of itself.
Hope you find this
interesting and I would welcome any comments.
Yours truly,
Bob Thomas
Budd Lake, NJ
Several years ago we did a month-long series
in Forgotten Hits called "Show Me Your Hits" ... and then ran a bunch
of surveys and sample songs that made the Top Ten in various parts of the
country that barely made a dent (if any) on the national charts.
Being from Chicago, we had a TON of these ...
HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS that never got recognized beyond our two Top 40 giants,
WLS and WCFL. I remember spending a week on Louisville as well ... and
discovered a bunch of GREAT new music I would have never even known existed otherwise.
I'll have to review your list ... it’s too
long to post (and possibly too long to print ... Word says it's nearly 300
pages!!!) ... but I am anxious to see what you've come up with. There is a definite appeal of Regional Hits
to me!
You would think that some of the long-standing
radio stations that are still around would embrace their past and heritage and
feature some of these long-lost gems from time to time ... as their audience
just might be the only ones around who'd recognize and appreciate any of
it! Sadly, we both know that that's not the way radio works these days
... and this is why Rewound Radio is such a blessing. I can't tell you
how many times I've emailed in a request to hear something like "I'm Just
Waiting, Anticipating" by The New Colony Six or "Up On The Roof"
by The Cryan' Shames ... and they jump on it immediately because they HAVE all
this great music at their fingertips. I can't think of any radio station
that does it better ... or caters to their audience more. It’s the pure love of this music that makes
it so very special to all of us. (Again,
check out our list of THE TOP 3333 MOST ESSENTIAL CLASSIC ROCK SONGS OF ALL
TIME … you’ll find songs on there that haven’t been played on the air in
DECADES … yet the fans remember … and want and expect more from their radio
stations.) kk
>>>I don’t
know if you know or remember that record by the Addrisi Brothers from back in
1959 called CHERRYSTONE on Delfi Records. I vaguely remember them lip-syncing
that one on Bandstand. (Larry Neal)
>>>“Cherrystone” was their first chart hit … it reached
#62 in 1959. And then they just seemed to disappear for ten years!!! (kk)
Just walked by
the other WRCO-FM Studio and see that Cherrystone by the Addrisi Brothers is getting
ready to play!
Phil Nee
I swear sometimes I think my life is bugged! (lol)
Or, perhaps on a more positive note, the whole world is reading Forgotten
Hits!
Thanks, Phil!!! (kk)
