As explained last week, in order to come up with 53 different charts from all 50 states, we had to "double up" on Chicago, where TWO great Top 40 giants ruled the airwaves in 1972.
We featured the WLS survey a couple of weeks ago ... so this time we move on to WCFL.
Radio Wars were never more interesting than that period of 1966 - 1975 when both 50,000 watt AM giants battled it out for listeners. (It wasn't at all uncommon back then for jocks to jump from one station to another ... and sometimes back again ... in the pursuit of luring listeners away with them.)
Here's the way things stacked up on Super 'CFL for the week of April 27th, 1972 ...
Despite being simply across the river from one another, it wasn't unusual for one of these stations to be playing songs that the other station passed on. And although BOTH stations supposedly measured the greatest sales and airplay of The Windy City, there were often huge chart discrepancies as to the popularity of these records.
For example, "A Cowboy's Work Is Never Done" topped the WCFL Chart despite stopping at #4 on the WLS equivalent. "Hot Rod Lincoln" didn't chart on 'LS at all, yet is ranked as the #2 record in town on the WCFL counterpart.
This is also true of the records "Cheer" by Potliquor, "Simple Song Of Freedom" by Buckwheat, "Mister, Can't You See" by Buffy Sainte-Marie, "Eve" by Jim Capaldi, "You Are The One" by The Sugar Bears, "Vahevalla" by "Ken" Loggins and Jim Messina, "Someone Sometime" by Chicago's own New Colony Six, "Walk In the Night" by Jr. Walker and the All-Stars, "Make You, Break You" by Gerry Rafferty and "Iko Iko" by Dr. John. (That's 11 of the Top 28 songs ... or nearly half!!! So which station was more accurately portraying the sales of these hits here in Chi-Town???) By the same token, WCFL did not feature The Stylistics' hit "Betcha By Golly Wow" at all ... yet it peaked at #5 on WLS.
In addition, 'CFL played the Chicory version of "Son Of My Father" while WLS featured the Giorigo version. (They're nearly identical ... yet plain and clear, this was a DELIBERATE approach toward playing "what the other guy wasn't playing.")
Roberta Flack falling from #1 to #10 this week was a pretty dramatic change, too. (It still ranked at #1 on WLS for this same week.) In fact, comparing BOTH charts for this same week in 1972, we find that six tracks are common to both Top 10's.
Since we are, after all, Forgotten Hits, we'll play some of the tracks that fared well on WCFL but didn't get airplay across town.
"Vahevalla" got a fair amount of FM play but was hardly a big hit for the new duo. (In fact, it was their first chart hit, peaking at #84 in Billboard. Their REAL breakthrough wouldn't come until two singles later when "Your Mama Don't Dance" raced into The Top Five. Still, enough of you out there remembered "Vahevalla" to vote it into the #2788 position when we ran out TOP 3333 MOST-ESSENTIAL CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS OF ALL TIME Poll a couple of years ago.) "Cheer" by Potliquor was one that I remember discussing at great length in the AOL Oldies Room way back when. (One of the band members was in on the discussion ... and this one seemed to be a real "regional" hit ... big in certain cities and completely ignored in others.) Overall, it earned enough airplay to rank at #65 in Billboard ... and a few points higher in Record World, where it peaked at #58. Surprisingly, he was not aware that it made The Top 20 here in Chicago.
Having grown up with these songs, obscure as they may seem to most of you, I have a certain fondness for some of these. Take "Simple Song Of Freedom" by Buckwheat, for example. This tune was written by Bobby Darin during his folk / protester era. When we did our Bobby Darin series many years ago, I remember pointing out the irony of Darin taking a Tim Hardin song, "If I Were A Carpenter," and making it a pop hit. Hardin returned the favor on this one ... and outscored the Buckwheat version in 1969, peaking at #47. Buckwheat climbed as high as #69 in Cash Box with their take ... but only to #94 in Billboard ... another one of those freak anomalies when it comes to measuring the charts ... not unlike the situation right here in Chicago in April of 1972!
And, going in a COMPLETELY different direction here, we've also got "You Are The One" by The Sugar Bears (hey, if The Archies can have hit records, why not the guys who were pictured on your breakfast cereal box???). It actually made The Top 40 in Cash Box (#38), but crapped out at #51 in Billboard. And finally, we can't do this week and NOT feature The New Colony Six. (Another case where had BOTH stations jumped on this record, locals might remember it ... but WLS was already off the NC6 bandwagon at this point so it only earned a #109 showing in Billboard that year.)
