EVERY Billboard #1 hit discussion thread 1958-Present

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by alphanguy, Jan 29, 2016.

  1. CliffL

    CliffL Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sacramento CA USA
    Speaking of Neil Diamond writing for the Monkees, (who I now love but hated at the time) one of the songs I absolutely LOVED in this time period (late summer 1970) was by an actual Monkee, Mike Nesmith's "Joanne", his first and biggest solo hit on the top forty:

    Joanne - Michael Nesmith & The First National Band
     
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  2. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    I have Mr. Sherman's best known hits, from "Little Woman" up to and including this one. CP, of course:
    [​IMG]
    It can be argued that Metromedia Records, which released his big hits, essentially lived and died by Bobby Sherman. Other than The Winstons' "Color Him Father," Metromedia didn't really become a "player" until Bobby came along. After his chart success began to recede, so did Metromedia, apart from The Hillside Singers' version of "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony)"; by 1973, Metromedia had latched onto RCA for distribution (RCA in the '70's seemed to have a reputation as the "elephant's graveyard" of label distributors, as certain labels that came to RCA to distribute them ultimately died within that run - think the 1970's iteration of 20th Century [Fox] Records, for example); and by 1974 Metromedia Records was defunct.
     
  3. CliffL

    CliffL Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sacramento CA USA
    I have a grand total of 64 singles on the chart. Some of the songs are new to me, I need to check out the Ronnie Dyson number, among others.
     
  4. Victor/Victrola

    Victor/Victrola Makng shure its write

    Where I grew up, nobody liked ABBA (except me). They were too pop or too bubblegum or too wimpy or too foreign or too boring or too disco or ... well, you get it.
     
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  5. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Yeah. In a direct comparison, I think it comes down to the fact that there was a lot more musical variety in the Monkees' singles, in terms of songwriting, different vocalists and different musical styles. The Partridge Family songs are all cut from the exact same cloth, and all sound pretty much the same. They found a formula and stuck to it rigidly. But I would guess that's why they saw diminishing returns in the charts, despite the ongoing success of the series.
     
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  6. Dawg In Control

    Dawg In Control Forum Resident

    Location:
    Granite Falls, NC


    Bobby Sherman meets The Partridge Family
     
  7. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    I seem to recall some of the same background singers, and Wrecking Crew pickers, were on both Mr. Sherman's and the Partridges' records. Tom Bahler (who wrote "Julie, Do Ya Love Me") was, I.I.N.M., one of the PF's backing vocalists.
     
  8. Manapua

    Manapua Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu
    Yeah, Tom Bahler wrote some of those pop hits for various singers. She's Out Of My Life is probably one of his most famous tunes. He and brother John formed The Love Generation in the latter 60s and had a sort of hit with the Montage From How Sweet It Is. For a hint of the Partridge, Bradys et al sound, here's Groovy Summertime.

     
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  9. John54

    John54 Senior Member

    Location:
    Burlington, ON
    I for one never liked a single one of Bobby Sherman's hits and I still don't.

    However I'm not above liking any song that strikes my fancy, hip or not, bubblegum or not, teenybopper or not, etc.
     
  10. CliffL

    CliffL Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sacramento CA USA
    Ooh Child by the 5 Stairsteps was my record in 1970, it caught my attention and I love it to this day. It wasn't until a long time later that I heard their earlier records on Buddah and Curtom. I love "I'll Be There" also, but I give the edge to "Ooh Child".
     
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  11. SITKOL'76

    SITKOL'76 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Colombia, SC
    'Ooh Child' may just be my first choice for song that should've made #1, it only got to #8 but made the top 20 YE.

    If not 'Ooh Child' then Stevie Wonder's 'Signed Sealed Delivered' is my second choice.
     
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  12. SITKOL'76

    SITKOL'76 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Colombia, SC
    They sang and played well together, also helped that Motown was on top of the world then, so lots of promotion.

    Michael Jackson was somebody who was just born to be onstage and entertain. He hit his peak in the 80's but you could see that electricity during his days in the Jackson 5, he was already on his way to #1.
     
  13. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    As one of the guilty one's complaing about Michael's voice being screechy, I want to clarify that I would agree that he was very, very talented and I also agree it wasn't his fault his voice sounded as it did. He just pushed it to the limit, as he needed to, so sometimes you would get that edge. Buy, he was an excellent singer.

    Regarding the Partridge Family, I have all of their albums except maybe the last one on vinyl. It's quite amazing the quality of their material. Many, many outstanding pop songs. I always wondered if the writers of the orginal material felt they were ever "throwing away" those songs on that group. Every single album through Notebook had good to excellent songs, and very little filler. So, it really came down to you either liked the sound or you didn't. But if you did, you were treated to a treasure trove of great production, and excellent musicians. And...if you try hard enough, all of them were very well recorded. The challenge is finding: a copy a child didn't trash, a copy that was well pressed (few were, but they are out there), and a copy that was well mastered. Yes, the odds are really stacked against you. But when you hit it, they are wonderful recordings. Up To Date is very challenging in that they mastered I Leave Myself A Little Time (a very good song imo) while the tape was literally dragging towards the end, so of course the song slows down and David sounds terrible. How in the world they didn't catch that is beyond me. I still don't own a copy that plays right on that one song. I Think I Love You is outstanding imo.
     
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  14. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    I have a couple of his vinyl albums. Pretty awful...a good example of what could have happend to the Partridge Family. But his hits, and album tracks like The Drum, are very good. But, just too few songs other than the hits. The comp is probably all anyone needs.
     
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  15. Manapua

    Manapua Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu
    The focus on all things Partridge and Sherman - and I fear the dreaded OBs waiting in the wings - reminded me of this single from 1970. Rick Ely was another blonde heartthrob who flamed briefly first as an actor on the series The Young Rebels and subsequently as an RCA artist. This was the first version of The Circle Game I ever heard so I don't turn my nose up at his pop rendering. Considering the time, if fits in perfectly with everything else.

     
  16. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    Shirley was a great musical talent and a great looking lady besides. I'm sure there were many dads who didn't mind watching the Partridges with their kids!

    Below: Shirley in Carousel and posing for the camera

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Nov 14, 2017
  17. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    How come I've never heard of this guy? Great stuff!
     
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  18. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    I Think I Love You

    When I was young, most of the kids I knew liked the Partridge Family and/or the Brady Bunch. It's funny how those two shows are always entwined in my head. Just like I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched, or The Addams Family and the Munsters, the two family shows about a bunch of wacky kids always seemed to go together.

    [​IMG]

    By the time I caught up to them, they were already off network TV. I'll admit that I was more on the Brady side than the Partridges. I must have watched every Brady Bunch a thousand times, but I don't think I even watched all the PF shows. I think the problem I had with that show was that every episode seemed to be about Reuben and Danny. I couldn't stand Danny, and Ruben was funny but not enough to carry the show. Meanwhile, the two little kids were so nondescript that they were able to replace the little boy with a completely different looking kid and no one even cared (I'm sure there are some who preferred the blond one to the brunette or vice versa, but for me, they were less than useless).

    I always thought Laurie should have been the star of the show. Take one guess why. But she never seemed to get the juicy stories that Marsha got.

    Below: Laurie, so groovy on the keys. The era had some great gal organists (think also of Rose Stone and Veronica Lodge -- what a trio they and Laurie would make! :love:)

    [​IMG]

    Below: Laurie had some merchandise, too. It wasn't all Keith! (although they made sure to sell the doll with an included David Cassidy poster, so they knew which side their bread was buttered on!)

    [​IMG]

    But the main axis of the musical part of the show was definitely Shirley Jones and her real life stepson David Cassidy. By the time I started reading magazines regularly, Cassidy's time as a teen heartthrob was past, but later in my life I collected a lot of pop magazines from the late sixties and early seventies, so I can attest that this guy was HUGE. He and Bobby Sherman seemed to be in every one of those mags at one point.

    [​IMG]

    Below: Admit it -- you want to know the answer to that title!

    [​IMG]

    I honestly don't remember many of the songs. I Think I Love You and I'll Meet You Halfway are the only ones I can recall; oh, and the theme song, of course. The songs are decent pop and catchy, but they don't grab me the way the Monkees stuff did. I don't hear anything in them besides a competently put together bunch of numbers. I don't recall the group appearing often on oldies radio, either. All in all, I think I prefer their inspiration, the Cowsills, by a good margin. And that's before factoring in the fact that most of the Partridges had jack all to do with the music, while the Cowsills were all involved in their songs and had real musical chops.

    What I do have a fondness for is the theme song. Not only do I like it better than their hits, but I also love the credits sequence with the cartoon partridge. Very groovy, and hearing it instantly takes me back to watching the tube after school. Plus, who wouldn't have liked to have a psychedelic bus to ride around on?

    Here is the later version of the song, which I like better. Groovier I think.



    (But isn't it weird that the mom and the five kids all hatch out of the same egg?)
     
  19. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    The kids aren't shown emerging from the egg, just the mom is. But that is certainly weird enough in itself... a full-grown bird emerging from an egg, who apparently already has children?
     
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  20. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    What a million dollar smile...gorgeous! Sad what age does to us all! I hadn't seen any photos of her much younger than her PF days. We are quickly headed for my entry into the music scene at around 10 years of age so I'm excited!
     
  21. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Yeah, no doubt he had stage charisma. But this early stuff I just find annoying, and did even as a kid.

    It's odd, because I've warmed to some other stuff as I've gotten older, but not this.
     
  22. pickwick33

    pickwick33 Forum Resident

    No, Bell's first #1 was "The Letter" by the Box Tops.

    Even so, of the three big networks, ABC was easily the most youth-oriented. That might have been the best network for a show like that in 1970.
     
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  23. Manapua

    Manapua Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu
    The song was released on Mala. I know it's either a subsidiary of Bell or eventually was folded into Bell but only their last charting single You Keep Tightening Up On Me was actually a proper Bell release. I'm sure W.B. can expound on this.
     
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  24. pickwick33

    pickwick33 Forum Resident

    Mala was a full-blown Bell subsidiary (and the Box Tops' albums were on Bell proper). Even so, it's still part of The Family. The Temptations records appeared on Gordy, but no one ever says they weren't a Motown act.
     
  25. Manapua

    Manapua Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu
    And let the arguments commence. :whistle:
     

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