I never realized this made it all the way to #1. I don't recall hearing this one at all at the time, and oldies radio never played it. No great loss. I find it really loud and annoying. Sounds like it was recorded in a big pipe.
Another childhood fave. I usually don't like when songs hit the top of the chart twice in different versions, but this is an exception. Producer Todd Rundgren stole this arrangement off the Raspberries after they performed it at Carnegie Hall. Another in a weird string of passive-aggressive borrowings between the two acts. The fact that GF's two #1 hits were, respectively, a song by their drummer and a cover version, unfortunately lost main man Mark Farner his rights to the band name. A storming, fuzz-stoked, chanted killer. A production record, all the way.
Would you believe that when I put this on at parties in the 90s, it still got people to form that chain around the dance hall? I think people like it because it is loud and raucous. It's a far cry from the original Little Eva original hit. It shot all the way to #1. Producer Todd Rundgren and the band knew exactly what they were doing, and it worked. Maybe it's better that you don't remember this song because it was all over the radio back in those days. It sounded great next to "Hooked On A Feeling". But, I love the song.
Another song that was high on the chart was "Come And Get Your Love" by Redbone. Too bad the video isn't really playing a tape.
You did give fair warning...but still. What is your address? I would like to send you a punch in the arm post card for posting that song.
It is a fun song that works in party situations when the people are in the mood to dance. This song is also pretty short which works in its favor also. If the beat is fun and happy just about anything can be enjoyable for less than three minutes.
I was more into rock n roll Grand Funk. Never cared for Locomotion. Same with Some Kind of Wonderful.
Loved it - one of my favorites from my early teen years. It also marks the beginning of the end of Grand Funk Railroad. They had astounding record sales in the early 1970s - 8 Top 10 albums, 2 number one singles. But it was all about to end.
I loved the song and had the 45 rpm when I was kid. Imagine my surprise, sitting in a movie theatre with my grandchildren, when this song starts playing during the opening credits of “Guardians of the Galaxy.” I was giddy- telling my grandkids that this was one of my favorite songs when I was their age. I think they thought I was senile. Loved the movie too.
Well, my uncle musta felt the same way about it then that I do now, and punched in another station on the car radio, because I don't remember hearing this one at all. Ever. And oldies radio must have had a similar attitude, because I don't ever remember hearing it in subsequent years. Little Eva's rendition however continued getting loads of airplay. This one I loved - a great, original song. Oddly though, whenever I hear this one I don't think of Phoenix, where we'd moved to by this point, but my old hometown of Superior and maybe my last trip back to our old home there to visit my dad - must have been in '75. I remember going to a baseball game (I think) some warm evening, and the smell of cut grass. He sold the old place not long after and moved to New Mexico. It's really bizarre the way memories get attached to songs, and not always in a way that makes chronological sense. Maybe it was blasting on someone's car or transistor radio that night... Sadly, this cut had also pretty much vanished from oldies radio by the mid-to-late '80s.
Well, never rely on oldies radio to be any kind of gatekeeper of what was good or popular. Most oldies radio started out being about the personal preferences of the D.J., programming director, or worse, sales director in question. It may seem to me that your uncle's tastes had started to veer away from pop radio at this point. That's what makes going down memory lane and revisiting al these old songs. Virtually every one of these songs I comment on have a memory attached to them. That's interesting because Phoenix hit radio played a lot of their hits up to about 1976 with the song "Sally". Again, I listened to KBBC FM in Phoenix a LOT back then.
A top ten all time song for me, and I regularily play the unedited version from the Redbone album it's from. Well recorded too.
And maybe I can tag along and punch the other. What the heck was that dreck? I can't imagine that being played on the radio! And thanks for the warning, but all that is doing is daring us to listen to it!
A flop in the UK, but I think people in the UK are more familiar with Kylie Minogue's cover from some years later. The GFR version isn't bad...though I wouldn't have thought it was #1 material.. Odd how many of these big hits were totally missing the UK charts.. Of course a lot of UK chart toppers didn't catch fire in the States too. Though, I should say that Seasons In The Sun was in it's final week at #1 in the UK as you were enjoying The Locomotion.
Actually just the opposite. His tastes got more mainstream as the decade wore on. I don't remember any of their hits, but again, didn't listen to the radio on my own really at all until probably '78-'79, and didn't seriously listen to the radio 'till I got my own semi-decent stereo in '80-'81. I did listen to a lot of oldies radio, but don't remember their cover ever getting much play. I have heard it, so it must have gotten some play, but it was pretty rare. At that point, oldies radio in Phoenix - the pop stuff anyhow - was heavy with Carole King, Don McLean, Carly Simon and the other singer/songwriters of the early '70s, or mellow cuts like Atlanta Rhythm Section or "Traces". Rock oldies radio was a little more diverse - they'd play cuts like "Love Is Like Oxygen" or "Ziggy Stardust" or "Don't Fear The Reaper".
The UK and US charts seemed to diverge almost completely by the mid-'70s. That would change with the UK driven MTV era a decade later. It was nice while it lasted.
I loved Little Eva's version enough that I was predestined to hate the Grand Funk treatment and I did. Some Kind Of Wonderful and Bad Time made me rethink those feelings and I grew to like their goofy rock take. Definitely a stadium rock stomper.
I didn't hear oldies radio in the early 80s. I didn't even know such a format existed. I didn't hear oldies radio until 1989. By then, it was all 50s and 60s music.
GF's Loco-Motion is a fun track, but not quite as good as We're An American Band. Bad Time is probably my favorite of theirs during this chapter of their career.
The one biggest thing I dislike about music globalisation in the digital age: tracks seem to be number one everywhere simultaneously across the globe. I loved the 'mystery' of buying a single because I knew it had been Top 10 or # 1 in the US some weeks/months back, or a new or relatively unknown US or UK band, who'd yet to hit it big or even have hits in their home country, had suddenly gone to number 1 in say Germany, Canada, Japan or South Africa. There seemed to be a lot of that in the 70s and 80s.
Yes, everything is ‘instant’ now. Back then releases were often staggered with some records being released months later in different territories. I’m from the UK but followed the US chart from the late 70s because it was so different. It often bore no resemblance at all to ours. Great days. I can see the benefits of everything being instant now, but I think I preferred how things were when I was young. Which is nothing new on this forum, I might add.
