Well, we're cruising toward the end of 1970, and I've gotta say it's kind of a nothing, disjointed year. There's little to none of the experimentation that categorized the '60s, and even the year's better earworms all have a tiredness about them. I think we're starting to get into the era where albums were where it was really at if you wanted to hear something smart or new - the pop charts were largely returning to being dominated by somewhat rote, widest common denominator pop pap. Way too much bubblegum, and none of it particularly good - even Motown got into the game. R&B acts actually dominate the charts this year, with Sly, Edwin Starr, Diana Ross and Smokey Robinson arguably having the most vital hits of the year, and The Jackson 5 becoming a massive sensation. I do think it's interesting that it marks such a clean delineation from the 1960's. I'm not sure if any of the other decade-starting charts were quite as different from what had immediately come before as this one.
Maybe the best, most influential thing in the Top 10 on that chart we haven't covered already (and won't - spoiler!) is Free's "All Right Now", one of my favorite songs as a little kid and definitely a track that set the standard for hard rock in the first half of the '70s. Your Aerosmiths and such all derive from this cut. The other candidate would be James Taylor's "Fire And Rain", another early favorite and - in conjunction with Neil Diamond - a herald of the coming reign of the singer/songwriter. Other chart highlights are "Lola" from The Kinks, Anne Murray's lovely "Snowbird" which I got massive exposure to as a kid since it was a hit on both the pop and country charts, which mean it got double-play in our household, the New Seekers "Look What They've Done To My Song, Ma", Linda Ronstadt's achingly beautiful "Long, Long Time" (same as "Snowbird" - double-exposure on the pop and country charts), CSNY's "Our House", Ray Price's "For The Good Time" (another country/pop double-exposure), "The Tears Of A Clown", and Clapton's "After Midnight" (this track is much older than I'd assumed). Dawn's "Candida" is also a lot older than I thought it was. Loved it as a kid. You know when country starts to invade the pop charts that the pop charts are going thru a really rough patch. The same thing happened after the collapse of disco at the end of the '70s and the temporary rise of the Urban Cowboy crowd, which carried acts like Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton and Eddie Rabbit to the top of the pop charts.
Oh, and a special nod to CCR's "Lookin' Out My Back Door", another early fave, and "We've Only Just Begun" by The Carpenters, which while it might be guilty of the "tired" complaint I leveled up above directed at 1970's biggest hits, is at least beautiful and memorable. It is in fact a lot better than most of the stuff that actually made it to #1 in 1970.
At the very bottom of that 10/70 chart is a certifiable Detroit funk classic: There's also Waylon Jennings, still wearing his hair short in 1970, but he's slowly easing into his "outlaw" phase: Waylon Jennings The Taker
Number 6, Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes, has special meaning for me. A few years after this chart took place, when I was 15, our school invited a girl’s school over for a dance. I got my nerve up and asked a girl to dance and we danced until the music stopped. Her name was Rosemary. I never saw her again but whenever I hear the song, the butterflies return to my stomach.
Speaking of album covers, I have always loved the J5 Greatest Hits vinyl cover....I think it's one of the best covers I've ever seen. Very classy...it really makes you want go buy the album.
That's a cool story "Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes" is one of the first songs I remember hearing...
Catching up a bit. Carpenters appearance as a #1 record caused me to become a lifelong fan. I managed that year to obtain the earlier OFFERING album that had already been withdrawn as I really wanted the earlier "Ticket To Ride" single. Bread was a welcome addition to my collection as I pictured the promo album I got earlier in the thread. I've never been much of a soul or R&B fan, so hits of the Jackson Five and War kind of went over my head without any impact. I DID like Neil Diamond and even bought some 45s, uncharacteristically. I really liked both "Cracklin' Rosie" and "Soolaimon" and ultimately bought the TAP ROOT MANUSCRIPT album to get the recordings in stereo. Diana Ross & The Supremes largely went unnoticed by me until I heard "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". That one grabbed me.
Now, you see... I think this is the LEAST whiny of them all, and that's why I like it the best, that and it's strikingly beautiful melody.
I had not listened to the song in a long time. The version I listened to the other day was also an acapella one. I was listening very closely to the sound of the voices so his mispronunciation (which I had totally forgotten) was very evident.
Wanted to highlight some favorites from this period. Love Or Let Me Be Lonely Turn Back the Hands of Time Something's Burning Band of Gold Groovy Situation Joanne
David Cassidy seemed to be as big of a teen phenomenon as The Monkees, but for some reason, didn't fare as well on the charts and in record sales, this being their only #1 hit, and only hitting the top 10 twice more with "Doesn't somebody Want To Be Wanted", and "I"ll Meet You Halfway". Although she never had a voice for pop music, many felt it was a shame that Shirley didn't get to sing more on these recordings, to have a woman of her caliber on board, and to not utilize her more, was really a bad move.
My favorite Partridge Family song of all of them has to be "Summer Days", and listening to how infectious it is, I am stunned it wasn't released as a single... I feel it was top 10 material, no doubt.
It was, however, the first #1 hit single from Bell Records. It also would have been the first single on the label to have been pressed by Columbia (depite the -S matrix suffix, the record's mono): There were several theories why the Partridges, chart-wise, didn't get as far as The Monkees, besides what @alphanguy had cited. One is that the show was on ABC, then the "third network," whereas The Monkees aired on NBC. And then some others I can't elucidate at this point. One difference between Partridge releases and David Cassidy's solo work: The Partridge material were published by either Screen Gems-Columbia (BMI) or Colgems (ASCAP) - after all, Screen Gems TV produced the show. Cassidy's solo records had all sorts of different publishers, including material written by those associated with publishers that in turn had some association with producer Wes Farrell. But both recording entities would have had the same instrumental backing (read: "Wrecking Crew").
Given that The Partridge Family TV series was loosely based on the saga of The Cowsills, that Wes Farrell produced this faux group - and Tony Romeo wrote some of their songs, including this one - was nothing short of ironic. That's because both had worked in those respective capacities on one of The Cowsills' own hits - 1968's "Indian Lake."
I was 16 at that time. Neither the TV show nor the PF music were really what I was into, but ITILY is an enjoyable pop record. It's the only PF record I even remember right off. I associate this record with what the Osmonds and Bobby Sherman were having hits with. It sounded like little kid stuff to me.
I was a little kid in the '70s, and I thought this song was annoying crap. Still do. Sorry, not sorry.
I like I Think I Love You a lot. My other two favourites of theirs are I'll Meet You Halfway and One of These Nights. Nothing else I've heard comes too close to them (I'm listening to Summer Days right now; passable). Unlike the Monkees, I never (or rarely) watched the TV show, despite having a fairly massive crush on Susan Dey (in which regard I highly doubt I was alone).
And there's "Arranged by: Billy Strange" right there on the label. Frankly, I didn't like this much at the time, but I have a clear memory of how a girl in our elementary school brought a copy to music class (the teacher would let us play singles sometimes) and she demonstrated how to dance to it, which, even then, left a seriously striking impression on my ten-year-old psyche.
As an interesting aside.... the Partridge Family was playing on WOWO when the infamous Emergency Broadcast error happened on February 20, 1971. One of the few archived broadcasts of this error, it's hilarious to think that the Partridge Family would be the soundtrack to the end of the world.
Holy crap! I had never heard about this, and just read about it. What a clusterf**k that was! Like every kid from that era, I remember those EBS tests and can probably recite the words from some distant, rarely used part of my memory... 'if this had been an actual emergency, you would have been instructed...' yada yada yada. I always liked the tests without really understanding what they were. Years later, I worked at a local TV station as a master controller, meaning I would have been the one who had to relay the information about the 'actual emergency' to the public if it had come up. I recall the periodic scheduled tests and running them, but don't remember any book of secret codes from the government to verify the emergency. I guess we were one of those slack stations they talk about in this article: We interrupt this program: the terrifying EBS false alarm of 1971.
They changed the procedures after this incident I believe, so maybe that's why you didn't have the secret code book anymore.
