Billboard Hot 100 October 30, 1971 - Post A Comment

"Do You Know What I Mean" - Lee Michaels

For a couple of decades I thought this was by The Rolling Stones and could never find it until those Rhino "Have A Nice Day" CDs came out.

Anyway, I heard this one on the local top 40 radio station every night. I loved it.

 

Aaaaannd one more for now:

I didn't hear of this song until two years later. I found it in a stack of my father's 45s among a house full of furniture he gave to us after he retired from the army. They were in a foot locker with a few reel-to-reel tapes. Other records were "Help me make It Through The night" by O.C. Smith, "Have You Seen Her" and "Oh Girl" by Chi-lites, "Right On Brothers And Sisters" by Jr. Walker & The All-Stars, "Respect Yourself" by The Staple Singers, and several more.

This song was at the core of the kind of music my father liked, southern male soul singers with a twinge of country.

She's All I Got - Freddie North

 

A&M originally intended, based on promos, for "Keep The Circle Turning" to be the A side for this. Alas, that side never charted. This one, which apparently he just tossed off casually, was the one that made Top 10 and became Mr. Michaels' only hit. The label fonts on my pressing:

 

Speaking of "Have You Seen Her" - Brunswick at the time had three entities doing their pressings - Columbia (their Pitman, NJ; Terre Haute, IN; and Santa Maria, CA plants); Philips Recording Co., Inc., Richmond, IN; and Capitol (only known pressings by their plants having emanated from Scranton, PA and Los Angeles, CA). The better sounding has to be Columbia pressings. My own copy's from Pitman, who had the best layout of all the pressings:

(To be sure, Santa Maria vinyl pressings also used this Pitman type variant on their labels.)

 

#75: I never knew that Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack covered this song. It ultimately peaked at 71 on the Hot 100 and 30 on R&B.

 

Snuff Garrett

 

Despite being a top 10 hit, it's so underrated in his discog.

If You Really Love Me, Tired Of Being Alone and Sweet City Woman are my trinity.

Sweet City Woman is my favorite.

 

#62 would be the peak for The Messengers' (formerly Michael & The Messengers) "That's The Way A Woman Is", a cool little 2 minute throwback to 4-chord 60's garage rock. The lyrics probably would be looked askance these days. But it still rocks:

 

Oh wow, this was right around the time, at age 10 or 11, that I first started listening to Top 40 radio. I think it was late in the summer of '71 ... August or September.

Anyway, I breathlessly awaited Casey Kasem's "American Top 40" every Sunday. And among those on this week's Hot 100, I love love loved all these and still do:

Maggie May
Theme from "Shaft"
Do You Know What I Mean
Peace Train
Tired of Being Alone
IF You Really Love Me
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
Inner City Blues
Ain't No Sunshine
Two Divided by Love
One Tin Soldier
Spill the Wine
Respect Yourself
Your Move
Rock Steady
Dolly Dagger
Brand New Key
Got to Be There

I also spy on this week's list Barbara Striesand's rather unexpected cover of Lennon's "Mother"!

 

Ah, 1971! My favorite year in music, even to today. As of the date of this chart, my father had just taken a new job in St. Petersburg, at a now defunct bank (Central Plaza Bank & Trust). We bought a newer home on the south side of the city, near the marina and the (later to be demolished) Sunshine Skyway bridge. We moved from Bradenton to St. Pete on October 23, 1971, just the Saturday before this chart came out. I had just turned 14 years old a couple of days before and was really, really into Top 40 music. Virtually every song on this chart is one I know or love.

One that comes to mind in a specific memory? "Freedom Come, Freedom Go" by the Fortunes. My 8th Grade Civics teacher at Bay Point Jr. High School, Mr. Ken Hall, loved to play music during the class sessions. He had one of those PA speakers on his desk with a microphone that you could flex around to speak into, and he'd play music into the mic from cassettes he had recorded. On occasion, he'd try to tie in the song to the Civics lesson. For example, Freedom Come, Freedom Go, he said something about freedom in the USA ... I liked the song a lot but had never really paid much attention to the lyrics. It wasn't until years later I realized the song was about a free-wheeling girl (probably hippie) that wouldn't be tied down. Thanks, Mr. Hall, for making me think the song was about democracy and freedom! Another one he used was "Imagine", but he'd get ticked off when the part of the song "Woo, hoo" and everyone in the class would imitate it. I remember him threatening to turn the music off if we didn't cut it out (guess he was serious about the message, eh?).

So many memories from so many songs on that chart, I really don't know where to begin. What a great year for music!

 

I've always loved that song, and It's a Cryin' Shame it didn't do better on the charts. It's one of many I recorded off AM radio back then, and still have on the old Certron C-90 cassette to this day. I wish there was a promo video for that song, like the I found on on YT for "What am I gonna do?" (by Smith) not long ago, I didn't remember hearing that one back then, but now it's one of my favorites by Gayle. Such a great voice, and such a beautiful lady, she should have had more success than the little bit she had in Smith and then her short solo career.

 

My first exposure to "Thin Line Between Love And Hate" was the Pretenders' version on Learning to Crawl. A few years later I heard the Persuaders' original. They're both outstanding, with big differences in their tone and perspective. Chrissie narrates the song like a lecturing mother, tsk-tsking the deserving object of his woman's ire. The Persuaders' version is told from the point of view of the abusive boyfriend himself, all regretful and apologetic after getting his unexpected beating. Let's hope he's sincere...

 

Cool little song indeed. I'd never heard it before -- sounds like a cross between the Yardbirds and Tommy James.

 

Good description!

 

Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey - Paul & Linda McCartney

This is a great example of what a perfect single sounds like. All the production lacking in the majority of his post-Beatles work to this point is in full display on what is basically another of his trifles dressed up as ear candy. Dreamy psych/pop gives way to a jaunty sea shanty then closes out on a rollicking beat. From the first part where he 's telling Uncle Albert he's sorry for being a lazy ass to apparently making pies rather than help Admiral Halsey shove off, I'm assuming he was enjoying some great weed when he wrote this.

The butter wouldn't melt
So I put it in the pie

 

Yeah, it sounds like it was a toss-off. Seems like his formula should have been to keep it simple like this song was.

 

I met him once.

 

(64) Don't Wanna Live Inside Myself by the Bee Gees

This track was written by Barry Gibb and it was featured on the Bee Gees Trafalgar album (better known for the hit single How Can You Mend a Broken Heart). Unlike How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (which hit number 1), Don't Wanna Live Inside Myself didn't crack the top 50.

When I was first getting into the Bee Gees, I didn't really care for this song (or notice it much for that matter). It took a while to grow on me. I've come to really like and appreciate it over the years.

 

At #70, "Rub It In" - I didn't know this one was written by Ray Stevens. "Put it on my back, and my sacroiliac" has to be one of the oddest rhyming combinations ever in a song.
Also noted the singers name was Layne Martine - and misspelled as 'Laying' Martine on the chart! I haven't heard this song in years on the radio, but I heard it a lot back when it was new. I'm not aware of any other singles from this artist, although I would assume there probably was a follow up sometime.

 

#66 "Your Move" by Yes

Being a prog fan, this was an easy choice. Including not one, but two Lennon nods ("send an instant karma" and the "give peace a chance" background line). Were Beatle fans onto this at the time? I've read stories of how listeners had mistaken the song as being by Crosby, Stills & Nash, which is understandable.

"Cause it's time, it's time, in time with your time" - I can never get that right in my head.

I didn't think there would be too many 69-73 Hot 100's without a Three Dog Night single in it. I checked and "An Old Fashioned Love Song" debuted two weeks after this chart.

 

I mentioned this in another thread a while back, but when I heard "Your Move" on AM radio, at the end of the song the local DJ always seemed to say "That's - Yes, It's Your Move" - so I, being only 14 and clueless about prog (it would be a year later before my older brother introduced me to Fragile) assumed that was the name of the song - Yes It's Your Move. I didn't know what the name of the singer or band was until a year or more later.

 

The UK bypassed this record and instead ish'd "The Back Seat Of My Car" as a single. It flopped.

 

I loved hearing this on the radio. It sounded different.

 

At #9!