Billboard Hot 100 October 30, 1971 - Post A Comment

The label notes that it is from the album "5th," which was indeed his fifth lp.


But Lee explained that the album title was in reference to a lyric to what he considered
the centerpiece, his version of Marvin Gaye's Can I Get A Witness. The 5th Amendment
to the US Constitution deals with the rights of witnesses to refuse to give testimony that
will incriminate themselves.

Jim Farber said:

"Over the course of his first four albums, Michael's label A&M (barely) tolerated his lack of
hits. By his fifth release, they wanted results. The pressure resulted in a far lighter, tighter
and poppier album than the star had ever released. And the trimming paid off. Michaels'
scored a number 6 smash with Do You Know What I Mean, a New Orleans-accented piece
of frothy pop. Michaels wrote and recorded the ditty in a few hours, and, considered it a
throwaway at the time. Initially, A&M didn't know what they had either. They first issued it
as a B-side for the gospel-tinged Keep The Circle Turning, a song fired by Merry Clayton's
roof-shaking guest vocal. After radio DJs flipped the record over, listeners responded to the
song's fake out stop-start rhythm, and Michael's flip and flirty vocal."

Thanks Jim! Can I Get A Witness was the follow up, reaching #39.

 

Wow, this looks like somebody who tries to cram their entire resume onto their business card! I
can't even read what is printed over the rainbow colored arrow. It also appears that they double
spaced between the words in the song title (or the graphic artist had serious kerning issues!)

 

Nor did I! Love Donny's signature keyboard sound on this track. They really
brought out the best in each other.

 

#4 “Superstar” by The Carpenters


Funny because it’s true. No matter how much you try to pretend otherwise, deep down you love The Carpenters and “Superstar”

 

#48 I'd Love to Change the World - Ten Years After

Their highest-charting single (#40) from their biggest-selling album (A Space in Time.)

 

Who, alas, would be of no relation to the late jazz great John Coltrane . . .

 

Columbia's pressings of this were considerably better in type layout from Capitol. You think that label was bad, take a look at the Scranton pressings . . .

Worse, a lot of the label design detail was lost along the way.

Or Los Angeles . . .

Or the Philips Recording Co. plant in Richmond, IN:

No question, whatever one may think of Columbia Pitman typesetters' layout priorities, they were an improvement over these.

 

A bit of background on the Wedding Song(There Is Love). Taken from Noel Paul Stookey's first solo album, it was written for Peter Yarrow's wedding to Beth. Paul says the song came to him full blown and just tumbled out. He decided that THIS song was a gift from God and refused all royalties for his greatest copyright establishing the Public Domain Foundation which distributes the royalties to worthy charities. So the song is not truly "in the public domain".
Talk about walking the walk.

 

Ugh. Capitol pressings. Hated those saw tooth ridges. They locked with other Capitol pressings and scratched a normal label.

 

But as you could see, the label font layout wasn't all that great shakes either. You could see why I prefer Columbia pressing layouts.

And you think the 45 was nuts for designing type layout? Look at the Columbia-pressed LP of the source album . . .

 

They had three spacings between words - equivalent to hyphens; en-dashes; and em-dashes. The titling's spacing between words with with en-dash equivalents. Or roughly the same point width as the numerals of 10 point Intertype Franklin Gothic.

 

And I thought Robin McNamara was a woman. He certainly sounds like one.

 

The typesetters at Columbia were a bunch of squares! I guess they couldn't imagine that the arrow was supposed to face to the left and not the top.

 

You think that's bad? RCA Record Club pressings of Brunswick LP's in the late 1960's had the arrow facing right! Like on some early Decca 45's with the 'rainbow' label, before the pressing plants got it straight.

 

I know that Rare Earth was Motown's custom label for rock acts that the
company had signed. But, even so, I would love to hear the story about
how this band, and this song in particular, ever wound up at Motown!

I mean, it is so far removed from anything at all associated with Motown!

 

Regarding Mother, it is a curious choice, given it is possibly the most
personal song Lennon ever wrote and recorded. Maybe she did it on
a dare! Haha!


Check it out:

 

Sitting pretty at #12 on the Easy Listening chart this week!

 

At #15!

Wow, what a great perspective on this song. Excellent!

 

Excellent write up Manapua! Once when Casey Kasem was listing "medleys" that had
hit the Top 40, he included this one. While it is undoubtedly assembled from several
song fragments, I never thought of it as a medley. It just works so well!

 

For a band not known for their hit singles, when they did chart, it
was really ear-catching, and you always knew it was them. Great
intro to boot!

 

What a long and winding road, and you write about it beautifully.

But, I have one question:

Do you think that everyone involved, Tom Laughlin in particular,
would have gone to all that trouble of recording and re-recording,
issuing, pulling, re-releasing, several times, over several years, if
they could have known in advance that I really don't care for the
song?

 

Thank you!