Billboard Hot 100 October 30, 1971 - Post A Comment

Updated!

 

And now. as kind of a palate cleanser, here is a list of every song
on this chart that is a remake of a previous hit!

Baby I'm Yours - Jodi Miller
I Say A Little Prayer/By the Time I Get to Phoenix - Glen Campbell
Gimme Some Lovin' - Traffic
You Send Me - Ponderosa Twins
You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling - Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway
Where Did Our Love Go - Donnie Elbert
MacArthur Park - The Four Tops
It's Impossible - New Birth
Spill the Wine - Isley Brothers
Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep - Mac and Katie Kissoon
Stagger Lee - Tommy Roe
Only You Know and I Know - Delaney and Bonnie
Never My Love - The Fifth Dimension
Go Away Little Girl - Donny Osmond

Seems like a lot!

In addition to these 14, there were cover songs, originally recorded by
other artists, but weren't big hits previously ,such as The Night They
Drove Old Dixie Down and Mother.

Rhetorical question: how many of these remakes were improvements
upon the originals?

 

I know I contributed heavily to more than one thread about Superstars of the 70's. It served as the introduction of Warner Special Products to the marketplace. I'm pretty sure its original retail price was something like $10.98, which I couldn't afford in 1973, when this was released. Even though it came out near Christmas, "Santa" wouldn't get it for me because of how expensive it was! I remember my local Grants having a huge pile of these, but it never cut the price.

In 1974, I borrowed the 8-track version from a friend and recorded it to two cassettes. The 8-track version had an edited version of "Hush" by Deep Purple on it that was made for the 8-track (and maybe the cassette; I never had or borrowed the cassettes) to avoid the dreaded splitting of songs in two. The LP has the unedited "Hush."

I finally got my first vinyl version around 1977 at a yard sale and got an upgrade at a used record store in the late 1980s.

Because of changing rights and licensing, Superstars of the 70's cannot be reproduced today, so it will never be on a legal CD, at least not with these 64 tracks.

 

Questions #67 & 68 - Chicago

The reissue of this 1969 debut song by Chicago was edited. I remember hearing it on the radio in '69 so I always felt the reissue was missing something. I also would have posted the 1971 edit but can't seem to find it on YouTube.

The flipside "I'm A Man" also charted.

 

Wow, Grants! I wonder if I got mine there? I am sure you are right about the price.



I went from having zero interest in music to complete immersion in the spring of '73.
No idea why. I had two part-time jobs to support my record buying addiction!

If you recall Top 40 radio back then, it was all about the current hits, and played few
to no oldies. So for me, anything from 1972 and back was just a huge black hole of
ignorance.

Looking at the front cover, and the artists included:

Allman Brothers - I knew the name, but had never heard any songs by them.

America - I knew A Horse With No Name

The Beach Boys - I knew their 60's classics. Nothing from Pet Sounds, of course!

Black Sabbath - Only knew them by name, never heard their music

Jackson Browne - no clue

The Byrds - no clue

Judy Collins - no clue

Alice Cooper - Everything from Billion Dollar Babies, and the song School's Out

I remember thinking that a lot of these artists were NOT superstars at all! And
why couldn't they have included Smoke on the Water instead of Hush? lol

By 1973 standards, ten bucks for four LPs was a steal. By today's standards,
where I can listen to whatever I want for free, it is a total rip off! Hahaha!!!

 

Great to hear this again. There was a time when Pag was a real hero to Power Pop aficionados like me. Interesting that he also recorded many songs in French as well as English.

 

At #98 is Mark Lindsay's "Are You Old Enough," where he tried a trashy rocker as a change of pace after a string of earnest ballads. Not a success.

The b-side was "Don't You Know," a more interesting track that reminds me of Spirit.

 

Did anyone notice a cover of Lennon’s “Love” by The Lettermen lurking at #58?
I never knew anyone tried to have a hit with that...

 

My family moved from Youngstown, OH to Akron, OH in August 1971. Songs on this chart that were hits over the summer (e.g. Sweet City Woman) remind me of Youngstown. Something like Uncle Albert distinctly sound like Akron to me. Amazing how one can associate songs to locations and images.

 

Nope. While the two-note riff that answers the title phrase is played on a steel guitar, the "sound of the organ" on this and other Freddie Hart songs is in fact a guitorgan, an instrument configured like a guitar but with electronic parts added to make it sound like an organ. Freddie's band The Heartbeats had a guy playing one at the show I emcee'd.

According to the Wikipedia article, the instrument's popularity was short-lived because the thing was so damn heavy that those who played it found it difficult to make it through an entire show with one hanging around their necks.

A few years ago I went to a show at our local art museum that featured stringed instruments from ancient through modern times. They had a guitorgan on display, and it was indeed a beast.

 

I was working at Youngstown's "other" Top 40 station, WNIO, in that summer of 1971. Though we were just a 500-watt daytimer, we gave the mighty WHOT (still the market's equivalent of a Top 40 station to this day) a run for its money that summer. They had got a bit complacent, and we had dynamic DJs and an adventurous playlist. They solved the problem by hiring our two best jocks away!

"Sweet City Woman" was all over our airwaves that summer, so perhaps you tuned into us before your family made the move.

 

Hah! Sorry! I was a big WHOT fan. My fave was a guy named Casey something. Our bus driver for the 1970/71 school year (St Charles, Boardman, OH) was a cool dude who played HOT constantly. Was a great way to hear at least 60 minutes of Top 40 radio 5 days a week for an entire school year! Also at the Boardman Swim Club. I’m sure I listened to WNIO at some point but HOT was pretty much it.

 

When I first got a copy of John Lennon Plastic Ono Band in 1974 or so, I thought that every song would be new to me. I was right -- until I heard the piano intro to "Love." I recognized the song immediately, but had no idea why.; after all, Lennon's version wasn't a single. Then I found out about the Lettermen's version, and figured it was their version I heard on the radio. It's quite faithful to the original.

 

Apologies to others in this thread for this very specific trip down memory lane, though I'll say something at the end that could be of interest to all.

You're thinking of Casey Martin, whose real name was Martin Casey or something similar. It's been a long time, but I believe he was also into piloting small planes, and at some point later in the 1970s lost his life in a crash.

I went to school at Boardman High, a few years before you, and our school bus also had a radio that played in very high quality on board, so WHOT was a part of my everyday commute to and from school as well.

Something I'll never forget from those days on the school bus is hearing Johnny Kay play "McArthur Park" for the first time one morning. I remember become increasingly more astonished as it played on and on and thinking "Is this song ever going to end?"

Not that I didn't like it — I still do — but it was absolutely unprecedented to hear any song on a Top 40 station go on for that length of time (remember that it predated "Hey Jude" by a few months).

 

Five Man Electric Band shoutout, one of a handful of CanCon on this chart, usually Billboard ignores a few at the top of the Canadian charts, but not this time!!



and Mark Lindsay with his jailbait teaser, probably not getting much play lately...

 

It peaked at #26 and hung around the chart for a little over 3 months. Not too shabby considering what was typically charting then but I certainly feel his pain.

 

Don't even get me started on the travesty that was Jackie Wilson Said (#61) or Redwood Tree (#98). And Moondance didn't even chart until 7 years after it was released and even then it couldn't climb out of the cellar (#92)! I was sure it would get a boost in the 80s after it was used in An American Werewolf In London but alas, no go. Mr. Morrison needs to be celebrated much more, especially while he's still with us.

 

Well, what can I say? "Don" really doesn't make sense, but that's what it says. I still hear "gone" regardless, so many years of hearing this song and my brain can't change what it hears. No matter, it's still a catchy song and I've always liked it for that reason. Who cares if some think it's silly, I like what I like and these days I don't care what others think of my musical preferences. I've played my Have a Nice Day - Super Hits of the 70s CDs for years now, there used to be (fairly recently) a online streaming station that played every song from those CDs, called Boomer Radio. Too bad, it went belly up last year. I haven't found any other streaming station like it, although some come close, like RMF 70s (based, strangely enough, out of Krakow, Poland) and another called San Francisco's 70s Hits (playing "Frankenstein" by Edgar Winter as I type this).

About "Chirpy" being released the week my wife was born, not only that, I actually remember what I was doing the day she was born! The reason? Because I have proof of what I was doing on that day, in the form of a radio station song chart I picked up at the local SS Kresge store in Bradenton that day. It was a Sunday, we'd just stopped by the store on the way home from church that morning - and remember, I was 13 YO (not yet 14) and this was the time I was just getting enamored with Top 40 music - so this was the first time I had noticed such a thing existed as a song chart. So I picked one up, took it home with me and while I was listening to WLCY that week, I tried to guess what song they'd play next from the chart (I was usually wrong LOL). Note, "Chirpy" had just been released that week, but it hadn't made the chart yet on that day, and wouldn't for another couple of weeks. Anyway, somehow this piece of paper survived my moving no less than 15 times over the years, and across the country. No idea why and how, but here it is - I'm posting an image of it I just scanned to show you, wife was born July 11, 1971 and you can see the date at the top of the chart. I showed her this years ago, and we talked about it and how unusual it was that I remember that day. Cosmic, Karmic, or whatever - we're still together nearly 28 years now. And she loves a lot of this same music even though it's as old as she is, and she's from a different country!

 

My turn!



Sadly, no relation.

 

I got some news this morning from Saw Tooth Ridge,
Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

 

Is there any reason why they all say "Marca Registrada" instead of "Registered Trademark?"

 

There was a lot of that going around back then!

 

Thanks to W.B., I see that this song is an Ashford & Simpson composition.

Why does Billboard list the producer, and not the songwriter?

Add this to the list of songs that were remakes of previous hits!

Ray Charles took it to #72 in 1966.

Humble Pie's version became an FM radio hit and reached No. 73 on the Hot 100.


I Don't Need No Doctor is an R&B song written by Nick Ashford, Valerie Simpson,
and Jo Armstead. First released by Nick Ashford on Verve in August 1966, it went
nowhere. It was then picked up and recorded by Ray Charles, and released in Oct.
1966. Over the years, it has been covered by bands such as "garage rock" band The
Chocolate Watchband in 1969, Humble Pie in 1971, New Riders of the Purple Sage
in 1972, metal band W.A.S.P. in 1986, by rock band Great White in 1987, and by the
"garage punk" band The Nomads in 1989. Styx also covered this song.



Brother Ray!

 

The guy who cut her hair back then...




...was he known as a Cher-cropper?


.