This Week's Top 10 Chart

Happy 4th of July to everyone here in the U.S. and a belated Happy Canada Day to our friends in the North.

I wanted to find a good July 4th chart this week to make up for last week's post. It wasn't the least liked yet but it was up there.

I searched the charts and found several choices for this date including a bi-centenial chart but I liked this one the best. Mostly for personal reasons.

I was 16 (soon to be 17) and had just finished my Junior year in High School. I landed my first real job working on a construction crew for the summer paying a whopping $3.00 an hour! As I had no real expenses except gas for my '65 Beetle and the occasional ounce, I would enventually save enough money to buy my first stereo during this summer. Additionally, since I actually had some money in my pockets for a change, I was buying quite a few albums during this time. Many of these have become all-time favorites. So, because I have a little more time today and this chart has brought back such good memories, I am including a bonus chart - This Weeks Top 10 Albums.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Keep on rockin' in the free world!

This week's chart is from July 4, 1970

Code:

 1. The Love You Save....................[B]The Jackson 5 [/B]
 2. Mama Told Me (Not To Come)...........[B]Three Dog Night[/B]
 3. Ball Of Confusion (That's What The World Is Today)
    .....................................[B]The Temptations[/B]
 4. The Long And Winding Road / For You Blue
    .....................................[B]The Beatles[/B] 
 5. Hitchin' A Ride......................[B]Vanity Fare[/B]
 6. Ride Captain Ride....................[B]Blues Image[/B]
 7. Band Of Gold.........................[B]Freda Payne[/B]
 8. Lay Down (Candles In The Rain).......[B]Melanie With The Edwin Hawkins Singers[/B]
 9. The Wonder Of You / Mama Liked The Roses
    .....................................[B]Elvis Presley[/B]
10. Get Ready............................[B]Rare Earth[/B]


This Week's Top 10 Album Chart

  1. Let It Be...........................[B]The Beatles[/B] 
  2. McCartney...........................[B]Paul McCartney[/B]
  3. Woodstock...........................[B]Various Artists / Soundtrack[/B]
  4. Chicago II..........................[B]Chicago[/B]
  5. ABC.................................[B]The Jackson 5[/B]
  6. Live At Leeds.......................[B]The Who[/B]
  7. The 5th Dimension/Greatest Hits.....[B]The 5th Dimension[/B]
  8. Deja Vu.............................[B]Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young[/B]
  9. The Isaac Hayes Movement............[B]Isaac Hayes[/B]
 10. It Ain't Easy.......................[B]Three Dog Night[/B]          

 

Ah! What a great singles chart! I knew and loved all the songs except the Elvis song. No radio station even played Elvis around these parts back then.

Very nice chart, again. Next week, give us something we can disagree about!

Dave: I suggest splitting up the album chart into a seperate thread because discussion of one will crowd out the discussion of the other, seeing as how I percieve the majority of active forum members are oriented to albums, not singles. Just my opinion.

 

The Beatles last single and LP while they're "officially" a group. The evidence of the break up is there with McCartney preceding Let it Be at #1.

Can't argue with a top ten that features the Beatles, Paul McCartney plus Deja Vu and Live at Leeds.

Add Woodstock to the mix and we are at the end of an era.

 

Dave & Friends,

Old Bob was 19 when the tracks on this chart were popular. This was the summer between my Freshman and Sophomore year in college. First off, #'s 1, 3, 5 (of course), 6, 7, 8 (try finding it in Mono though) and 10 sound the best and most authentic in MONO. From this chart, the Elvis track was the least played in the Midwest. I suspect that it was most popular in the Deep South. 'For You Blue' was pretty popular in my local area and was more compelling to us the 'The Long and Winding Road' which we saw as overwrought. It just was not The Beatles to us.

A great chart!

Bob

 

Smart man, Dave! Get it out of the way early, since most of us will likely be pretty busy the rest of the day.

Singles:

1. A+
2. B+
3. A
4. A[a-side only]
5. B
6. B
7. B
8. B+
9. B+[combined score]
10. B-

Albums:

1. B+
2. A
3. B+
4. C+
5. B-
6. A-
7. B
8. B+
9. B+
10.B+


Singles: 9.2, a B+. Albums: 8.7 A strong B, almost in B+ territory.

SINGLES: The J5, Tempts, and Beatles are definitely classics; the latter works despite Spector's embellishments, and I would argue is all the more poignant and moving becauseof what he did. The rest are all solid, and the surprise for me is the Melanie single, and while her voice isn't up to the material(or the backing by the Hawkins Singers), it gets the job done. The least worthy of the bunch--but still a B---is the Rare Earth entry, which didn't make me want to throw away my Temptations 45. If one looks upon it as frat rock, on the other hand, it works.

ALBUMS: McCARTNEY and LIVE AT LEEDS hold up the best, though most of these are very good, including the Hayes, J5 and Three Dog, this being their best non-hits album, by far. The WOODSTOCK soundtrack might have fared better, but not the best mix of material, and really, you need the visuals of the film as much as the music. The Chicago album--now on DVD-A---is still, for me, a lot of noodling about with no real purpose, with a handful of important exceptions. DEJU VU, while still enjoyable, seems buried in this time frame. I'm still amazed at how enjoyable Macca's first solo album is.


ED

 

Interesting Bob! I guess the popularity of the song in the deep South was huge enough to carry it to the top ten? Or was it an older crowd coming out to buy it? They must have played the heck out of it on easy listening formats. Hmmm, I don't recall hearing it there, either. It was always the Carpenters there, too.

Radio around here stopped playing Beatles after "Something", and started playing all the solo Beatles stuff. I honestly did not hear much Beatles on radio after the turn of the decade.

 

Hi Grant,

By the 70's Elvis' hits were more popular with the following demographics:

1) An older crowd

2) in the Deep South, more Rural areas

and yes,

3) on Country formats

The one exception was 'Burning Love' of course....

Bob

 

Bob, I do recall "Moody Blue" getting some top 40 airplay too, but except for "The Wonder Of You", Elvis's last hurrah was "Suspicious Minds" a year earlier.

For the most part, I think there was a concentrated effort by hit radio to leave the 60s where it was and move ahead. I didn't start hearing 60s music again on top 40 until around 1972 or 73.

 

Grant,

Good observations!

Bob

 

"The Wonder Of You" got heavy play in the Northeast. And it probably sold well even where there wasn't a lot of airplay.

ED

 

Nice chart Dave, I enjoyed every title back then!

 

For all intents and purposes, the Beatles' swan song "The Long and Winding Road" did signify the end of an era. And, they wouldn't hit the charts again with anything new for another 25 years.

I was a bit surprised to see that "Live At Leeds" charted so well on the Top 10 album chart. I had assumed that it wasn't until "Who's Next" that the band became huge album sellers in the States. Was "Live At Leeds" riding on the coat-tails of The Who's fabled Woodstock performance in the filmed documentary?

Jim W.

 

Seventy-three men sailed off from the San Francisco Bay......

Observation #1:
I've always felt that this song by the Blues Image basically said the same thing that hippie-politicos CSN/Jefferson Airplane tried to say in "Wooden Ships", but the former had catchy-er hooks and sold a helluva lot more records.

Observation #2:
I'm always confusing the Blues Image with the Blues Magoos.

Jim W.

 

Re: Re: This Week's Top 10 Chart

And IMHO, "Free Love" and "Free As a Bird" are much better songs and records than TLAWR.

Jim W.

 

Seems like I just made this same statement on another thread, about another song, but what the heck....

Bob: Regarding #8 in mono (Lay Down), I'm pretty certain that single was issued in stereo. Though I no longer have this disc, I can still remember it being on the Buddah "kaleidoscope" label. I think the only place I ever HEARD it in mono was on the car radio.....

 

I would have bought EVERY one of those albums that were in the top 10 back then......I wish I could say the same for these days!

 

When The Beatles are in the lower half of a Top Ten chart, quality-wise, that's a pretty damn good chart. (I'd rate 1, 2, 3, 6, 10 above it.)

 

The stock copy was stereo, but a DJ mono most certainly exists. The next 45, "Peace Will Come" was mono(full version), and I've never found that one in stereo anywhere. Worse, the DJ edit continues to be used on virtually every comp to this day, not the original stock 45, which ran about 4:40.

Another one to add to Grant's thread....


ED

 

Another significant fact about the July 4, 1970 chart: It marked the debut of American Top 40. This was the first singles chart that Casey Kasem ever counted down, on a then small network of stations, distributed by a new company called Watermark. Eventually the program became an American institution and helped make Billboard magazine into a household word among music fans.

 

And a local station carried it! I got to hear the first one, and most for the next several years. As the music got crappier, the less I listened. Wonder why?


ED

 

Re: Re: Re: This Week's Top 10 Chart

Jim,

All this talk about Woodstock has got you making up Beatles songs - keep it 'Real' man.

Couldn't resist.

 

"Free" Love Faux Pas

John B,

Good catch! What an embarrassment. Mis-identifying a Beatles song on the SH Forum. Demote me 50 posts!

Jim W.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: This Week's Top 10 Chart

Reminds me of the other post-Lennon Beatle hit:

"Real As A Bird"

 

Re: "Free" Love Faux Pas

how about Real As A Bird?

 

Ah, I see we Daves think alike! Check the post times on those last two. Some sort of Dave mind meld... Creepy.
Why if all the Daves on this site put our minds together we could rule the world!! Or maybe not.