Billboard American Top 40 Fifty Years Ago (1971) / Sundays Radio Countdown - Listen:

This thread is dedicated to forum member Marv2. Rest In Peace friend.

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Jan 3, 1971

It's a new year and the music of American radio keeps shifting and shaping and redefining itself. Established acts persevere, but as they drop off an eager pack of newcomers eagerly jump into the fray.
In the thick of it all forges Motown, they themselves diversified with the tried and true and the never befores. Coming off a very successful year in 1970, they have strong Top 40 representation [[17%) with seven songs in the countdown as 1971 begins :

Motown has two songs in the Top 10, both of which have now reached their peaks :
TEARS OF A CLOWN by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles ,a former Number One song for two weeks, slides just a bit from number 3 to 4.
STONED LOVE by The Supremes has topped out at a respectable #7 and this week is down one to #8.
Competing against themselves, they are also at #16 , up one , this week along with the Four Tops with a cover of Phil Spector's RIVER DEEP MOUNTAIN HIGH.

Also up one: Gladys Knight & The Pips are at #23 with IF I WERE YOUR WOMAN .

{{{ At #29 is one of Motown's most significant singles in their entire history:
I'LL BE THERE by The Jackson Five has become the label's biggest selling single surpassing the former champ, Marvin Gaye's I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE, and it will hold that distinction as their biggest single for ten years until it is replaced by the Lionel Richie penned ENDLESS LOVE.
The song was #1 for five weeks and Michael Jackson said I'LL BE THERE established their legitimacy beyond a teen fave.
I'LL BE THERE spent the entirety of its four month run on the Hot 100 in the Top 40, and it won't settle for less. It'll finish its last week on it as well, at #29 before it disappears altogether and won't be there . }}}

That leads us to Motown's debut offerings to the Top 40 in this new year:

Entering as the highest debuting single of the week's chart is Edwin Starr's STOP THE WAR NOW at #32.
A year ago this group was unknown , now they are back into the Top 40 with their third successful Top 40 release in a row : Rare Earth and their first original , non -Motown cover hit: BORN TO WANDER finds its way in at #36.


So that's how the year 1971 starts for Motown , amongst a fabulously diverse assortment of musical styles charting , all competing for chart space, Motown has no trouble staying relevant. Fantastic times.

****
Any projections for 1971 in terms of music ? Will it be , for instance, the year of the woman? There are nine performances on the chart that I count, as best I can, that have official female members singing.
But also "woman" seems to be a trending word in song titles:
#5- BLACK MAGIC WOMAN- Santana
#10- GYPSY WOMAN- Brian Hyland
#23 -IF I WERE YOU'RE WOMAN -Gladys Knight
#32 -WE GOTTA GET YOU A WOMAN - Runt

below the Top 40:

#77 -ARE YOU MY WOMAN The Chi-lites
#99 -NOW I'M A WOMAN - Nancy Wilson

also The Bee Gees are at #21 with LONELY DAYS with the prominent line, "where would I be without my woman ...."


if not the year , certainly a strong week for the "woman" theme


BTW
WE GOTTA GET YOU A WOMAN was Todd Rundgren's first hit , it'll peak at #20:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1U16m1B7g4

the Four Tops will cheech and chong it in 1972:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lErdM_-iqvY

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Week 2
JAN 9 1971


Typical week , with the major songs holding steady at the top , shifting just a bit , up if able or down if forced , while several up-and-comers salivate for their turn at chart victory .
Motown will continue with seven songs in the Top 40, with one leaving but replaced by another.

THE TOP TEN :
Two new songs enter-
Bee Gees- LONELY DAYS #9,
Barbra Streisand - STONEY END #10:

Phil Spector has resurrected, and is having a sweet moment , his production of George Harrison's solo work, MY SWEET LORD /ISN'T IT A PITY is at #1 again this week, and thanks to Ashford and Simpson, his oddly rejected Ike and Tina Turner composition of RIVER DEEP MOUNTAIN HIGH [[ peaking at #88) is in the Top 15 as presented by two Motown stalwarts. Also at number 27 this week, after being in the Top 10 [[#9), is Andy Kim's version of The Ronettes BE MY BABY.


The Bee Gees are having one of their periodic bursts of inspired music making, missing for three lonely years from the Top Forty, they return and bullet into the Top Ten from #21 to #9 with what will be their biggest hit so far: LONELY DAYS.

Motown still holds two Top Ten spots with THE TEARS OF A CLOWN now at #6 down just two , and The Supremes are gripping tightly to the #8 position again this week with STONED LOVE .


THE TOP 40:
Kind of a country/ folkish tinge found within the five new entries :
MOST OF ALL - BJ Thomas #40
WATCHING SCOTTY GROW - Bobby Goldsboro #39
AMAZING GRACE - Judy Collins #37
AMOS MOSES - Jerry Reed #36
and one more, from Motown, coming up!

As mentioned The Supremes and The Four Tops share the #14 position [[up 2) with RIVER DEEP MOUNTAIN HIGH.
Gladys Knight continues to try to find traction with IF I WERE YOUR WOMAN with a three place advancement to #20.
We have a trinity of Motown songs being heard in a row on the Top Forty broadcast this week :
#33 [[again) STOP THE WAR Edwin Starr, a surprising stall considering it was last weeks biggest debut.
#32 [[from #36) BORN TO WONDER Rare Earth
and at #31 is the charts highest debuting song:
Perhaps noticing that the Supremes are procuring two Top 40 positions , Diana Ross bursts onto the chart with a song declaring REMEMBER ME.

DROPPING OFF THE CHART :
From Motown: I'LL BE THERE -The J5
From new LA label: Sussex :
The Presidents , this is their last week, at number #35, after peaking earlier at #11 : 5 10 15 20 25 30 YEARS OF LOVE

this will be the only visit to the Top 40 by this Washington DC vocal group. Produced by Van McCoy who will also become a one hit wonder under his own name:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ve6mV9JgHA

Scouring the Hot 100 for Motown related charters,
at #69, now slipping after reaching #60, a cover of The Temptations I CANT GET NEXT TO YOU by some hopeful new hotshot singer by the name of Al Green:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brOjzy5dT24

[[will this attempt relegate him into a non-top 40, one hit wonder .... we'll see!)

It's been pointed out to me that Marvin Gaye [[with The Andantes?) under the guidance of Hal Davis did a cover version of 5-10-15 -20 [[ 25 -30 YEARS OF LOVE) not released at the time :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y03LnfmrfV0

aren't we happy shu-gar :cool:

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*** Phil Spector passed away today Jan 17, 2021, exactly 50 years after this chart in which he has the #1 song produced by him:
MY SWEET LORD/ ISN'T IT A PITY-George Harrison
and a song written by him [[along with Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwich):
RIVER DEEP MOUNTAIN HIGH @#14
as well as their BE MY BABY @ #39
[[see last week's review for more)
RIP Phil Spector ***

Chart #3
January 16, 1971

We have mild chart movement on the Top 40 this week. Just two new songs enter , neither from Motown , the label's presence holds at seven singles on board. The biggest new record, in at #31, is Englisher Dave Edmund's cover of Smiley Lewis' [[deceased by '71) I HEAR YOU KNOCKING, Dave's one record to make the Billboard Top 40. [[At #2 is Dawn's KNOCK THREE TIMES and at #3 is The Fifth Dimension's ONE LESS BELL TO ANSWER).... providing an open and shut case for this week's chart theme.

The Top Ten:

The Top Five songs remain wedged in their same order as last week. One new Top 10 song enters at #7 [[up from #11), King Floyd's southern hit GROOVE ME , that space is created by Chicago's DOES ANYBODY REALLY KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS ten notch drop to clock in at #17. Motown is represented in the Top Ten again this week by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles stubborn THE TEARS OF A CLOWN , now at #10 and the equally stubborn Supremes are again at #8 with STONED LOVE.

The Top 40:

The Supremes and Four Tops climb no further with RIVER DEEP MOUNTAIN HIGH , it is treading steady at #14 for a second week. Also struggling, Gladys Knight and the Pips' IF I WERE YOUR WOMAN manages a shift of just one space from #20 to #19.
That makes Rare Earth's BORN TO WANDER Motown's strongest single this week, moving up eight notches from #32 to #24. Diana Ross is nearby on the chart at #26 with REMEMBER ME , up five from #31.. Just below that at #27, up six, Edwin Starr increases his fight for higher positioning of his STOP THE WAR NOW.

Besides I HEAR YOU KNOCKING, the other new song this week is perennial charter James Brown's GET UP GET INTO IT GET INVOLVED this being his 28th release to get into it. [[The Top 40).

Leaving the Top 40:
Nothing from Motown

This chart Brian Hyland will spend his last week on the Top 40 at #37 with GYPSY WOMAN which peaked at #3. This is Hyland's 8th Top 40 song in his ten year singing career, and this will be his last appearance.


GYPSY WOMAN is a Curtis Mayfield song which was on the charts in 1961 with The Impressions [[post Jerry Butler) peaking at #20. Brian Hyland was 17 years old at the time. But even so, Brian was charting then too: His ITSY BITSY TEENY WEENIE YELLOW POLKA DOT BIKINI hit #1 when he was sixteen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48R6YEKbz60

Curtis Mayfield is having a good spell. Besides the resurgence of GYPSY WOMAN , he's also for the first time on the chart with a record under his own name : [[DON'T WORRY) IF THERE'S A HELL DOWN BELOW WERE ALL GOING TO GO rising up from the lower depths of the chart from #30 to #29 .

More gypsy action on the Hot 100:
At #62, up one, is Gypsy [[ the house band at Hollywood's WHISKY A GO GO ) with their song GYPSY QUEEN PT 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5vm9gnFmMI Parts I and II

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Chart #4
January 23, 1971

The chart gets a bit of a shake up this week: four new songs in the Top 40 , three new songs in the Top Ten, and after five weeks of MY SWEET LORD at the top, there's a new number one. All this action is absent Motown, though they maintain a strong Top 40 presence with the same seven songs charting. For the first time in a long time, Motown has no records in the Top Ten . Both THE TEARS OF A CLOWN and STONED LOVE release their grips and drop out, The Supremes are now at #12 [[from #8), and Smokey Robinson and The Miracle are at #17 [[from #10).


The Top 10:

After three times of knocking at #1 from the #2 position, Tony Orlando and Dawn , are admitted into the top spot , yielded by George Harrison , with KNOCK THREE TIMES . A new artist by the name of Elton John breaks into the Top 10 [[#7 from #11) for the first time thanks to radio DJs playing the 'B' side [[YOUR SONG) of his intended single TAKE ME TO THE PILOT.
Back in the 1940s and 50s, Perry Como used to hang out regularly in the Top 10 ; and between 1944 and 1958, he placed 48 hits on Billboard's charts. So its not at all impossible for him to do it again , as he indeed has with IT'S IMPOSSIBLE [[#10 from #12). Probably more unlikely is Lynn Anderson's #1 country rendition of ROSE GARDEN entering at #9 from #15 and will peak at #3.

The Top 40:
Three Motown songs are heard in a row on this week's countdown:

#12) STONED LOVE The Supremes
#13) IF I WERE YOUR WOMAN Gladys Knight And The Pips - Motown's highest upward moving single with a hearty five place jump.
#14) Rather flat is RIVER DEEP MOUNTAIN HIGH, The Four Tops and The Supremes , level at #14 for the third straight week.

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles long-running THE TEARS OF A CLOWN dips to #17 [[from #10).
Diana Ross still in the countdown's bottom half - but up a solid five points to #21 with REMEMBER ME.
BORN TO WANDER by Rare Earth doesn't stray far from last week's charting, one notch up to #23 from #24.
Edwin Starr's STOP THE WAR NOW almost stops now at last week's #27, it's up one to #26.

Dropping off the Top 40:
Nothing from Motown

The new entries:
Nothing from Motown

Highest entry:
#34 - ONE BAD APPLE - The Osmonds

#36 - IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND - Gordon Lightfoot
#39 - PRECIOUS PRECIOUS - Jackie Moore
#40 - [[DO THE) PUSH AND PULL pt 1 - Rufus Thomas



*****
ROSE GARDEN was a 1967 Joe South song [[ GAMES PEOPLE PLAY, WALK A MILE IN MY SHOES, DOWN IN THE BOON DOCKS) covered two years later by Lynn Anderson , who had to push for the song's recording as it was thought by her producer as unfitting from a female prospective [[ with lines like I could promise you things like big diamond rings). Not intended as a single, Clive Davis heard it and said, "Release that." It became an international success [[16 countries), Grammy winner, and the #1 country song of the year.


The first artist to peddle South's ROSE GARDEN as a single was Dobie Gray:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHB31k4uIRQ

Joe South was a key player in the music business by the second half of the sixties, including involvement with Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel...
That guitar in the intro and throughout Aretha's CHAIN OF FOOLS, that 's him.
South's brother Tommy who played drums for Joe when performing and recording, committed suicide in 1971. From that and drug use, Joe South never rebounded.

*****
The other remake to make the Top 10 this week is 49 year old Perry Como's IT'S IMPOSSIBLE. Born in 1912 , Como spent his entire forty four year recording career exclusively with RCA. English is Como's second language . He grew up speaking Italian at home near Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania with his Italian born parents. His smooth , calm vocal style is said to epitomize the term "easy listening" and his sweater oriented styling ,helped establish casual clothing. Como had high moral standards and did not let his television programs or concerts stray. When his wife of 65 years , Estelle Como died suddenly in 1994, he was devastated.
IT'S IMPOSSIBLE [[as SOMOS NOVIOS) was originally written and recorded in 1968 by Mexican songwriter Armando Manzanero, who passed in December 2020.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YJg0SpOoeQ

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Bob's Top 40 Countdown, the current one and the week before, can be accessed for listening at any time through the stations archives :

https://spinitron.com/KEBF/pl/124817...Countdown-Show

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*****

Here's Joe South playing his tremelo guitar on this later released [[but original) longer version of CHAIN OF FOOLS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQxO-M4uAd8

Once you are aware of it , the edit on the shortened intro on the single is jarring. CHAIN OF FOOLS was written by soulster Don Covay some FIFTEEN years earlier.


*****
With the recent passing of Phil Spector [[we'll hear more from him here soon) , let's have a listen to Canadian Andy Kim's BE MY BABY which dropped out of the Top 40 this week after having peaked at #17 earlier.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSRSsIV9ADo

Andy Kim [[Andrew Youakim) had already taken a Phil Spector song, BABY I LOVE YOU, into the Top 10 in 1969. His youthful, salted butter voice won him best male vocalist in Canada in 1969 , and its strong presence on The Archies' SUGAR SUGAR [[ which he co-wrote) likely contributed to that song's giant success [[ #1 Record Of The Year for 1969). As I listen to these versions of BE MY BABY and BABY I LOVE YOU , I can't help wondering if Kim and Jeff Barry were pitching them as releases by The Archies .
Andy Kim will now disappear from the Top 40 for a few years , but when he makes a return , its to #1.

I love this kind of trivia. Thanks for posting!

thank you Bobby!

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Chart # 5
Jan 30, 1971

Another bit of a log jam at the top, Dawn's KNOCK THREE TIMES is #1 for the second time with most of the Top 10 songs exchanging slight shifts in their positions and there are two new additions. Nothing remarkable happening from the Motown camp, though still strongly present with six songs in the countdown , with one of last week's dropping out. Just three new songs appear in the Top 40 , none will be career makers.

So kind of a slow week , with only one record really ablaze within the 40:

The Top 10:

Catapulting from their debut spot last week at #34 , The Osmonds with ONE BAD APPLE are now in the Top 10 at #9, up 25 slots. This could've been the J5 , the song was written for them , but Motown [[Berry Gordy) turned it down. The Osmonds got lucky , at the right place at the right time to take on the homeless song, but the opportunity was a long time in coming, the brothers have been singing professionally on Andy William's TV show regularly all through the sixties.


I HEAR YOU KNOCKING by Dave Edmunds also springs into the Top 10 at #7 up nine from #16. The two songs to give way from the Top 10 are Santana's BLACK MAGIC WOMAN @ #12 from #5 and Perry Como's IT'S IMPOSSIBLE 's one week placement at #10 is now #12. Motown is again not present in the Top 10.

But they aren't far off :

The Top 40:

Now at #11 from #13: IF I WERE YOUR WOMAN Gladys Knight And The Pips

Rare Earth's BORN TO WANDER is next at #17 [[from #23), leapfrogging Diana Ross' REMEMBER ME [[#21 to #19), both now in the Top 20.
Sinking like a rocked : STONED LOVE Supremes down from #12 to #21
Diving: RIVER DEEP MOUNTAIN HIGH Supremes/Four Tops from #14 to #29
and this is Smokey Robinson and The Miracles THE TEARS OF A CLOWN likely last trace @ #38 [[from #17) after an impressive four month Hot 100 chart run .

Off the chart :
from Motown :
STOP THE WAR NOW Edwin Starr

Top 40 debuts:
none from Motown

#33 LET YOUR LOVE FLOW Bread
#37 1900 YESTERDAY Liz Damen's Orient Express
#40 SOMEBODY'S WATCHING YOU Little Sister

*****

Tales of Two Rays:

As mentioned THE TEARS OF A CLOWN is now in its 16th week on the charts. That's on the long side of a successful single's chart run. Its longevity is surpassed this week by only two other songs on the Top 40, the Partridge Family's I THINK I LOVE YOU is in its 17th week as it now slips from #11 to #15, and then there's this song, at #23 down three, with an incredible 23 weeks on the Hot 100:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUp7esRpjEE

Mentioning career makers , Ray Price was doing fine without this song , 30 top 10 songs on the country chart [[ 3 at #1) starting in 1951 continuing non stop throughout the sixties until this song graced him in 1970, finally giving him his second time into the top 40 and rising all the way to #11, FOR THE GOOD TIMES becoming Ray's one big claim to pop success.

FOR THE GOOD TIMES is also the chart's premiere of a significant song writer and future performer in his own right, Kris Kristofferson. [[he's entering a very good time chart wise).
Eventually a 25 week chart run, and six months on the chart, FOR THE GOOD TIMES has been charting since the summer of 1970.

*****
Still looking at long running songs on the Hot 100 , here's a curious one by Ray Charles: now at #69, this song has been charting for 18 weeks :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRVUdoNxNNo

The record is on Ray's own label Tangerine and written by Jimmy Lewis who works with Ray quite a bit during this period [[you can hear him singing alongside Ray on this single). Eighteen weeks on the chart ... yet IF YOU WERE MINE fails to break the Top forty [[ thwarted at: .... #41!) .
But Ray is not down for the count yet, he's got a another release off this same album [[LOVE COUNTRY STYLE) coming up on the Hot 100 soon ....

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Chart #6
FEBRUARY 6, 2021

Good week for Motown. One new song enters the Top 10 , a Motowner, and of this week's five debuting singles, the biggest , a high one this week - coming in at #25, is also a release from the label.
There are five Motown songs on the Top 40 compared to six last week. One new Motown record enters while two drop out.

The Top 10:

Can't knock it : Three times at #1, Dawn's KNOCK THREE TIMES. Right at the door loudly, ONE BAD APPLE , the Osmonds at #2, a giant inner Top Ten leap of seven spots from #9.
Women trading places: Gladys Knight and Barbra Streisand swap out: dropping one to #11 from #10 is STONEY END , while IF I WERE YOUR WOMAN nudges into the top 10 , at #10 from #11. Both songs have women composers: Pam Sawyer and Gloria Jones [[with producer Clay McMurray) from the Motown camp and Laura Nyro penning the Streisand remake of STONEY END.
The other songs within the Top Ten are all doing a little downward shuffle with only Dave Edmond's I HEAR YOU KNOCKING gaining slight upward momentum , #7 to #6.

The Top 40:

Leapfrogging again: Diana Ross' REMEMBER ME up three to #16 from #19 jumps over Rare Earth's BORN TO WANDER which doesn't , staying put at #17, same as last week.
MAMA'S PEARL by The Jackson Five premiers on the Top 40 chart at #25 from #47.
Heavy falling out, five more spots: The Supremes STONED LOVE from #21 to #26

Biggest Mover:

Up 13 notches from #25 to #12
WATCHING SCOTTY GROW- Bobby Goldsboro

Off the chart:
from Motown:

RIVER DEEP MOUNTAIN HIGH The Four Tops and The Supremes
THE TEARS OF A CLOWN Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. This will be Smokey's final #1 in his career , The Miracles will return to hit it without him.

Top 40 Debuts::
One from Motown:
MAMA'S PEARL- The Jackson Five #25

THEME FROM LOVE STORY- Henry Mancini #30
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THE RAIN/HEY TONIGHT- Creedence Clearwater Revival #32
DON'T LET THE GREEN GRASS FOOL YOU -Wilson Pickett #39
YOUR TIME TO CRY - Joe Simon #40

*****
More about STONEY END, Streisand's first hit of the seventies. The song, written by 20 year old Laura Nyro, was originally released as a single by MOD SQUAD hot property, Peggy Lipton , but failed to make the Hot 100. The song caught the attention of rising star producer Richard Perry whose uptempo version put Streisand back on the top 40 for the first time in six years and its Babs second time to make the Top 10 [[#6) since her first charter, The Supremes favored PEOPLE, #5 from 1964.
This will help establish Richard Perry as a hot hot producer and he'll soon be doing big projects with names like Rod Stewart, Ringo Starr, Nillson , Carly Simon, and Diana Ross , as well as Martha Reeves.
This is Perry's first production to reach the Top 10, his previous biggest success was Tiny Tim's TIPTOE THROUGH THE TULIPS :eek: which reached #17.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXMJ44F4_DI

Laura Nyro also assisted in the success of the female inclusive group, The Fifth Dimension , writing the songs STONED SOUL PICNIC, SAVE THE COUNTRY, and WEDDING BELL BLUES. Laura Nyro died in 1997 from ovarian cancer at age 49 , the same age her mother died of the same condition. Just before her death she was able to assemble her own collective package which was released shortly before her passing. One of the songs she chose is her rendition of Gaye's THE BELLS.


*****
Occasionally when space allows, we'll look at oddities on the Hot 100 that never make it to the Top 40.
This week at #80 peaking four weeks ago at #73, is a song that's going to slip away unnoticed, MIXED UP GUY [[ or MIXED-UP GUY as printed on the record's label) by Californian Joey Scarbury.
He won't reappear on the Hot 100 for the entirety of the seventies, not charting again for another ten years. But perseverance pays off, by the end of the 1970's he'll hook up with a guy named Mike Post. Post is creating a theme song [[again) for a new TV series and Scarbury gets chosen to sing it. A 45 is made from it and it takes off , thus giving him his one big hit of his long career, THEME FROM THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO [[BELIEVE IT OR NOT) will be a #2 hit in 1981. It will be Scarbury's only charting single making him a one-hit wonder. He was 26 at the time , thus MIXED UP GUY was recorded when he was just 16:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5xU2Drt7OE

MIXED UP GUY is an Al Kapps [[Cap , Kaps etc.) guided record , he's already quite a prolific producer and he's about to share some big successes with a string of charters with a certain dark haired lady.

MIXED-UP GUY was written by Jimmy Webb who'll soon be working on an album project with The Supremes. Scarbury was discovered by Webb's father when Scarbury was 14.

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Chart #7
Feb 20, 1971

Another chart another week with the ever present Motown holding strong, albeit with four songs charting after one drops off since last week and with no new ones entering. One new song finds its way into the tight Top Ten, and it's from Motown. That same song is the chart's biggest mover. There's a new #1 and five newcomers make their way onto the Top 40.

The Top 10:

#1 : ONE BAD APPLE by Utah based Osmonds recorded by Rick Hall in his Muscle Shoals Alabama studio, up from #2 , where last week's #1 KNOCK THREE TIMES by Dawn now gets knocked down to.
There are four certified million sellers in the top 10 this week:The top two songs already mentioned, and at #3 [[up from#5) Lynn Anderson's ROSE GARDEN, and holding at #7 King Floyd's GROOVE ME. Another million seller , ONE LESS BELL TO ANSWER by The Fifth Dimension drops out of the Top Ten from #9 to #13. Replacing it are the Jackson Five with MAMA'S PEARL, bolting into the Top Ten at #10 up 15 places from 25, and taking just three weeks on the Hot 100 to get there. Gladys Knight And The Pips IF I WERE YOUR WOMAN remains Motown's highest charting song this week , moving up one place from #10 to #9.

The Top 40:

Not to forget Diana Ross who is again at #16 with REMEMBER ME
and Rare Earth who last week were beside her at #17 now have about lived out their chart life with BORN TO WANDER dipping nine spaces to #26.

Off the chart :

from Motown:
STONED LOVE The Supremes
We say goodbye to The Supremes in more than one way this week , RIP founding member Mary Wilson, and STONED LOVE now leaves the Top 40. STONED LOVE is a song with a strength in unity theme written by a Detroit teenager by the name of Kenny Thomas. This is his one famed writing. The song was on the Top 10 for five weeks peaking a #7. The Supremes will return to the Top 40 soon and four more times total , but never to hit the Top 10 again.

New to the Top 40:

Nothing from Motown

A most impressive entry from an unknown Rhode Island entity called Wadsworth Mansion, entering the Top 40 at #15 is SWEET MARY. Wadsworth Mansion is having a hit from a recording session of this single only , with no album project in the works.

#31 - seemingly, but not Motown related, TEMPTATION EYES_- Grass Roots
#36 - JODY GOT YOUR GIRL AND GONE - Johnny Taylor
#37 - PROUD MARY - Ike And Tina Turner
#39 - FOR ALL WE KNOW - The Carpenters

[[[[It happens that we have two new songs describing 'MARY' in their titles, SWEET MARY and PROUD MARY, this in the same week that we fifty years later lose Mary Wilson of The Supremes [[Feb. 8th , 2021). How appropriate to dedicate those titles to Mary Wilson, often cited as the 'sweet one' and for the entirety of her life, an unwavering proud Supreme.))

*****

A departure from the countdown this week is a Motown related song that last week was #37 peaking earlier at #13, PAY TO THE PIPER by Chairmen Of The Board, Holland- Dozier-Holland's most successful group on their Invictus Label. They charted three times on the Top 40, their biggest hit in 1970, GIVE ME JUST A LITTLE MORE TIME topping out at #3. With the exit of PAY TO THE PIPER , Chairmen Of The Board now leave the Top 40 never to return . General Johnson, their lead singer, is about to have some major studio success to be released on the twin HDH label, Hot Wax. General is also a co-songwriter of Clarence Carter's PATCHES, originally recorded by the group:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPDObLC2Wuc

*****
Another record leaving the Top 40 after this week is Little Sister's SOMEBODY'S WATCHING YOU, peaking this week at #32 , up from #33. Little sister is principally the three girl back up for Sly And The Family Stone and features Sly's little sister Vaetta Stewart. Part of Sly's record deal with Atlantic was his own imprint, Stone Flower, and this was one of a handful of singles that came out on the label.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp1d7Yt8gvY


Little Sister has already charted, [[#22), once with YOU'RE THE ONE [[parts 1 and 2), but this is now their last time in the Top 40 and it's back to studio back-up work. Another of the group's members , Mary McCleary, will marry Leon Russell.
Attachment 18675

Here's a look at the single and Sylvester Stewart's label

Thanks pal, for the info!

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Chart #8
February 20, 1971



The countdown seems to be more dynamic this week , lots of movement - lots of monumental records. The winter thaw has begun, the chart is waking up. The top four charters hold their ground in the same order as last week with The Osmonds now repeating their #1 spot with ONE BAD APPLE.
Below that , the rest of the Top 10 undergoes a bit of a shake up with three strong entries . That means that three drop out , Elton John's YOUR SONG [[#13 from #8) George Harrison's double-sided hit ISN'T IT A PITY/MY SWEET LORD [[#16 from #6) and Gladys Knight And The Pip's IF I WERE YOUR WOMAN plunges from #9 to #18.
Motown's five records on the chart have The J5's MAMA'S PEARL leading the way at #6 up four from #10. All of Motown's four songs from last week's chart remain on the Top 40 , with a new one being added by one of their legion acts entering strong.

The Top 10

Canadian Gordon Lightfoot has been charting consistently [[ eight Canadian Top 40s) for eight years in his homeland, and he breaks the US Top 40 and now the Top 10 with his first US charting single IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND [[his first Canadian #1). SWEET MARY, which last week entered the Top 40 at #15, by Wadsworth Mansion, continues its drive and is now #8. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's MR. BO JANGLES has slowly crept up the chart and this week it makes its boldest move , five notches up from #14 to #9. All three of the latest Top 10 performers are doing so for the first time in their recording careers [[ For The Dirt Band, they're song comes from their 6th album, Gordon Lightfoot's from his fifth album and Wadsworth Mansion, from no album. There are seven artists total in the Top 10 that are first timers. [[ The Osmonds, Lynn Anderson, Dave Edmunds and King Floyd are the others).


The Top 40:
Three Motown records on the Top 40 have reached their peaks and are now descending:

Gladys Knight And The Pips fantasy tune IF I WERE YOUR WOMAN is now #18 after maxing out last week at #9. Diana Ross also hit her high mark last week with REMEMBER ME at #16, and is now #23. Rare Earth's BORN TO WANDER survived the cut for one more week, now #35 after dropping to #26 last week.

This weeks second biggest mover is Jerry Reed's AMOS MOSES [[how could a song with a line like "when Amos Moses was a boy his daddy would use him for alligator bait" fail?) and who to better sing it than the song's author. AMOS MOSES is the fourth released single from Jerry's sixth album and is his first Top 40 appearance. It's up 11 slots to #12 from #23 . That's a winning jump had another not done even better: Up 17 places to #22 from #39 is FOR ALL WE KNOW by The [[brother-sister) Carpenters.

Off The Chart :
Nothing from Motown

New to the Top 40:

Five new songs this week and we'll reveal that all five are headed to the Top 10. In a situation like this its best to show up with your game on and Motown does just that:

The highest debut :
SHE'S A LADY - Tom Jones [[#24 from #43)

ME AND BOBBY MCGEE - Janis Joplin [[#25 from #42)
DOESN'T SOMEBODY WANT TO BE WANTED - The Partridge Family [[#37 from #57)
HELP ME MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT - Sammi Smith [[#39 from #49)

Good week for Kris Kristofferson. Two of those songs , #25 and #39, were penned by him.

And from Motown:
Another fantasy song , JUST MY IMAGINATION [[RUNNING AWAY WITH ME) - The Temptations [[#29 from #51) The group's 28th time onto the Top 40.


*****
It's always fun to watch two releases of the same tune that are competing on the charts . Next week, a rare occurrence on the Top 40 related to this that will take place. This week, further down on the Hot 100 chart, are two competing songs of a title that seems an unlikely one. They are covers of a song that a year ago reached #4 on the Billboard Top 40 by the British band Led Zeppelin , their first charting release.

C.C.S. WHOLE LOTTA LOVE [[#58 up three from #61)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9GS3SofhdU

For some reason, the original Led Zeppelin version was a world wide hit but did not chart in their own UK , while this cover version by the studio group C.C.S. did [[#13) and was used as theme music for TOP OF THE POPS.

*****
At #64, up one from #65, is another version of WHOLE LOTTA LOVE by King Curtis And The Kingpins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oTr8Zk2Pok

For saxophonist King Curtis [[Curtis Ousley) this is his 15th Hot 100 charter; he has been charting since 1962, often with covers including Motown hits, three times reaching the Top 40. Much of his time he is working as a sessionist and worked with many names and projects including appearing on Joe South's GAMES PEOPLE PLAY [[see chart #4) and Aretha Franklin's RESPECT.
The Kingpins are Aretha's support group and next month, March 1971, King Curtis, as the leader of them, will be on stage with her at San Francisco's Fillmore West , resulting in the LP ARETHA FRANKLIN LIVE AT THE FILLMORE WEST.
King Curtis will also release an album of his own from that engagement: KING CURTIS LIVE AT THE FILLMORE WEST, his 28th LP release. That LP hits the market in August 1971. A week later King Curtis is murdered on his front entry to his NYC apartment while trying to enter it with a new air conditioner. He was 37. Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder performed at his funeral.

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Chart #9
February 27, 1971

Good Motown week: While one of their hits leaves the Top 40 , a new one comes on board. They have one song in the Top 10 and its as close to #1 as possible, and a total of five records by five of their biggest acts dot the Top 40.

The Top 10:
Holding strong with a third straight week at #1 is ONE BAD APPLE by the Osmonds with another brotherly group hot on their trail at #2 , Jackson Five and MAMA'S PEARL up four from #6. Half of last week's top 10 singles are slipping and two new ones barrel in, AMOS MOSES by Jerry Reed now at #8 from #12, and ME AND BOBBY MCGEE by Janis Joplin catapults in at #10 from #25. The songs they replace are King Floyd's GROOVE ME , at #18 from #7. and The Bee Gee's LONELY DAYS descends to the chart's bottom half, now #22 from #10.

Name those tunes : lots of name calling in the Top Ten: #10 Bobby McGee, #9 Mr. Bojangles, #8 Amos Moses, #7 Sweet Mary, #2 Mama's Pearl and one spot below , at #11 , we are watching Scotty grow.

The Top 40:

Big move for The Temptations real hit, JUST MY IMAGINATION, a leap of thirteen notches from #29 to #16.
Gladys Knight and The Pips continue their descent to #23 from #18 with IF I WERE YOUR WOMAN, as does Diana Ross's REMEMBER ME at #31 from last weeks #23.

Off The Chart:

Rare Earth's BORN TO WANDER wanders off the chart after its final placement last week at #35 and having peaked earlier at #17. They'll return later in the year with a higher charter.

Biggest leap this week :
Up eighteen points : DOESN'T SOMEBODY WANT TO BE WANTED by The Partridge Family, now in the Top 20 at #19 after debuting at #37 last week.

A most noteworthy chart story of the week is found in the debuts . Let's first list them :
Highest debut :

CRIED LIKE A BABY - Bobby Sherman[[ #32 up from #42)

THEME FROM LOVE STORY - Francis Lai & Orchestra [[#33 from #46)
BURNING BRIDGES - Mike Curb Congregation [[#34 up from #41)
LOVE STORY WHERE DO I BEGIN - Andy Williams [[#35 up from #53)
D.O.A. - Bloodrock [[#38 up from #45)

and from Motown:
JUST SEVEN NUMBERS [[CAN STRAIGHTEN OUT MY LIFE) - The Four Tops [[#40 up from #44)

Two versions of the same song entering the Top 40 at the same time is highly unusual , as happens this week with two versions of the theme song to the current blockbuster movie LOVE STORY. One is by the original score's composer Francis Lai, and another take is with lyrics added by Andy Williams. Certainly noteworthy in of itself, but especially since there's already a version of LOVE STORY charting at #14 by a third artist, Henry Mancini. Three versions of the same song , was much more common back in the earliest of charting days of the forties and fifties, but I do not know when the last time this happened. More about LOVE STORY next week.

*****
Two other new entries this week also worth a closer look. In format, both seem worlds apart, Mike Curb Congregation's clean-cut Disney World type ensemble, compared to the long-haired electric guitar/drum driven darker imagery of Texas group Bloodrock. Misleadingly sing-songy happy is Curb's BURNING BRIDGES, yet its a tune that's actually resolute in defeat. Lyrically a real downer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDS33q9FgZI


But not anywhere near as much a downer as D.O.A. by the rock group Bloodrock. Watching this song creep up the Hot 100 week after week , it seemed the most unlikely song to break the Top 40 in 1971, both in its style and its lyrical content [[Life is flowing out my body. Pain is flowing out with my blood. The sheets are red and moist where I'm lying) , but this week it does just that [[#38):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0VRHBx090s

Bloodrock is documenting a real life experience in their song by their guitarist Lee Pickens. “When I was 17, I wanted to be an airline pilot. I had just gotten out of this airplane with a friend of mine, at this little airport, and I watched him take off. He went about 200 feet in the air, rolled and crashed.”

It seems some of the resistance to programming D.O.A. by radio stations was more about the sirens in the record not being a good idea for car radios than its content. Dean Taylor's INDIANA WANTS ME had that same sirens issue.

This song resulted in Bloodrock 's LP that contained D.O.A.'s eight and half minute version , BLOODROCK II, reaching #21 on Billboard's LP chart. This became their only Top 40 record and helped provide a fan base they would perform to for many years.


27 year old Mike Curb, of Mexican Heritage, is having a good week: Besides his congregation breaking the Top 40, his guiding of The Osmond's career at MGM has immediately paid off , their first hit repeats again at #1. Mike's is a fulfilling story, all over the place in the music business, including hiring and firing [[no druggies wanted) at MGM as the label's young president. He'll bring Johnny Bristol to the label, along with many others including Gloria Gaynor. By the end of the seventies he is the Lieutenant Governor of California as a Republican and becomes an ongoing conservative voice for gay rights.

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Chart #10
March 6, 1971

Superb week for Motown: Two songs in the Top 5, Five songs in the Top 40 [[one new one in, one out) with a debut entry in the Top 30. A Jobette licensed song also debuts by a non- Motown artist. A wild week overall with seven new records earning Top 40 status. Three strong Top 10 entries , meaning as well, that three bow out. Returning for a fourth week at #1 are The Osmonds with ONE BAD APPLE.

The Top 10:

MAMA'S PEARL by The J5, is spending its second week at #2 trying hard to topple ONE BAD APPLE. Bypassing so many others, [[from #16 to #4), The Temptation's JUST MY IMAGINATION is suddenly another Motown contender for that #1 spot when/if it opens up. Another big move into the Top 10, Tom Jones' SHE'S A LADY with an eleven point bolt from #17 to #6. Also showing strength , The Carpenters FOR ALL WE KNOW makes a five point move into the Top 10 to #7 from #12. Any of these seem likely to make it to the top.
The three that made way: Dawn's KNOCK THREE TIMES is knocked down to #14, it was #3 last week. ROSE GARDEN also gets picked off, Lynn Anderson peaked at #3, dipped to #4, and is now at #16. Dave Edmund's hearing the latest herd, got out of the way and is now at #20 from #6 with I HEAR YOU KNOCKING.

The Top 40:

We have to go down to #29 to find Motown's next charting record, another impressive release, a debut, Marvin Gaye's WHAT'S GOING ON [[up from #59)
IF I WERE YOUR WOMAN - Gladys Knight And The Pips [[#33 down from #23)
JUST SEVEN NUMBERS [[CAN STRAIGHTEN OUT MY LIFE) - The Four Tops [[#40 second time at #40)

Biggest leap this week:

JUST MY IMAGINATION [[RUNNING AWAY WITH ME) - The Temptations from #16 to #4 an impressive 12 point gain into the Top 5.

Longest Charter:

King Floyd's GROOVE ME has now been on the Hot 100 for 20 weeks. He's spending his last week on it at #25 [[ from#18). [[When this song first entered the Hot 100, Billboard was listing the artist as Pink Floyd)

Off The Chart:
Diana Ross - REMEMBER ME peaked at #16, Ross will return to the Top 40 twice more this year, next with a Motown remake.

Good week for Brit-born Motown songwriter Pam Sawyer, who has two of her songs on the list, at #33 [[Gladys Knight) and #40 [[Four Tops). Both were co-written with Gloria Jones aka Laverne Ware.

The three LOVE STORY themes progress this week as follows:
Henry Mancini [[#13 up from #14), Andy Williams [[#24 up from #35) Francis Lai [[#31 up from #33).

New To The Top 40:

Highest Debut:
OYE COMO VA- Santana [[#26 from #53)

WHAT IS LIFE - George Harrison [[#27 from #66)
WHAT'S GOING ON - Marvin Gaye [[#29 from #49)
FREE- Chicago [[#32 from #54)
WILD WORLD - Cat Stevens [[#35 from #48)
YOU'RE ALL I NEED TO GET BY- Aretha Franklin [[#38 from #46)
BLUE MONEY - Van Morrison [[#39 from #44)

*****
What a tangled web we weave in the world of pop music. An interesting dynamic in the Top 10:

Gordon Lightfoot appears to be stalling at #5 this week with self-penned IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND. A significant debut and a respectable peak especially considering that according to Richard Perry in his new book , Warner wouldn't have released the song as the LPs third single had he not had Barbra Streisand record IYCRMM during their sessions that resulted in her recent Top 10 hit STONEY END [[which she said she couldn't do , it wasn't her).
Lightfoot's song might have pushed itself even higher had it not gotten displaced this week by the strong advancement of Janis Joplin's ME AND BOBBY McGEE [[#3 from #10). This is ironic as Gordon Lightfoot's version of that song was his last release which went nowhere in the US , but did chart in Canada peaking at #13.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8O0GgcenVU


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBd81qEW6As

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Chart #11
March 13, 1971

A mixed bag this week for Motown. Two of their songs drop out with no new entries from the label, giving Motown three records in the Top 40. But they are each strong tunes. Two are in the Top 10 and the other is this week's biggest mover within the chart.
Five new entries arrive in the Top 40 all in the bottom quarter.

The Top 10:

Looks like one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch ... of #1's for the Jackson Five. After a run of four straight Number Ones, this week, MAMA'S PEARL, falls short of repeating the feat for a fifth time. The Osmond's ONE BAD APPLE refuses to budge from its perch at the top for the fifth week. The Jackson's exhale and slide to #6 after peaking for two weeks at #2. The Temptations, after their huge bolt to #4 last week, with JUST MY IMAGINATION , sit at that same spot this week. Jumping over them is the biggest mover within the Top 10 :The Carpenters FOR ALL WE KNOW is now #3 from #7. Janis Joplin and Bobby McGee are now taking a turn at attempting a toppling of APPLE's #1 spot, positioned next in line at #2 [[from #3).

There are three new songs in the Top 10:
Adding to the teen dream team, The Partridge Family join the Osmonds and The J5 in the top 10, their DOESNT SOMEBODY WANT TO BE WANTED is #9 from #15. All that's missing is Bobby Sherman , oh wait - he's at #16 with a bullet [[ from #23) with CRIED LIKE A BABY , so stay tuned.

John Fogerty is having a good week. Two of his penned tunes enter the top 10 at the same time : HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THE RAIN by Creedence Clearwater Revival [[#8 from #11) and PROUD MARY [[#7 from #12) , the rough version, by Ike And Tina Turner.
CCR could use a good week: the group, as a group, is in trouble, hence the lyrics of their current song. And unlike The J5 whose stress is from not reaching the #1 spot for their fifth time , Credence has five times PEAKED at #2 and have never hit the #1 spot ... Maybe this one is the one ....
Name droppings: out of the Top 10, AMOS MOSES [[#11 FROM #8) MR. BOJANGLES [[#12 FROM #9) SWEET MARY [[#14 FROM #10)

The Top 40:

Only one record outside the top 10 for Motown, it's ascending rapidly: up eleven notches from #29 to #18, second week in countdown: WHAT'S GOING ON - Marvin Gaye

Off The Chart:

IF I WERE YOUR WOMAN - Gladys Knight And The Pips [[#33 last week). They'll be back by summer .
JUST SEVEN NUMBERS [[CAN STRAIGHTEN OUT MY LIFE) - The Four Tops [[#40 last week) They'll be back within the year with a non-Motown cover.

New To The Top 40:

Highest debut:
NO LOVE AT ALL - BJ Thomas [[#32 from #45) [[10th Top 40 Hit)


ANOTHER DAY - Paul McCartney [[#36 from #55) *first time artist
LOVE'S LINES, ANGLES AND RHYMES - The Fifth Dimension [[15th Top 40 Hit)
ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE - Brewer And Shipley [[#39 from #48) *first time artist
SOUL POWER - James Brown [[#40 from #61) [[31st Top 40 Hit)


This week let's look at a couple of records currently on the Top 40 focusing on their music , their sound , they both stand out for their horn arrangements , it's the horns that drives the music . On the funky side, is Ike And Tina Turner's PROUD MARY.
Now before we go thinking that Ike or Tina were some kind of big fans of Creedence Clearwater Revival [[or riverboats), or horns particularly, and imaginatively reinvented the CCR song, in truth their inspiration is from this very similar Checkmates LTD version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2atgibMcgSA



My disco ears noticed the somewhat Philly/Trammps arrangements yet to come on the current tune by The Grassroots: TEMPTATION EYES [[this week #20). The Grassroots were somewhat of a fictitious group, crafted of musicians who changed out regularly. To view them, one would get the impression they were a guitar, drums, organ rock band. One of the common threads of the group's history though was their behind the scenes arranger, and they were distinguished as one of the first bands [[before Chicago) to feature a brass sound. This was their first hit with the sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x6B5eVK7VQ
The Grass Roots MIDNIGHT CONFESSIONS [[#5 Hot 100 1968)

This is another borrowed inspiration. The original, by Ever-Green Blues, already featured the horns and that's what inspired the ongoing sound for The Grass Roots. Steve Barri, the record's producer, said he was looking for a west coast Motown sound. Jimmie Haskell is the Grassroots' perennial arranger, who will do similar honors for a long list of records through the seventies including recordings by some of Motown's biggest names. And mentioning Chicago, the horns on IF YOU LEAVE ME NOW [[#1 1976) that's Jimmie Haskell.

*****
This week, March 13, 1971, the Billboard Top 10 Soul Chart seems worthy an appreciative review , particularly from a Motown perspective and just as a thing of beauty on its own:

1) 1) - JUST MY IMAGINATION - The Temptations
2) 3) - DON'T LET THE GREEN GRASS FOOL YOU - Wilson Picket
3) 5) - WHATS GOING ON - Marvin Gaye
4) 2) - MAMA'S PEARL - Jackson Five
5) 4) - JODY GOT YOUR GIRL AND GONE - Johnny Taylor
6) 13) - YOU'RE ALL I NEED TO GET BY - Aretha Franklin
7) 6) - ONE BAD APPLE - Osmonds
8) 11) - PROUD MARY - Ike & Tina Turner
9) 10) - JUST SEVEN NUMBERS - Four Tops
10) 32) - SOUL POWER - James Brown
must include:
11) 12) - CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD - Chairman Of The board [[Invictus)


All this collected talent from various camps swirling around each other in the same week.
RE: ONE BAD APPLE , Out of place, but not really. A well-crafted song designed to formulate the J5 sound, earns favorable inclusion. Awesome.

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Motown and Billboard's Hot 100 Top 40
Chart #12
March 20, 1971

Only for a label of Motown's ongoing stature and hit history could this be called a slow week for chart performance. The main complaint is: nothing new from them, so we have the same three super hits charting as last week, two are now vying for future #1 status, and one leaves the Top 10 after a #2 peak. Motown is the only label with two songs in the Top Ten and the only label with three songs in the Top 20, so no this is not a bad week.
We have a relatively tame Top 40 with just three new entries and two hits reaching the Top 10 [[one from Motown); and, after several weeks, there is a new #1.
.
The Top 10:
Janis Joplin maintains her momentum and forces The Osmonds from their perch of five weeks at #1 with ONE BAD APPLE, up from #2, ME AND BOBBY MCGEE is now the nation's #1 song. Tom Jones SHE'S A LADY jumps over the Temptations to land the #2 spot [[from #5) while The Tempts' JUST MY IMAGINATION makes a single digit advancement to #3.
With so many moving up, this means someone had to give: it's The Carpenters with FOR ALL WE KNOW down to #5 from #3
The two new ones : Giant jump for Marvin Gaye's WHAT'S GOING ON, ten notches from #18 lands him at #8.
This is a good week for Kris Kristofferson , sort of, with two of his writings now in the Top 10. HELP ME MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT by Sammi Smith enters at #9 up from #15 and ME AND BOBBY McGEE is at #1. The success is bittersweet. Janis Joplin is at #1 posthumously , dying from a heroin overdose just four months earlier in October. Just a year ago, in the spring of 1970, she and Kristofferson were in a relationship.


The Top 40 :
Dropping out of the Top 10 from #8 to #13 : MAMA'S PEARL - The Jackson Five

Biggest Mover On The Chart:
ANOTHER DAY - Paul McCartney up 16 notches to #20 from #36

Off the chart :
None from Motown

New to the Top 40:
a slow week that allows for some new kids on the block:
Highest Debut:
COUNTRY ROAD - James Taylor[[#37 from #42) 2nd Top 40 hit

EIGHTEEN - Alice Cooper[[#38 from #45) * first time artist
HEAVY MAKES YOU HAPPY - Staple Singers [[#40 from #49) *first time artist

*****
If there's exactly one thing splendid about the Top 40 format it has to be its diversity.
Artists of all shapes and sizes performing musical creations that seem to know no limits in style. On this week's chart , let's look at an example of this diversity, in this case by their musical make up.
At #31 this week, down from #29 and now finishing its run after peaking at #15, is Judy Collins rendition of AMAZING GRACE. That it charted at all is ....amazing... unexpected by all concerned, but here it is. For Judy it is a song of civil rights and Vietnam protest, and the hymn , written almost 200 years prior by Englishman John Edward, has too long a story to attempt to review. The focus here is the recording's sound: Judy is singing acappella....it is stripped of instrumentation about as much as possible and yet still get radio play on music stations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtteRD5bBNQ

Judy's version is recorded at St. Paul's chapel at Columbia University backed by a chorus of friends.
BTW this will not be the last appearance on the Top 40 of AMAZING GRACE. The song will chart again in a couple of years by a very different artist and score even higher.


On the other end of the spectrum on the Top 40 can be found music created specifically for orchestration with no vocals and no lyrics .... in this case for the purpose of a theme to a movie: the season's blockbuster LOVE STORY [[it will be the biggest grossing film of 1971) continues to have three placements in the Top 40 with its theme. Let's investigate:
The film was scored by French composer Francis Lai , his theme having no lyrics. Famed lyricist Carl Sigman [[IT'S ALL IN THE GAME, WHAT NOW MY LOVE) was brought in to add words. His results were rejected mostly for being too depressing and the following day trying to rewrite the words he asked out loud, "Where Do I Begin?"

Andy Williams has the surprise success by recording this vocal version , LOVE STORY [[WHERE DO I BEGIN), that will soon reach the Top 10 , despite Henry Mancini's instrumental cover already reaching the Top 20 [[#13). It is Williams first time back into the Top Ten in almost 10 years when his CANT GET USED TO LOSING YOU reached #2 in 1962. [[It was his only other Top 10)

This is the authentic Francis Lai edition from the soundtrack that peaked as a single at #31 [[#35 this week), [[the soundtrack is at #2 on Billboard's album chart):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2zhZ7bco_M

The movie was also a surprise hit that no one wanted to be in or direct, based on a book that hadn't yet been written. Ryan O'Neal was finally settled on to star: he was paid $25,000.
Jimmy Webb submitted music for the movie that wasn't used. He'll likely move on soon enough to another project better suited to him.

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Motown and Billboard's Hot 100 Top 40
Chart #13
March 27, 1971

Another good week for Motown , they have four charters with two of the songs advancing upward within the Top 10 , one former #2 song slowly on the way out , moving toward its departure next week , and one new Motown song enters, amongst seven Top 40 newcomers. We have the same song at #1 and one new record reaches the Top 10.

The Top 10:
Janis Joplin and her Bobby McGee are holding solid at #1 for the second week.
The Temptations current single is not exactly running away , it's more like an inch by inch progression that brings them each week one spot closer to a #1 record, this week up one from #3 to #2, with JUST MY IMAGINATION. Marvin Gaye's WHAT'S GOING ON performs in a similar way , moving up one space from #8 to #7. Lots of big questions this week in the Top 10, Marvin wants to know, "what's going on", and George Harrison is asking WHAT IS LIFE , posing the question at #10 up from #15. Oh, and The Partridge Family wonders DOESN'T SOMEBODY WANT TO BE WANTED at #6 up one from #7.
Falling out of the Top 10, Gordon Lightfoot's preposition IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND down to #13 from #10.

The Top 40:
The Jackson Five slip five more notches to #18 from #13 with MAMA'S PEARL.

Biggest Mover On The Chart:
Two songs rise nine places, both remakes [more on that in a minute) Santana's OYE COMO VA after crawling up the Top 40, finally gets legs and leaps from #24 to #15. The Staple Singers HEAVY MAKES YOU HAPPY which barely made it into the Top 40 last week now gets a hefty lift up to #31 from #40.

Off The Chart:
none from Motown

New To The Top 40:
Seven new songs , all in a row, two from Canada, one from Motown :

Highest Debut :
JOY TO THE WORLD - Three Dog Night [#34 up from #45) [9th Top 40 hit, consecutive, with no misses)

WE CAN WORK IT OUT - Stevie Wonder [#35 up from #52) [21st Top 40 hit)
WHERE DID THEY GO, LORD/RAGS TO RICHES - Elvis Presley [#36 up from #49) [58th +/- Top 40 hit)
PUT YOUR HAND IN THE HAND - Ocean [#37 up from #71) [* first time artist)
STAY AWHILE - The Bells [# 38 up from #56) [* first time artist)
SIT YOURSELF DOWN - Stephen Stills [#39 from #48) [2nd Top 40 hit)
DREAM BABY [HOW LONG MUST I DREAM) - Glen Campbell [#40 up from #47) [ 15th Top 40 hit)

Cover songs , remakes , are always fun to check out. Sometimes they are stridently true to the original, as in the personal account of ME AND BOBBY McGEE [now sung by a female but with no modifications needed beyond pronouns) , while some are so reinterpreted , they are close to being a new tune, Aretha's YOU'RE ALL I NEED TO GET BY as an example. Some of the best hits are by writers performing their own work , this way they complete their envisioned tune from start to finish on creations like AMOS MOSES, WILD WORLD, IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND. Other writings are best presented by performers who bring life to a composition by their talents for interpretation , as in the Fifth Dimension's LOVE'S LINES ANGLES AND RHYMES by one-time-hit song writer Dorothea Joyce [first recorded by Diana Ross the previous year).
Some of the more fun remakes are revisits of songs that were already big hits, especially when redone by artists whose distinctive style shine through in their song adjustments. There are two such tunes entering the Top 40 this week: Stevie Wonder's reworking of WE CAN WORK IT OUT , already a #1 record by its creators, The Beatles, in 1966. The other is DREAM BABY by Glen Campbell, a #4 record by Roy Orbison in 1962, written by country singer Cindy Walker , who also wrote Ray Charles' #2 song from 1962, YOU DON'T KNOW ME. 1962, a very good year for Cindy Walker.

Let's take a closer look at a couple of current remakes on the Top 40 :

One of the biggest movers on this week's chart is Santana's OYE COMO VA
[LISTEN HOW IT GOES), a song recorded almost ten years earlier , in a cha-cha-cha style in 1962 by New Yorker Tito Puente:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFwWbUpDaEg

Tito was quite disturbed that a rock band was portraying his song this way, especially replacing the leading flute part with an electric guitar, until he got the first residual check. His outrage at being hijacked was probably misplaced , listen sometime to CHANCHULLO by Israel Lopez recorded five years prior to OYE COMO VA in 1957.

There are a good number of good story telling singles that are charting , but one of the most moving is the tale of MR BOJANGLES , and certainly the best one on the chart that's incorporating an accordion [and a mandolin).
Jerry Jeff Walker wrote the song after spending time in a jail cell in New Orleans with a fellow who danced a bit and called himself Mr. Bojangles.... The song encompasses this one night encounter in a shared jail cell, the most captivating detail being Bojangles' continued grief over the loss of his dog some twenty years earlier. The song has been recorded by an impressive list of artists like Bob Dylan, Nillson, Dolly Parton, Neil Diamond, Nina Simone, Elton John and on and on, and most famously by Sammy Davis Junior who made it a staple in his act for the rest of his life and of which Whitney Houston did a tribute.

But its the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band that brought the song to the forefront , theirs is the only Top 40 version. They were aware of Jerry Jeff Walker's original recording , and from listening to it, transcribed their version , getting some of it wrong [for instance, "as the smoke ran out" should've been "as he spoke right out"], their rendering would help provide a stage career for them for all the years thereafter. The Top 40 will know of the group only from this one song. [Reinvented as The Dirt Band they will return to the Top 40 in the eighties.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGJ5ikbe0GQ

Nitty Gritty formed in Long Beach California, Kenny Loggins was a member for a bit, [their next single will be his HOUSE ON POOH CORNER #53) .

MR BOJANGLES is at #26 this week from #17, after reaching a peak of #9.
This is its 19th week on the Hot 100 and its last.

Jeff Hanna , singing the lead , was born in Detroit Michigan.

Happy Easter!

Quote:

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Playing now ! I thought I'd share for those interested:
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hear it here:

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---

Motown and Billboard's Hot 100 Top 40
Chart #14
April 3, 1971

It's hard to imagine a much better week on the Top 40 than this for Motown. They have the number one record with a second moving up right underneath also a strong top of the chart contender, along with a third single working its way up the chart , plus one former hit playing one more time before bowing out. In the nearby rungs of the Hot 100 they have two singles that seem certain to enter the Top 40 soon, especially one that is entering the Hot 100 at #56. So Motown has four Top 40 songs this week with a couple more on the way.

There are two new songs entering the Top Ten and four new songs arriving to the Top 40.

The Top 10:

Through determined maneuvering, the Temptations have inched their way to #1 , going from #4 to #3 to #2 and finally to #1 , with JUST MY IMAGINATION [RUNNING WAY WITH ME) displacing Janis Joplin's two week stance at that position [now at #2) with ME AND BOBBY McGEE.

It is rare that a song changes course on the charts once it slips , but that's what has happened for The Carpenters FOR ALL WE KNOW , which had appeared to have peaked three weeks ago at #3 , then it dropped two to #5 for the past two weeks. Now it's back up to #3, a jump of two places. With Tom Jones' SHE'S A LADY now slipping to #4, suddenly The Carpenters are , for all we know, a contender for a surprise #1. We'll see.
Only one other song showing such strength within the Top 10 is Marvin Gaye's WHAT'S GOING ON which also progresses two spots to #5 from #7.

Andy Williams must be pinching himself this week: He is back in the Top 10 for the first time since 1963 with his vocal version of LOVE STORY at #9 from #11.
And here is a case of never before and never again?
Last week George Harrison was at #10 with WHAT IS LIFE . This week he is bumped out [#14) , of the #10 position now taken by former bandmate Paul McCartney with ANOTHER DAY/OH WOMAN OH WHY , which last week was : #14.


The Top 40:

MAMA'S PEARL - The Jackson Five drops from #18 to #30.
WE CAN WORK IT OUT - Stevie Wonder has a modest move to #32 after debuting last week at #35.

Biggest Mover On The Chart:
JOY TO THE WORLD - Three Dog Night 2nd week on the Top 40 , in at #34 now at #11.

Off The Chart:
None From Motown

New To The Top 40: Four records, all made in America, none from Motown
Highest Debut:
I AM ... I SAID - Neil Diamond [#26 up from #45)[16th Top 10 Hit)

BABY LET ME KISS YOU - King Floyd [#38 up from #49) [2nd Top 40 hit)
IF - Bread [#39 up from #72) [4th consecutive Top 40 hit , no misses)
ASK ME NO QUESTIONS - BB King [#40 up from #43) [4th Top 40 hit)


****
There are so many facets to the Top 40 chart or beyond that , the Hot 100. There is plenty of activity in the lower quarter of the Hot 100, fun to watch. It is here that the not so obvious potential hits brew and simmer often times for weeks , months before hopefully gaining enough momentum to get into the top half and possibly the Top 40.

When songs drop off it is like the cut of a guillotine , when a record's lived out its chart life , it won't drop down to lower rungs to marinade . It is quickly cut out almost always from the Top half of the Hot 100; suddenly out with the next climber eagerly taking its place.
Typically it takes about two / three months to reach a peak and a three, maybe four month run seems to be the norm . A hot record, especially by an already hot act, accelerates the process, while a struggling artist can do just that in their drawn out attempt to make it.

Two examples of exceptions for typical longevity jump out on this weeks chart . AMOS MOSES by Jerry Reed, now at #17, has been on the Hot 100 for 23 weeks ; it entered the Hot 100 at #97 on October 31, 1970 and will still be in the Top 40 next week for a 24 week, six months!, chart run. That is shear determination by an unknown artist with a compelling record.
Meanwhile, WHAT IS LIFE by George Harrison blasted into the Hot 100 at #66 hot off the heels of a #1 record [MY SWEET LORD] that was still in the Top 40. It didn't hurt that this is music from an ex-Beatle, that helped to catapult the song up the chart into the Top 10 last week , five weeks in. But George Harrison fatigue has set in and surprisingly the song peaked at #10, now in just it's sixth Hot 100 week , WHAT IS LIFE drops to #14.

****
And of course there are the many more songs on the Hot 100 that never break into the top 40 than those that do. It's entertaining to monitor them and watch the ones that slip through the cracks for a variety of reasons .
Sometimes they are novelty tunes often trying to cash in on current trends as is the case with the #61 song this week HOT PANTS which is documenting what is about to be a big dress trend the coming summer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlPO6qqNsfY

HOT PANTS was created by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss best known perhaps as the writing duo to bring us ITSY BITSY TEENIE WEENIE YELLOW POLKA DOT BIKINI,[ #1 , 1960] so yes why not follow up with ....HOT PANTS. We can revisit the topic again when James Brown 's HOT PANTS , [which he hasn't gone into the studio to record yet] will have a strong Top 40 performance in a few months.

*****


And at #99 enters a Motown cover, also a bit of a novelty record in its presentation, by Margie Joseph , who despite releasing 11 albums, including productions by Johnny Bristol and Lamont Dozier, will never become a member of the Top 40 club. Her version of The Supremes' 1965 #1 record, STOP! IN THE NAME OF LOVE, will peak at #96.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-O6QwcoCxY

Quote:

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Playing now ! I thought I'd share for those interested:
Every Sunday Bob counts them down in order 11:30 to 2 PST.
hear it here:

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---

Motown and Billboard's Hot 100 Top 40
Chart #15
April 10, 1971

If last week was a good week for Motown with the #1 song in the country , this one is even better, with both of the nation's #1 and #2 songs being theirs. Add to that, they have the Top 40's highest premiering single of the week , way up at #15 to boot. With a total of four singles in the Top 40, all of them on the rise, yes this is a great Motown week.
There are five new songs coming onto the Top 40 and two songs move into Top 10 territory.

The Top 10:
Week two at the top for The Temptations JUST MY IMAGINATION [RUNNING AWAY WITH ME] , their magic formula for hit records continues from the duo of Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. This is the first of the group's charters to feature just the lead voices of original members Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams .... and the last ...after this the two will no longer be in the group.

Marvin Gaye seems the rightful heir for the #1 spot now owned by label mates The Temptations , with a big leap to #2 from #5 with WHATS GOING ON , were it not for the aggressive advancement of Three Dog Night's JOY TO THE WORLD [already certified gold] , now firmly in the Top 10 at #3 [from #11] ; this while the rest of the Top 10 shifts around a bit and looks rather limp. One other new song breaks in: ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE by Brewer And Shipley at #10 from #16. That means Andy Williams' return to the Top 10 was for one short week , but what a week it was. His LOVE STORY [WHERE DO I BEGIN] is now #13 from #9. Also out: Sammi Smith, HELP ME MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT [#12 from #8]

The Top 40:
Stevie Wonder: WE CAN WORK IT OUT , apparently so, the song makes a big shift upward 8 notches to #24 from #32

Biggest Mover On The Chart:

PUT YOUR HAND IN THE HAND - Ocean , up 15 marks, from #31 to #16.

The little known Kama Sutra label is having a great week. They have a song entering the Top 10 with ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE , as well as the chart's biggest mover with PUT YOUR HAND. [more next week).

Off The Chart:
MAMA'S PEARL - Jackson Five - last week #30 , 10 weeks in the Hot 100, peak: #2, written by the Motown collaborating team called The Corporation.
No time to miss the group though, without missing a beat they remain on the chart, immediately back in at #15 with their next big hit.

New To The Top 40:

Highest Debut:
NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE - Jackson Five [#15 up from #57][6th Top 40 hit no misses]

I PLAY AND SING - Dawn [#30 up from #41][3rd Top 40 hit, no misses]
FRIENDS - Elton John [#38 up from #47][2nd Top 40 hit , no misses]
CHICK-A-BOOM - Daddy Dewdrop [#39 up from #44][*first time artist]
POWER TO THE PEOPLE - John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band [#40 up from #73][4th Top 40 hit]


*****

Examining the rest of the Hot 100, there's a dueling song competition struggling at the lowest end of the rankings , one version is by a Motown act.
At #83 up from #86 in its fifth week, is LOVE MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND, by Odds And Ends. Nearby at #87 up from #89 in its third week , is the same song by Kiki Dee on the Rare Earth Label.
The song was originally a Top 40 hit [#11, 1966) by Michigan circuit performer and one-hit-wonder Deon Jackson , who wrote the tune himself. It was released on the Carla label , one of six labels started by the record's producer , Mississippi born , Ollie McLaughlin, including three labels named after his daughters [Carla, Moira and Karen] and one after his wife, Ruth [you gotta love the land of opportunity!].

Kiki Dee's version is arranged by Paul Riser and produced by Duke Browner who spends the later sixties working on recordings elsewhere, and has a brief stint about then at Motown and then disappears it seems from the industry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVv4o5m5eO4

It was one of two singles by the 24 year old British singer released by Motown.

*****

Odds And Ends were a singing trio of teenagers, two brothers and their sister from Georgia, then relocated in Philadelphia. Under the wings of a popular disk jockey, they hooked up with Thom Bell and Bobby Martin which resulted in a few singles , but no album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLC6EU3Myeg

Now why , five years later, we suddenly have musical heavyweight Motown Records and a seemingly harmless competitor from far away, PIR, both attempting to revive this tune at the same time is anyone's guess. Likely a coincidence. Doesn't matter because both recycled versions of LOVE MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND fail miserably ... the records will evaporate from the Hot 100 in the next couple of weeks.

1971 countdown not broadcasted this week .


Motown and Billboard's Hot 100 Top 40
Chart #16
April 17, 1971

After such a strong showing last week , it's a surprise to describe the Motown action this week as comparably sluggish .
Motown loses its grip of the #1 spot and fails to place the crown on who seemed the rightful contender in Marvin Gaye , although the rapid ascent of JOY TO THE WORLD by Three Dog Night certainly presented a likely threat. Marvin holds strong at #2 for a second week, so stay tuned. The additional surprise is the slowdowns of the other two Top 40 songs from Motown, particularly the latest from the J5. Nonetheless there is an additional song from the label debuting this week so with five songs charting, Motown is all-in-all having another stellar week .

Just one new song maneuvers into the Top 10 and four new songs, including one from Motown , enter the Top 40.

The Top 10:

3 Dog Night's JOY TO THE WORLD jumps over Marvin Gaye's WHAT'S GOING ON to become this weeks new #1 [from #3]. JUST MY IMAGINATION by The Temptations trades positions with JOY and is down to #3 after its two weeks at #1.
There are a lot of monumental songs that are just too big to easily dislodge ,just one barely falls out, PROUD MARY by Ike And Tina Turner [#11 from #9], and only Paul McCartney's ANOTHER DAY pushes upward [#5 from #8). The one new member of the Top 10 is not the one that might've been predicted by the strength of its chart debut at #15 last week , instead it is Ocean's PUT YOUR HAND IN THE HAND in at #6 with a big jump from #16 in its sixth week in the Hot 100 , quite rapid for an unknown act. Holding steady at #10, is Brewer And Shipley's ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE . With those two songs, Kama Sutra, a subsidiary of Buddah Records, under the guidance of future Casablanca Records kingpin , Neil Bogart, is having a good week with two of the Top 10 pressings.

The Top 40:

After entering at #15 last week , it seems inconceivable that The Jackson Five practically stall this week, moving up just two spaces to #13 with NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE, as has happened.
The same can be said of Stevie Wonder, after the hefty eight point jump to #24 last week , this week , WE CAN WORK IT OUT is up one , to #23.

Biggest Mover On The Chart:
With so many singles charting with inspired and thought worthy lyrics , the countdown seems wanting of some levity:

CHICK-A-BOOM - Daddy Dewdrop - Up 14 slots now at #25 after debuting last week @ #39.

Off The Chart:
None From Motown

New To The Top 40:
No heavy hitters enter this week , four songs break through, none will reach the Top 10:
Highest Debut:

TIMOTHY - Buoys - [#32 up from #41][*first time artist]

I DON'T BLAME YOU AT ALL - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles. [#37 up from #44][27th Top 40 hit]
DON'T CHANGE ON ME - Ray Charles [#38 up from #42] [31st Top 40 hit]
I LOVE YOU FOR ALL SEASONS - The Fuzz [#39 up from #43] [*first time artist]

*****
This week let's focus on two Top 40 debuts:

Already this year , it seemed the most odd record to make the Top 40 in 1971 would likely be D.O.A. by Bloodrock. You'll recall that single is sung from the perspective of a dead corpse [aren't they all?) after an accident. So how to top that. Well this week we have TIMOTHY by The Buoys , a saga of three young men, who when trapped in a mine, one winds up eaten. Not sure we'll top this one about cannibalism for shock value hit of the year, but.... we are only a third way in. This record was made with intentional controversy, the idea being that getting press for a band - any kind of press- even if by being 'banned", is better than no press at all. Despite the label's [Scepter) unwillingness to acknowledge the tune , word of the forbidden record spread, and in an era of increasing radio stations, some went ahead and played it --- especially when others in a competing market would not.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqDu5LBT8_Y

Rupert Holmes, [THE PINA COLADA SONG), who concocted the scheme, as well as everyone else involved, swear had they any idea such a story shared a similar one in truth, as was the case, they never would've pursued it.

*****

Women have a strong presence this week as writers, as individual performers [Janis Joplin , Aretha Franklin, Sammi Smith, Alice Cooper* , *just seeing if you're paying attention], and as group members [Staple Singers , Miracles, Dawn, Partridge Family, Ocean, Carpenters, Bells , Fifth Dimension, Ike & Tina Turner, Plastic Ono Band.] What's conspicuously missing , especially from the Motown camp even amongst five current releases, are the chartings by any girl vocal groups, .... except for the arrival this week of one , an obscure new one, The Fuzz, debuting at #39 this week with I LOVE YOU FOR ALL SEASONS . Already seasoned as a group, now reinvented as The Fuzz after spending all of 1970 as The Passionettes, the Fuzz are three young ladies, unrelated, from Washington DC. Their LP on Calla Records is an innovative recording , a seasons of love theme-based concept LP developed by group member Sheila Young.

Although the rap concept between cuts of the LP is noteworthy, it is the influence of the music itself, that while not unlimited, was certainly substantial for some major upcoming Top 40 compositions by a soon to arrive superstar:

I LOVE YOU FOR ALL SEASONS: instrumental "b" side:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05rUmx3KUt0

THE FUZZ album also features a cover of the Smokey Robinson song OOH BABY BABY.

It is unlikely a corresponding Top 40 will be broadcast this Sunday ....?....


Motown and Billboard's Hot 100 Top 40
Chart #17
April 24, 1971

What a difference a week makes. After a bit of an overall stall on last week's chart , Motown has regrouped and is once again on fire. Marvin Gaye holds the #2 spot for a third straight week and with JUST MY IMAGINATION still in the Top 10, along with a new arrival in the top level, Motown has three of the nation's ten most popular tunes, and five songs in the Top 40.
The three ascending Motown hits are each experiencing surges , up 9, 10, and 9 places.
Lots of chart movement and a Top 10 shake up: Four songs out , and four replace.
Five new entries in the Top 40, none from Motown.


The Top 10:

JOY TO THE WORLD, aka JEREMIAH WAS A BULLFROG, by Three Dog Night is #1 for a second week , holding Marvin Gaye's WHAT'S GOING ON positioned at #2 for its third week. The Temptations dip to #7 from #3, and last week's strongest Top 10 song, ANOTHER DAY by Paul McCartney , sits parked another week at #5.
The J5 hit their stride again this countdown with a big push upward, nine places, from #13 to #4 with NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE. Neil Diamond's I AM I SAID also does a big leap , from #12 to #6. Another big jump for IF by Bread , last week at #20 now 12 places higher and firmly in the Top 10 at #8. Also a big jump: not even in the Top 20 last week , now The Bells are at #10 , from #21 and we'll see if they stay awhile with STAY AWHILE.
So, who gave way: ME AND BOBBY McGee by Janis Joplin down to #12 from #7. FOR ALL WE KNOW by The Carpenters from #9 to #13, and The Partridge Family's DOESN'T SOMEBODY WANT TO BE WANTED dips way down to #16 from #8. And with just a nudge, Brewer & Shipley's ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE is one place under the Top 10 at #11 from last week's #10.
Side By Side :
The song title in the Top 40 with the longest title, JUST MY IMAGINATION [RUNNING AWAY WITH ME], with 34 letters, is at #7 and the shortest title, IF, is at #8. IF will be the Top 10's shortest titled song for over twenty years, until Prince's "7".
The group Bread is having a very good week , one member, David Gates, enters the Top 10 as the songwriter of IF, and two other members Jimmy Griffin and Robb Royer , finally exit the Top 10 as songwriters of the Carpenters FOR ALL WE KNOW peaking at #3, now nominated for an Academy award for Best Song.

The Top 40:

Whatever caused Stevie Wonder's pause last week has been worked out and he bolts nine places this week from #23 up to #14 with WE CAN WORK IT OUT.
The Miracles I DON'T BLAME YOU AT ALL enjoys a strong move from#37 to #27.

Biggest Mover On The Chart:
POWER TO THE PEOPLE - John Lennon 13 places up to #15 from #28.

Off The Chart:
None from Motown

Five Songs Debut : 3 Cover Versions, Two self-penned originals.

Highest Debut:
BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER - Aretha Franklin #24 up from #57 [23rd Top 40 Hit]

ME AND YOU AND A DOG NAMED BOO - Lobo #30 up from #47 [* first time artist]
LOVE HER MADLY - The Doors - #37 up from #45 [7th Top 40 Hit]
HERE COMES THE SUN - Richie Havens - #39 up from #46 [first time artist]
WOODSTOCK - Mathew's Southern Comfort - #40 up from #42 [first time artist]

*****


Perusing the Hot 100, it's always amazing to realize the familiar songs that never became big enough radio/sales hits to break the Top 40 . This week at # 49 in its seventh week, [it'll peak at #48], is LUCKY MAN by progressive rock band Emerson Lake & Palmer. Although their debut album that LUCKY MAN was drawn and shortened from reached #4 in the UK [#18 US], this, their first single , did not chart at all in their homeland.

What makes the recording rather fun is that it was written by Greg Lake years earlier when he was 12, when he first got a guitar and learned some basic chords. Not fun, the song's story is of a lucky man who had everything ,went to war, and died. The group didn't like the song and only after much studio reworking by Lake did it develop into the acceptable composition. LUCKY MAN is also one of the first rock songs to feature a synthesizer solo [recorded in one take by Emerson.]


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89g1P_J40JA


Next year , 1972, Emerson Lake & Palmer will make it into the Top 40, once ,with IN THE BEGINNING , peaking at #39. They do far better on the album chart with nary a dud within all of their first six albums.

****

We continue to keep our eye on Phil Spector this year, 1971, a very big year for him , exactly 50 years preceding his passing. This week his Top 10 production of George Harrison's WHAT IS LIFE is spending its last week on the Top 40/Hot 100 at #38 [from #18] and his production of John Lennon's POWER TO THE PEOPLE is this weeks biggest mover within the Top 40.

Meanwhile, making the Hot 100 this week and only briefly: Cissy Houston's rendering of Specter's vocal group, The Ronettes, first big song [#2], BE MY BABY enters at #92 stays there and drops off. From her debut album and produced by Bert DeCoteaux , BE MY BABY just recently spent time on the Top 40 with a version by Andy Kim that peaked at #17.
Although Cissy Houston will be heard oodles of times as a backing vocalist
on numerous albums by many well-known artists, this song is her only time under her name on the Hot 100.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxTiWYwlemo

Later on, Houston will also be an uncredited member of The Wiz Singers Adult Choir.

.

This weeks countdown will likely be the Top 40 for May 2, 1966

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Chart #18
May 2, 1971

Another good Motown week , although with a little less momentum: Still three songs in the Top 10 and five on the Top 40 and eight on the Hot 100 [two of which won't become Top 40 titles]. Marvin held on tight at #2 for three weeks but couldn't shake Three Dog Night from their #1 roost as he slips two places to #4 with WHATS GOING ON . Just one song enters the Top 10 and there are five new arrivals onto the Top 40, none are from Motown [but one is by proxy].

The Top 10:
JOY TO THE WORLD by Three Dog Night is the top song for the third straight week.
Perhaps surprising is the strength of PUT YOUR HAND IN THE HAND by Ocean as it is now the nation's second most popular song, up one more from #3. In that spot this week is now The Jackson Five with NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE, up from #4, and Motown's new hope for another number one along with hopes of reestablishing the J5's trend to hit #1 with their releases.
The Temptation's JUST MY IMAGINATION maintains its Top 10 ranking, slipping two spots from #7 to #9.
Biggest mover within: The Bells STAY AWHILE from #10 to #7. One new song enters: CHICK-A-BOOM by Daddy Dewdrop edges its way into the tight Top 10 at #10 with a hefty lift from last week's #16. Tom Jones surrenders his biggest Hot 100 charter of his career , SHE'S A LADY , a remake of a 1970 Paul Anka song, after a peak of #2 [WHATS NEW PUSSYCAT, his second biggest, reached #3 in 1965]. Tom, now out of the Top 10 , never to return ...

The Top 40:
Stevie is hot then he isn't , then he is .... now he is at #13 up one from #14 with WE CAN WORK IT OUT ...
A slow down for I DON'T BLAME YOU AT ALL , The Miracles , last week @ #27, two places up to #25.

Off The Chart : None from Motown

Biggest Mover On The Chart:
LOVE HER MADLY - Doors- 18 notches from #37 to #19.

Very good week for The Beatles. George Harrison departs the Top 40 this week after a long all year presence, while two other Beatles remain riding high , Paul McCartney is in the Top 10 at #8 from #5 , John Lennon's POWER TO THE PEOPLE , is also attempting Top 10 status by repeating at #11. The fourth Beatle, Ringo Starr this week enters the Hot 100 at #49 with Top 40 rankings likely to follow. Then there are two successful Beatles remakes in the Top 40: Stevie Wonder's WE CAN WORK IT OUT [#13] and Richie Havens HERE COMES THE SUN [#35].

Five Songs Debut, 4 newcomers, 1 stalwart,

Highest Debut:
SWEET AND INNOCENT - Donny Osmond [#22 up from#46] [*first time artist]

WANT ADS - Honey Cone - [#32 up from #59][*first time artist]
RIGHT ON THE TIP OF MY TONGUE - Brenda And The Tabulations - [#33 up from #45] [*first time artist]
BATTLE HYMN OF LT. CALLEY - C Company Featuring Terry Nelson [#39 up from #41] [ *first time artist]
BROWN SUGAR - The Rolling Stones [#40 - Hot 100 debut] [19th Nervous , rather, Top 40 hit]

*****

Beatles remakes aren't the only covers on this week's chart, but there aren't many, most of the releases are originals , with the bulk of those composed by the artists themselves or in house.

Two noteworthy exceptions are at the very top, [as well as is Aretha Franklin's reworking of Simon and Garfunkel's BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER up at #12 from #24 last week] both the #1 and #2 songs are versions of songs already recorded. JOY TO THE WORLD is a song by Oklahoma raised Hoyt Axton. In its original state , the iconic opening line to his song was "Jeremiah was a prophet"... not clear how exactly that became "Jeremiah was a bullfrog", but seems to have been a wise move ...
Hoyt will provide Three Dog Night with another Top 10 hit: NEVER BEEN TO SPAIN .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNogZplQ4vc

Hoyt is the second in the family to write hit records. His Mom helped author Elvis' HEARTBREAK HOTEL.

*****
And then at #2 is Ocean's PUT YOUR HAND . The song was written by Canadian songwriter Gene MacLellan, and first recorded as an album cut for Canadian Ann Murray in 1970, and has become a monster hit for the Canadian band Ocean. It was with another MacLellan song, SNOWBIRD, that Ann Murray first broke into the American market [#8).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1zCPPupUGY

PUT YOUR HAND IN THE HAND became a favorite to be performed by Donny Hathaway.

Will the 1971 Top 40 return this Sunday or will it be for 1966?
Answer: Bob still absent , but these 1966 countdowns are fantastic!

Motown and Billboard's Hot 100 Top 40
Chart #19
May 8, 1971


Motown holds its own on this week's Top 40: One song is pushing its way closer to #1, two songs are in the Top 10, five songs are on the Top 40, and there are now nine Motown songs on the Hot 100, two on their way to the Top 40.
There are two new songs in this chart's Top 10 and six premiering on the Top 40 [none from Motown].

The Top 10:

JOY TO THE WORLD is being heard from the mountaintop, again at #1 for its' fourth week, that's a solid month, are we witnessing this year's #1 record? Putting the heat on, The Jackson Five tug at Ocean's PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE HAND and gently move them aside as they ascend to #2 [from #3] with NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE. That's six songs in a row by The Jackson Five to reach #2 or higher. In exchange, Ocean is now #3 while the rest of the Top 10 does minor shifting. Marvin Gaye's WHAT'S GOING ON is now #6, a two place drop from#4. The biggest new entry is Aretha's BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER, in @ #8 up from #12. The other new one is Lobo at #10 with ME AND YOU AND A DOG NAMED BOO up from #16.
Out of the Top 10: Paul McCartney's two sided ANOTHER DAY/OH WOMAN OH WHY peaked at #5 and drops this week to #14 from #8. And The Temptations , after a two week peak at #1, now leave their #9 spot and land at #15 with JUST MY IMAGINATION.

Curious strategy [or lack of] at Motown , two of their biggest hit singles ever, are not being supported by corresponding LPs. The Temptations , are now dropping with their 2x #1 song , yet they are only represented on the LP charts by their months old GREATEST HITS II package. Meanwhile, Marvin Gaye, after being at #2 for three weeks, is still absent the album chart altogether. Seems a much wiser move is the example of the new J5 LP, MAYBE TOMORROW, out for 2 weeks and already #1 on the Soul LP chart and at #19, up from #58, on Billboard's Top 200 LP chart, just as NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE peaks. Also odd:
Stevie Wonder in the Top 20 with his 4th single, WE CAN WORK IT OUT, from his SIGNED SEALED DELIVERED LP, yet this album is completely void of any LP charting. However, instead Stevie's newest LP , WHERE I'M COMING FROM, unceremoniously enters this week at a modest #101.
[One clue concerning The Temptations' situation can be found in this weeks SOUL SAUCE column, this revealing line slipped in there: Album happenings: Eddie Kendricks, "All by Myself" [[Tamla);]

We will explore this topic, Motown's LP charting, further perhaps next week.


The Top 40:
Stevie Wonder's WE CAN WORK IT OUT has peaked , last week at #13, it's now #19.
Meanwhile , Smokey's I DON"T BLAME YOU AT ALL climbs up four more places to #21 from #25.

Off The chart:
Nothing from Motown.

Biggest Mover Of The Week:
BROWN SUGAR - The Rolling Stones 27 point jump #13 up from #40.

Six Debuts this week, three of the debuts enter in the Top 30, five are by new artists including Ringo Starr, and some from names we'll soon know well:

Highest Debut:
IT DON'T COME EASY - Ringo Starr #24 from #49 [*debut artist]

SUPERSTAR - Murray Head #27 from #41 [*debut artist]
I DON"T KNOW HOW TO LOVE HIM - Helen Reddy #28 from #47 [*debut artist]
TOAST AND MARMALADE FOR TEA -Tin Tin #33 up from #45 [*debut artist]
FOR GODS SAKE GIVE MORE POWER TO THE PEOPLE - Chi Lites [*debut artist]
ME AND MY ARROW - Nilsson [third Top 40 Hit]


It's remarkable, but not unheard of , when a new song enters the Hot 100 and lands in the Top 40 its first week, as the Rolling Stones did last week @ #40 with BROWN SUGAR, but surely this week we have occurring a one time only event, on the other end of the spectrum. What would be a ridiculous amount of time for a record to chart before finally cracking the Top 40? How about 24 weeks, =6 months, as is the case this week for Murray Head's SUPERSTAR from the rock opera JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR?

The musical production is having a very good week. The opera itself remains #1 on the LP Top 200 chart. Now, SUPERSTAR finally makes an impressive entry into the Top 40 at #27. The only thing that makes this week even more exciting is that right behind it enters another song from the album, I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LOVE HIM, which will introduce the about to be very successful Helen Reddy. Her arrival was also a struggle , this record labored in the lower rungs of the chart for 13 weeks before its break though this week.
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR is quite a story, the focus for further discussion ...

*****
Also having a very good week: The continent of Australia:

As noted Australian Helen Reddy is making her Top 40 debut , she is about to become one of Australia's best known female pop singers [ an equally unknown Olivia Newton-John is waiting in the wings ..), but at the time of this recording Reddy is desperately broke.
Debuting along with Helen Reddy this week is the band formally called The Kinetics from Australia now in England and calling themselves Tin Tin. In the hands of Maurice Gibb, they get connected to Robert Stigwood. The dreamy harmonic TOAST AND MARMALADE FOR TEA has the unique added effect of a warble, accidentally created by the engineer leaning on the tape machine, but when liked , its then intentionally utilized .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1SenDxZAbA

The group based the song on just the piano and guitar parts which was then lushly built upon with strings and horns by arranger Gerry Shury, who will add his flair on future disco compositions out of England by Biddu, Tina Charles, Jimmie James, etc. and most successfully on KUNG FU FIGHTING, until his death in a car accident.

*****

Also being watched on the Hot 100 is a song called THE PUSHBIKE SONG by two Australian brothers in a band calling themselves The Mixtures. Despite being a hit in Australia [#1] and England [#2], it appears PUSHBIKE will peak just shy of the Top 40 in the US. This week , its tenth on the Hot 100 , the record slips to #46 from is high of #44 last week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LZ9TGOGt04

Not surprisingly Mungo Jerry will do a cover of the song ..... as will Olivia Newton-John.

Not sure if we'll be hearing 1966 or 1971 ...[>1966]


Motown and Billboard's Hot 100 Top 40
Chart #20
May 15, 1971


Strong week for Motown , they own 15% of the Top 40 with 6 songs scattered throughout the rankings. None drop out and a new single joins in. One additional song on the Hot 100 for a total of 8. Riding highest is yet again The Jackson Five with NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE repeating at #2. It is Motown's only Top 10 song as WHAT'S GOING ON drops out


The Top 10:
Week Five at #1 for Three Dog Night's JOY TO THE WORLD, locking out NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE from advancing from their #2 spot of last week. One song joins the ranks , BROWN SUGAR by The Rollings Stones, it comes in at #6 from #13. They replace Marvin Gaye who was #8 last week with WHATS GOING ON, now at #16.
Biggest mover within the Top 10: Lobo's ME AND YOU AND A DOG NAMED BOO up 5 from #10 to #5.

The Top 40:
WHAT'S GOING ON - Marvin Gaye dipping to #16 from #6
I DON'T BLAME YOU AT ALL - Smokey Robinson and the Miracles break into the chart's top half , #18 up three from #21.
WE CAN WORK IT OUT - Stevie Wonder slips a bit more to #21 from #19
JUST MY IMAGINATION - The Temptations #23 from #15.

None of the above four songs have representation on the albums in this week's Top 50 Soul LPs. In fact , here's a curious thing. Motown has six songs on the Top 40 and also six LPs on the Top 50 Soul LP chart, yet with only one correlation between the two . Only one LP has any tie-in to what Motown is charting on the Top 40. Tellingly, that song is #2 and its LP is #1 .....The Jackson Five's LP MAYBE TOMORROW, released three weeks ago and now in its second week at #1, while NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE perches at #2. This seems like the most successful strategy for the best pay off . More next week.

Biggest Mover On The Chart:
IT DON'T COME EASY Ringo Starr - Up eleven places #13 from #24

Off The Chart:
Nothing from Motown

Highest Debut:
TREAT HER LIKE A LADY - Cornelius Bros. And Sister Rose #30 up from #45 [* Debut artist]

REACH OUT I'LL BE THERE - Diana Ross - #31 up from #43 [fourth Top 40 hit - no misses]
DON'T KNOCK MY LOVE PT 1 - Wilson Pickett - #32 up from #41[Fifteenth Top 40 Hit]
I'LL MEET YOU HALFWAY - The Partridge Family - #33 up from #69 [Third Top 40 Hit - no misses]
COOL AID - Paul Humphrey And His Cool Aid Chemists - #35 up from #44 [*Debut Artist]
BOOTY BUTT -Ray Charles Orchestra - #37 up from #47 [32nd Top 40 Hit]
THE DRUM - Bobby Sherman - #39 up from #50 [Fifth Top 40 Hit]


Not sure how often this happens, if ever, but last week Ray Charles was on the Top 40 with one song, DON'T CHANGE ON ME, at #40 . This week it falls off, but he's on the chart still , because of the entry of an entirely different hit featuring his orchestra : BOOTY BUTT at #37- [these titles from two different LPs no less].

A very good week for Ray Charles who drops out of the Top 40 this week, and yet doesn't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcjxmDvCMmg


Also new this week , another instrumental, this one from Detroit born Paul Humphrey, mostly a drummer, mostly with jazz artists and a lot of them - and mostly out of New York. He also recorded and toured with The Four Tops , The Supremes , and Marvin Gaye and is credited on his LET'S GET IT ON LP.
In this case Humphrey is the bandleader of a group he calls Cool Aid Chemists, and while the Ray Charles tune features a more bluesy electric guitar and piano , this one is centered on a jazzy electric guitar and organ [and plenty of drumming]. It also has an innovative seemingly live/party audience background heard throughout .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKXHPvkmJjk

David T. Walker is the guitarist on COOL AID. His name can be found on a long list of artists of the seventies , including many Motown names, not to mention 15 albums issued under his own.

Motown and Billboard's Hot 100 Top 40
Chart #21
May 21, 1971

Motown's got six titles in the Top 40 again this week , five from last week and one new one to replace one that drops out . After fifteen weeks on the Hot 100, including two weeks at #1, JUST MY IMAGINATION makes its exit. The Supremes replace The Temptations with NATHAN JONES, their fifth Top 40 hit post Diana Ross and this time for the first time ever [?], the group sings the lead in unison. There are a total of eight Motown songs on the Hot 100 , with a [rather unusual) new one at #98.

The Top 10:
JOY TO THE WORLD joins a rare club of records that place at #1 for six weeks or more surpassing the recent high bar set by I'LL BE THERE by The Jackson Five and ONE BAD APPLE by The Osmonds, both #1 for five weeks. The most recent six weekers were last year's BRIDGE OVER TROUBLE WATER by Simon and Garfunkel [currently back in the Top 10 at #7 [2nd week] as done by Aretha Franklin] and 1969's AQUARIUS/LET THE SUN SHINE IN by The Fifth Dimension.
JOY TO THE WORLD also has the unique distinction of keeping two Motown songs at bay at #2. This week the J5 remain locked at the #2 position for their third straight week as Three Dog Night refuse to budge. They originally leapfrogged over Marvin Gaye's WHAT'S GOING ON which also got stuck at #2 for three weeks.

Two songs break into the Top 10 : WANT ADS by Honey Cone is in at #6, up six from #12, and Ringo's IT DON'T COME EASY is at #8 up five from #13. To make room for them, these two drop out: STAY AWHILE by The Bells at #12 from #8, and I AM I SAID by Neil Diamond is at #14 from #9.

The Top 40:
WHATS GOING ON - Marvin Gaye - a slight slip to #18 from #16
I DON'T BLAME YOU AT ALL - Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - appears to have peaked , it drops below the Top 20 , #22 from #18.
REACH OUT I'LL BE THERE - Diana Ross rises only one place to #30 from #31.
WE CAN WORK IT OUT - Stevie Wonder #32 from #21.

Biggest Mover On The Chart:
WOODSTOCK - Mathews Southern Comfort up eleven places from #34 to #23 [Don't let the group's name mislead, they aren't from New Orleans; the group is from the UK and they take this Joni Mitchell song written for Crosby Stills Nash and Young [#11] to #1 there.

Off The Chart:
JUST MY IMAGINATION [RUNNING AWAY WITH ME] - The Temptations - We say goodbye to this line-up of the group as it goes out with a bang , with a #1 record and they'll be back to do it again.... although with replacements for two of the original members , Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks, heard so prominently here.
JUST MY IMAGINATION drops from the Hot 100 entirely, the same week their latest LP, THE SKY'S THE LIMIT, which features it, debuts on the Soul LP chart at #2.
Motown suddenly has the top 3 albums on the Soul LP Top 50. More about that next week.

Highest Debut This Week:
RAINY DAYS AND MONDAYS - The Carpenters #20 up from #46 [4th Top 40 hit , no misses]

I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LOVE HIM - Yvonne Elliman #37 up from #42 [*Debut Artist]
IT'S TOO LATE - Carol King #38 up from #47 [2nd Top 40 hit]
NATHAN JONES - The Supremes #40 up from #57.[30th Top 40 Hit]


A very good week for the JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR franchise:
The rock opera LP is still hot, second only to The Rolling Stones new STICKY FINGERS LP, and they now hold 3 positions in the Top 40. Murray Head's SUPERSTAR gains major movement , up nine to #15 from #24, and joining Helen Reddys version of I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LOVE HIM , also moving well upward, to #17 from #25, is the song's original version by Yvonne Elliman at #37.

****
Keeping our eye on Phil Spector chart activity: POWER TO THE PEOPLE, the John Lennon/Yoko Ono penned tune he produced, dips to #31 from #15 and on the Hot 100 at # 77 [where it will peak], up two from #79 is the Spector/George Harrison produced TRY SOME BUY SOME by Phil's wife, Ronnie Spector of The Ronettes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0xHx-6WmNg
The mandolin heard on TRY SOME BUY SOME, John Lennon liked, it'll be reprised on HAPPY XMAS WAR IS OVER.

*****
When scouring the entirety of the Hot 100 and the records found there, its fascinating to discover the ones that seem to undeservedly fail to do better, denied even a ranking that dents the Top 40 especially by acts who will therefore never get there. Case in point is the Rose Colored Glass remake of the failed single , CANT FIND THE TIME by Orpheus two years earlier, seventh week on the chart and still only at #83:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX_vF_wTmJ0

Released from the Dallas based pop quartet with a tantalizing string arrangement by Happy Hallman on Bang Records , there will be no accompanying LP. CAN'T FIND THE TIME will finally get to #54, so close yet so far. The song will now lay dormant until Hootie And The Blowfish do a version thirty years later.

would love to hear Bob is back to 1971 again ,if not listening to 1966 is cool too.



Motown and Billboard's Hot 100 Top 40
Chart #22
May 29, 1971


=
A mixed bag for Motown this week: Five songs on the Top 40, one less than last week as Stevie's WE CAN WORK IT OUT is now out. That seemed likely, but the big disappointment is the Jackson Five with NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE now slipping from their #2 position to #3 which likely means saying goodbye to #1. Two other Motown songs are also dropping within the Top 40, while its the two that are rising that are the most intriguing as far as chart performance:
Diana Ross' REACH OUT I'LL BE THERE again only moves up one place this week, while the Supremes with NATHAN JONES catapult past the former Supreme and it's the biggest moving song in the Top 40.
The corporation continues to have 8 songs on the Hot 100, and one week after The Temptations' JUST MY IMAGINATION drops off, a former Temp member prominently heard on that record, enters it as a solo voice.

The Top 10:

A new #1 this week on a new label from an established act:
On Rolling Stones records are the Rolling Stones with BROWN SUGAR overtaking The Jackson Five and advancing from #3 to the top spot in just five weeks on the Hot 100. The multi-week run for Three Dog Night's JOY TO THE WORLD finishes at six times and they drop to #2 forcing NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE downward one place to #3. Ringo Starr is the Ten's biggest mover - up to #5 from #8 with IT DON'T COME EASY. One song enters: Donny Osmond's SWEET AND INNOCENT leaps five from #13 to #8 . IF by Bread takes that #13 spot dropping from #9.

On The Top 40:

The rest of the Motown charters are in the ranking's bottom half:
I DON'T BLAME YOU AT ALL - Smokey Robinson #25 down two from #23
^NATHAN JONES - The Supremes #27 up from #40
^REACH OUT I'LL BE THERE - Diana Ross #29 up from #30
WHATS GOING ON - Marvin Gaye - #36 down from#18

Biggest Mover On The Chart:
NATHAN JONES - The Supremes up 13 spots to #27 from #40.

Off The Chart:

WE CAN WORK IT OUT - Stevie Wonder after a nine week run and a peak of #13. Stevie will be back again within the year.

New To The Top 40:

Highest Debut:
WHEN YOU'RE HOT YOU'RE HOT - Jerry Reed #32 up from #42 [2nd Top 40 Hit]


INDIAN RESERVATION - Raiders - #38 from #43 - [ 14th Top 40 Hit, 1st without Paul Revere]
DOUBLE LOVIN' - The Osmonds -#39 from #53 [2nd Top 40 Hit]
LOWDOWN - Chicago - #40 up from #41 [Fifth Top 40 Hit , no misses]

A very good week for The Osmond Family: Youngest group member Donny Osmond [age 13] has the only song entering the Top 10 this week , and as a group The Osmonds are back on the Top 40 with their follow-up to their #1 song ONE BAD APPLE.
Dividing up performance credits looks like a good charting strategy that perhaps other family acts will soon emulate .

*****
A 45 that places on the Hot 100, more often than not , does not move on up into the Top 40. Motown has three such songs currently. At #73 down from #64 is Edwin Starr's FUNKY MUSIC SHO NUFF TURNS ME ON while ITS SO HARD FOR ME TO SAY GOODBYE by Eddie Kendricks enters at #90 [it will peak at #88] and at #79 [it'll peak at #77] is one of Motown's most atypical releases ever, on the Rare Earth label are Stoney [Shaun Murphy] & Meatloaf [Marvin Lee Aday] with WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET : The two met in Detroit while performing in the musical HAIR and a one-time album resulted following the single:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w30IluSO7BE

Backing them vocally are Tony Orlando's Dawn , the arrangement is by David Van De Pitte and Tom Baird.
What else can we point out of particular interest about the duo's Motown project? Oh yes , it was produced by Ralph Terrana, Russ Terrana , and Mike Valvano.

*****
With Ray Charles and then his orchestra each charting the Top 40 this month , Ray just misses the Triple Crown had his back -up singers of over ten years, The Raeletts, also joined Top 40 status with BAD WATER:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ISWq28os-0

Now three months on the chart , BAD WATER remains moored at #67 for its third straight week, after peaking at #58. Besides Ray himself heard here, the current Raeletts line-up includes future Supremes member Susaye Greene.

Motown and Billboard's Hot 100 Top 40
Chart #23
June 05, 1971



Not Motown's best week : Four songs in The Top 40 only one of which has legs [a fifth debuts by proxy: SHE'S NOT JUST ANOTHER WOMAN from the HDH camp] , the rest are heading for the exit door. Most shockingly, the label's premiere artist's latest single fails to break the top 25 and this week suddenly plummets nine notches , and almost off the countdown. One Motown song in the Top 10 [a second by proxy: WANT ADS from the HDH camp,] and eight singles in the Hot 100, two that are new, one of which will be in the Top 40 by mid-summer.

The Top 10:

The Rolling Stones have a sweet repeat at the top with BROWN SUGAR, #1 for a 2nd week, while JOY TO THE WORLD by Three Dog Night also remains riding high at #2 for a second week. Most songs in the top tier inch up and The Jackson Five drop to make room , now #8 from #3 with NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE. Several songs by big guns like Ringo Starr and The Carpenters seem strong enough to have a turn at #1, but coming on strong along the outside is newcomer Honey Cone and WANT ADS, up one to #3. RAINY DAYS AND MONDAYS by The Carpenters enters the Top 10 at #5 up from #11. Hot on their trail is Carol King's IT'S TOO LATE , also quickly in the Top Ten at #10, a giant jump from last week's #21. Those are this week's two new top tenners.
Two out: PUT YOUR HAND IN THE HAND by Ocean from #6 to #12 and Daddy Dewdrop 's CHICK-A-BOOM tumbles to #17 from #10.

The Top 40:
Motown's bright spot :
^NATHAN JONES -The Supremes -up six notches to #21 from #27
I DON'T BLAME YOU AT ALL - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles #38 a thirteen point drop from #25
Motown's biggest shocker:
REACH OUT ILL BE THERE -Diana Ross - barely on the chart @ #39 a ten point drop from last week's peak of #29 in just six weeks of charting.
Diana Ross' slipping is surprising considering she has an album in the Top 5 on the Soul LPs chart , but wait DIANA TV ST doesn't contain a performance of the single.

Biggest Mover On The Chart:
DOUBLE LOVIN' -THE Osmonds - Up seventeen points now at #22 up from #39

Off The Chart :
WHAT'S GOING ON - Marvin Gaye - after 12 weeks on the Top 40 , with three of those at #2. Gaye will be back two more times this year , and perhaps with an upcoming album that includes the three of them.

New To The Top 40:
Only three new records this chart, all from debut acts:

Highest Debut:
THAT'S THE WAY I'VE ALWAYS HEAD IT SHOULD BE - Carly Simon [*first time artist ]

SHE'S NOT JUST ANOTHER WOMAN - 8th Day [*first time artist]
FUNKY NASSAU - The Beginning Of The End [*first time artist]

A very good week for the Woodstock Festival, represented on two spots on the Top 40:
Dropping now to #27 from #23 , the British group Mathew's Southern Comfort's cover of the Joni Mitchell song WOODSTOCK about the festival [although Joni wasn't there for it] and at #16 for a second week is Richie Havens with HERE COMES THE SUN. Because other acts weren't able to reach the stage, Richie , although scheduled to be performing fifth, became the opening act for Woodstock , he had to bravely consume two hours of time on the stage .

****
Been rooting for a couple of interesting organ based singles on the Hot 100, but it appears they will now peak and drop off without cracking the Top 40.

The first is a song called BROWNSVILLE [Texas?] [peak #66 after six weeks) by a group called Joy Of Cooking , a band with hippie sensibilities born out of Berkeley Calif in 1967, with a blend in sound of jazz and folk, blues, and rock and roll.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3oL1oMIQTg

What adds to Joy Of Cooking's unique sound is the band is fronted by lead guitarist Terry Garthwaite and pianist/songwriter Toni Browne , two women, - heard singing together on BROWNSVILLE.

****
Meanwhile a smokin' instrumental by Stax Record's house band Booker T &The M.G.s has simmered on the Hot 100 for three months , but now after peaking at #45 slides this week to #57.
It isn't revealing anything to divulge this is the groups last charting single since Booker T has already officially left STAX as this record rides the charts. Maybe that explains the lack of a big push by Stax, who likely weren't pleased that the group recorded this tune away from home base in New York City.
We are slowly moving to the disco era, MELTING POT with its repetitive drum groove and eight minute length is cited as one of those early records heard at NYC house and block dance parties.
While Joy Of Cooking might be noted as a mixed group composed of five members consisting of three guys and two women, with the two women leading the group, so can Booker T. & The MGs be noted as a mixed group of two white and two black members, the group led by organist Booker T.. Music during this time was affording all kinds of possibilities for those adventurous enough to pursue them. MELTING POT was not just a random name for the instrumental record concocted by the four members ...

Full LP version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nsc4u4-8Nns

Speaking of Woodstock, Booker T And The MGs were planning to perform at the event, and were currently hot with their biggest single TIME IS TIGHT , but drummer Al Jackson Jr. didn't trust the helicopter plan to deliver them. After this session, Jackson continues in Memphis with Hi Records , he'll bring a distinct heavy bass drum sound to Al Green's records which he helps to write. Yes disco is on its way.

****
Another chart failure worth noting: This week Eric Clapton's LAYLA falls off the Hot 100 after a run of ten weeks that topped off at #54. Eric [& The Dominoes] recorded the song a year earlier in 1970, but the country hasn't taken to this abbreviated Atco 3:15 single version. They'll take to LAYLA a whole lot better when rereleased a year from now in its full seven minute version , a bold move by Polydor [although the record's long running time is conveniently not shown on the 45's label].

We still await Bob's corresponding countdowns on Sundays to return.

Billboard's Hot 100 Top 40
Chart #24
June 12, 1971


A bit of calm from the Motown machine , one record working its way up the Top 40 , one dropping within , one clinging at the very bottom. Three records charting in the Top 40 , six titles on the Hot 100, no songs in the Top 10. By proxy though , Motown can celebrate a #1 record, as the H-D-H owned label, Hot Wax, has its first #1 song . While no new Motown songs premiere this week, one does by proxy, a cover of a Jobette owned tune.

The Top 10:

Honey Cone pull it off: A #1 hit their first time on the Top 40, and the first [and only] for the Holland-Dozier -Holland studios with WANT ADS [Might this be the last #1 record ever recorded in Detroit?] Honey Cone bump off The Rolling Stones in a similar way The Supremes had in 1965 with I HEAR A SYMPHONY , leaving the Stones lamenting , GET OFF OF MY CLOUD. The Rolling Stones BROWN SUGAR drops one to #2. It's family week on the Top 10. The Carpenters siblings are at #3 up two from #5, Donny Osmond represents at #7 for a second week with YOUNG AND INNOCENT. And two new family songs enter : TREAT HER LIKE A LADY , Cornelius Bros And Sister Rose, a strong move to #8 from #15, and The Partridge [TV] Family crack the top with I'LL MEET YOU HALFWAY #9 from #11.
Two bow out: Lobo's ME AND YOU AND A DOG NAMED BOO from #10 to #12 and The Jackson Five's NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE dips to #14 from #8.

The Top 40:

NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE -The Jackson Five - #14 down from #8
^NATHAN JONES - The Supremes - The group enters the top half of the chart: to #19 up from #21
REACH OUT I'LL BE THERE - Diana Ross - #39 second week at #39 - somehow manages another week on the Top 40 , just barely.

Biggest mover On The Chart:
Two singles tie: both move up 14 notches:
INDIAN RESERVATION - Raiders from #25 to #11
FUNKY NASSAU - Beginning Of The End from #40 to #26

Off The Chart:

A significant departure this week : Smokey Robinson And The Miracles now leave The Top 40 with I DON'T BLAME YOU AT ALL after an 8 week run and a peak of #18. This is their last Top 40 appearance together as they now also leave each other as a group, Smokey deciding to go solo. The split hinders both divisions , as neither Smokey nor The Miracles will find their way onto the Top 40 again until both do in 1974. The split is said to be amiable, with no blame at all, but The Miracles will never record another Robinson penned tune, and only one brief impromptu reunion will ever happen , for the Motown 25th Anniversary TV special. I DON'T BLAME YOU AT ALL was the group's 27th Top 40 charter over the course of fifteen years. They first come on in 1960 with a #1 song, SHOP AROUND, and except for 1962, they chart every year thereafter and depart with a single in the Top 20. Not a bad run.

New To The Top 40:
Highest debut:
DON'T PULL YOUR LOVE - Hamilton , Joe Frank, and Reynolds -#30 up from #47 [* First Time Artist]

NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE - Isaac Hayes #33 up from#45 [3rd Top 40 hit]
ALERT FLASHER/BROKEN - The Guess Who #34 up from #41[Tenth Top 40 hit]
PUPPET MAN - Tom Jones - #37 up from #42 [16th Top 40 hit]

A very good week for Clifton Davis . If you're going to write one hit record in your life, let it be one like NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE, a song so good its in the Top 40 in two spots by two artists at the same time , first the original by The Jackson Five and now joining them is the song as performed by Isaac Hayes. This is a bit of an unusual situation. Hayes has released a cover of a song by another act while the song is still in the midst of its run. This is quite different from waiting until the song has had its run , which is the typical protocol. Isaac Hayes apparently sees no need to wait, so we are witnessing a very rare occurrence where a cover charts at the same time as the original.
NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE's title is prophetic, in a few years it'll return again on the top 40 in a very reinvented way.

*****
This week instead of ten songs on the Top 10 , we suddenly have 12. Billboard has decided that both the Aretha Franklin and Carol King records are two-sided hits and have added the B-sides on their chartings. Aretha is now in the Top 10 with double-sided remakes : Simon And Garfunkel's BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS and : a song made popular back in 1969 by Dusty Springfield: BRAND NEW ME. The song is a product of the developing Philly sound spearheaded by Gamble and Huff which is about to explode on these charts. BRAND NEW ME was written by Kenny Gamble, Thom Bell, and Jerry Butler, whose version was released ironically as the B side of his 1969 single WHATS THE USE OF BREAKING UP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twwnm8Ycwgo

Carol King is the composer of both: IT'S TOO LATE and: I FEEL THE EARTH MOVE, the latter of which is the intended A side. DJs surprised King's Ode label when they began flipping it to the slower song which then took over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6913KnbMpHM

This is quite the thread. Very informative from days gone by.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cincinnati_Kid

This is quite the thread. Very informative from days gone by.

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thank you Cincinnati Kid.

As I was listening to our local radio station reviving these Top 40 countdowns , it occurred to me that it might be fun to follow along each week and review the chart action giving it a Motown twist. Thought I'd give it a try and found learning the nuances of the records as fun as listening to the songs themselves. Trying to bring some context to these songs that were competing against each other chart wise as revealed each Sunday on Casey Kasem's Sunday countdown program which I eagerly listened to back in the day.

I'll likely continue with or without Bob , although I hope he comes back soon.

I hope you enjoy and I welcome suggestions or comments .

We still await Bob's corresponding countdowns on Sundays to return.

Billboard's Hot 100 Top 40
Chart #25
June 17, 1971

Three songs on the Top 40 this week from Motown, one a debut. Six songs on the Hot 100 , one a debut that will not make the Top 40. No Top 10 songs.


The Top Ten:

Always a thrill when a new record tops the countdown. Honey Cone's WANT ADS had one glorious week at the top , but a new #1 by another 'new' artist displaces it causing WANT ADS to slip to #3 . Pressing to be #1 as well, The Carpenters RAINY DAYS AND MONDAYS moves up one more to #2. But this weeks chart topper is Carol Kings IT'S TOO LATE, blasting in from #6.
One new song enters the top tier: INDIAN RESERVATION by The Raiders in at #7 up from #11. Aretha Franklin's BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER drops one from # 10 to #11.

The Top 40:

^NATHAN JONES - The Supremes - #16 up three from #19
NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE - The Jackson Five - dips to #21 down from #14

Biggest Mover On The Chart:
DON'T PULL YOUR LOVE - Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds upwards of 11 spots now at #19 up from #30

Off The Chart:
REACH OUT I'LL BE THERE - Diana Ross - Five weeks on the chart and a peak of #29, a far cry from the performance of AIN'T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH , Ross' hit last summer, which peaked at #1 for three weeks and charted for a run of 13 weeks. Still plenty of time this year for another chart appearance, perhaps another #1, we'll see.

New To The Top 40
Highest Debut:
YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND- James Taylor #24 up from #44 [3rd Top 40 hit]

MR. BIG STUFF - Jean Knight- #33 up from #44 - [* First Time Artist]
HERE COMES THAT RAINY DAY FEELING AGAIN - Fortunes -#34 up from #46 [3rd Top 40 hit]
I DON'T WANT TO DO WRONG - Gladys Knight And The Pips - #36 up from #47- [12th Top 40 Hit]
SOONER OR LATER - The Grass Roots -#37 up from #56- [ Eleventh Top 40 hit]
HIGH TIME WE WENT /BLACK EYED BLUES -Joe Cocker - #38 up from #41-[Fourth Top 40 hit]


A very good week for:
The Supremes. Not only has their current hit , NATHAN JONES, outperformed the competing release [now departed] of their group's former headliner, but now The Supremes are charting twice on the Hot 100. NATHAN JONES is at number #16 with a three point move up from last week's #19 and as if it is not enough to have to compete for radio play against your former group leader , why not compete against yourselves as well? Motown has added this wrinkle, a simultaneous release by The Supremes in conjunction with label mates The Four Tops with YOU GOTTA HAVE LOVE IN YOUR HEART. The ploy is succeeding so far, The Supremes with The Four Tops do a major leap this week of 17 spots from #77 to #60.

*****

Two records on the top 40 are titled as being Part One . They are Wilson Pickett's - DON'T KNOCK MY LOVE PART I - #14 up from #17 [it will peak at #13] and FUNKY NASSAU PART I - by The Beginning Of The End - #23 up from #26 [it will peak at #15]. Which means these records have a Part II , with both to be found as their 'b' sides.

The Beginning Of The End is a group of three brothers [and two others] , The Munnings , out of The Bahamas , Nassau to be specific, a rare Top 40 song source .They have a hit from a Florida recording session on fledgling Alston Records, beginning the path for the soon to be very successful Henry Stone/TK empire. But for the group themselves , this is indeed the beginning of the end. They will be one hit wonders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8wJrUa0YaU

FUNKY NASSAU Part Two is basically an instrumental continuation of the groove heard on Part One .
Now, Wilson Pickett's Part Two is something else altogether.
Can't find an explanation of how this version came to be, but it's a wild ride, a trip you might say:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lIOmWBaJjs

Brad Shapiro is the writer / arranger of DON'T KNOCK MY LOVE . He'll be busy throughout the seventies with various acts including Millie Jackson and Joe Simon. He'll also be the force behind James Brown's final Polydor LPs, THE ORIGINAL DISCO MAN and PEOPLE.
Wilson Pickett is finishing his long time contract with Atlantic Records with this medium hit, he'll chart one more time with the label and then won't chart on the Top 40 again.

In a couple of years Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross will do a cover version of DON'T KNOCK MY LOVE that will be released as a single but it will fall short of the Top 40.

*****
Correction from last week :
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles had a Top 40 chart run of eleven years [1960-1971] not fifteen.

Billboard's Hot 100 Top 40
Chart #26
June 26, 1971


Motown now has just two songs on the Top 40 ....can't say when this last happened , if ever, but this is the lowest representation on the chart by the label this year. Their strongest song is stuck at #16 , and while last week a double-feature record by Motown super acts The Supremes and The Four Tops surged 17 notches on the Hot 100 , this week it manages an increase of only four places and loses its bullet status [which designates strong sales]. Two other records in the lower rungs appear to be destined for tepidness, Stevie Wonder's NEVER DREAMED YOU'D LEAVE IN SUMMER [second week in , four points advance from #86 to #82] and Meatloaf's WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET repeats at #77 , sixth week on the chart , - but a debut at #80, a Norman Whitfield production of an unknown act, perhaps shows promise. Six Motown songs on the Hot 100.

The Top 10:

Carol King reigns queen at the top, #1 again 2nd week for ITS TOO LATE, holding The Carpenters' RAINY DAYS AND MONDAYS at #2 for a second week. WANT ADS by Honey Cone again is #3. The most pressure may be from The Raider's INDIAN RESERVATION, it moves up three, from #7 to #4. Two new songs, as is typical , break into the top level: DON'T PULL YOUR LOVE by Hamilton , Joe Frank and Reynolds , comes in at #8 and Jerry Reed's WHEN YOU'RE HOT YOU'RE HOT now #9 from #11. And as has to happen, two are out: I'LL MEET YOU HALFWAY, The Partridge Family down to #11 from #9 [peak position], and JOY TO THE WORLD by Three Dog Night, now in its fourth month on the charts, drops out of the Top 10 from #8 to #12.

The Top 40:
NATHAN JONES - The Supremes #16, second week at #16.
^I DON'T WANT TO DO WRONG - Gladys Knight And The Pips - #25 up from #36

Biggest Mover On The Chart:

MR. BIG STUFF - Jean Knight- Fifteen space leap, from # 33 to #18

Anytime a record moves up ten or more places , its noteworthy; four on the same chart is particularly noteworthy:
DON'T PULL YOUR LOVE -Hamilton Joe rank & Reynolds #8 from #19
YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND - James Taylor #14 from #24
I DON'T WANT TO DO WRONG - Gladys Knight/Pips #25 from #36

Off The Chart:

They do it , after eleven weeks , three at #2, they say goodbye:
NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE -The Jackson Five . Goodbye for now does not mean forever, soon enough the super group will be return. Their album title suggests MAYBE TOMORROW [#2 Soul LP this week], but that may be a tad too big a promise.

New To The Top 40:
Notes: Six new ones.
A good week for James Brown, just three weeks on the Hot 100 and leaping 31 places, his latest single premieres on his own PEOPLE label. Leave it to him, the "B" side is a Part II ... and a Part III.
Superstar John Denver debuts. Tommy James goes solo, no more Shondells.

Highest Debut:
BRING THE BOYS HOME -Freda Payne -#33 up from #42 [third and final Top 40 hit]

NEVER ENDING SONG OF LOVE - Delaney and Bonnie & Friends - #34 up from #49 [*first time artist]
TAKE ME HOME, COUNTRY ROADS - John Denver -#36 up from #48 -[*first time
artist]
ESCAPE-ISM - James Brown - #37 up from #68 - [33rd Top 40 hit]
DRAGGIN' THE LINE - Tommy James - #38 up from #64 - [15th Top 40 Hit]
GET IT ON - Chase - #39 up from #50 - [*First time artist]

A very good week for:
DON'T oriented songs:
#7 - IT DON'T COME EASY
#8 - DON'T PULL YOUR LOVE
#13 - DON'T KNOCK MY LOVE
#23 -I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LOVE HIM - Helen Reddy
#25 - I DON'T WANT TO DO WRONG
#33- I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LOVE HIM - Yvonne Elliman

****

Glancing at the global charts , beyond the American Top 40, Motown is in a worldly slump. Canvasing the 13 various countries listed , Spain , Japan, Canada , Denmark, Mexico, etc. none are listing a single Motown record.
Only in Motown loyal Great Britain are they represented , and even there , their highest Motown charter of the moment is The Elgins HEAVEN MUST HAVE SENT YOU #8 [peaking at #3], a recording from five years ago, from a group that broke up in 1967.

****
Two debut songs are displaying enormous potential by what will turn out to be short lived acts. Both acts are ambitious ensemble creations. Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett are a recently married couple, 1967, who record with various people they enlist as 'friends' including Eric Clapton, George Harrison , Gregg Allman, Leon Russel, Rita Coolidge and King Curtis [see chart #8]. Bonnie was the first white Ikette, and the couple are among but a limited few white artists to have released an album on Stax. Apparently they co-wrote NEVER ENDING SONG OF LOVE together, although it's only credited to Delaney :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n-0JatBT7U

Because of marital problems, drugs and misunderstandings with labels and contracts, Delaney and Bonnie will be done as a performing couple by 1972 and divorced. There will be one more visit to the Top 40 from them later this year .


*****
Chase is a Chicago based jazz oriented assemble group totaling nine members fronted by Bill Chase around a core of four jazz trumpeters including himself. They are on the cutting edge of what is an unfolding trend of large bands heavy in horns with a jazz edge; groups like Tower Of Power, Kool & The Gang , Chicago, EW&F. Chase arrives ahead of most, sounding a bit like Blood, Sweat & Tears with GET IT ON:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goOr1LXd67o

With the hip title already charting, T-Rex will name their upcoming hit [BANG A GONG] GET IT ON to avoid confusion.

While other groups will bend their sounds to become more radio accessible, Chase goes the other way, becoming more committed to jazzier compositions. As a result they become a Top 40 one hit wonder. Nine musicians means likely member turnovers, but they persevere until Bill Chase at age 39, and three other band mates perish in a plane crash on the way to a gig in 1974.

I regret to report it has been announced on The Rock radio station that Countdown Bob had a fierce bout with cancer and has passed away. Shocked. Was hoping he was tending to personal matters and would return soon.

I've decided to continue my little project. A new thread will begin next week , when I sort it out. I am posting this week's here so as to continue the year's fluency.


Billboard's Hot 100 Top 40
Chart #27
July 3, 1971

This week Motown has two songs in the Top 40 thanks to the ladies, both in the Top 20 but neither Top 10. No new songs debut but one by proxy [former Motown artist]. Six additional songs are on the Hot 100 below the Top 40 mark , three debut this week , for a total of eight Motown songs on the entire chart.

The Top 10:

Carol King holds court at #1 , her third straight week with IT'S TOO LATE , with The Raiders' INDIAN RESERVATION on her heels at #2, up two from #4. The other big mover in the Top 10 is DON'T PULL YOUR LOVE, by Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds, up three from #8 to #5. One new song enters , YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND by James Taylor at #8 from #14. Down and out from the Top 10 to #13 from #10 is SWEET AND INNOCENT by Donny Osmond.

The Top 40:
Back to back plays by Motown on the countdown:

NATHAN JONES - The Supremes has peaked and slips: #18 last week #16
^I DON'T WANT TO DO WRONG - Gladys Knight & The Pips #19 up from #25

Biggest Mover On The Chart:
DRAGGIN' THE LINE - Tommy James up thirteen notches #25 up from #38

Five new songs cross the line, draggin' at the very bottom, all in a row :

Highest debut:

DOUBLE BARREL - Dave And Ansel Collins #36 up from #48 - [*first time artist]

LOVE THE ONE YOU WITH - The Isley Bros. - #37 up from #51- [fifth Top 40 hit]
YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND - Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway -#38 up from #42 - [* first time artists, either]
HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART - The Bee Gees #37 way up from #73 - [10th Top 40 Hit]
WILD HORSES - The Rolling Stones - #40 up from #47 [20th Top 40 Hit]

A very good week for :
Rainy days:

Peaking last week at #2 , now #4 , RAINY DAYS AND MONDAYS by the Carpenters and moving up eight notches this week to #20 from #28 HERE COMES THAT RAINY DAY FEELING AGAIN by the Fortunes . Also on the Hot 100 at #62 up from #69 is RAINY JANE, a remake of a Neil Sedaka release by Davy Jones. Motown is not the only label with group upheavals, as is the situation with The Temptations and Smokey Robinson & The Miracles currently. This is Davy Jones debut as a solo artist since parting from the Monkees earlier in the year. He's closing in on the Top 40, and has already outperformed Eddie Kendricks' first time out a few weeks ago with THIS USED TO BE THE HOME OF JOHNNIE MAE that peaked at #88.

****
Dave And Ansel Collins are not related , they are Dave Barker and Ansil Collins , one a studio vocalist and the other a keyboard player in Kingston Jamaica recording studios, teaming up to record a song by Winston Riley of Techniques fame. It is perhaps the biggest reggae song for the Top 40 since ISRAELITES by Desmond Dekker made the Top 10 in 1969. DOUBLE BARREL has already reached #1 in the UK for two weeks in May. It will also be #1 in Mexico. DOUBLE BARREL might not be a memorable record by its title , as much a it is for the line, 'I am the magnificent, baby, W-0-0-0". The words "double barrel" never get used in the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQNPiUuU58Y

a similarity has been noticed regarding this Ramsey Lewis composition [from 1968]:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gApK71B9fB4

Now its on to the second half of 1971!:)