Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

In Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 1, which dropped in January, I noted how few UK hits made it big in the US that year. On the other hand, US acts were very successful in the UK charts, even as the British pop scene was thriving, especially with glam rock peaking.

Where Vol. 1 concentrated on the US charts, the second mix of 1973 hits reflects some of what was happening in the UK. And rightly, it kicks off with a triple whammy of stone cold glam classics featuring Slade, Sweet and Wizzard — and had Gary Glitter not been an unrepentant sexual abuser, it might have been four… The playlist returns to glam towards the end. And if you still need more of a glam fix, try the Any Major Glam Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 mixes.

Junior Campbell had a #15 hit with the blue-eyed soul track Sweet Illusion in the summer of 1973. It was his last chart hit, following on from his first solo hit a year earlier, which reached #10. But Campbell already had his fill of hits as founder member, lead guitarist, keyboard player, vocalist and songwriter with the Scottish band Marmalade. He co-wrote songs like the global hit Reflections Of My Life (on which he played the guitar solo) and I See The Rain, a hit in Europe and now something of a cult classic.

After his solo career, Campbell went to arranging and producing, carving out a fine career for himself.

US soul group Limmie & Family Cookin’ (fronted by the unlikely-named Limmie Snell) were more successful in the UK than at home. Their quite wonderful You Can Do Magic was their only US chart entry, stalling at #86 and getting to only #42 on the R&B charts. In Britain, however, it reached #3 in 1973. The group had another UK Top 10 hit in 1974, with A Walkin’ Miracle.

Jimmy Helms is another US-born soul singer who made it big in Britain. Having signed for a British label, he had a #8 hit with the falsetto classic Gonna Make You An Offer You Can’t Refuse. It sounds as if it was recorded by Gamble & Huff in Philadelphia, but the track was in fact produced by a white guy named Mike Moran, who’d later sing the Eurovision classic Rock Bottom with Linsey de Paul.

Helms didn’t bother the UK charts again as a solo artist, but after a few years of doing session work — including backing vocals on the Deacon Blue hit When Will You Make My Telephone Ring and the Fine Young Cannibals’ Good Thing — he made a comeback in the late 1980s as a founding member of Londonbeat, putting his falsetto to good use on tracks such as the huge hit I’ve Been Thinking About You and A Better Love, both of which he also co-wrote.

The track that is probably the most anachronistic in this mix is The Strawbs’ Part Of The Union, an anthem celebrating trade unionism and collective solidarity, which went as high as #2 in early 1973. You’re not likely to hear much political content of that kind in pop hits these days, and Thatcher succeeded in smashing working class solidarity. And with the current Labour leadership, The Strawbs would have little to brag about today. Still, here they are in 1973, performing on the BBC on Top of the Pops, being introduced by a prominent Tory…

Likewise, I doubt that Hot Chocolate could record Brother Louie in quite the same way today as they did 50 years ago. A song about racial prejudice in the face of an interracial romance, the song’s spoken bits (one of them by Alexis Korner) includes racial pejoratives that would not be tolerated today, even if applied to criticise these attitudes (and that might be a good thing). A cover by the US band Stories topped the US charts later in 1973.

As a bonus track I include a Euro hit from 1973, Simon Butterfly’s Rain Rain Rain. The singer and writer of the song was a German, so you will not be shocked to learn that his real name wasn’t Butterfly but Bernd Simon. His song, on which he sounds a lot like the great, late singer-songwriter Udo Jürgens, was a big radio hit in West Germany, though it peaked at a lowly #20. Oddly, Simon released his song only in English. But it was a success in France, where Marie Laforêt recorded it as Viens Viens, and in Italy, where Dalida rendered it as Lei Lei. Simon released a few more records, but without success, and also did some producing. He died in 2017 at the age of 71.

A companion series to the Hits of the Year series is A Life In Vinyl, which goes back to 1977, when I started to invest seriously in records. .

If you dig the feel of 1973, take a look at the collection of posters from West-Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1973 (other years, from 1957 to 1985, feature too).

As ever, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, and includes home-glammed covers, and the above text in PDF. PW in Comments.

1. Slade – Cum On Feel The Noize
2. Sweet – Ballroom Blitz
3. Wizzard – See My Baby Jive
4. Mungo Jerry – Alright Alright Alright
5. Junior Campbell – Sweet Illusion
6. Hot Chocolate – Brother Louie
7. Limmie & Family Cookin’ – You Can Do Magic
8. The Spinners – Could It Be I’m Falling In Love
9. Jimmy Helms – Gonna Make You An Offer You Can’t Refuse
10. David Cassidy – Daydreamer
11. David Bowie – Sorrow
12. Argent – God Gave Rock & Roll To You
13. The Faces – Cindy Incidentally
14. Wings – Hi Hi Hi
15. The Strawbs – Part Of The Union
16. Albert Hammond – The Free Electric Band
17. Geordie – All Because Of You
18. Nazareth – Broken Down Angel
19. Mott The Hoople – Roll Away The Stone
20. Suzi Quatro – 48 Crash
21. Mud – Dyna-mite
22. Barry Blue – Dancing (On A Saturday Night)
23. Jackson 5 – Hallelujah Day
Bonus Track
Simon Butterfly – Rain Rain Rain

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Any Major Hits from 1944
Any Major Hits from 1947
Any Major Hits from 1961
Any Major Hits from 1970
Any Major Hits from 1971
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 2
Any Major Hits from 1973 Vol. 1

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Flashback 50 years ago to 1973! This is the first of two mixes of hits in that year. As in the mixes covering past years, it’s supposed to be a snapshot of the year’s charts, rather than a representative overview — because if it was that, these mixes could be pretty bad (US top song of 1973? Tie A Yellow Ribbon…). I’ve also not necessarily chosen the biggest or even the best hits of the year; if I had, Superstition would feature.

So, the goal is to evoke a little bit of 1973, with some classics and some perhaps half-forgotten hits. The first mix for 1973 focuses on the US charts; the follow-up will cover the UK. What surprised me in researching these two mixes is how few British acts had hits in the US in 1973. The British invasion had been repelled.

In the Top 100 hits of the year, there were British mega acts like Elton John, Wings, George Harrison, Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd — all global stars whose fame transcended their passports. Otherwise, Sweet featured with Little Willy, Stealer’s Wheel with Stuck In The Middle With You, and Gilbert O’Sullivan (who was Irish) with the awful Get Down and the rather sweet Clair. Plus Focus, who were Dutch.

By contrast, the UK charts were full of US acts, including a number of tracks on this mix. That mix will drop later in the year.

The debates about the “first-ever disco record” are futile, because how do you define disco, a genre of several strands? But I think that any list of proto-disco songs should include First Choice’s quite wonderful Armed And Extremely Dangerous.

I suppose a companion series to this one before us today is A Life In Vinyl, which goes back to 1977, when I started to invest seriously in records.  That series tracks my music-buying behaviour in the decade or so that followed.

If you dig the feel of 1973, take a look at the collection of posters from West-Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1973 (other years are available, too).

As ever, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, and includes home-lovetraineded covers. PW in Comments.

1. Deep Purple – Smoke On The Water
2. Alice Cooper – No More Mr Nice Guy
3. Edgar Winter Group – Free Ride
4. Doobie Brothers – Long Train Runnin’
5. Jim Croce – I Got A Name
6. Helen Reddy – Delta Dawn
7. Skylark – Wildflower
8. Dobie Gray – Drift Away
9. The Independents – Leaving Me
10. Barry White – I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More Babe
11. O’Jays – Love Train
12. Three Dog Night – Shambala
13. Ozark Mountain Daredevils – If You Wanna Get To Heaven
14. King Harvest – Dancing In The Moonlight
15. Seals & Crofts – We May Never Pass This Way (Again)
16. Chicago – Just You ‘N’ Me
17. The Isley Brothers – That Lady
18. Ike & Tina Turner – Nutbush City Limits
19. Billy Preston – Will It Go Round In Circles
20. First Choice – Armed And Extremely Dangerous
21. Carole King – Corazon
22. Maria Muldaur – Midnight At The Oasis

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Any Major Hits from 1944
Any Major Hits from 1947
Any Major Hits from 1961
Any Major Hits from 1970
Any Major Hits from 1971
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 2

More CD-R Mixes

We had our fix of Any Major Christmas last week, with the multi-lingual festive mix. Today, there’s a chance to get a nice Christmas present for your mom, dad, aunt, uncle, friend, patient etc over 80, who may enjoy a nostalgia trip with hits from 1947 — 75 years ago. Of course, younger people and you might enjoy it, too. I’m enjoying this compilation tremendously.

1947 was just a short seven years before rock & roll exploded on the scene. In some of the featured songs, the rumblings of the nascent genre can be heard, like distant thunder before the lightning. Those tracks must have sounded quite startling 75 years ago.

Other songs are, of course, of their time. But, hell, you can feel how the jumpin’ boogie of the opening songs must have electrified the USA’s youngsters, and horrified their elders. The biggest juke box star of 1947 was Louis Jordan, a black musician to whose music white kids danced, much as their nieces and nephews would dance to Little Richard and Chuck Berry a decade later.

So this mix isn’t necessarily representative of the hits of 1947, though all were US hits. In compiling this collection, I tried to imagine what music I might have listened to, had I been a youngster in 1947 — and filtered out the many boring crooning ballads by tenors who come in only halfway slow big band tootlings. I certainly would have enjoyed the humour in several of these songs; Tex Williams’ Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! especially still makes me laugh. And if the squares thought that libertine attitudes arrived only with rock & roll, let them hear Julia Lee and Her Boy Friends talk about S-E-X.

I don’t know if I would have been able to swerve between genres; I’d be quite interested to know if such boundaries existed, or whether it was natural to hear jump one minute and country the next. For our purposes, let’s assume that it was possible.

This mix is a good companion piece to the Any Major Hits from 1944 collection I posted three years ago. And if you dig your music in black & white, there’s more, including several Christmas mixes. There’s

Any Major Christmas in Black & White Vol. 1
Any Major Christmas in Black & White Vol. 2
Any Major Christmas in Black & White Vol. 3
Any Major 1940s Christmas
Any Major 1950s Christmas
Any Major Doo Wop X-Mas
Any Major Rhythm & Blues Christmas
Any Major ABCs: 1950s
New York in Black & White
Germany’s Hit Parade 1930-37
Germany’s Hit Parade 1938-45
Saved Vol. 1
Saved Vol. 4

And, of course, there are more recent Any Major Hits mixes: 1961, 1970, 1971, 1972 Vol. 1 and 1972 Vol. 2.

Beach-goers in California in December 1947.

As ever, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-rationed covers. The text above is included in an illustrated PDF. PW in comments.

And with that, I wish you a Merry Christmas!

1. Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five – Let The Good Times Roll
2. The Five Blazes – Chicago Boogie
3. Bull Moose Jackson and His Buffalo Bearcats – I Love You, Yes I Do
4. Ella Fitzgerald & Delta Rhythm Boys – (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons
5. Margaret Whiting – Old Devil Moon
6. Annie Laurie with Paul Gayten and His Trio – Since I Fell For You
7. Frank Sinatra – I Believe
8. Dorothy Shay – Feudin’ And Fightin’
9. Tex Williams – Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)
10. Merle Travis – So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed
11. Hank Williams – Move It On Over
12. Peggy Lee – It’s A Good Day
13. The Mills Brothers – Across The Alley From The Alamo
14. Johnny Mercer and The Pied Pipers – Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
15. Hoagy Carmichael – Old Buttermilk Sky
16. Tony Pastor and His Orchestra – The Lady From 29 Palms
17. The Andrews Sisters – Near You
18. Art Lund – And Mimi
19. Dinah Shore – How Soon (Will I Be Seeing You)
20. Buddy Clark – Peg O’ My Heart
21. Savannah Churchill and The Sentimentalists – I Want To Be Loved (But Only By You)
22. King Cole Trio – Meet Me At No Special Place (And I’ll Be There At No Particular Time)
23. Julia Lee and Her Boy Friends – Snatch And Grab It
24. The Ink Spots – Ask Anyone Who Knows
25. Erskine Hawkins and His Orchestra – Hawk’s Boogie
26. Desi Arnaz and His Orchestra – Babalu’
27. Count Basie and His Orchestra – Open The Door, Richard!

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More A Year In Hits
More Music in Black & White

Here’s the second mix of Hits from 1972, Volume 1 having dropped in January. While the first mix was mostly US-centric, this one reflects the UK and/or European experience, even as some of these songs were also hits in the US. And by hits, I also mean Top 30 numbers, for these too received airplay. As always, the songs are collated not for their high musical merit, though none are included because I think they’re rubbish — I like them all. The idea is to capture the vibe of the year, and perhaps to place pop standards by the likes of Bowie or T. Rex in their charting context.

The opening track was a novelty hit for funk band The Jimmy Castor Bunch, the title of which describes certain sections of the US political establishment quite perfectly. Advisory warning: the lyrics do not enlightened gender politics. It was a Top 30 hit in the US and in West-Germany, but did not chart in the UK.

One track here charted in neither US nor UK, but was a hit in Europe. Proudfoot was a South African band quickly put together after their big hit was recorded! Their hit Delta Queen was recorded by a group of session musicians which included the legendary producer and songwriter Mutt Lange on bass and future Yes member and film score composer Trevor Rabin on guitar. When the song caught on, new personnel was quickly assembled to become a band that continued to have some success. Delta Queen was a big hit in the Low Countries, and a Top 30 hit in West-Germany, where French singer Ricky Shane recorded a German cover, which became a bigger hit than the original.

No relations to the South African at are Blackfoot Sue, not to be confused with Southern Rock band Blackfoot. A British foursome, Blackfoot Sue had one UK #4 hit, the featured Standing In The Road, and another track later that year which scraped into the Top 40. And that was it for Blackfoot Sue as far as hits were concerned. They had minor success in the US and UK in 1977 with an Arif Mardin-produced album on which Cissy Houston did backing vocals.

Dutch band The Cats on a poster in the German ‘Bravo’ magazine in September 1972.

Before they became teen idols, the Bay City Rollers aimed to be a serious pop band. In 1972 they released their single Mañana, written by Alan Blaikley (who died last week) and Jen Howard. The line-up included Nobby Clark on vocals, and from the incarnation that made girls faint, only the two Longmuir brothers — the two guys least likely to make little girls’ hearts race faster — were present. Mañana was later re-recorded with Leslie McKeown on vocals, but it was the Clark-led version that was a hit in West-Germany.

One of the biggest stars on the German music scene was Vicky Leandros, the Greek-born and Hamburg-based singer who won the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest for Luxembourg with the superb Apres Toi. The song became a hit in various languages; in the UK it was titled Come What May (in Germany it was called Dann Kammst Du). Leandros became internationally know in 1967 when she came fourth in the Eurovision with the excellent L’amour Est Bleu, which became a worldwide hit in Paul Mauriat’s easy listening version. Both Leandros songs feature on Any Major Eurovision.

Two songs in particular remind me of my very first days of schooling. One is the plaintive One Way Wind (which is not about flatulence) by Dutch band The Cats (named after a creature that can be flatulent). Between 1968 and 1983, The Cats were perhaps the biggest act in the Netherlands, with 18 Top Ten hits there, including five #1s, and twenty-nine Top 20 hits. But their international breakthrough was One Way Wind in 1972. In West-Germany, the world’s third-biggest singles market, it reached #4. Follow-up Let’s Dance did even one rung better.

The other song that reminds me of my first school-day is the synth instrumental Popcorn by Hot Butter, a much-covered song originally by Gershon Kingsley (see Any Major Originals – The 1970s Vol. 2). In Hot Butter’s version, it was a Top 10 hit all over the world, also in the US and UK. In West-Germany it topped the charts for here weeks. Hot Butter was really Stan Free, an American jazz musician, composer, conductor and arranger, plus a bunch of session musicians.

1972 was the year when the Moog synthesizer settled in the music charts. British band Chicory Tip claim to have been the first to use it on a UK chart hit. The stomping Son Of My Father may well have been, but Chicory Tip were hardly the innovators they claimed to be. Their version is a faithful cover of the original by Giorgio Moroder, who wrote it in Germany with singer Michael Holm, who first released the song in German.  The story is also told in Any Major Originals – The 1970s Vol. 2.

Finally, there was Marc Bolan of T. Rex. In his Children Of The Revolution, he sings: “I drive a Rolls Royce ’cause it’s good for my voice”. Being a passenger in a Mini was less so…

So, what were the hits that soundtracked your 1972?

If you dig the feel of 1972, take a look at the collection of posters from West-Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1972 (other years are available, too).

As ever, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, includes home-popcorned covers, and the above text in an illustrated PDF. PW in Comments.

1. The Jimmy Castor Bunch – Troglodyte (Cave Man)
2. Deep Purple – Never Before
3. Jo Jo Gunne – Run Run Run
4. Blackfoot Sue – Standing In The Road
5. Slade – Mama Weer All Crazee Now
6. T. Rex – Children Of The Revolution
7. David Bowie – Starman
8. Lindisfarne – Meet Me On The Corner
9. Bee Gees – Run To Me
10. Don McLean – Vincent
11. Python Lee Jackson feat. Rod Stewart – In A Broken Dream
12. The Fortunes – Storm In A Teacup
13. The O’Jays – Back Stabbers
14. Chi-Lites – Oh Girl
15. The Stylistics – I’m Stone In Love With You
16. Vicky Leandros – Come What May
17. The Cats – One Way Wind
18. Proudfoot – Delta Queen
19. Elton John – Crocodile Rock
20. John Kincade – Dreams Are Ten A Penny
21. Bay City Rollers – Mañana
22. Middle Of The Road – Bottom’s Up
23. Chicory Tip – Son Of My Father
24. Hot Butter – Popcorn

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Any Major Hits from 1944
Any Major Hits from 1961
Any Major Hits from 1970
Any Major Hits from 1971
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 1

More CD-R Mixes

1972 was the year I started school. More importantly, it was the year I bought my very first record, at the age of 6. Officially, I’ll claim that “it probably was something like Spoon by Can or Soul Makossa by Manu Dibangu, bought the same day I got Miles Davis’ On The Corner LP”. In reality it was this minor masterpiece of genre-shattering innovation and revolutionary fervour.

I was already keen on music, and at 5-6 years old, my interest was becoming keener. It helped that my mother and older siblings were buying records. My mother bought Poppa Joe by The Sweet, my older sister Elton John’s Crocodile Rock, another sister Beautiful Sunday by the English singer Daniel Boone and Chicago’s Saturday In The Park — though the latter wasn’t a hit in Germany, and Chicago wasn’t generally her style. I suspect a boyfriend bought it for her. And my older brother had a way of turning current hit songs into comedy by changing their lyrics into doggerel which I found amusing, in the way 5-6 year-olds find that kind of thing entertaining. One of them was Dr Hook’s Sylvia’s Mother, which itself was supposed to be comedic in its deliberate overwroughtness.

I can’t say I remember all, or even most, of the songs on the two Any Major Hits from 1972 mixes that are running this year (Volume 2 will drop later this year). But it was a good year for hit singles, as evidenced by the fact of two mixes for 1972.

This first mix concentrates on records that were at least Top 20 hits in the US; the second will cover the UK/Europe. But there was some of cross-pollination, in both directions. Alice Cooper’s School’s Out, The Osmonds’ Crazy Horses and the Carpenters’ I Won’t Last A Day Without You were actually bigger hits in the UK than they were in the US. UK acts on this mix are the above-mentioned Daniel Boone, The Hollies and Badfinger (who were also the originators of the Nilsson hit Without You, as covered in Any Major Originals – 1970s)

Talking of Crazy Horses”: It was a rather unusual song for the otherwise rather tame Osmonds. For one thing, teen idols singing about the environment — the titular equines refer to cars, with their polluting properties. So long before Greta, there was Donny! For another thing, it was young Donny who came up with that crazy whinnying sound on his keyboard. He was not just a pretty face with big teeth.

In compiling these things — we’ve already covered 1970 and 1971 as well as 1961 and 1944 — the idea isn’t really to pick the best hits of the year, or a representative cross-section — though some songs here may be among the year’s best and the mix may reflect the sound of the era — but a selection that captures the vibe of the year in focus, with some songs now classics and others rather forgotten by time.

If you dig the feel of 1972, take a look at the collection of posters from West-Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1972 (other years are available, too).

The mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-singalonged covers. The text above is included in an illustrated PDF booklet. PW in comments.

1. Alice Cooper – School’s Out (US #7 / UK #1 / GE #5)
2. The Osmonds – Crazy Horses (US #14 / UK #2 / GE #2)
3. Raspberries – Go All The Way (US #5)
4. Chi Coltrane – Thunder And Lightning (US #17)
5. Chicago – Saturday In The Park (US #3)
6. Malo – Suavecito (US #18)
7. Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose – Too Late To Turn Back (US #2)
8. The Staple Singers – I’ll Take You There (US #1 / UK #30)
9. Looking Glass – Brandy (US #1)
10. Eagles – Witchy Woman (US #9)
11. Three Dog Night – Never Been To Spain (US #5)
12. The Gallery – Nice To Be With You (US #4 / GE# 28)
13. Mac Davis – Baby Don’t Get Hooked On Me (US #1 / UK #29)
14. Seals & Croft – Summer Breeze (US #6)
15. Harry Nilsson – Without You (US #1 / UK #1 / GE #12)
16. Carpenters – I Won’t Last A Day Without You (US #11 / UK #9)
17. Joe Simon – Power Of Love (US #11)
18. Michael Jackson – I Wanna Be Where You Are (US #16)
19. Jackson Browne – Doctor My Eyes (US #8)
20. Badfinger – Day After Day (US #4 / UK #10)
21. Todd Rundgren – I Saw The Light (US #16)
22. The Hollies – Long Cool Woman (US #2 / UK #32 / GE #15)
23. Daniel Boone – Beautiful Sunday (US #15 / UK #21 / GE #1)

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Any Major Hits from 1944
Any Major Hits from 1961
Any Major Hits from 1970
Any Major Hits from 1971

More CD-R Mixes

One last anniversary mix before we leave the Year 2021, a date which must have seemed like the calendar of science fiction 60 years ago, when all the songs on this collection were hits. Where are those flying cars we were promised?

Unlike the Any Major Hits from 1971 mix, which drew from both US and UK (and European) charts, the 1961 selection is very US-centric, though some of these songs charted in Britain, too. It was a strange time for pop music, it seems — an interregnum after the frenzy of Rock & Roll and the advent of the British Invasion, the innovation of bands like The Beach Boys, the rise of soul music and Motown, the anarchic power of garage rock. Within five years, there’d be The Beatles’ Revolver album and Brian Wilson’s Good Vibrations (five years ago, in our money, is 2016). Within six years, there’d be Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townsend doing violence to guitars on stage at Monterey. In 1961, you didn’t see Dick Dale smashing his Fender or Duanne Eddy setting his Gretsch on fire!

But let the record also show that the music of 1961 was the context in which Lennon & McCartney and their cohorts were consumers. In don’t dare to guess how many of these featured songs they knew, but they certainly listened to early Motown, represented here by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, and other R&B records. And Ricky Nelson’s featured Everlovin’, a cover of a record by the Australian band The Crescents, has all the hallmarks of the early Beatles sound. Did George Harrison know the song? Well, it did reach #23 in the UK. And even 35 years later, Van Morrison based his song Days Like This on The Shirelles’ 1961 hit Mama Said.

Of course, at the risk of stating the blatantly obvious, the 1960s were a time of rapid epochal change in the West. But 1961 doesn’t seem part of the 1960s. And some of the music here illustrates this. The musical Grease is generally accepted to be set in 1959, the movie in 1958 (both set at the fictional Rydell High School, named after Bobby Rydell, one of the artists on this mix). Almost any of the tracks here could have featured among the covers on the soundtrack of Grease, the movie.

And one track here was virtually copied for the closing number of Grease, We Go Together, with its doo wop-inspired nonsense lyrics. Barry Mann’s Who Put The Bomp set a template for the Grease song, with its “Boogity boogity boogity” and “Bop in the bop shoo bop shoo bop”.

Both songs include the line “Rama lama ding dong” (slightly adapted in the Grease number). That was, of course, the title of the hit for doo wop band The Edsels. I don’t know whether Mann borrowed from the Edsels or they from Mann (who’d become one of the great Brill Building songwriters with his wife, Cynthia Weil). Either way, it sounds more 1950s than 1960s.

Doo wop was still big in 1961, and now black artists actually had hits with their songs, rather than white artists cashing in on their talent. By 1961, the US charts were far more integrate than they had been in the 1950s. On this mix, about half the acts are black. Among them are The Pips, featuring the young Gladys Knight on lead vocals.

I’ll leave you with an observation about vocal styles on two tracks on this mix:  When the UK singer Helen Shapiro recorded her international mega-hit Walkin’ Back to Happiness, she was 14 but sounded twice her age. But when the recently late Sue Thompson had a hit with Sad Movies, she was 36 but sounded like she was 14.

In other words, Thompson was old enough to be Helen’s mother — and in 1961, pop music has something of a mother obsession. On this collection, we have Mama issuing sound counsel to Smokey Robinson and The Shirelles, is lied to by Sue Thompson, provides Kenny Dino (in the bonus tracks) with guilt-inflicting information, and Ernie K-Doe has trouble with his mother-in-law. Still, the CD-R length mix ends with daddy coming home.

So, yes, there are two playlists: the CD-R length one and another with the 18 bonus tracks. I won’t list them, but I’ll point out one: The Impressions’ Gypsy Women, which in its original version already captures the sound of ’60s soul, and so is very much ahead of its time. Other acts among the bonus tracks include Farts Domino, The Shadows, Roy Orbison (with a song that sounds like Only The Lonely recycled), Elvis, Bobby Darin, and a young Tony Orlando.

The mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-ramalamadingdonged covers. The text above is included in an illustrated PDF booklet. PW in comments.

1. Chubby Checker – Let’s Twist Again
2. Bobby Lewis – Tossin’ And Turnin’
3. Chris Kenner – I Like It Like That (Part 1)
4. The Drifters – I Count The Tears
5. Eddie Cochran – Weekend
6. Ray Peterson – Corinna Corinna
7. The Everly Brothers – Walk Right Back
8. Don Gibson – Sea Of Heartbreak
9. Patsy Cline – I Fall To Pieces
10. Sue Thompson – Sad Movies (Make Me Cry)
11. Brenda Lee – Emotions
12. Connie Francis – Where The Boys Are
13. Helen Shapiro – Walking Back To Happiness
14. The Jive Five – My True Story
15. The Shirelles – Mama Said
16. Clarence ‘Frogman’ Henry – (I Don’t Know Why) But I Do
17. LaVern Baker – Saved
18. Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – Shop Around
19. Sam Cooke – That’s It-I Quit-I’m Moving On
20. Bobby Rydell – Good Time Baby
21. Del Shannon – Runaway
22. The Edsels – Rama Lama Ding Dong
23. The Chimes – I’m In The Mood For Love
24. Ricky Nelson – Everlovin’
25. Barry Mann – Who Put The Bomp (In The Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)
26. The Dovells – Bristol Stomp
27. Bobby Vee – Run To Him
28. Curtis Lee – Pretty Little Angel Eyes
29. The Pips – Every Beat Of My Heart
30. Ernie K-Doe – Mother-In-Law
31. The Belmonts – Tell Me Why
32. Shep and The Limelites – Daddy’s Home

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Previously in Any Major Hits:
Any Major Hits From 1944
Any Major Hits From 1970
Any Major Hits From 1971
Life In Vinyl 1981

Life in Vinyl Series

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To me the sound of 1971 is fun and sunshine, mostly because when you are 4-5 years old, most memories are fun and sunshine (and snow, when snow is fun). I had elder siblings, so I’m sure I’ll have heard many of the songs featured here back 50 years ago, though of those, my only clear memory is of Danyel Gerard’s Butterfly, Never Ending Song Of Love (but in The New Seekers’ facile cover of the Bonnie & Delaney original), and Sweet’s Co-Co. And still, this mix evokes, to me, the feel of 1971. Which of course is the effect I’m trying to achieve here, rather than compiling a “Best of 1971” compilations — that would turn out as bit differently, though some tracks might feature on such a list, too.

There are many other songs not on this mix which I remember very well from back then: Middle of the Road’s Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, Soulful Dynamics’ Saah-Saah-Kumba-Kumba, Springwater’s mournful instrumental I Will Return (and its vocal version in German by Michael Holm), Dawn’s Knock Three Times, Clodagh Rodgers’ Jack In The Box, Middle of the Road’s Soley Soley, several versions of Mamy Blue, a number of schlager hits… and Peret’s Europe-wide novelty hit Borriquito, which is so impossibly catchy, I’ll add it as a bonus track.

It must be noted that 1971 was a better year for albums than it was for singles — and what a year for LPs it was! But the charts were great fun in their diversity and, certainly in the UK, some incongruity. In schlager-centric West-Germany, crooner Roy Black and hard rockers Black Sabbath peacefully coexisted in the charts. In the UK, American crooners Perry Como and Andy Williams (with his Home Lovin’ Man providing relief from the sexual liberation of the era) had huge hits amid a bit of a reggae craze and the incipient glam phase. The UK charts saw some good stuff at #1  — T. Rex, Slade, Diana Ross, The Tams. But the year began with a terrible rocking-chair novelty hit called Grandad by Clive Dunne at #1, and ended with a preposterous novelty song by Benny Hill at the top. I suppose fans of the TV series Dad’s Army and skirt-chasing comedy loved it. Suffice it to say, Benny Hill is not my bag of humour.

In Germany, Danyel Gerard’s Butterfly (not the English recording on this mix but the superior original arrangement, with German lyrics) spent 14 consecutive weeks at #1. That was knocked off the top by The Sweet with Co-Co, who reigned for six weeks before they got knocked off the charts by a rehatched Butterfly. The Sweet regained #1 for a week, but were then dumped by Peret and his Borriquito song for two weeks. Then Mamy Blue was at the top for ten weeks. When the Germans liked something, they clearly couldn’t let go of it. Butterfly was a huge hit throughout Europe. In the UK it stalled at #11; in the US at #76. I blame the inferior English arrangement. To see Gerard without beard and hat in the 1960s, check out this video with cool Paris street scene footage.

The US charts were much saner, but they became a bit bizarre for a bit when Vice-President Spyro Agnew — that unimpeachable beacon of probity — demonstrated how hip he was to the happening hit parades and condemned one song here for representing the acute dangers of the counterculture. I suppose country rockers Brewer & Shipley were quite happy for the publicity their song One Toke Over The Line received from the other wing of the White House.

French singer Danyel Gerard, whose Butterfly spent 14 consecutive weeks at #1 in West-Germany

For some the bands here, 1971 was a time of swansongs, or close to it. The Move, here with their UK #11 hit Tonight, would fold in 1972, when Roy Wood, Jeff Lynne (who shared the lead vocals on Tonight) and Bev Bevan went on to found the Electric Lights Orchestra.

For Ashton, Gardner & Dyke the chart action was over after their transatlantic hit (which was covered by, of course, Tom Jones), the only single of theirs to chart. They’d split in 1972.

Badfinger had one more hit in the UK — but none with their most famous song Without You, which would become a huge hit for Harry Nilsson in 1972. The sad story of that song, which led to at least one suicide, is told in brief in The Originals – 1970s Vol. 1.

John Kongos had two UK #4 hits in 1971, and nothing else. 1971 was a good year for him: apart from his own hits, two of his songs, Won’t You Join Me und Will You Follow Me were huge hits in German for Israeli singer Daliah Lavi as Oh, wann kommst du und Willst du mit mir geh’n.

The Five Man Electrical Band followed their US #3 hit Signs with another Top 30 song, but they never reached even that height anymore until they split in 1975. They did have a bunch of hits in their native Canada.

The soul band Free Movement only ever released one album and four singles. One might say that a Us Top 5 hit is not a bad strike rate.

Other acts would go on to huge things, such as T.Rex, Sweet and Slade. For The Sweet, Co-Co was the breakthrough; after two disappointing chart-placings they’d rack up seven consecutive UK Top 10 singles. Slade also broke through with their second hit. Chart-topper Coz I Luv You was followed by 11 consecutive Top 5 singles (five of them #1s). T.Rex would have nine more consecutive Top 10 hits, to add to the track here and on the 1970 mix.

Finally, if you feel the tracks by US soul bands The Fantastics, Johnny Johnson & The Bandwagon and English pop group The Fortunes have a similar sound, you may be right. All three tracks were written by the songwriting team of Tony Macaulay, Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway (as was Home Lovin’ Man, the Andy Williams hit mentioned earlier).

If you dig the feel of 1971, take a look at the collection of posters from West-Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1971 (other years are available, too). And two previous mixes of hits from as particular year are available: 1970 and 1944.

The mix is timed to be in CD-R (or double LP) length and includes home-stomped covers. The text above is included in an illustrated PDF booklet (including the charts from June 1971). PW in comments.

1. Ashton, Gardner & Dyke – Resurrection Shuffl
2. John Kongos – He’s Gonna Step On You Again
3. Slade – Coz I Luv You
4. Badfinger – No Matter What
5. Five Man Electrical Band – Signs
6. Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose – Treat Her Like A Lady
7. The Jackson 5 – Mama’s Pearl
8. The Fantastics – Something Old Something New
9. Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds – Don’t Pull Your Love
10. Delaney & Bonnie & Friends – Never Ending Song Of Love
11. Lobo – Me And You And A Dog Named Boo
12. Brewer & Shipley – One Toke Over The Line
13. The Move – Tonight
14. Free – My Brother Jake
15. T. Rex – Hot Love
16. The Sweet – Co-Co
17. Mungo Jerry – Lady Rose
18. Johnny Johnson & His Bandwagon – (Blame It) On The Pony Express
19. The Fortunes – Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again
20. The Free Movement – I’ve Found Someone Of My Own
21. Cher – Gypsys, Tramps And Thieves
22. Georgie Fame & Alan Price – Rosetta
23. Tony Christie – I Did What I Did For Maria
24. Danyel Gerard – Butterfly (English Version)
Bonus Tracks:
Danyel Gerard – Butterfly (French Original)
Peret – Borriquito

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1970 is — gulp — 50 years ago. The 1960s hadn’t quite ended; and the 1970s were already getting underway: Creedence Clearwater Revival and T. Rex both were relevant.

The scary thing is, 1970 today is as 1920 was to 1970 then. Arguably, the world, and music, had changed much more between 1920 and 1970 than it has changed in the past 50 years. Look, there’s even still a crook in the White House (whereas, the history buff will counter in his killjoy ways, in 1920 a crook was about to be elected unto the White House).

Last year I did a mix of hits from 1944 to mark the 75^th anniversary of that year. In many ways, 1970 looks more like today than it did look like 1944, only 26 years earlier.

For many people who’ll hear this mix, I hope the songs will evoke a bit of nostalgia, with any luck of happy memories. I was just a little too young to build many memories of that year, other than two holidays, one in the snow and the other on the beach. I do recall a few of the songs specifically from that time, especially the final one, since I loved music even as a four-year-old. But to me, this mix of big smashes and rather forgotten hits sounds like 1970, which is the effect I tried to go for. Those with more mature memories will be the judges of whether I’ve succeeded in my task.

Some of these songs are, of course, from 1969, but they were hits in the UK, US and/or West-Germany in 1970.

As ever, the mix is timed to be in CD-R (or double LP) length. home-grooved covers. PW in comments.

1. Mungo Jerry – In The Summertime
2. Edison Lighthouse – Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)
3. Christie – San Bernadino
4. Creedence Clearwater Revival – Up Around The Bend
5. The Chairmen Of The Board – Give Me Just A Little More Time
6. Freda Payne – Band Of Gold
7. The Tremeloes – Me And My Life
8. Badfinger – Come And Get It
9. McGuinness Flint – When I’m Dead And Gone
10. Kenny Rogers and The First Edition – Something’s Burning
11. Chicago – 25 Or 6 To 4
12. The Ides Of March – Vehicle
13. Blues Image – Ride Captain Ride
14. T. Rex – Ride A White Swan
15. Mr. Bloe – Groovin’ With Mr. Bloe
16. Tyrone Davis – Turn Back The Hands Of Time
17. Jimmy Ruffin – It’s Wonderful (To Be Loved By You)
18. Arrival – Friends
19. White Plains – My Baby Loves Lovin’
20. Stevie Wonder – Never Had A Dream Come True
21. B.J. Thomas – Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head
22. Joe Dassin – Les Champs-Elysées
23. Elvis Presley – Kentucky Rain
24. The Beach Boys – Cotton Fields
25. Pickettywitch – That Same Old Feeling
26. Rotation – Ra-Ta-Ta
Bonus: Sugarloaf – Green-Eyed Lady

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This month it will be 30 years since I saw When Harry Met Sally in the cinema. I love almost everything about the film, including the wonderful soundtrack of standards (the soundtrack album by Harry Connick Jr was superb, too).

So I got it into my mind that a doing a compilation of hits from 1944 — 75 years ago — would be great fun. I wasn’t wrong. Putting together this mix of songs that were US hits in the penultimate year of World War II was hugely enjoyable; and I hope listening to it will be agreeable as well.

Maybe you know somebody who was around then. They might well love hearing some favourites and some long forgotten tunes. I’m thinking here of reader Johnny Diego (whom I haven’t heard from for a long while, alas) who played his 90-something year old German-raised mother the mixes of German hits between 1930 and 1945 I posted a few years ago (1930-37 and 1938-45). He reported that she was deeply touched by revisiting her youth.

As for the music, some of it is timeless, and some is much of its time. The joy to be derived from the firmer is self-evident; the joy in the latter resides in its anthropological values.

Two songs here are about the war: Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters are imagining the fun ass-kicking the Nazis will receive when the GIs march into Berlin (in the event, the Soviets got there first, and their version of ass-kicking was fun for nobody).

Where Bing and the Sisters are waxing patriotically with a light heart, Red Foley’s Smoke On The Water is pretty nasty in its jingoism. And it is fairly prescient when Foley predicts of Japan’s fate: “There’ll be nothing left but vultures to inhabit all that land, when our modern ships and bombers
make a graveyard of Japan…” Well, of two cities in Japan. File that song’s inclusion under anthropological value.

Talking of 1944 hits with the titles of future rock classics: Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)… what were the chances?

This mix is presented as a collection of hits of 1944. The concept of “hit” is a little stretched in the case of Stan Kenton’s Artistry In Rhythm, which was first recorded in 1943 and released on Capitol in February the following year. It was later re-recorded and issued to more successful effect, but in 1944 the single was a bit of a flop. Still, the track, which fuses jazz and (modern) classical music, shows musical innovation amid all the mainstream stuff.

As ever, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-manufactured covers. PW in covers.

1. Woody Herman And His Orchestra – Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me
2. King Cole Trio – Straighten Up And Fly Right
3. Guy Lombardo feat. Skip Nelson – It’s Love-Love-Love
4. Louis Prima And His Orchestra – Angelina
5. Ella Mae Morse – Milkman Keep Those Bottles Quiet
6. Ink Spots & Ella Fitzgerald – Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall
7. Mills Brothers – Till Then
8. Louis Jordan – Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby
9. Cozy Cole Allstars – Jump Street
10. Dick Haymes & Helen Forrest – It Had To Be You
11. Frank Sinatra – Night And Day
12. Les Brown And His Orchestra – Twilight Time
13. Judy Garland – The Trolley Song
14. Jo Stafford – It Could Happen To You
15. Al Dexter & His Troopers – Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
16. Red Foley – Smoke On The Water
17. The Merry Macs – Mairzy Doats
18. Evelyn Knight – Dance With A Dolly (With A Hole In Her Stocking)
19. Dinah Shore – I’ll Walk Alone
20. Andy Russell – What A Difference A Day Made
21. Jimmy Dorsey & His Orchestra feat. Kitty Kallen & Bob Jimmy – Besame Mucho
22. Glen Gray And Casa Loma Orchestra – My Heart Tells Me
23. Stan Kenton And His Orchestra – Artistry In Rhythm
24. Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters – (There’ll Be) A Hot Time In The Town Of Berlin
25. Benny Carter And His Orchestra feat. Dick Gray – I’m Lost
26. Russ Morgan – Goodnight Wherever You Are

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