40 - "Easy Loving," Freddie Hart
39 -"All Day Music," War
38 - "Surrender," Diana Ross
37 - "Stagger Lee," Tommy Roe
36 -"I Ain't Got Time Anymore," The Glass Bottle
35 - "Trapped by a Thing Called Love," Denise LaSalle
34 - "Love We Had (Stays On My Mind)," The Dells
33 - "Breakdown Part One," Rufus Thomas
32 - "The Wedding Song (Love Is Here)," Paul Stookey
31 - "Bangla Desh," George Harrison
Honestly, I was kind of lost in this section. The only record here I was familiar with was "I Ain't Got Time Anymore," but Casey mistakenly played the flip side, "The First Time," which I didn't know at all. And the only other song here I'd heard before was the based-on-a-true-crime blues number "Stagger Lee." The best known version of it is the 1959 classic by Lloyd Price, but it surfaces here in a New Orleans R&B-style take by Tommy Roe. Roe had previously topped the charts by sounding like Buddy Holly on "Sheila," in '62, then again seven years later with the bubblegummy "Dizzy." This didn't come close to matching those successes.
Without much background on the rest of the list, I'm just going to have to whip through them. "Easy Loving," is regarded as a country classic, but it didn't do much for me. "All Day Music, " is a slow number and War's first hit without Eric Burdon. "Surrender" sounds like a slightly sped up "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," though it wasn't nearly as big a hit for Miss Ross. "Trapped by A Thing Called Love," was a #1 Soul hit. The Dells contribute a generic early-7o's R&B ballad. Rufus Thomas is best known for "Walking the Dog," and was in his mid-fifties when he brought the funk with "The Breakdown." Mr. Stookey is the Paul in Peter, Paul and Mary, and this extremely earnest ode to matrimony was his wedding gift to Peter. And "Bangla Desh," was a charity single Harrison recorded to benefit refugees from the former East Pakistan, who had suffeted through a deadly cyclone and a bloody war for independence. Harrison would follow up the single with an all-star benefit concert.
Okay, that was a little disappointing. I apologize. But I think the next section will give me more to work with:
30 - "I've Found Someone of My Own," The Free Movement
29 - "Liar," Three Dog Night
28 - "Saturday Morning Confusion," Bobby Russell
27 - "Thin Line Between Love and Hate," The Persuaders
26 - "Take Me Home, Country Roads," John Denver with Fat City
25 - "Rain Dance," The Guess Who
24 - "The Story In Your Eyes," The Moody Blues
23 - "Make It Funky," James Brown
22 - "Signs," The Five Man Electrical Band
21 - "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep," Mac and Katie Kissoon
All right, I know most of these. But let's start with the three I don't. "I've Found Someone of My Own," is what the singer's lover tells him over his coffee. But he seems pretty stoic and resigned about it. Perhaps he realizes that referring to her only as "woman," probably didn't deter her much from straying. The other two "new to me"s are this weeks finalists for the Uneasy Rider Award. Bobby Russell's "Saturday Morning Confusion," is a country song over which Russell (whose greatest successes were as a songwriter, as he penned hits like Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey" and his one-time wife Vicki Lawrence's "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia.") plays the role of a harried father making his way through a crazy day at home. His screaming twins aggrivate his hangover, he gets jumped on by the family dog whom they thought was male until he had puppies, his wife hassles him to take the kids to the movies, and then there's his annoying cousin/neighbor. But then the day ends, all is quiet, and he realizes all the confusion is worth it. The other contender is "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep," a bubblegum novelty that seems to be about a baby bird who's parents have flown away. Really. Okay, decision time: "Saturday Morning Confusion," is much more interesting and entertaining, but the award is about oddness, so for subject matter alone, "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" gets the nod.
Technically, there's a fourth record in this quarter I'd never heard, but I was quite familiar with the song "Thin Line Between Love and Hate," via a Pretenders cover. It starts with a guy stumbling home late to his lover after yet another night of debauchery, but the lady treats him as if nothing happened, even offering him something to eat. But then the bridge warns that her sweetness may mask a seething rage, and next thing you know, the guy's in the hospital because his beloved has beat the living shit out of him. I think it's just fantastic that this got on the radio in 1971.
'Two bands that once contributed a side each to a Canada-only promotional LP that could be purchased with Coca-Cola bottle cap liners are both here. One is the Guess Who, whose contribution here makes no lyrical sense (bakers, astronomers, doorbells, singing birds, some guy named John with a gun, somehow this is all supposed to make one want to do a rain dance. I think.) The other were known then as The Staccatos, but then changed their named to the Five Man Electrical Band, and gave the world this massive hit that protested the proliferation of placards on the planet. Alliteration, don't ya love it?
I'll end with the four other songs in this group, all by well-known names. "Liar," is pretty aggressive-sounding by Three Dog Night standards., which is a good thing. John Denver had his first hit with "Take Me Home, Country Roads," backed by Fat City, a folk duo who would later expand into the Starland Vocal Band, whose "Afternoon Delight," I will hopefully encounter somewhere down the road so I can detail how utterly baffled I am by its massive success. The Moody Blues are here with a song they presumably performed nightly in Las Vegas when they opened for Moody Blues cover band The Satin Knights (your Simpsons reference of the week). And when James Brown comes with a song called "Make It Funky," you know he's going to do exactly that. And (SPOILER ALERT!) he does.
So there's the first half. Admittedly, not my best work. The second half should be better, as there are a lot of familiar names and songs. And a lot of teeth.
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