Where Have You Gone, Wyatt McPherson?

Before I forget, here’s the final installment of the series on one-hit-wonders whose lone claim to fame peaked at Number 97 on the Hot 100. (The first part is here and the second part is here.)

“Mississippi Mama”/Owen B (3/14/70, two weeks on chart). Here’s an artist more obscure than Wyatt (Earp) McPherson, the first one-hit wonder to peak at Number 97. Even YouTube DJ Music Mike doesn’t know much, except that Owen B was from Mansfield, Ohio. “Mississippi Mama” sounds like Three Dog Night on a caffeine high, and it clocks in at a Creedence-like 1:58.

“Check Yourself”/Italian Asphalt and Paving Company (5/9/70, two weeks on chart). A Jersey doo-wop group called the Duprees scored a Top-Ten hit in 1962 with “You Belong to Me.” They continued to record into the 1970s, and were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2008. But in 1969, they cut an album under the name of the Italian Asphalt and Paving Company. It yielded “Check Yourself,” which was more soul than doo-wop.

“Suite: Man and Woman”/Tony Cole (11/11/72, four weeks on chart). The word “suite” suggests the song is going to run on for a bit, and it did, lasting 4:45. The assistant PD of KMPC in Los Angeles told Billboard at the time, “Too bad the record companies are releasing singles too long to play, thus forcing stations to edit them or ignore them.” KMPC did just the former, cutting “Man and Woman” to 3:45. What I can piece together about Tony Cole is that he was an ex-schoolteacher who got a shot on American Bandstand in the early 60s and later sang on an Australian TV variety show that counted a pre-stardom Olivia Newton-John among its cast members. Which is not much, but at least he’s not Wyatt (Earp) McPherson.

“After Midnight”/Maggie Bell (5/18/74, three weeks on chart). Maggie Bell, sometimes described as the British Janis Joplin, sang in the Glasgow group Stone the Crows. (If they’re remembered at all nowadays, it’s primarily for the on-stage electrocution death of guitarist Les Harvey in 1972.) After that, Atlantic signed her to a solo deal, and she spent a year preparing the album that became Queen of the Night, released in ’74 to great acclaim, and featuring “After Midnight.” The albums Suicide Sal and Great Rock Sensation followed, but she’s recorded only sporadically since 1977.

“All Roads (Lead Back to You)”/Donny Most (12/18/76, three weeks on chart). Today’s idea of marketing synergy requires stars to multi-task. It’s why Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers have TV shows in addition to singing careers, and why Beyoncé makes movies. But it’s not a new concept. Record companies often tried to parlay TV success into musical success, and never with greater gusto than in 1976. Theme songs from S.W.A.T. and Welcome Back Kotter were Number-One singles that year; themes from Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley made the charts as well, as did did singles by their stars. Most, who played Ralph Malph on Happy Days, got his shot with “All Roads.”

“My Pearl”/Automatic Man (2/19/77, two weeks on chart). Automatic Man was formed by Michael Shrieve and keyboard player Bayete (Todd Cochrane), who became the group’s principal songwriter. It also featured guitarist Pat Thrall, later to chainsaw his way to fame with Pat Travers. Shrieve was just out of Santana and the Go project, where he played alongside Steve Winwood and Stomu Yamashta. Winwood isn’t credited on Automatic Man’s debut album, although he was rumored to be on it. “My Pearl” is a little bit ELO and a little bit Jimi Hendrix, although the debut album’s cover is likely more familiar to record browsers than the music in it.

“Part Time Love”/Kerry Chater (4/2/77, two weeks on chart). Chater was a member of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap who became a full-time songwriter after the band broke up. One of his demos came to the attention of Steve Barri and Michael Omartian, who were extremely hot in the mid 70s, and they backed Chater with an A-list group of studio players for a solo album. All that couldn’t push Chater’s only hit beyond Number 97, giving him a place in history along Wyatt (Earp) McPherson.

One Other Thing: I mentioned on Facebook this morning that I was diggin’ a Rosanne Cash bootleg. I think you might dig it too, so go here, to the fabulous bigO Audio Archive.

“After Midnight”/Maggie Bell (buy it here)

Top 5: One Little Speaker

As I’ve noted a million times before, the fall of 1970 is where time really begins for me—when the record charts first became the calendar of my life. I heard the season like the 10-year-old I was, gravitating toward my generation’s answer to the Jonas Brothers or Hannah Montana—the Partridge Family and Dawn. But while I was buying that stuff, I was also buying “Love the One You’re With” and “Domino,” and digging “Tears of a Clown” and “Share the Land” and “Immigrant Song.” And in the lifetime since, I’ve discovered the context in which those first beloved records appeared. And there’s context aplenty on the survey from WIXY in Cleveland, dated November 27, 1970:

3. “Back to the River”/The Damnation of Adam Blessing (up from 4). A Cleveland band from the same scene that produced the James Gang and the Raspberries, the Damnation of Adam Blessing made three albums between 1969 and 1971 before renaming itself Glory and eventually disbanding. The group’s bassist, Ray Benich, has an extensive website covering his and the group’s history, in which he mentions that he did nearly 18 years in prison (1982-2000) for a domestic shooting, “despite having no prior criminal record (except for that Glory album).” You gotta respect a man able to retain his sense of humor after all that. I’ve cooked up and discarded a whole string of metaphors describing what “Back to the River” sounds like (crappy example: “like ‘Run Through the Jungle’ done by Iron Butterfly, only without the organ”), so click the link, see if you can do better, and share in the comments

10. “No Matter What”/Badfinger (up from 15). Here’s a record that loses something in pristine stereo sound. It’s meant to be processed for AM radio and blasted, preferably from a few hundred miles away, into a little speaker you can hold in your hand. It was produced by Beatles’ road manager Mal Evans, and it should have made Phil Spector proud (although it more likely made him envious and bitter).

12. “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”/Neil Young (down from 8). According to Young’s biographer, the After the Gold Rush album, from which this comes, was Young’s attempt to merge the sounds of Crazy Horse with Crosby Stills Nash and Young. If so, “Only Love” comes pretty close. Here’s Young with Graham Nash and David Crosby performing it live in 1970:

Plus, it’s a waltz, which you hardly ever got on the Top 40.

13. “You Better Think Twice”/Poco (down from 10). The clip below is from a TV series called Something Else, hosted by comedian/impressionist John Byner that ran in the early 70s. It featured an impressive array of then-current stars, many of whom didn’t appear on television much, including the Flying Burrito Brothers, Canned Heat, the Ides of March, Richie Havens, Melanie, the Turtles, CCR, Taj Mahal, and others. I’ve been able to find precious little about this show online, but I intend to keep looking.

19. “Be My Baby”/Andy Kim (up from 27). This is one of the greatest made-for-AM-radio productions of all time—the echo, the ringing piano chords, and the skittering bass guitar, and that’s just the first 10 seconds. And whatever’s playing the instrumental break before the final refrain—string section? Theremin?—came sizzling out of your little speaker and straight into your brain. I can’t hear it without thinking about how WLS sounded at night—or about the 10-year-old me, listening on one little speaker, 135 miles away.

“No Matter What”/Badfinger (buy it here)

World Turning

We’re in pre-holiday mode again around here. Granted, that isn’t much different than our regular mode. The big difference is that we worry less about the remunerative labor we should be doing but aren’t.

I was thinking the other day about Thanksgiving of 1966, the year I was in first grade. That was the year I got kicked in the shin on the playground and somehow got an infection, and had to spend hours sitting around with my leg elevated and hot towels on it. I missed a couple of days of school, and I couldn’t go to Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma’s, either. My mother stayed home with me and my baby brother, placating my disappointment with board games and kindness while my father went to the dinner, taking my four-year-old brother along.

My family would alternate Thanksgivings, spending Thursday with one set of grandparents and Sunday with the other, flipping the order the next year. On my mother’s side there were cousins to play with, including a girl cousin one year older, on whom I had a tremendous crush. When we celebrated on my father’s side, it was in a lower key—he’s an only child, so no cousins. But time with my grandparents was never wasted, although honesty compels me to report that I may not always have felt that way then. Now, of course, it’s a different story, with all four of them gone.

I’ve got no good radio tales about Thanksgiving, at least none that I haven’t told before, but who knows—after tomorrow, I might have some more. I’ll be on the air Thanksgiving Day for the first time in at least 12 years, hosting Magic 98′s Thanksgiving Special from 6 to 9 in the morning (US Central). That gives me plenty of time to head home, pack the car, and get to my brother’s house just in time for kickoff. The Packers are playing the Lions, and dinner’s not until after the game. Our family’s not the only one scheduling the day around the game, for this is Wisconsin, and it’s what we do.

If everybody shows up, there will be 11 around the table—Mom and Dad, their three boys, three wives, and three grandchildren. One of my nephews is in first grade, like I was the year I missed Thanksgiving with my bad leg. And the world keeps turning, year by year.

Lest you think I’m rushing the season, I want you to know that the following (which I’ve posted before) isn’t a Christmas song, really, although it comes from one of the best Christmas albums you’re ever going to hear. It’s about being reunited with our loved ones, and how much that matters.

Enjoy your holiday, and thanks for reading this blog.

“Everyday Will Be Like a Holiday”/Mighty Blue Kings (buy it here)

Six More of the Old 97s

There’s a thin line between history and oblivion. Cross it, leave a mark, and even if it’s a small one, it will stand for all time. One of those lines is the last slot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Lately we’ve been looking into some of the records and performers who just squeaked past it. This is the second part of the list of one-hit wonders whose only chart hit peaked at Number 97.

“Tell Her”/Dean Parrish (7/23/66, two weeks on chart). Parrish made some singles in the mid 60s and worked as a session player, allegedly alongside Jimi Hendrix, Santana, and Bob Marley, before beginning an acting career. Britain’s Northern Soul fans discovered his work in the mid 1970s, although he was supposedly unaware of his British popularity for quite a while, and it would be 2001 before he performed over there. “Tell Her” was a hit in the States as “Tell Him” by the Exciters; Parrish turns it into show-band boogie.

“Dommage, Dommage (Too Bad, Too Bad)”/Paul Vance (10/8/66, two weeks on chart). Vance has appeared in this feature before, as co-writer and performer of “The Chick” with Lee Pockriss. “Dommage, Dommage” was recorded as a demo to be shopped to other performers, but the response from the people at Scepter Records was so strong that the label decided to release it. A version recorded by Jerry Vale rode the chart at the same time, eventually reaching Number 93.

“Fortune Teller”/The Hardtimes (1/7/67, two weeks on chart). In 1964, the Rolling Stones did “Fortune Teller,” a song written by one Naomi Neville, actually a pseudonym used by Allen Toussaint. The Who recorded it too, on the Live at Leeds album. The Hardtimes were from San Diego, and they became one of the house bands at the Whisky a-Go-Go in Los Angeles before making a single album, Blew Mind. They frequently appeared on Dick Clark’s TV show Where the Action Is, where they performed “Fortune Teller.”

“She’s About a Mover”/Otis Clay (9/7/68, three weeks on chart). One of Chicago’s great deep soul singers, Otis Clay cut his version of “She’s About a Mover” at Fame studios in Muscle Shoals shortly before joining up with producer Willie Mitchell at Hi Records in Memphis. The Sir Douglas Quintet did the most famous version of “She’s About a Mover”; Clay’s most famous song, which didn’t chart for him, is probably “Trying to Live My Life Without You,” which was covered by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.

“Home to You”/Earth Opera (4/26/69, one week on chart). In the late 60s, a Boston-based record producer named Alan Lorber started hyping the city’s “sound” as a marketing concept. “The Bosstown Sound” became the target of derision after its first wave of releases proved to be less-than-great, but the fact remains that Boston produced a fair amount of interesting music in the late 1960s. Earth Opera made some of it, featuring bluegrass whiz Peter Rowan, an alumnus of Bill Monroe’s band, and David Grisman, later famed for his collaborations with Jerry Garcia. The rambling “Home to You” is a countryish rock number that leads off their second album, The Great American Eagle Tragedy—which strikes me as mighty good.

“Big Bruce”/Steve Greenberg (8/9/69, three weeks on chart). This is a parody of Jimmy Dean’s “Big Bad John,” and you might be able to guess precisely how the parody unfolds without ever hearing the record, provided you remember how the name “Bruce” was once so frequently used in popular culture as shorthand for being light in the loafers. (Before Bruce Springsteen’s leap to stardom made the name respectably masculine.) “Big Bruce” may have seemed hilarious 40 years ago, but now it’s just stupid.

In the next installment, whenever we get around to it: one of the stranger TV-star hits of the 70s and Britain’s answer to Janis Joplin.

One Other Thing: The Mrs. and I spent much of last weekend hanging with whiteray and the Texas Gal in the wilds of central Minnesota. Photographic evidence of Blog Summit and Beer Spree II is still in the camera, but whiteray’s narrative of events is here. Many thanks for the hospitality as always, you two.

“Home to You”/Earth Opera (buy their two albums in one package here)

Old 97s

Hello again, music lovers. It’s time for another edition of whatever we’re calling this feature in which we look at records that peaked near the bottom of the Billboard Hot 100. This time, it’s Number 97. Between 1961 and 1977, 19 records topped out at 97. We’ll take six of them today and the rest at some future point.

“Here’s My Confession”/Wyatt (Earp) McPherson (5/29/61; two weeks on chart). Talk about obscure: Wyatt (Earp) McPherson was an R&B singer who was born in 1931 and died in 1978, and “Here’s My Confession” was on the Savoy label. But that’s all I know, so if you know more, help a brother out.

“At the Shore”/Johnny Caswell (8/3/63, one week on chart). Caswell is a Philadelphia singer who recorded a handful of sides by himself and with a group called Crystal Mansion, which made the Hot 100 a couple of times. “At the Shore,” inspired by the surf craze, was written by David White, a member of Danny and the Juniors who also wrote their most famous song, “At the Hop.”

“Big Party”/Barbara and the Browns (5/2/64, two weeks on chart). Three sisters and a brother from Memphis, Barbara and the Browns were a gospel group trying the secular market. “Big Party” was cut for a small Memphis label and leased to Stax for national release. A few other singles recorded at Stax and featuring Stax musicians including Steve Cropper failed to go anywhere, and the Browns ended up back on the gospel train.

“Lover’s Prayer”/Wallace Brothers (9/5/64, two weeks on chart). The Wallace Brothers were actually cousins. Nashville DJ John R became their patron, and they released several singles starting in 1963 and an album in 1965. Their producer, Cleveland Warnock, says that at one time, the mother of one of the Brothers had signed them to six different contracts, which led to a great deal of confusion and eventually, the end of their recording career. “Lover’s Prayer,” as best I can tell, was recorded at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

“Teasin’ You”/Willie Tee (3/27/65, two weeks on chart). Born Wilson Turbinton, Tee was a New Orleans pianist who signed with the Nola label, and was produced by soul master Wardell Quezergue. “Teasin’ You” is a savory slice of Southern soul that should have charted a whole lot higher. Tee recorded into the 80s, then was discovered in the 90s by British soul fans and hip-hop artists, who sampled songs he cut with the Gaturs and the Wild Magnolias. He died in 2007.

“If You Really Want Me To, I’ll Go”/Ron-Dels (7/24/65, one week on chart). The “Del” in “Ron-Dels” is Delbert McClinton, who wrote “If You Really Want Me To, I’ll Go.” Allmusic.com describes it thusly: “a country-flavored beat ballad strongly reminiscent of the Beatles’ similar material from 1964 and 1965.” And it is.

“Teasin’ You”/Willie Tee (buy it here)

Quintessentially Wisconsin

Despite the joke about Wisconsin having two seasons—winter and road construction—there are actually five:  winter, spring, summer, fall, and the gun deer-hunting season, which begins on Saturday and runs nine days. Even for those who don’t hunt, and I don’t, deer season is one of those rituals by which we order our lives. Everybody knows somebody who’s going, and we all hope they’ll drop a couple of venison steaks on our doorstep when they get back.

(Back in the early 90s, a bunch of us tailgated before a Packer game in Milwaukee with venison bratwurst that had been walking around in the woods three weeks before. It might have been the most quintessentially Wisconsin experience of my entire life.)

If you drive out into the rural areas this weekend and next, you’ll see guys in blaze orange getting in and out of pickup trucks in various places, especially at the state’s many rural taverns, which will be festooned with beer-company signs saying “Welcome Deerhunters.” You might not think it’s a good idea for a hunter to throw down a couple of Leinenkugels at lunchtime before returning to the woods with a high-powered rifle, but we manage to live with the contradiction up here just fine.

(If it’s really cold, some of the guys won’t be drinking Leinenkugel’s. Wisconsin is the nation’s largest per-capita consumer of brandy. I used to think everybody drank brandy until I tried ordering one in Chicago and the waitress looked at me like I had two heads.)

It occurs to me that “tavern” is an old-fashioned word you don’t hear much anymore, particularly in the leafy suburbs of Madison where I live, but it’s an evocative word that connotes a particular sort of place. Taverns don’t have video walls, live DJs, stuffed potato skins, or crop-topped servers named Kelli. Taverns have one or two TVs, always over the bar—which is a place inside a tavern at which you sit and not a word for the tavern itself—and a jukebox which inevitably includes two dozen current hits, three or four polkas, and that 45 with “Happy Birthday” on one side and “The Anniversary Waltz” on the other. There might be a pool table or a pinball machine, but if those games don’t suit you, there may be some old guys playing euchre around a table in the back.  (In my hometown, the old guys sometimes play jass, a Swiss variation on whist.) The bartender is often the guy who owns the place; the waitress is either his wife or his daughter.  The menu consists of burgers, cheese sandwiches, frozen pizza, and chili in season.

If you want dessert at a tavern, smokes are available behind the bar. Or at least they will be until the statewide smoking ban goes into effect next July. The end of the smoky tavern will be a victory for public health, but a small loss to the cultural landscape. The Tavern League of Wisconsin, historically one of the state’s most powerful lobbies, fought the legislation, and then for a version of it that would do the least possible damage to tavern owners’ businesses. Saving the local tavern is an important task for the League. The taverns that dot the rural crossroads of Wisconsin are social centers, and many have existed in one form or another for a hundred years or better. Often, they’re the last vestige of what was once a village or town.

When I lived out of state, which I did for 18 years, the call of this place was never stronger than in the fall. Now that I’m here, there’s no place else for me to be.

“Home at Last” (live in Boston 2009)/Steely Dan (bootleg)
“The Hunter”/Albert King (from the legendary Born Under a Bad Sign, on which King is backed by Booker T. and the MGs; buy it here)