It can be tough to get a handle on just how popular certain classic Christmas singles really were in their time, compared to all the other records on the radio in the same season. Billboard’s erratic policy of charting Christmas singles—sometimes on a separate chart and sometimes not—meant that certain perennials like “Happy Xmas (War Is Over), “Feliz Navidad,” and “Snoopy’s Christmas” never ran the big chart, even though they racked up sales and airplay numbers that certainly would have qualified them. Fortunately for geeks, Billboard’s competitor Cash Box maintained no such segregation. I explored the Cash Box charts for December and January from 1960 through 1986, and I could give you the whole laundry list of chart positions and dates, which would be interesting only to me (and maybe to our friend Yah Shure). Instead, here are the highlights.

What About Those Perennials? “Snoopy’s Christmas” by the Royal Guardsmen is, by the accounting of Cash Box, one of the top holiday singles of the rock era. It charted on December 9, 1967, and rose as high as Number 10 on the chart dated December 30, but plunged entirely out of the top 100 after that. Some others:

• In 1970, “Feliz Navidad” by Jose Feliciano charted for just one week (December 26, 1970).
• John and Yoko’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” hit the Cash Box chart the week of December 18, 1971, at Number 63, peaked at Number 36 during the week of January 1, 1972, then dropped off.
• Elton John’s “Step Into Christmas” lasted but two weeks on the chart, entering on December 22, 1973, and peaking at Number 56 the next week.
• “I Believe in Father Christmas” by Greg Lake also spent two weeks on the Cash Box chart, peaking at Number 92 for the week of January 3, 1976.
• The Eagles’ “Please Come Home for Christmas” reached Number 29 for the week of January 13, 1979—a position lower than it achieved in Billboard, where it peaked at 18.
• Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” made Number 83 for the week of January 12, 1980.

What Songs Charted Highest? Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas” reached Number 7 during the week of January 19, 1985. The next highest after “Snoopy’s Christmas” is Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Paper,” which peaked at Number 16 on the chart dated January 4, 1964.  A couple of holiday songs post-1963 just nicked the Cash Box Top 40: “Merry Christmas Darling” by the Carpenters (41, 12/21/70)  and “When a Child Is Born” by Michael Holm (39, 1/18/75). Nilsson’s “Remember (Christmas)” did too, hitting Number 40 on 1/27/73), although it’s not particularly Christmassy apart from the parenthetical title. (The early 60s are anomalous compared to the rest of the period I’m discussing, so we’ll leave the rest of the songs from that period for later on.)

Notice Anything Weird? For three straight years—1983, 1984, and 1985—”Kid Santa Claus” by Patsy scraped into the top 100, never doing better than 92. It’s about Santa’s daughter, Holly Nicole, and how she rescues her father from smog-shrouded Los Angeles in time to make his Christmas rounds. The song’s creator apparently signed a full round of licensing deals for 1984, and she filed at least one lawsuit claiming her copyright was infringed by somebody else’s merchandise. Another song I’d never heard, the rather tasty “25th of Last December” by Roberta Flack, spent five weeks on the chart at Christmas 1977, although it never got above Number 92. In 1965, “There Won’t Be Any Snow (Christmas in the Jungle)” by Derrik Roberts peaked at Number 77 on Christmas Day; it’s a spoken-word recording from a soldier in Vietnam, sending holiday greetings home.

So What About the Early 60s? As I dug deeper in time from 1986, I found just one or two holiday records on the chart each year. Then I hit 1963 and the number ballooned. That year, no less than eight holiday singles charted in December and January.

• Orbison’s “Pretty Paper” was the biggest, followed by “The Marvelous Toy” by the Chad Mitchell Trio.
• Two other songs that haven’t been off the radio since also charted that year: “Do You Hear What I Hear” by Bing Crosby, which got to Number 66, and “Little Saint Nick” by the Beach Boys, which got to Number 69. (Unless I’m mistaken—always a possibility—”Do You Hear What I Hear?” was the final chart record of Crosby’s magnificent career.)
• Also charting in 1963: “You’re All I Want for Christmas” by Brook Benton, Allan Sherman’s “The Twelve Gifts of Christmas,” and a version of “White Christmas” by Andy Williams.
• The Harry Simeone Chorale’s original recording of “The Little Drummer Boy” was back on the chart that year for a single week; it had charted every year since its original release in 1957.

Re-entries were common in the early 60s. Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” first hit in 1960 and reached Number 22; it returned to the Cash Box chart in 1961 and 1962. Charles Brown’s “Please Come Home for Christmas” scraped on in 1960 and again in 1961. David Seville’s “The Chipmunk Song,” which had done four weeks at Number One in 1958 and early ‘59, re-entered in 1959, 1961 and 1962.  A new version of “Jingle Bell Rock” by Chubby Checker and Bobby Rydell charted in 1961 and came back for 1962; in 1962, the Bobby Helms original recharted as well. And even Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas,” which had first appeared in 1942, got back on the Cash Box chart in both 1961 and 1962.

And maybe earlier, but I stopped with 1960 because the whole project was starting to make my head hurt.

I guess I gave you a laundry list of chart positions and dates after all. Accept it in the Christmas spirit, then, and have a nice day.

“25th of Last December”/Roberta Flack (buy Roberta’s Christmas album here; I’m not sure if the version of this song on that album is the same one that hit the radio in 1977, which is from the splendidly titled Blue Lights in the Basement; get that here)

Every once in a while the universe smiles upon us, and we get a week that’s filled with musical goodness such that in years to come, we can hardly believe it was real. Six years ago, Eric Boehlert, then writing for Salon, called the week of December 20, 1969, “the greatest week in rock history.” A year later, I cast a vote for the first week in November 1976. (Number of regular readers surprised that I’d pick a week in 1976: zero.) The other day I thought of another one: the week of December 9, 1972. If there was a greater week for R&B in the 1970s, you’ll have to tell me when it was.

It wasn’t perfect: “I Am Woman” by Helen Reddy hit Number One in Billboard that week, and while her song of liberated womanhood satisfied certain souls, it’s not what we’re talking about here. Gilbert O’Sullivan’s terminally white babysitting tale “Clair” was at Number Nine. But most of the rest of the Top 10 belonged not merely to R&B, but to several of the finest R&B records of the 70s, if not all time.

2. “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”/Temptations (down from 1). An epic, in several different ways. Running almost 12 minutes in its original album configuration, the single ran 6:58, although some radio stations made their own shorter edits. In any form, it’s the Platonic ideal of “hypnotic.” One of the most arresting intros ever devised keeps you around just to hear Dennis Edwards sing “It was the third of September/that day I’ll always remember,” which keeps you around for the rest of the story, even though you’ve heard it a million times before.

3. “If You Don’t Know Me By Now”/Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes (up from 5). Was there ever a record on which a singer sounded more anguished and desperate than Teddy Pendergrass does here? This is what it means to rage against the dying of the light. Here’s a lip-synched performance from Soul Train:

4. “I Can See Clearly Now”/Johnny Nash (down from 3). Nash, born in Houston, scored some modest hits in the States in the late 50s, including “The Teen Commandments,” preachy advice for the kiddies recorded with Paul Anka and George Hamilton IV. He became a reggae star in Jamaica in the mid 60s and took “Hold Me Tight” into the stateside Top 10 in 1968 before hitting with “I Can See Clearly Now.” Probably the least monumental record on the list, it nevertheless did a month at Number One.

5. “You Ought to Be With Me”/Al Green (up from 7). Another practically perfect Memphis soul record from the Reverend Al, it features the Memphis Horns—who sound otherworldly good—and drummer Al Jackson of Booker T and the MGs.

6. “Me and Mrs. Jones”/Billy Paul (up from 13). The definitive Philadelphia soul ballad, elegant and sexy and even a little bit sad. The backing track, played by MFSB, is filled with notes and figures that linger, just as lovers might linger at the end of a furtive rendezvous, knowing it’s time to part but unwilling to break away. (Or so I’m told.)

1o. “I’m Stone in Love With You”/Stylistics (up from 11). This tune came up briefly about a month ago, so I won’t say much more about it here, except to suggest that if Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, then songwriter/producer Thom Bell ought to be there, too.

Also in the Top 40 during that December week of ‘72: “I’ll Be Around” by the Spinners at Number 18, Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly” at 22, “Keeper of the Castle” by the Four Tops at 25, and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” at 32. Lurking further down in the Hot 100:

• Rod Stewart’s “Angel” (a convincing simulation of an R&B ballad) at 43
• The Isley Brothers’ “Work to Do” at 51
• “992 Arguments” by the O’Jays at 57
• “Why Can’t We Live Together” by Timmy Thomas at 62
• “The World Is a Ghetto” by War at 71

I am past being upset when people make fun of the music of the 1970s, except maybe when I think about weeks like this. You can’t dismiss a decade that resulted in such glorious stuff. Sure, a hater could dwell on “I Am Woman” and “Clair,” but neither of them really affects the greatness of the week of December 9, 1972, any more than the presence of Bobby Sherman’s “La La La (If I Had You)” or “Groovy Grubworm” by Harlow Wilcox diminishes that great week in December 1969.

Of course, maybe it helped to be there that week in 1972, with the radio glued to your ear every possible waking hour. Thank goodness I was.

“Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”/Temptations (album version, runs 11:46) (buy it here)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Everybody hates something, and often, our choices are highly personal. Nevertheless, there’s a certain consensus about the most reviled Top-40 hits of all time: “Muskrat Love,” “You’re Having My Baby,” “Run Joey Run,” and “Seasons in the Sun” would make most people’s lists, I think. And “You Light Up My Life,” too. In my experience, that’s one people tend to forget.

“You Light Up My Life,” recorded by Debby Boone, daughter of Pat, was released on August 16, 1977. (That’s the same day Elvis Presley died, although the autopsy showed no correlation.) Its chart debut came on September 3 at Number 71, and it embarked on a respectable-but-not-spectacular climb up the chart. The week of October 8, however, it took an enormous leap from 15 to 3, and the week after that, “You Light Up My Life” hit Number One, where it would stay for 10 weeks, the longest stretch at the top for a single song since 1956. It also hit on the country chart, reaching Number 4.

Week after week during the fall of 1977 other songs stormed the castle, but none could take it: “Keep It Comin’ Love” by KC and the Sunshine Band, “Nobody Does It Better” by Carly Simon, “Boogie Nights” by Heatwave, and “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” by Crystal Gayle all peaked at Number Two, Carly and Crystal for three weeks each. Finally, during the week of December 17, the Bee Gees’ “How Deep Is Your Love” reached the second spot, and it took out the queen on December 24, 1977.

“You Light Up My Life” would remain in the Hot 100 until late February 1978. In the final accounting, it’s the Number One song of the 1970s. It was nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammys (and Boone won Best New Artist); it also won the Oscar for Best Original Song.  But the odd thing about “You Light Up My Life” is that it vanished from history almost as soon as it left the charts. The song was disappeared, like a Soviet official who was declared a nonperson and never officially existed. (Or like George W. Bush to the Republicans now.) Oldies stations don’t play it; easy-listening stations don’t play it—and if I’m recalling correctly, it stopped getting much radio play almost from the moment it left the charts. It’s as if collective embarrassment over our embrace of such bland schlock caused us to repress the memory entirely.

It’s arguable that the same impulse repressed Debby Boone’s career. She was unable to follow up on her mega-hit, returning to the Hot 100 only twice, with “California” and “God Knows,” both in 1978. She did a bit better on the country charts over the years, even reaching Number One with “Are You On the Road to Lovin’ Me Again” in 1980.  Eventually, she moved into Christian music (no surprise given that she had imagined the “you” in “You Light Up My Life” to be God), acted on the stage, raised a family, and wrote children’s books.

The song’s blandness and Boone’s faceless performance of it made it ripe for cover versions, and for a particular sort of cover version at that: Every easy-listening artist you can name recorded it, including Engelbert Humperdinck, Perry Como, Robert Goulet, the Ray Conniff Singers, and Mantovani. It’s also been cut by Leann Rimes, Kenny Rogers, Whitney Houston, and the Irish group Westlife, who turned it into a boy-band ballad for the generation whose parents were pre-teens in 1977. In 1979, the Three Degrees did it for a British TV special. Adding a little soul helped it a lot—hell, adding a harmony vocal line helped it a lot.

In the end, perhaps the only way we can explain the unprecedented success of “You Light Up My Life” is what explains many strange excesses: It was the 1970s. We couldn’t help ourselves.

One of my favorite posts in the history of this blog appeared three years ago this week, about the darkness audible on Top 40 radio in the fall of 1969 via the WLS chart from the week of November 10. There are other ways to look at the same week, of course—how dark could it have been if Sesame Street premiered on TV? Here’s how it sounded at WKNR in Detroit, the fabled Keener 13, on the survey dated November 13, 1969.

8. “Down on the Corner”-”Fortunate Son”/Creedence Clearwater Revival (up from 13). Has there ever been a better two-sided hit single? If we had a contest to figure it out, this one would definitely make the semi-finals, at least—with several other two-sided CCR singles.

16. “Get It From the Bottom”/Steelers (down from 7). The Steelers were a Chicago group that started out recording on the local Crash label, owned by DJ Al Benson. Even after Crash crashed in 1967, the Steelers carried on. “Get It From the Bottom” was good enough to get national distribution from Columbia, although it was popular mostly in the Midwest. The Steelers are still performing around Chicago, apparently.

25. “Midnight Cowboy”/Ferrante and Teicher (up from 28). WKNR lists two versions of this movie theme, by John Barry, who wrote it, and Ferrante and Teicher, who had a Top-10 national hit with it. There’s a hallucinatory quality to the F&T version, although most of the atmosphere comes not from the famous twin pianos but from Vincent Bell’s guitar and those ghostly choral voices. The vibe is nicely captured in this YouTube video, which features scenes from the Dustin Hoffman/Jon Voight film.

26. “The Music Box”/Ruth Copeland (up from 29). One of the first releases on Holland/Dozier/Holland’s Invictus label was by Ruth Copeland, a white girl from England whose debut album was recorded at the same time and features many of the same musicians as the debut album by Parliament. It’s weird stuff; the band is great, but Copeland’s performance is frequently over-the-top strange—like the sobbing that takes up the last 45 seconds of “The Music Box,” which is unobjectionable up to that point despite the presence of a children’s chorus.

Keener LP #3: Rock and Roll Music/The Frost. Another Detroit-area legend. The group’s leader was Dick Wagner, who would go on to play with Lou Reed and Alice Cooper, among others. (He started the band after the demise of the Bossmen, another Detroit band that had included Mark Farner, who later founded Grand Funk Railroad.) Rock and Roll Music was the group’s second album, recorded live at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, which hosted shows by Cream, the Who, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, and even John Coltrane in the 60s along with the full roster of Michigan acts, including the MC5, the Stooges (both of whom were house bands for a while) and the Rationals.

When it comes to Detroit music in the 60s, Motown was just the beginning, and not enough people know that.

“The Music Box”/Ruth Copeland (buy it here)

Over the weekend, we started looking at the 20 records that peaked at Number 98 on the Hot 100 between 1955 and 1986. In this installment covering the last 10, we pick up in 1967.

“Walkin’ Proud”/Pete Klint Quintet (10/21/67). This group, from Mason City, Iowa, packed ‘em in around the Midwest in the 1960s, and are, according to their Iowa Rock and Roll Music Association Hall of Fame page, one of the most successful groups in Iowa recording history. Now when it comes to producing rock stars and classic recordings, Iowa ain’t Liverpool or anything, but listen to “Walkin’ Proud” and then try to tell me it ain’t a really good pop record.

“Dear Delilah”/Grapefruit (3/2/68). Like Jackie Lomax, Grapefruit benefited from an association with the Beatles, but not enough to become more than a footnote. They were managed by an associate of Brian Epstein’s, John Lennon gave the band its name and appeared at press conferences introducing them, and Paul McCartney directed a video for them. All of this explains why Around Grapefruit, a compilation of single releases, sounds the way it does. The group’s second album, conceived as a whole, abandoned the Beatlesque sound, with a predictable result.

“Happy”/Hog Heaven (5/1/71). At the close of the 1960s, an exhausted Tommy James moved out to the country and found Jesus, leaving the rest of the Shondells to do what they could on their own. They formed a band called Hog Heaven, which hung around long enough to make one album.

“Top of the World (Make My Reservation)”/Canyon (7/25/75). Canyon is a band of hazy origin, produced by bubblegum masters Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz, that recorded at the studio K&K built on Long Island. Kasenetz/Katz productions tended to be less sugary than many other bubblegum records, and some of them could rock, like the demented “Quick Joey Small,” a particular favorite of this blog. “Top of the World” certainly does, although its good-time boogie would have sounded a little bit dated even in 1975.

“Foot Stompin’ Music”/Hamilton Bohannon (9/20/75). Originally hired by Stevie Wonder as a drummer in 1965, Bohannon eventually became the arranger and bandleader for Motown’s live shows before the label departed Detroit for Los Angeles in the early 70s. After that, recording under his own name, he scored a string of club hits, including “Foot Stompin’ Music,” that also got some airplay on R&B radio before things slowed for him in the 80s. He hasn’t recorded since 1990.

“Chinese Kung Fu”/Banzaii (10/11/75). In late 1974, Carl Douglas scored an international hit with “Kung Fu Fighting.” “Chinese Kung Fu” is”Kung Fu Fighting” turned inside out—it uses the same chords, and it’s possible to sing the same lyrics to it. And it’s also easy to imagine it as a dance-floor monster.

“Tubular Bells”/Champs’ Boys Orchestra (6/5/76). A disco version of the theme from The Exorcist, which was backed on some 45 releases by a disco version of Chuck Mangione’s “Land of Make Believe.” It’s actually not horrible.

“Say You Love Me”/D.J. Rogers (7/10/76). A lovely piano-driven ballad that deserved a better fate. Certainly Rogers thought so. When “Say You Love Me” and a handful of his other singles failed to hit big, he was quoted in Soul magazine blaming RCA Records for its failure to promote him properly, suggesting that the label was a tax write-off for RCA’s parent company. Several of Rogers’ later releases hit the R&B charts in the late 70s and early 80s before he started to record gospel. Today, he’s a preacher in Los Angeles.

“You to Me Are Everything”/Revelation (8/7/76). “You to Me Are Everything” is a terrific song—so terrific that three versions of it were on the Hot 100 at the same time, by the Real Thing (a version that topped the charts in Britain), Broadway, and Revelation. The competition couldn’t have helped the chart performance of any of ‘em.

“The Part of Me That Needs You Most”/Jay Black (9/20/80). Jay Black was the Jay of Jay and the Americans, and this is pretty much the sum total of his solo career.  “The Part of Me That Needs You Most,” written by Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, was also recorded by Exile, B.J. Thomas, and Billy Crash Craddock. The most notable fact about Black’s version is that it spent four weeks on the chart, three of them at Number 98.

When I started exploring the bottom of the charts during One Hit Wonder Week in September, I thought we might unearth some interesting history, but I had no idea how much. So you can bet that another installment, on Number 97 next time, is not far off.

“Dear Delilah”/Grapefruit (buy it here)
“Happy”/Hog Heaven (seven-minute album version of the 3:39 single; buy the album here)

(Edited to add WNEW.com link.)

When I was a kid, I didn’t miss a lot of school days because of illness, but I remember the slightly disorienting feeling of coming back after being gone. It was clear that the world had continued operating normally without me—and I was always a little surprised. Now that I’m older and wiser, I understand that the Internet has been just fine without me this past week—but I’m still a little bit surprised. Here’s a rare Saturday post to get the Earth back on its axis, continuing our series on the bottom of the Hot 100. Here are 10 records that represent the only Hot 100 appearance for their respective performers, all of which peaked at Number 98.

“The Reason”/5 Chanels (12/22/58). The Chanels were a doo-wop group from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. After “The Reason” was released, the group was forced to change its billing because their name was too close to the Channels, a different group on a rival label.

“One More Sunrise (Morgen)”/Leslie Uggams (9/14/59). A ubiquitous TV presence in the 70s and 80s (most notably as Kizzy in the miniseries Roots), Uggams was only 16 when she cut an English version of “Morgen,” which had been a hit in its original German earlier in the year by Ivo Robic.

“A Lover’s Question”/Ernestine Anderson (2/27/61). Anderson was one of the more highly touted singers in jazz during the late 50s, but saw her career stall as the popularity of jazz began to fade in the early 60s. From the 70s to the 90s, she recorded prolifically, however. This is her version of Clyde McPhatter’s original.

“The Image Part 1″/Hank Levine (10/9/61). In 1957, radio programmer Chuck Blore introduced a format he called “color radio” at KFWB in Los Angeles, and later took it to stations in San Francisco and Minneapolis. It featured a distinctive set of jingles, which became the inspiration for “The Image.”

“Across the Street”/Lenny O’Henry (5/30/64). Lenny O’Henry was born Danny Cannon, and was once in a group called the Vibra-Harps with Donnie Elbert, whose covers of “Where Did Our Love Go” and “I Can’t Help Myself” charted in the States in 1971 and 1972. And that seems to be all there is to know about Lenny O’Henry. As for “Across the Street,” it’s apparently much beloved by beach music aficionados.

“Jamaica Ska”/Ska Kings (7/11/64). Byron Lee and his band backed several reggae stars in Jamaica’s pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Hoping to capitalize on any interest sparked by the fair, Atlantic signed Lee to a record deal. “Jamaica Ska” got a bit of airplay, but two full albums failed to make much of a dent in the States. Never mind, though: Lee would record almost continuously for nearly 40 years before his death a year ago this month.

“You’re Next”/Jimmy Witherspoon (3/6/65). Witherspoon took the long way from Gurdon, Arkansas, to stardom, singing on Armed Forces Radio with a big band in India during World War II. His most famous record is probably the blues standard “Ain’t Nobody’s Business,” cut in 1949, but “You’re Next” was his lone pop-chart entry.

“I Spy (for the FBI)”/Jamo Thomas (3/26/66). From the Bahamas via Chicago, Jamo Thomas intended to capitalize on the spy craze in the mid 60s with “I Spy (for the FBI).” It’s some of the best fake Motown music you’re ever going to hear.

“Any Way That You Want Me”/Liverpool Five (12/24/66). They were English, but none was from Liverpool, and their first major taste of stardom came in Japan. They were frequently featured on TV shows such as American Bandstand and Shindig!, and frequently shared the bill with fellow Englishmen such as the Rolling Stones and the Kinks. Their sound was more garage-band than British-Invasion, although “Any Way That You Want Me,” originally cut by the Troggs, fits the mid-60s British pop-rock template. It was their only official sniff of the American charts. (It’s the third song in this YouTube clip.)

“When the Good Sun Shines”/Elmo & Almo (6/10/67). A studio creation by producers Charlie Koppelman and Don Rubin, which was intended to pave the way for an animated cartoon series and a Peanuts-style comic strip. According to a June 3, 1967, article in Billboard, the series would feature cartoon characters against live backgrounds and musical performances. More intriguing, “the artist who [will do] the comic strip was living in singer/composer Tim Hardin’s basement. He, too [like the singers who provided voices for Elmo and Almo] will remain anonymous.” The song was written by Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon, who were mentioned here just a week ago—and it may be Bonner and Gordon who are singing on the record. (Neither the TV series nor the comic strip ever got made, as best I can tell.)

In the next installment: 10 more one-hit wonders who peaked at Number 98, including one of the top Iowa bands of the 1960s and a disco version of “Tubular Bells.” Admit it—you can’t imagine how life goes on without this sort of thing, can you?

At WNEW.com: Gordon Lightfoot’s greatest hit. (It’s a post I’m especially proud of, so go read it. Then comment on it, because nobody ever comments on anything over there.)

“When the Good Sun Shines”/Elmo and Almo (out of print)