Today we find ourselves in sunny August 5th, 1966 (actually, there was a little fog in the morning, I'm told), and among the things that happened today:
-groundbreaking began on the World Trade Center;
- Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas openned;
- And the Beatles released Revolver to the UK audience. In addition to charting hits Eleanor Rigby, Yellow Submarine (the movie came later), and Got To Get You Into My Life, the radio played Taxman, Good Day Sunshine, and And Your Bird Can Sing (the US version skipped that as it was on the US release Yesterday And Today).
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And that's a really good lead in for this week's Time Machine, which features: the first white act to play the Apollo; a three-way at the bottom of the Panel Four (which makes it a Five); a bit about the labels that record the music of the M10; and Valerie Harper as Rhoda (huh?). Also, here's your guessing game (that I would never really expect anyone to play)- see if you can guess the Panel picks with this clue: four out of five songs start with an "s"- and two of them have two "s" words in the title! So I don't have a yellow sub, but I do have a rainbow tardis. Hop in and let's go!
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I just helped Laurie out with another clue for you cryptographers- three of the four start with an "su", and of the two with two "s" words, one of them has both words start with "su", and the other both start with "se"!
Yeah, I know... anyway, the Panel consists of KDKA Pittsburgh, WROV Roanoke VA, KBLA Burbank, WNWC Arlington Heights IL (hey, I'll bet the call letters stand for North West Chicago, eh?), WICE Providence, KOL Seattle, WXYZ Detroit, WDRC Hartford, WING Dayton, KFWB Los Angeles, WCOL Columbus OH, and WQXI Atlanta. They teamed up for 24 different songs, the low charter this week belonging to cult favorite Love with 7 And 7 Is, which sat at #79 this week. And there were three #1 votes that couldn't make even the expanded countdown, including Roanoke's one vote for Percy Sledge's Warm And Tender Love; The Troggs' Wild Thing, who- with the help of Dayton's #1- just missed the five by a single point; and Sandy Posey's Born A Woman in Atlanta, possibly Caitlyn Jenner's favorite song (!). (There you have it- the first ever mention of CJ on this blog, and likely the last...)
Once again this week, the national top ten (note here: this week I am using Billboard as Cashbox is down for maintenance again) didn't do so well with the Panel. Wild Thing was the national top dog; #2- Sam The Sham's Lil' Red Riding Hood- and #9- The Stones' Mother's Little Helper- made unsuccessful runs at the Panel List, but numbers 4, 6, 7, and 8 only totalled 7 votes- and #10 is the six degrees victim! So now that you know you're going to get some wide variations here, it's time for the Panel Five:
Tied for fourth with no #1s and 13 points, you have Napoleon XIV and They're Coming To Take Me Away (Ha Ha!), the national #5; and the double "su", Donovan's Sunshine Superman- which was just starting its climb at #61.
At number three, with also 13 points but the #1s of Providence and Detroit, the double "se", the Happenings with See You In September, the national #15.
At #2, the national #11 with 22 points and #1s from Pittsburgh, Seattle, Hartford, and Los Angeles, Bobby Hebb and Sunny.
At on top, with the other three #1 votes and 33 points, the national # 3- stay tuned...
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The M10 is two weeks away from finishing year number one! That means, you can count on a party with cake and ice cream in three weeks here on Time Machine!*
*Only if you are in the actual Tardis at the time. Your cake and ice cream may vary.
But this week, we have two debuts, and the first one at #10 comes to us all the vay, er, way, from Norway! They are called Acres Wild ( a name they took from an old Jethro Tull tune), from the lp Ignore The Flags On The Beaches...
This is recorded on their own label, which they named Minitravolta...
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Which brings up our next topic. On my big hardcopy notebook for the M10, I always record the act's label. Not all of them have labels- Castlecomer still doesn't to my knowledge- and some of them record on their own dime, like Tangerine (Tangerine LLC). But I thought it might be interesting (to me, anyway) to see how many each label had. Surprisingly in the age of indy music, the big boppers still did okay.
Columbia (with country division Columbia Nashville) logged 12 singles.
Warner Brothers (with their Warner Nashville label) picked up 8.
Then came RCA and Sub Pop (SP Being mainly but not only Beach House tunes) each gathered five.
After that was a septet of three each, including the label that put in a cameo appearance in the Explorers Club video last week, Capitol. As well as the two bands that have three singles off their latest lps on the M10, the Jayhawks (Universal New Zealand) and the Monkees (Rhino). And now you know.
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So I am on the penultimate of the "English Composers" list that Bobby G. gave me, and that name is one Henry Purcell. One of the greatest, his time period was mid-to-late 17th century- a time where the future UK was not a name in music. And Purcell knew it, but had hope for the future...
Poetry and painting have arrived to their perfection in our own country; music is yet but in its nonage [immaturity], a forward Child, which gives hope of what it may be hereafter in England, when the masters of it shall find more Encouragement.
Not sure why they felt the need to insert "immaturity" in there; c'mon, we all knew what "nonage" meant, right? Anyway, this means it's time to
10- This was a Goffin/King tune that Dusty Springfield recorded over there, called Going Back. The Byrds would cover it next year- though they only got to 89.
9- The Kinks with another "su" song, Sunny Afternoon, which would be top 15 here in October.
8- Petula Clark is at #16 here with I Couldn't Live Without Your Love.
7- Dave Berry, a teen idol with the unfortunate habit of hiding his face with whatever prop was available, was at this spot with a UK only called Mama.
6- Elvis is at #21 back home with Love Letters.
5- Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, who hit big in the US with The Ballad Of Bonnie And Clyde, would hit the top with this tune called Get Away- and became the only act to hit #1 in the UK with their only three times in the top ten. This would peak at #70 here.
4- Back in June, Chris Montez peaked at #16 here with The More I See You.
3- Another tune that would peak in October in the States- this time at the top- is Los Bravos and Black Is Black.
2- Out Of Time by Chris Farlowe- a bottom scraper here (peak #122), had an interesting story when re-released in 1975. It was a tune that Jagger/Richards composed, and at the same time in '75 THEY put out a version (which was Mick's vocals over the same music), and Nazareth frontman Dan McCaffery also tried it. With all of them on the charts at the same time, the results were not pretty: McCaffery got to #41, Farlowe to #44, and Mick to #45.
And tops of the pops?
...The Troggs, with this week's #75 in the US of A, With A Girl Like You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Where our first debut harkens back to 60's psychedelic, the one at #9 evokes the heart of the best of 90's alternative. This band comes to us from Boston, they are called Quilt, and they are led by the pretty Miss Anna Fox Rochinsky...
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Okay, so Valerie Harper as Rhoda doesn't quite factor into the 6D, but she does factor in in her first screen roll- in a 1956 movie called Rock Rock Rock with included pioneer dj Alan Freed as himself. This movie also had a couple other items. First, it heavily featured a band called Jimmy Cavallo and the House Rockers, who would go on to become the first white act to play the Apollo Theatre. Second, it starred Tuesday Weld as the daughter of a single Dad trying to raise a teenager. Her singing parts, unlike everyone else in the movie, were not her- she was dubbed by Connie Francis. Francis was just breaking in herself, and a handful of failed singles had preceded this adventure. But our interest in Connie comes several years later, during a streak that saw all of her US singles chart between 91 and 134. In that timeframe Dr Zhivago came out, and Connie asked her record company to make words for the instrumental Lara's Theme. Once she got them, she thought them "too corny" and rejected them. Later, she went ahead and recorded them (in several languages) and had a big hit in every language but English. By that time, the ball had been picked up by easy listening giant Ray Conniff, who would take Somewhere My Love to #10 on Billboard this week- where from the panel would completely ignore him.
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And now, the rest of the M10...
The Monkees and Our Own World moves up a pair to #8.
The Pom Poms fall this week from 2 to 7 with Betty.
Then we hit the Sargasso Sea of the M10, where things don't move: Castlecomer holds at 6 with The Noise; the Monkees hold at 5 with You Bring The Summer in its 7th week.
And Plume Of Feathers slip back a notch to 4 with First Date.
If you've been doing the math, you know we have two big movers coming next, and each one covers 6 spots in a single bound. The Explorers Club to #3 with California's Callin' Ya; the Pom Poms to #2 with 1-2-3.
And at #1? M10 says...
... a second week for Agnes Obel and Familiar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And the Panel? They say....
...the Lovin' Spoonful with Summer In The City!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Next week, forward again to 1970! See you then!
