Responsibilities accumulate and errands call. That’s okay; as some younger folks call it these days, that’s adulting. And I’m feeling better today than I did last week. Not entirely back, but closer than I was.
So to keep things brief here but still find some music I’d not heard before (or at least hadn’t thought about for a long time), I ducked into the Billboard Hot 100 from this date in 1975, and played with the numbers today’s date gave me: 9-13-75.
I didn’t expect anything new at Nos. 9 or 13, and I was right. At No. 9, I got “Run, Joey, Run” by David Geddes, a record that I try not to think about, and at No. 13, I got “That’s The Way Of The World” by Earth, Wind & Fire, a record that I’m happy to think about but one that’s eminently familiar.
So Odd and Pop and I turned our gaze to No. 75 in that long-ago chart and found Jessi Colter’s: “You Ain’t Never Been Loved (Like I’m Gonna Love You).” I’d never heard it, so as it played, I hit the books and the charts. It turns out that some of the info in the weekly charts I got from a board or forum long ago conflicts slightly with the information in my reference library. That on-line compilation – in which I have found some errors over the years – indicates that “You Ain’t Never . . .” is a double-sided single, with “What’s Happened To Blue Eyes” on the flip.
But the listing of the Hot 100 at the Billboard website lists only “You Ain’t Never . . .” at No. 75 for the week in question. In Top Pop Singles, Joel Whitburn shows “You Ain’t Never . . .” entering the Hot 100 on September 6 and peaking at No. 64, with “Blue Eyes” coming into the chart on October 11 and peaking at No. 57. Whitburn’s listing seems to indicate that “Blue Eyes” was the A side, and in fact, “Blue Eyes” went to No. 5 on the magazine’s country chart and “You Ain’t Never . . .” did not hit the country Top 40.
If there’s a mystery there, I’ll not be unraveling it this morning. And having listened to both of the tracks this morning, I find “You Ain’t Never Been Loved (Like I’m Gonna Love You)” to be a better record, one that I like pretty well on first listen. So here it is, and I’ll be off to take care of my world.
We’ll pick up today with summer songs, continuing from last week’s post that looked at the years 1968-70 as well as at 1972’s “Where Is the Love” by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway, the tune that sparked the idea.
So what about 1971? Well, that one’s easy. I spent most days that summer mowing lawns and cleaning floors at St. Cloud State and most evenings hanging around with Rick with a radio playing. And despite the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” and “Treat Her Like A Lady” by the Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose and a few other records, it was the summer of “It’s Too Late” by Carole King. As I wrote in a post a couple of years ago: “There are few sounds that pull me back in time as potently as the piano figure that opens ‘It’s Too Late’.” And as friend and commenter jb said in response to that post, that piano figure is “the sound of the summer of ’71 distilled to a few seconds.”
Having taken care of 1972 in last week’s post, we move on to 1973. Several records bring back specific moments from that summer when I prepared to leave home for the first time: Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome,” Dr. John’s “Right Place Wrong Time,” Billy Preston’s “Will It Go Round In Circles” and a pair of records by ex-Beatles, Paul McCartney’s “My Love” and George Harrison’s “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth).” But Deep Purple’s “Smoke On The Water” was just as present during that season. And it earns its place as the summer record of 1973 for that omnipresence and for one specific moment. Three years ago, I wrote:
Sometime during late July or early August of that summer, many of us who would spend the next school year in Denmark through St. Cloud State got together for a picnic at Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis. At one point during that evening, I was standing at the base of Minnehaha Falls – the waterfall that gives the large park its name – talking for the first time with a young woman who would turn out to be a very important part of my next nine months. Some distance away, another group of picnickers had a music source of some kind, and in that moment, those distant picnickers were listening to “Smoke On The Water.” Ever since, that opening riff puts me back at the base of Minnehaha Falls during the first tentative moments of a friendship that for a while became something else.
The first month of the odd summer of 1974 found me at home recovering from a still-unexplained illness, and for the rest of the summer I worked part-time at the St. Cloud State library. I also hung around with Rick and with folks from The Table in the student union as I tried to figure out how to fit my memories of my nine months away into the life I was resuming in St. Cloud. The music around me, as I look back almost forty years, seems as unsettled as I was that summer. There were some big hits and some good records: “Band on the Run” by Paul McCartney & Wings, “Sundown” by Gordon Lightfoot, “Rock the Boat” by the Hues Corporation, “Please Come To Boston” by Dave Loggins. But none of those sum up the summer, a season that seems to have been filled not only with relief that I was whole but with dissonance and odd angles and strange transitions. And the record from that summer that still feels both ways all these years later is Steely Dan’s “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.”
A year later, I felt like me again, going to school, working with folks I liked, spending time with friends from The Table and from elsewhere, playing some tennis and on one memorable evening, being hypnotized with several other patrons on the small stage of the Press Bar downtown. Music was all around me, from the jukebox in Atwood Center and from radios in many places, including my room, my car and the apartments and rooms of the several young women I dated that summer. I recall “Philadelphia Freedom” by Elton John, “Love Will Keep Us Together” by the Captain & Tennille, “The Hustle” by Van McCoy & The Soul City Symphony, “I’m Not In Love” by 10 c.c. and several more. But there are two countryish records that pull me back more potently to the summer of 1975, and they both play in memory from the boothside jukebox at the Country Kitchen: “Wildfire” by Michael Martin Murphey and “I’m Not Lisa” by Jessi Colter. Same companion across the booth? Yes. Same night? I think so.
That’s a nice place to stop for today. I had no plans to make this a three-part series, but that’s where it’s gone. We’ll pick up the last couple of college years and whatever other summers stick with me sometime in the next week.
One can tell, just by looking at the cloud of artists’ names here and at Echoes In The Wind Archives, that one of the main pillars on which this blog has rested is Johnny Rivers. There are a few artists whose names are larger in those two clouds, but not many.* I think I know his catalog pretty well, but I was reminded again this morning how vast that catalog is.
Poking through the Billboard Hot 100 from January 22, 1966 – forty-seven years ago today – I saw Rivers’ name listed at No. 35 with “Under Your Spell Again.” I didn’t recognize the title, and I wandered off to YouTube to dig.
I’d never heard Rivers’ version, but at that point, I recognized the song (though I do not know when or where I’ve ever heard it) and learned rapidly that Buck Owens wrote it and took it to No. 4 on the country chart in 1959.
Just to wrap things up before I go deal with the minor tasks of real life, Rivers’ version went no higher in 1966, peaking at No. 35. The website Second Hand Songs lists twenty-seven versions of the song (although there are likely more out there). Lloyd Price’s version bubbled under at No. 123 in 1962, while on the country chart, Ray Price’s version went to No. 5 in 1959 and a duet by Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter went to No. 39 in 1971. Here’s that duet (which I like a lot):
And we’ll leave it there this morning (although I think I’d like to dig up the version of the tune that the band Southern Fried released in 1971). Unless the bottom drops out, I’ll be here tomorrow, most likely looking at versions of “Spanish Harlem.”
*After writing this post, I did a quick bit of research. Between this site and the earlier locations of Echoes In The Wind (with about nine months’ worth of posts yet to be revived at the archives site), Rivers’ music has been featured twenty-six times. Only three other artists and one group have been featured more. Here’s the top five:
Bob Dylan (57)
Bruce Springsteen (40)
Richie Havens (29)
The Band (28)
Johnny Rivers (26)