I Think I Love You Still
(Pictured: A still from The Partridge Family shows Laurie wearing a chastity belt, apparently.)
We recently passed the anniversary of the debut of The Partridge Family in 1970. In 2010, I wrote a 40th anniversary tribute for Popdose. Here’s a reboot.
In September 1970, I was 10 years old, with the taste of a 10-year-old kid. And so my first favorite songs were light and happy and catchy and easy to sing. And that made me, and people like me, the prime target for The Partridge Family. For many boys of the ’70s, Shirley Jones would become their first MILF, and for many girls, David Cassidy would be their first celebrity love.
Years later, much of the music featured on the show still sounds mighty good, because many of their songs were written by the biggest cats in pop. The Partridge Family’s recordings were made by the group of Los Angeles session musicians known as the Wrecking Crew. Most of the voices were provided by the Ron Hicklin Singers, heard on hundreds of hit songs, movie soundtracks, TV themes, commercials, and radio jingles.
In honor of the anniversary, here’s one fan’s top five Partridge Family songs. Turn up your speakers until you can smell the polyester.
A Cup of Tea With Rod Stewart
(Pictured: L to R, Ian McLagen, Rod Stewart, Ronnie Lane, and Kenney Jones onstage, circa 1971.)
On October 2, 1971, Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May” hit #1 on the Hot 100, and Every Picture Tells a Story reached the top of the Billboard 200 album chart, nudging Carole King’s Tapestry to #2 after 15 weeks. It was the cream of a remarkable crop of albums. Also in the Top 10 during October 1971: Every Good Boy Deserves Favour by the Moody Blues, the Shaft soundtrack, Paul and Linda’s Ram, Who’s Next, The Carpenters, Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality, Sound Magazine by the Partridge Family (the latter three back-to back-to-back for the week of October 2 and damn, do I love the 70s), Teaser and the Firecat by Cat Stevens, Santana III, and John Lennon’s Imagine, which would take over the #1 slot on October 30.
On a gray and rainy morning not long ago, Every Picture Tells a Story was a very good companion on a long car trip. You can listen to it yourself while I’m ranking the tracks.
8. “That’s All Right”/”Amazing Grace.” Elvis owns “That’s All Right” and nobody else should mess with it. Rod’s “Amazing Grace,” which is not listed on the album jacket, is lovely, though.
7. “I Know I’m Losing You.” This thing rocks like crazy and you can hear how much Rod is into it, whooping and yelling as the band burns the joint down. I’m ranking it here because it doesn’t fit the intimate, unplugged vibe of the rest of the album.
6. “Seems Like a Long Time.” This is a beautiful song that ranks here because other stuff has to rank higher.
5. “Every Picture Tells a Story.” The hilariously rockin’ tale of a young world traveler who’s seen some wild shit, man: “I was arrested for inciting a peaceful riot / When all I wanted was a cup of tea.”
4. “Reason to Believe.” There was never anything else that sounded like this, with its piano chords tolling out the years like church bells; the violin, credited to London jazz musician Dick Powell, gives it a seriousness that few other AM radio hits could match.
3. “Maggie May.” Here’s how much this song means in my life: I have no children, but any daughter of mine would have been named Maggie May.
2 “Tomorrow Is a Long Time.” Elvis put this Bob Dylan song on the Spinout soundtrack in 1966 (although it’s not in the movie); Dylan himself didn’t release a version of it until 2010, and that was released a live performance of it from 1963 in 1971. (Corrected thanks to commenter David; I misread a source.) Rod’s version is breathtaking; Powell’s violin is magnificent.
1. “Mandolin Wind.” This song has everything that’s great about Rod Stewart’s first four albums in five-and-a-half minutes. The best of those albums were an English take on what the Band was doing at about the same time, which was Americana before the term existed. On “Mandolin Wind,” Rod’s singing is sensitive and heartfelt and even funny. (“I ain’t got much but what I’ve got is yours / Except of course my steel guitar.”) The band is similarly sensitive, but they rock the hell out of it at the end. Oddly, the identity of the mandolin player on “Mandolin Wind” is unclear. Ray Jackson of Lindisfarne claimed to be the guy; he played on “Maggie May” too, but Rod, having forgotten his name, credited him only as “the mandolin player in Lindisfarne. The name slips my mind.”
Several years ago, I put together a mix tape to help a young friend appreciate the genius of the early Rod. (She knew him only as a People magazine bon vivant, Great American Songbook plunderer, and impregnator of supermodels.) The tape wasn’t necessary, though. All she really needed to hear was Every Picture Tells a Story.
My October
(A fragment.)
She doesn’t come around as often as I would like, because we do not always get what we want.
(She is one of those who has taught me that lesson.)
But she’s always with me, even when I’m not with her.
She was there when dreams came true, and when nightmares became real.
She’s in the music I love the most, and in nearly every word I have ever written here.
Hello, October. I have missed you, and seeing you again is everything.
According to Plan
(Pictured: Melanie, archetypal hippie chick.)
(Here we are at the end of September in 1970 for the second post in a row. Quelle surprise.)
I am starting to think that my favorite American Top 40 shows are the earliest ones, because they’re so odd compared to the way the show would sound by the time it was heard around the world a few years hence.
The 12th show, for the week of September 26, 1970, is weirdly paced. Casey goes quickly from point to point, often barely even pausing as he back-announces one song and front-announces another, like he’s hurrying to shave off a second here or a second there. His inflections change from song to song, punching into boss-jock mode sometimes and dipping down to FM-radio whisperer at other times. The latter is unintentionally hilarious when he uses it at one point to say, “Something happens to a woman over 35 when she hears the voice of Tom Jones.”
It wouldn’t be long before the shows were entirely scripted, but there are moments in the 1970 shows that feel like a guy winging it on live radio, throwing in bits on the fly. For example, on the 9/26/70 show, introducing “Long Long Time” by Linda Ronstadt, Casey offhandedly mentions that she will be singing the theme to Andy Griffith’s new TV series that fall. In 1970, Griffith, two years removed from playing Sheriff Andy Taylor, starred in The Headmaster. The show was a 30-minute drama in which Griffith played the headmaster of a private school in California, a role intended to be far removed from the kindly North Carolina dude he played throughout the 60s. It was not a hit, roundly spanked by another new show airing that fall, The Partridge Family, and barely made it to January, At that point, it was retooled as The New Andy Griffith Show, in which he went back to playing a kindly North Carolina dude—and it bombed, too.
Long story short: Linda did indeed sing the Headmaster theme, a song called “Just a Man.” It’s not particularly good, but you can hear a bit of it here.
During the first year of American Top 40, Casey occasionally refers to songs moving up or down on the chart by specific number of “points,” which is a word I’ve not heard anyone else use when talking about chart positions. On the 9/26/70 show, two records went up a remarkable number of points. Casey mentions that since their debut in 1969, the Jackson Five have never failed to make #1. Their latest hit, “I’ll Be There,” certainly seems destined to reach the summit, having debuted the previous week at #40 before moving up 21 points to #19. But they have company: another debut from the previous week, “Green Eyed Lady” by Sugarloaf, is also up 21 points, from #39 to #18.
Certain records on this chart make me wish I could get inside the heads of radio station music directors and find out what they were thinking. Melanie’s “Peace Will Come (According to Plan)” is hippie drivel, but there it is at #35 in the nation anyhow. (Melanie was 23 years old in 1970, but she sings like a 75-year-old woman.) “Neanderthal Man” by Hotlegs is a record we’ve noted before, little more than a drum track with the vocal barely intelligible in the mix and positively interminable, yet there is is up five points to #22. And at #19, it’s “Rubber Duckie” by Ernie, the Sesame Street character, which is just painful.
On the twin subjects of “what were you thinking?” and “sweet mama that’s painful,” one of the extras heard on the original version of the show in 1970 was “Old Rivers” by Walter Brennan, in which the famous Western actor recites the story of a poor farmer’s mule. (It had reached #5 on the Hot 100 in 1962, which is more evidence that the British Invasion had to happen.) “Old Rivers” was snipped from the recent syndicated repeat, along with “My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own” by Connie Francis and “Lay Lady Lay” by Bob Dylan. All three were offered to current affiliates as optional fillers. The repeat included another extra, “Your Precious Love” by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, fitting given that the top two hits of the week were both Motown hits: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Diana Ross at #1 and “War” by Edwin Starr at #2.
I’ve said it before: it’s fascinating to eavesdrop as Casey Kasem and his producers figure out what American Top 40 is supposed to be, in real time, a week at a time.
One Day in Your Life: September 28, 1970
(Pictured: a group of travelers arrives at the airport in Rome on September 28, 1970.)
September 28, 1970, was a Monday. It’s the first day of the fall semester at Kent State University in Ohio, where four anti-war protesters were killed by National Guardsmen in May. Folk singer Phil Ochs headlines a memorial event that includes speeches by civil rights activist Dr. Ralph Abernathy and Thomas Grace, a student wounded in May. Last week, the Scranton Commission investigation into the shootings determined that even if the Guardsmen believed they were in danger, the situation did not call for lethal force. Thirty-two Americans taken hostage three weeks ago in a series of airplane hijackings in the Middle East arrive in Cyprus on their way home; six more former hostages are free in Jordan but yet to start for home. Time‘s cover story this week is about Palestinian guerillas and the Jordanian civil war. Egyptian president Gamel Abdel Nasser dies of a heart attack at age 52 and is succeeded by Anwar Sadat; author John Dos Passos dies at age 74. Running for reelection in California, Governor Ronald Reagan visits a Honda car plant in Gardena. President and Mrs. Nixon visit Pope Paul VI during their trip to Rome. Also in Rome today: the Rolling Stones, who arrive from Vienna for a concert tomorrow night.
This week’s Sports Illustrated features a cover foldout with pictures of major league managers Danny Murtaugh of Pittsburgh, Leo Durocher of the Chicago Cubs, and Gil Hodges of the New York Mets. Inside, the magazine reports on the controversy surrounding eight black football players at Syracuse University who have been suspended for the season over their discrimination complaint against the university. In today’s Peanuts strip, Lucy wonders why Schroeder never gives her flowers. On TV tonight, ABC’s second broadcast of Monday Night Football stars the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, who race to a 31-0 lead in the second quarter on the way to beating the Baltimore Colts, 44-24. The Colts will lose only one more game this season on their way to a Super Bowl win. Major sponsor Ford promotes the new 1971 Mustang, LTD, Maverick, and Torino models among the game’s commercials. CBS counters with Gunsmoke, The Lucy Show, Mayberry RFD, The Doris Day Show, and The Carol Burnett Show. NBC’s lineup includes The Red Skelton Show (new on NBC after 19 seasons on CBS), Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, and the theatrical movie The Lost Man, a 1969 film starring Sidney Poitier as a revolutionary on the run from the police.
Findings of a coroner’s inquest into the death of Jimi Hendrix on September 18th are announced in London. Hendrix choked to death while intoxicated on barbiturates. Badfinger plays at Eastern Washington College in Cheney, Washington; Yes plays at Aberystwyth University in Wales. The Moody Blues play the Spectrum in Philadelphia. At WDBQ in Dubuque, Iowa, “Cracklin’ Rosie” by Neil Diamond spends another week at #1 according to the station’s new music survey. New in the Top 10 are “Joanne” by Michael Nesmith, “Groovy Situation” by Gene Chandler, and “Indiana Wants Me” by R. Dean Taylor. The biggest mover on the chart is “Candida” by Dawn. Among the new songs on the survey are the latest hits by Mark Lindsay, Melanie, and Linda Ronstadt, along with last week’s Premier Single, “Don’t You Know” by Beefcake.
Perspective From the Present: Moody Blues flutist Ray Thomas fell off a stage platform just before the Spectrum show, breaking two toes—and his flute. He asked if anyone in the audience happened to have a flute he could use, and someone did. Whether this happened on September 28 or the night before isn’t clear; neither is it clear whether the Moodys played on back-to-back nights at the Spectrum or just one, and whether Thomas asked for a replacement flute on the first night or the second night. As for the band Beefcake, our friend Larry Grogan suspects it may be made up of songwriters Chris Arnold, David Martin, and Geoff Morrow, who recorded under several different names, and who wrote dozens of songs for acts from Elvis on down, including “Can’t Smile Without You,” made famous by Barry Manilow.
And as for the bigger hits from the fall of 1970, you know how I am about all that.
One Hit ’76
(Pictured: Louise Lasser, star of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, and Chevy Chase, doing a bit for Saturday Night Live. Lasser’s 1976 hosting gig was one of the most notorious in SNL history.)
September 25th is One-Hit Wonder Day. I usually forget to observe it, because every day is some kind of day and the good ones get lost in the shuffle. But here, a day late, is a list of one-hit wonders from 1976. It’s not the complete list for the year, but each one is the only chart entry for that artist.
“Junk Food Junkie”/Larry Groce. If I were still teaching social studies, I’d use “Junk Food Junkie” as a snapshot from the Me Decade because it rings so true. Idealism has its limits today, and it did back in the 70s, too. Groce has continued to record since the 70s and has been a host on West Virginia Public Radio since 1983. (Chart peak: #13, March 20)
“Baby Face”/Wing and a Prayer Fife and Drum Corps. The Corps was a studio group assembled by Harold Wheeler, who had been Burt Bacharach’s musical director in the 60s and would go on to a long career working in movies and TV, including many years as musical director of Dancing With the Stars. “Baby Face” is a disco version of a song made famous by Al Jolson in the 20s, if you think that’s something you need. (Chart peak: #14, March 6)
“Wham Bam (Shang-a-Lang)”/Silver. The distilled essence of 70s radio music and one of the glorious frozen moments from the fall of ’76. (Chart peak: #16, October 2)
“I’m Easy”/Keith Carradine. Oscar-winning song from Nashville. (Chart peak: #17, August 7)
“Street Singin'”/Lady Flash. A female trio who backed Barry Manilow during the last half of the 70s. Their lone hit is not as interesting as the story of one member. Lorraine “Reparata” Mazzola had joined Reparata and the Delrons (a group better known for their name than their music) in 1969. Although she wasn’t the original Reparata, she was happy to let people think she was. The original Reparata, Mary O’Leary, sued Mazzola and won her case when Mazzola didn’t show up for court. But Mazzola then legally changed her first name from Lorraine to Reparata, and continued to let people believe she had been lead singer of the Delrons. According to Wikipedia, that is, so who the hell knows. (Chart peak: #27, September 18)
“Roots, Rock, Reggae”/Bob Marley and the Wailers. Their only American chart single, from their most successful American album, Rastaman Vibration. (Not counting the back-catalog compilation Legend, which is one of the great success stories in pop music history. (Chart peak: #51, July 17.)
“BLT”/Lee Oskar. Oskar’s harmonica gave War its distinctive sound until he left the band in 1992. He’s been selling his own line of harmonicas ever since. (Chart peak: #59, July 24)
“You to Me Are Everything”/The Real Thing and “Mighty High”/Mighty Clouds of Joy. The question we often ask about one-hit wonders is how they could be so good yet manage to hit only once. In the case of the Real Thing, “You to Me Are Everything” was hamstrung by two competing versions in the marketplace at the same time. As for the Mighty Clouds of Joy, who knows? They were a gospel group who made the transition to pop in the 70s, and “Mighty High” is a rager. (Chart peak for the Real Thing: #64, August 28; for Mighty Clouds of Joy: #69, March 27.
“Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman”/Deadly Nightshade. Soap-opera parody Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, premiered in January 1976 and was one of the TV sensations of the year, syndicated around the country and running at all different times. It was supposed to be a comedy and sometimes it was, but it could be strange and disturbing, too. Members of the Deadly Nightshade had been playing together in rock bands since the 60s, but because they were all women, major labels didn’t take their groups seriously. Their disco version of the Hartman theme comes from an album called Funky and Western. (Chart peak: #79, July 31)
“The Game Is Over”/Brown Sugar. This Philly soul trio’s lone hit was written and produced by Vince Montana, who had been a member of MFSB and founded the Salsoul Orchestra—and it’s really good. (Chart peak: #79, March 13)
You can read about many more one-hit wonders if you revisit my Down in the Bottom series from a few years ago, in which I wrote about all of them to peak on the Hot 100 between #90 and #100 from 1955 through 1986.
Writer, radio jock, beer geek, Badger fan. They don't think it be like it is, but it do. 
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