Super Hits of The 70s: Have A Nice Day, Vol. 3

I would've assumed 'Gypsy Woman'.

That’s the OTHER one

Is the problem with the Mungo Jerry track the endorsement of drinking and driving? If not, I'm not sure I geddit.

If her daddy's rich take her out for a meal
If her daddy's poor just do what you feel

Shrugemoji

I've always been too annoyed with the song on musical grounds to be offended by its lyrics.

I'm not sure I could wholly express what it is I hate about the song; I suspect that the very things that people love about it are the same things that I find obnoxious.

Today I’m really feeling Montego Bay

Today I’m really feeling Montego Bay

i've now heard melanie and hotlegs and gene pitney on crank for the first time. i only really knew mungo from the previous ilm litigation.

i don't think i'm qualified to vote in this poll, but i won't let that stop me yet. larnin. it's what we do.

As for Jerry Reed, I suspect that he is one of those figures that, if I'd lived through the 70s, I would have hated the way that I hated, say, Billy Ray Cyrus when I was a kid, but I mostly regard him as a curiosity, part of a weird cultural moment that produced things like "Convoy," Smokey and the Bandit and, later, The Dukes of Hazard. He even was even a "guest star" on Scooby Doo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWG_R6SjUNY

Oh I love that swamp countryfunk thing. Amos Moses is a great song. Thought it was a Tony Joe White at first.

Hmm, maybe I need to read through the ILM litigation of 'In The Summertime' but that lyric seems...pretty innocuous? I don't think there's anything in the context of the song that suggests 'do what you feel' = 'get as handsy as you like' rather than 'do whatever you collectively choose to do as an alternative to going out for a meal'.

^^^ totes agree with this reading.

Keep in mind that lyricists of this general era were not at all subtle about treating women like objects when that was the message they were trying to convey.

Good point.

LOL I forgot about "In the Summertime", I thought the problem might lie with the protagonist of "Indiana Wants Me" murdering someone for talking dirty to his wife - sticks and stones and all that.

When I was going through one of my obsessive binges on every charting single of a given year, there was one that jumped out at me (like '62 or '63) as one replete with songs about casually shooting the people in their lives over relatively minor infractions.

(I'm going to resist the urge to reconstruct that grammatical disaster of a sentence and trust that y'all got the general thrust.)

damn the past is a foreign country sometimes

def not voting bobby sherman because i am dead now

Bobby Sherman's continued presence in the pop charts of this era reminds me of some Clowes drawing of a grotesque-looking elderly adult gaudily dressed as a teen and fooling exactly no one.

Despite hearing all of these at some point, I had never heard of Bobby Bloom - other collaborations, accidentally shooting himself at 28.

w/r/t Mungo Jerry - at about the age of 9 I understood that couplet to mean that if you were poor your father couldn't protect you.

Voting for "Indiana Wants Me" - because it sounds like a Partridge Family song, about murder.

If her daddy's rich take her out for a meal
If her daddy's poor just do what you feel

We did go over this, and I'm not especially eager to do it again, but if the guy's saying he'll take a rich girl to dinner but do what he feels like with a not-rich girl, how do you make the leap to rape? How do go right past "She's not rich, so we'll skip dinner and just go out for a drink or a movie instead"? He's cheap, and he's found a convenient out for his cheapness. I just find it bizarre that anyone can read menace into "In the Summertime."

"do you go"

Mungo Jerry looks like a motherfucker with some dark secrets

https://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0003/762/MI0003762461.jpg?partner=allrovi.com

I wouldn’t let him take me anywhere.

Bootsie Collins is a Jerry Reed fan. He shared "Amos Moses" a few months back online.

Jerry Reed had this movie/tv persona, but he was one of the better guitar players in country music.

I love "Green Eyed Lady". That is one swanky guitar riff. The long version is the good one. To me, it's a bit like "Blinded by the Light" in that it is this pop song, but has this extended structure that circles around.

Partridge Family has a more pedestrian beat and a less groovy arrangement than I remember.

'Green-Eyed Lady' pretty unbeatable here.

"Neanderthal Man" for the sonic brilliance easy, "Green-Eyed Lady" has the braggadocio and arrangement down, but I gotta go for "Indiana Wants Me" just for the insanity of its dreamy regrets overtaken by aggro police action and shootouts. "Bye honey, I'm about to kill a bunch of people and be gunned down." The early seventies!

Bobby Sherman's galumphing always makes me laugh, and Bobby Bloom...galumphs just as hard but with better bass. Though when he busts out an _Oklahoma!_ number at the end it's a reminder he should have never have left the lounge.

I genuinely don't know which of these is being singled out as THE problematic one.

― Not with a bang but a MAGA (Old Lunch), Wednesday, June 13, 2018 11:08 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I would've assumed 'Gypsy Woman'.

― Not with a bang but a MAGA (Old Lunch), Wednesday, June 13, 2018 11:09 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That’s the OTHER one

― YouTube_-_funy_cats.flv (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Wednesday, June 13, 2018 11:13 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What's problematic about "Gypsy Woman"? Did Curtis not get paid or something?

Just the basic questionability of the term 'gypsy'.

Hmm, must have missed that debate.

Not sure what to vote for. More than half of these are contenders rn.

i went through this phase where i was really into deconstructed versions of '70s pop hits, like cheer-accident's version of "shaft", etc. one of the songs i was really into was thinking fellers union local 282's version of "green-eyed lady".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8TMvubo8Lo

anyway they're not french but they have that fucking bassline, early '70s pop basslines are the best, so that.

french? danish. whatever.

Difficult group to be in

Sorry, wrong thread

This is as good a place as any to admit that for the longest time I thought Alive and Kicking was some secret collab between Janis Joplin & Tommy James. I think this was based off the misreading of a write-up on "Tighter, Tighter" in the Book of Rock Lists.

Tommy James wrote it, didn’t he?

*scrolls upthread, checks*

In early 1970 the band began recording sessions. A song written and produced by Tommy James, Bob King and arranged by Jimmy Wisner was to be recorded, and although James originally considered having his friends do this song - now known as "Crystal Blue Persuasion" - he liked it so much he decided to keep it for himself. As a gesture of friendship to the group he wrote "Tighter, Tighter" for them. After recording the hit song the group replaced Vito and Dave with Ronny Pell and Johnny Parisio. With the new line-up, "Tighter, Tighter" was released.

The CBP story doesn't quite wash, as it was recorded and hit a year prior to the writing and recording of "Tighter, Tighter". #TommyJamesTruther

James recorded his own version which flopped in the mid-70s.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I believe lead singer of Alive and Kicking was Pepe Something.

Wow, they are still around: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alive_N_Kickin%27

Wow, one of the members, Bruce Sudano, was married to Donna Summers. Also, according to his Wikipedia page:

Alive N Kickin' did a promotional tour of the United States as the opening act for Chicago and Frank Zappa.

The strongest shit i give about this is that donna summer was just called donna summers, which is like calling pres grant “pres grants.”

James redd this is pure age bias on my part pls excuse-

Dang, I can’t believe I made such a typo. Please accept apologies from aging brain.

I love that Melanie video for how bizarre the disconnect is.

But a lot of these seemingly missed the cut.

Just the nature of radio in every era, no? There are so many amazing '50s songs that have vanished, even though they were moderate hits in their day. A big world gets narrowed to a small percentage of songs that never go away, and sometimes the weeding out seems rather arbitrary. And with K-Tel, you tend to be working at the margins anyway.

The 70s are still struggling to create an identity for itself at this point

Definitely the story of '70-71--there's still a hangover/vacuum from the Beatles break-up. For me, that identity starts to take shape around '72 with Led Zeppelin, Bowie (glam in general, maybe the first really new '70s thing), Stevie Wonder, Elton John, and Steely Dan. Then disco, then punk, etc.

I don't know if I would judge a year by the Have A Nice Day series, which by design is highlighting the more, um, macrame aspects of the charts.

I mean Tapestry came out in 1971, which is as clear a line as any in the 70s.

Tapestry was monumental, but I think of it still being very much a '60s album; the singer-songwriter moment ('70-'72, when they were crossing over for #1 pop hits), to me, kept the '60s going for a couple of extra years--Dylan lingering, basically. (The feminist significance of Tapestry, yes, you can say that's new...a self-penned album by a woman selling ungodly numbers of records.)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wow...Three Brides, Three Bridesmaids. This was a packed volume. I went with "Tighter, Tighter" in the end.

I'm glad that "In the Summertime" has broken free of Harvey Weinstein.

“Have a drink, have a drive, go out and see what drunk driving fatalities look like, you irresponsible piece of shit.”

It's terrible how many drunk drivers have gotten off over the years with the Mungo Jerry defense.

"Mungo Jerry Only Pawn In Game Of Life..."

'71 was huge for, like, soul (what's going on), singer-songwriter (tapestry), british rock (hunky dory, who's next, the fourth zep album, master of reality, etc., etc.), but the biggest american rock albums of the year were by the doors, joplin, and hendrix. three guesses as to what they had in common.

ah missed this!

Would have voted for I Think I Love You or Tighter Tighter, but there’s a lot to love on this volume!

when i did the Bridesmaid polls i included second and third place finishes. so if you went by that for this one then it would be six. (FYI)

many xposts

I'll see about that, but remember this is a 25-Volume series, so with ties, it won't be feasible to include both on a 50 nom ballot.

good point. Just Can't Get Enough was 15 Volumes and that took 37 selections. you would probably have to run two.

I'd never heard of "Amos Moses" and "Green-Eyed Lady" before this poll. Seems like most of the American songs on these collections made no impression on this side of the Atlantic.

I wouldn't doubt it. Seems like it was much easier breaking Brit one-offs over here (see: the career of Tony Burrows) than vice-versa. Did Jerry Reed have any visibility across the pond prior to his movie career (and even then, was there an audience for his films over there)?

I hope all of the people who've just now been exposed to 'Green Eyed Lady' for the first time are non-Americans who've never heard a lick of classic pop radio. Otherwise I don't know how that's even possible.

But I'm jealous of you, whatever the circumstances!

Super Hits of The 70s: Have A Nice Day, Vol. 4

Did Jerry Reed have any visibility across the pond prior to his movie career (and even then, was there an audience for his films over there)?

What films? Also, Jerry Who?

in my house, yes

https://youtu.be/Ni8KBhnebwE

Get thee to a Smokey and the Bandit, Tom. It's a good time.

Jerry Reed seems like the funnest guy ever, imo.

Jerry Who? Jerry Lou

JER’REED

Ah, Wikipedia:

The song tells the story of a one-armed Cajun alligator hunter named Amos Moses, who was "named after a man of the cloth," son of Doc and Hanna Milsap, who lives "about 45 minutes southeast of Thibodaux, Louisiana" (which, at the rate of a mile per minute, would be near Galliano, Louisiana),