Super Hits of The 70s: Have A Nice Day, Vol. 16

https://usatthebiglead.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/don-smiling-at-the-end.gif?w=1000

Seems like a lot of these particular songs would have also been good end tracks for Mad Men.

oh man this might be the first of these comps where i just can't hang at all.

i did revive the earworm mashups thread yesterday to post this, though:

woke up with a new one this morning:

Eighteen wheels and a do-zen roses/
Don't you know me, I'm your native son

― andrew m., Tuesday, September 11, 2018 3:25 PM (yesterday)

"Vehicle": the mother of all David Clayton-Thomas Syndrome songs. (And one of the most obnoxious hits of the era.)

"Ride Captain Ride" for me--and yeah, I can definitely project that one into a Mad Men episode.

Ride Captain Ride or I'd Love to Change the World

...or City of New Orleans

City of New Orleans is one of the MANY songs that would make a better national anthem than SSB

I literally only know the New Seekers song, so I'm out of here.

This is pretty wretched. Ten Years After is my favorite thing on here, but I think of that more as a classic rock cut; it barely squeaked into the top 40. Aside from that, probably Blues Image.

Didn't know the singer-songwriter of "Vehicle" was also in Survivor and cowrote "Eye of the Tiger," arguably an obnoxious hit of another era.

It's "Ride Captain Ride" for me also, once a friendly staple of aor radio.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/cryptosicko/playlist/3FxouxArORQNLcpUYYiDLc?si=NGjmhXEuRKmWDjLM15U9TQ

(no "Midnight Cowboy" or "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," and I dunno about "Toast and Marmalade for Tea," "Overture for Tommy" or "Small Beginnings." "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast" claims to be "re-recorded in stereo," whatever that means.)

I love "Never Ending Song of Love," but my love for Steve Goodman is stronger. It's City of New Orleans for me.

I never knew Kode 9 wrote songs for Arlo Guthrie

Didn't know the singer-songwriter of "Vehicle" was also in Survivor and cowrote "Eye of the Tiger"

Yikes--that makes so much sense. Did he also write "The Final Countdown"? That'd be like the perfect trifecta.

I also love, in context, the Midnight Cowboy theme music, but I'm thinking of the Toots Thielemans version. Not sure what Ferrante & Teicher do with it, or if it's even the same thing.

So nuts that Ferrante and Teicher and Wayne Newton would be played on a radio station next to The Ides of March back then. Although I don't remember F&T on my local top 40, I sure remember hitting the channel button when Wayne Newton came on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHAw1NevuyI

Ferrante & Teicher: "Midnight Cowboy"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n0uVCWqsZs

Robert John: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"

OK the Ferrante & Teicher version of "Midnight Cowboy" is not good, the Assembled Multitude's "Overture from Tommy" is out of tune but still better than Ferrante & Teicher. And that's one of the poorest versions of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" I've ever heard. Hit singles? What were you thinking USA?

I'd Love To Change The World

Spectacular Poll.
And thanks for making me discover Tom Jones' cover of 'Vehicle' (also covered by Shirley Bassey, Sammy Davis Jr. and Chet Baker).

Hesitant to click on that. Or am I?

It feels wrong to pick such an FM song on an AM compilation series, but "I'd Love to Change the World" it is.

Oh, it's *that* Flash - the What Peter Banks Did Next after Yes band, with the now rather dodgy album cover art. "Small Beginnings" isn't bad actually, very much in the vein of those two Yes albums he played on. The version on the Spotify is the original, albeit the full length album version not the single edit.

I own The Assembled Multitude's one and only album; bought it in a charity shop. Disappointing, mainly.

Ferrante & Teicher chanced their arm regularly (about twice a year) throughout the sixties and into the 70s with a single, more often than not a cover of a movie theme tune. Throw enough mud and something will stick, and "Midnight Cowboy" stuck. Seen this album in chazza shops too, but don't own. It absolutely screams 1969, when many easy listening pioneers tried to get down with the kids with both contemporary material and rock session musicians - in addition to the electric harpsichord at the start is that Vinnie Bell I hear on watery guitar and electric sitar? The strings and choir overwhelm the arrangement, sadly. You can barely hear the duo's pianos. The version of "Aquarius" on the same album is more successful.

Thanks for the Tom Jones link - awesome stuff. Song needs someone like Tom to pull it off, and it sounds like he's singing "got to have your child"! The women's reactions are understandable.

Changing the World vs Teaching the World To Sing? Both are voting options but I think I'll buy a coke instead. Never seen Mad Men, but I've belatedly *got* the first post in this thread, thanks to youtube. I remember the ad from the time: another assembled multitude, without which The Polyphonic Spree probably wouldn't exist :)

Voting for Flash.

Somehow missed the New Seekers. So I change my vote (which I hadn't yet cast) to them--probably would have gone with "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" before Mad Men, definitely after.

I really like how weird this volume is. It makes sense that it feels so disjointed because it's the first one that's a "mop-up" job. It doesn't pick up chronologically from the previous one.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

I got caught up in a bunch of stuff this week and didn't vote, but had that not happened, I would have gone for Arlo, so no worries.

I voted for Arlo, but I'm disappointed Delaney and Bonnie didn't register a vote. That song has been covered a zillion times (New Seekers had the hit in the UK) but no one else had the easy rolling groove D&B consistently created.