The Poppy Family Interzone: Billboard's Top 40 for October 30, 1971

Some key Canadiana standing in for the Poppys (Poppies?): Five Man Electrical Band, Lighthouse, Stampeders.

Alternate Title: The David Clayton-Thomas Syndrome Interzone

"Have You Seen Her"

(xpost) Yes! Chicago and Lighthouse...where are you, Rare Earth and Vehicle?

"Everybody's Everything" has some of that...so much that for years I thought <it was> BST--until I bought Santana III and there it was.

You're right, it does. I can make up a rough Top 10:

1. "If You Really Love Me," Stevie Wonder
2. "So Far Away," Carole King
3. "Maggie May," Rod Stewart
4. "Tired of Being Alone," Al Green
5. "Superstar," Carpenters
6. "Thin Line Between Love and Hate," Persuaders
7. "Yo-Yo," Osmonds
8. "Do You Know What I Mean," Lee Michaels
9. "Ain't No Sunshine," Bill Withers
10. "Only You Know and I Know," Delaney & Bonnie

It's kind of shocking to think there was a moment you could turn on a regular radio and hear a playlist filled with so much greatness

Al Green; runner-up, McCartney.

Les Crane is the outlier here. How did that become a hit?

"Reason to Believe" was the A side of the Rod Stewart single, but B side "Maggie May" became more popular by the time it topped the charts. Both charted which is why both are listed here. Same with the Carpenters and Carole King.

Anyway, the Persuaders over a shortlist that included Bill Withers, Rod Stewart (both sides), Lighthouse, Carole King (A side only), and Coven.

I don't think I knew that about the Stewart single...I cut-and-paste everything from here:

https://top40weekly.com/us-top-40-singles-week-ending-october-30th-1971/

The Guess Who's "Rain Dance," bubbling under at #43, would be #2 or #3 on my list above.

They swapped the A and B sides on later pressings

Don't think I've ever heard this till right now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWGpGUUB2lY

Not particularly good...first comment is from the band's guitarist!

How did that escape the Have A Nice Day compilers collective net?

Similar lyrical vibe to "Escape (the Piña Colada Song)"

I like when members of obscure bands leave comments about their songs on YouTube. Awhile back I was reading through the comments for "Don't Say No" and "The Night We Fell in Love", a Curt Boettcher-produced sunshine-pop single from 1967 that is The Oracle's entire recorded legacy; just about all surviving band members, one who had forgotten he was ever in a band, used the comments thread to reconnect after 40+ years of not hearing from each other, reminisce, and let us all in on the band's experiences and why we never heard from them again (involves conscription, drugs, and one guy going missing just as the band was sought to join a Dick Clark Productions tour).

oops Keith Olsen in on the production too. Big-name producers for such a small-name band

That period conceit of a male singer addressing his partner as 'Woman'...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Hard to vote against Al Green in anything, but I'm taking my opportunity to make sure Denise LaSalle gets a vote. Love that song so much.

36 37 WOMEN'S LOVE RIGHTS --•-- Laura Lee (Hot Wax)-9

This is amazing. I love women’s lib songs.

i'm gonna vote for "desiderata" because we all need a reminder that humanity is a fucking terrifying cult. jfc that song creeps me out. deep serial killer vibes, mr. crane.

also here's a fun todd in the shadows video on coven.

Les Crane is the outlier here. How did that become a hit?

1971 also gave us "Once You Understand," although it didn't chart until 1972.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4FEkAohqvY

welp, i've wasted my life listening to jazz and punk rock. clearly i should've been playing that on repeat.

also yeah: never heard that until right now. magnificent.

like omg, is this what a spiritual awakening feels like????

okay, i've finished my coffee. i'll stop spamming this thread now.

👍👍thx for the morning laugh, dan.

weirdly leaning towards the chi-lites!

i don't think i'm very familiar w/ early 70s hits but i too at struck by how many classics here were all doing their thing at the same time. pretty impressive

voting "maggie may"

Another one on its way (charted in '73):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4i3LmR0K74

WHAT IS THAT

o_o

So thrilled to see people getting their first taste of 'Once You Understand' itt.

'Sweet City Woman' is one of my favorite '70s singles so maybe that. I should review some of the less familiar cuts here, though, before deciding (I've heard them all in my epic trek through every charting single from the '50s to the mid-'90s but it's all a blur in my memory).

Are we to assume that if the father had been accepting of his son's hair and guitar, the son wouldn't have died of a drug overdose? And so now the father understands? And that makes things a little easier for him, despite his son being dead?

Or do we think that if the son had been working 72-hour weeks like his father, he wouldn't have had time to overdose on drugs?
I'm pretty sure the daughter had someone over while she was babysitting, though; she never denies it!

WHAT IS THAT

Gordon Sinclair was this venerable old Canadian broadcaster, 73 when he recorded "The Americans." I was too young at the time to remember him well, but Mike Wallace or somebody like that might be a good comparison.

'Sweet City Woman' is one of my favorite '70s singles

Great! They were sort of our CCR...not really. I had the "Sweet City Woman" album (Against the Grain) on 8-Track.

You can't have 'The Americans' without 'An American's Answer'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmmE8uWmdMY

"The Americans" is one of these awesome-terrible things that could only have happened in the mid '70s

CFRB radio was on in our house for 12 hours a day in the 70s, I got to hear a lot of Gordon Sinclair.

Is there a thread for charting spoken word singles? There were soooo many in the Vietnam era.

Loads of good songs. I voted for Denise LaSalle because I only discovered it a few months ago.

Number of years ago for me, but same. My local Top 40 when I was a kid really shied away from songs that were too overtly R&B.

I was lucky to have a real top 40 local station that would play anything that charted high regardless of style. Led Zeppelin and Perry Como on the same station. Plus R&B stompers, soft pop singalongs, oddball novelty songs, folkies, anything.

The station I grew up with--Toronto's 1050 CHUM (one of North America's signature Top 40 stations, I believe)--was the same. I checked the handful of records I don't remember on this list, and only a couple didn't chart on CHUM; Les Crane seems to be the only artist who didn't chart with anything. (8th Day charted with a different record.) Such stations played virtually everything. Not totally--that's why Christgau had to invent "semi-popular music" for the Velvet Underground and such--but it really was the wild west up till things started to fragment within a few years.

Chum chart from the exact same date:

http://chumtribute.com/71-10-30-chart.jpg

Mine was KDWB in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and here's a link to their chart from 11/1/71. Isaac Hayes and Al Green are there, but Denise LaSalle, The Persuaders, and The 8th Day are not.

http://www.oldiesloon.com/mn/kd110171.htm

Hit records were more regional at that point in time, which is how you had singles on the charts for months as they became hits in different cities.

so much good shit in this.

honestly I'm not a huge Rod fan but these are two of his best back to back. I'm also not like the board hive-mind that thinks Imagine is aural diarrhea, though I wouldn't votes for it.

Cat Stevens "Peace Train" isn't my favorite Cat but I like it.

Al Green "Tired of Being Alone" is in my top 5 Al Green, "Inner City Blues" also a fav but I think I gotta give it to Al.

I'M SO TIRRRRED OF BEING ALOOOONE

oh and the Chi-Lites and Chicago were honorable mentions too

Sure, that’s how KDWB had songs by Springwell and Mason Proffitt charting, bands from Michigan and Illinois that did better here than elsewhere. xxp

The CHUM equivalent of a regional hit was Joey Gregorash's Neil Young cover (Gregorash also from Winnipeg).

Hating is important when it comes to Top 40, so songs I hate...The Donny Osmond cover is quite lame, I'm sure, but so's the original--don't really remember it. Nothing here that I know really jumps out at me as venal (even Joan Baez's Band cover--guess I don't revere the original enough). K-Tel's heyday is just around the corner: much more to hate in a couple of years.

Such stations played virtually everything. Not totally--that's why Christgau had to invent "semi-popular music" for the Velvet Underground and such

But the Velvets didn't have a hit single. It's not like any VU song made the charts but CHUM wouldn't play it because it didn't fit the format or wasn't mainstream enough.

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

i regret my joke vote, but am still happy with the results.

Never would’ve expected “One Tin Soldier” only getting one lousy vote.

Marvin woz robbed.

But the Velvets didn't have a hit single.

Isn't that kind of circular logic, though? Top 40 stations wouldn't play the Velvet Underground because they didn't have a hit single; but the Velvet Underground didn't have a hit single because Top 40 stations wouldn't play them. (The Velvets did release singles from the first two LPs.)

Sounds like circular logic, but usually isn't because Top 40 stations back then decided whether to add a new song by a new act (or older act with their first hit) by watching what was popular on more specialized charts (R&B/Soul, Jazz, Rock, AC) or singles from popular albums, or popular live acts. I recall on the aforementioned local Top 40 station (WPGC in DC) circa 1979 when a few unusual-sounding singles started bubbling up the charts - I remember the DJ saying on air that he had to convince the program manager to play "Rock Lobster" when it cracked the top 40 before he played it for the first time (with me listening). But that was a rarity at the time; Pink Floyd ("Another Brick in the Wall") and Frank Sinatra ("New York, New York") both got airplay in 1980 on local Top 40 because, well, both songs were hits. Only after that did Top 40 (oops, CHR) start tinkering with their playlists to keep out unwanted sounds they thought wouldn't appeal to their listeners. This resulted in radio getting increasingly fractured with subcategories (i.e. hot AC, lite AC, urban AC, etc.) and no longer having the Top 40 melting pot of my childhood.