The 1970s began just like the 60s ended, at least at the top of the charts. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head sung by B.J. Thomas, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and from the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid spent 4 weeks at Number 1. The first week was the last week of 1969 then topping the charts for the first 3 weeks of 1970.

It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Burt Bacharach’s score won for Best Score.

With Carole King, the song’s composer backing him on piano.

This is James Taylor’s only number 1 on the Billboard charts reaching the top spot on July 31, 1971.

The album Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon, the album where this song first appeared, peaked at the Number 2 spot on the albums charts. It was prevented from reaching Number 1 because Carole Kings’s Tapestry held the top spot. King’s album included her version of her song.

The song received two Grammy Awards. James Taylor won Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male for the song. It also won Best Song of the Year. Carole King was one of the few, if not the only, person to be involved in the winning of all five of the Grammy top awards. Along with these two she also won Record of the Year for It’s Too Late. Album of the Year for Tapestry as well as Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female.

Some may think the song is called “Starry Starry Night”, since that line is repeated a few times throughout the song. But the song is titled Vincent. And the Vincent of the song is artist Vincent van Gogh.

The song was written by McLean in late 1970 and appeared on the American Pie album. He had been looking at a book about the painter and while looking at a picture of van Gogh’s “Starry Night” he was inspired to write a song about van Gogh through the imagery of the painting.

McLean’s followup to American Pie didn’t reach the Top 10 in the United States. It peaked at number 12. It was a chart topper in May of 1972 in the in the U.K.

During the last days of 1971 and into 1972 everyone was listening to and trying to determine what the lyrics meant in Don McLean’s American Pie. Other than alluding to the deaths of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens on February 3, 1959, a day many have called the ‘Day the Music Died’ there could be many different meanings to parts of the song. McLean has said that he wrote it to be vague. And vague it is, but a very enjoyable vague that brings back memories to anyone who grew up during the 1960′s,

The single was released in November of 1971. Originally it was released as a edited version of the 8+ minutes song, then it was decided to split the songs into 2 parts. Many radio stations did play the entire song in an era when songs usually lasted 3 1/2 minutes. It quickly went to Number 1 reaching the top spot shortly after the New Year on January 15, spending 4 weeks there.

Elton John’s holiday song.

The song about infidelity, first by the wife of the singer and then the singer himself towards his secretary Maria.

The song reached Number 2 on the Billboard charts towards the end of 1969 and really shouldn’t be classified as a song of the 1970s. But it was a favorite of this author’s and I always sat back to listen to it when it played on the radio. Still do.

It was Greaves only hit record. He had a couple of more low charting singles in the early 1970s including a remake of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me” and Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale”.

Greaves was a nephew of the late great Sam Cooke.

Two clips of Edwin Starr singing his 1970 war protest song War. One is from the 70′s. Not sure when the second one is from, but it’s obviously much later than the first.

The song was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. It was Edwin Starr’s most successful song as well as the most successful anti-war song. It reached the number 1 spot in 1970.

The song was also recorded by the Temptations, although their version was slightly less intense than Starr’s. Motown was debating whether or not to release the Temptations version as a single when Starr volunteered to re-record the song. Motown had been afraid that it could hurt the Temptation’s career.

Starr’s version was more in a James Brown inspired Soul-Shout and the song instead of hurting his career gave him a successful one.

Bruce Springsteen had the song as part of his concert and it was recorded as part of the Live/1975-85 album. Springsteen released his live version as a single and once again it was a big seller, reaching Number 8 on the charts.

“War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothin’!” The line is just as meaningful in 2009 as it was in 1970. It’s surprising that someone hasn’t re-recorded it. At least the Starr and the Springsteen versions are still being played.

Herbie Hancock is one of those musicians who seem to have been around forever. He first came on the scene in 1962 when he recorded his album Watermelon Man then got more attention when he joined Miles Davis and his band.

He also composed the music for Bill Cosby’s Fat Albert TV cartoon series.

By the 1970′s he had begun to work with electronic music and his 1974 Album Head Hunters showed his Funky side.

The Album version of the song was over 15 minutes of pure Funky Jazz.

By 1976 Johnny Cash had already been performing for 20 years and for many of those years he was at the top of the Charts.

it was in 1976 that he did the story song One Piece at a Time. It’s the story of an auto assembly line worker built a car with one stolen piece sneaked out of the factory. The song was composed by Wayne Kemp.

There was a car built for the song by Bruce Fitzpatrick, owner of Abernathy Auto Parts and Hilltop Auto Salvage in Nashville, TN. He had all the different models of Cadillacs mentioned in the song when it was released, and built a Cadillac using the song as a model.

The song reach the Number 1 spot on the County charts on May 29, 1976.

Seasons in the Sun, the story of a dying man, bidding farewell to friends and family, was written in 1961 in French by the Belgian poet-composer Jacques Brel (Le moribond) with the English translation done by Rod McKuen. McKuen’s version was recorded by Bob Shane of the Kingston Trio in 1964. Even though it didn’t sell well, Canadian Terry Jacks liked the song.

While working with the Beach Boys, he had them record the song. The group refused to release the track. Jacks decided to record the song himself. After getting permission he changed the words to the last verse and made other minor changes in the song.

The song was released in Canada in 1973 and became at the time the best selling single in Canadian history. it was released in the US and reached the Number one spot on March 2, 1974 remaining there for three weeks.

Added Bonus a fan video using the Beach Boys version