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.

January 15, 22, 29 & February 5 – “American Pie”; Don McLean

February 12 – “Let’s Stay Together”; Al Green

February 19 & 26, March 4, 11 – “Without You”; Nilsson

March 18 – “Heart of Gold”; Neil Young

March 25, April 1 & 8 – “A Horse With No Name”; America

April 15, 22, 29, & May 6, 13, 20 – “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”; Roberta Flack

May 27 – “Oh Girl”; The Chi-Lites

June 3 – “I’ll Take You There”; The Staple Singers

June 10, 17, 24 – “The Candy Man”; Sammy Davis Jr.

July 1 – “Song Sung Blue”; Neil Diamond

July 8, 15, & 22 – “Lean on Me”; Bill Withers

July 29, August 5, 12, & 19 – “Alone Again (Naturally)”;Gilbert O’Sullivan

August 26 – “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)”; Looking Glass

September 2 & 9 – “Alone Again (Naturally)”; Gilbert O’Sullivan

September 16 – “Black and White”; Three Dog Night

September 23, 30 & October 7 – “Baby, Don’t Get Hooked on Me”; Mac Davis

October 14 – “Ben”; Michael Jackson

October 21 & 2 – “My Ding-a-Ling”; Chuck Berry

November 4, 11, 18, & 25 – “I Can See Clearly Now”; Johnny Nash

December 2 – “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”; The Temptations

December 9 – “I Am Woman”; Helen Reddy

December 16, 23 & 30 – “Me and Mrs. Jones”; Billy Paul

In 1976 dance music, Disco music, was moving toward big popularity. Memphis Disc Jockey Rick Dees came up with a crazy parody on the craze featuring the Disco Duck.

Dees has said that the song was completed in a day, but took months until someone would join with him to record it. It was a minor hit in the south east by Fretone it was a national and international release by RSO Records, The song reached the top spot and remained a Top 10 hit for over 2 months in the fall of 1976.

Although the voice of Disco Duck sounds similar to Disney’s Donald Duck it was not recorded as sometimes noted by the voice of Donald, Clarence Nash. It was done by Ken Pruitt.

The song may have been a hit, but Dees didn’t quit his day job as a Memphis DJ. And he still is a DJ today although not in memphis, but in LA. He was in KIIS-AM/FM until relplaced by Ryan Seacrest in 2004 and is currently heard on KHHT, “Hot 92.3″.

The song was rarely played on the radio stations of Memphis. Dees station forbid him to play it or to even mention the song on his program. Other stations in Memphis refused to play it since it could have been seen as promoting the competition.

Peter Pan Records, the children record company, began in 1977 releasing a series of records using Irwin the Disco Duck as the DJ introducing The Wibble Wabble Singers and Orchestra version’s of popular songs. After the Disco Era ended Irwin was renamed Irwin the Dynamic Duck.

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.

The early ’70′s had some great instrumentals and one of the best came out in 1973 with the Edgar Winter Group and Frankenstein. Here is a nearly 9 minute live version of the song that may even be better than the album cut from They Only Come Out at Night.

Now you can hear a very short clip of it on the ATT commercial. Sit back and enjoy it in its entirety.

As you can see Edgar Winter has a strap over his neck to hold his keyboard similar to holding a guitar. He was the first to do this. His reason was that by sitting behind the keyboard he wasn’t able to interact with the audience like those on guitar.

The album version of the song was timed at 4:44. When released as a single it only had a running time of 3:28. In concert it wasn’t uncommon for them to jam for nearly 10 minutes or more.

Why the name Frankenstein? That comes from the fact that it’s actually a song that was pieced together from a number of different ‘jams’, just like Frankenstein’s monster was pieced together from parts from multiple bodies.

The song was on the charts in the spring of 1973 reaching the top spot in May. It didn’t do quite as well in the UK peaking at Number 18.

A medley of Dawn’s first three releases. This was before it was Tony Orlando and Dawn as well as a time that Tony was clean shaven.

Songs:
Candida – Top 10 song from late 1970
Knock Three Times – Number 1, January 1971
What Are You Doing Sunday – Barely reached the Top 40

January 23, 30 & February 6 – “Knock Three Times”; Dawn

February 13, 20, 27, March 6 & 13 – “One Bad Apple”; The Osmonds

March 20 & 27 – “Me and Bobby McGee”; Janis Joplin

April 3 & 10 – “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)” The Temptations

April 17, 24, May 1, 8, 15, & 22 – “Joy to the World”; Three Dog Night

May 29 & June 5 – “Brown Sugar”; The Rolling Stones

June 12 – “Want Ads”; The Honey Cone

June 19, 26, July 3, 10, & 17 – “It’s Too Late” / “I Feel the Earth Move”; Carole King

July 24 – “Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)”; The Raiders

July 31 – “You’ve Got a Friend”; James Taylor

August 7, 14, 21, & 28 “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” Bee Gees

September 4 – “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”; Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney

September 11, 18, & 25 – “Go Away Little Girl”; Donny Osmond

October 2, 9, 16, 23, & 30 – “Maggie May” / “Reason to Believe”; Rod Stewart

November 6 & 13 – “Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves”; Cher

November 20 & 27 – “Theme from Shaft”; Isaac Hayes

December 4, 11 & 18 – “Family Affair”; Sly and the Family Stone

December 25 – “Brand New Key”; Melanie

Grand Funk, the self proclaimed American Band, was pure rock band. In 1974 as they were working on their album Shinin’ On and was thinking that they may need one more song to complete it. Mark Farner as a lark began singing ‘Everybody’s doing a brand new dance now’, which with standard reaction other members of the band thought, ‘Yeah, Grand Funk doing the Locomotion’. After thought they said Why not and turned out this version of the ’60′s pop classic.

The Locomotion became the group’s 2nd Number 1 single and their biggest selling single.

The original version was done in 1962 by Little Eva, the 13 year old baby sitter of the song’s writers Carole King and Gerry Goffin.

In the 1980′s the song became a hit again this time by Australian Kylie Minogue.

Carole King has performed the song many time in her live shows. This version was from the Coming Home Concert in the early 1990′s.

In July of 1973 Grand Funk Railroad released their 7th album We’re An American Band.  This was also the first of three Albums where the group was simply call Grand Funk.  The first single released from the album was the title song We’re An American Band.

The song was their first Number 1 single.  It was written by Don Brewer and produced by Todd Rundgren  and brought the group to the larger, pop audience.  Prior to this the group was more Heavy Rock, the term Heavy Metal was not used until the 1980s.

Many of Grand Funk Railroad songs were sung by Mark Farner, but this one was sung by Brewer, the group drummer.

In the first pressing, all the copies of the 45 RPM records were pressed on gold vinyl.

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.