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.

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

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.

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.

The song was written by Bobby Russell. Russell was a popular songwriter in the late 60′s and early 70′s having written the hits Little Green Apples and Honey. He also wrote and recorded a a song about the everyday man having a normal Saturday titled Saturday Morning Confusion.

The song was offered to Cher, but her husband Sonny Bono turned the song down. Vicki Lawrence, one of the regulars on the Carol Brunett Show was married to Russell. She recorded a demo of the song and her version was finally release. The song plus the ones she recorded for an album of the same name were her only recorded songs.

The song reached Number 1 on the Pop charts, but barely charted on the country charts, although it was an obvious country song.

A movie based loosely on the song was made in 1981 and starred Mark Hamill and Kristy McNichol with the title song sung by Tanya Tucker.

10 years later Country Singer Reba McIntyre’s version reached the top of the country charts. The clip is not from the 70s but the 90s when Reba appeared on a Talk Show hosted by Vicki Lawrence.

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.

Boogie Oogie Oogie was the first single from the self-titled debut album, A Taste of Honey. It was their biggest hit single spending three weeks at Billboard’s Single Chart at Number 1.

The group formed in Los Angeles, California, and originally consisted of Janice Marie Johnson (vocals, bass), Hazel Payne (vocals, guitar), Perry Kibble (keyboards) and Donald Johnson (drums).

Fans were shocked when they first saw the group perform on stage. Here was two beautiful girls standing on stage with guitars playing soulful disco type licks.

The idea of the song came one night when playing to a unenthused crowd Janice Johnson yelled out, “If you think that you’re too cool to boogie, we’ve got news for you! Everyone here tonight is going to boogie, and you’re no exception to the rule.” From this beginning Johnson and Perry L. Kibble wrote the song.

They won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.

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.