Top 40 Entry 1/1/72: The Partridge Family —“It’s One of Those Nights (Yes Love)”

The Partridge Family Featuring Shirley Jones Starring David Cassidy —“It’s One of Those Nights (Yes Love)”. Bell 45160. Top 40 debut: 1/1/72. Peak date: 1/29/72. Written by Tony Romeo. Produced by Wes Farrell. B-side: “One Night Stand.” LP: Shopping Bag. Charts: Billboard Hot 100 (#24), Easy Listening (#2).

Strangely enough, the Partridge Family’s “It’s One of Those Nights (Yes Love)” came and went—peaking in late January ‘72—before its supporting album ever reached stores in March. It was in March, too, when the episode featuring the TV family’s single finally aired (“The Partridge Papers,” about sister Laurie’s stolen diary). It seems like a better synchronized push might have helped it.

What’s significant about this song, though, is that it peaked at #20 on the pop charts, but climbed to #2 on the easy listening charts. This was their most lopsided and therefore most revealing teenage vs. adult audience ratio yet. In spite of David Cassidy and company's so-called bubblegum appeal, the music, in sound and sales tactics, never wavered from targeting the buying power of the mom and dad demographic. None of their music really raged with the kind of adolescent libido that even the Osmonds could summon, and the chart performance of “It’s One of Those Nights” puts this reality into sharp focus. You always wondered why only adults seemed to attend their TV supper club music segments, right?

Partridge staff writer Tony Romeo gets sole credit for “It’s One of Those Nights,” which tapdanced around the essential chord structure of Frank and Nancy Sinatra’s “Somethin’ Stupid” (#1, 1966—itself a descendant of “Tea for Two”), from the pantheon of grandparent-friendly hits. Keeping with their tradition of the concept package, the supporting Shopping Bag album—the group’s fourth—included an actual plastic tote decorated with the album cover’s blue, yellow, and bubblegum-pink swirls, along wth the duotone faces of each member.

Also consistent with their recorded products, Shopping Bag’s full billing appeared on labels as “The Partridge Family Starring Shirley Jones Featuring David Cassidy,” and featured the production of future Tina Sinatra hubby Wes Farrell. Along with “It’s One of Those Nights,” the album included one more glaring template song in “Hello Hello,” which nabbed its title, various hooks, and arrangement ideas from Sopwith Camel, whose original “Hello Hello” reached #26 in 1967.

Shopping Bag offered up just one additional single for Hot 100 consideration a few months later, Irwin Levine and Russell Brown’s “Am I Losing You,” which stopped short at #59. Low memorability was as much to blame as was competition from David Cassidy’s second solo album. The still-viable TV group would be back in the Top 40 one more time before the year of ‘72 was over, though, with their version of Neil Sedaka’s “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” from a new album.

The "One Night Stand" b-side came from their previous album, The Partridge Family Sound Magazine, but didn't show up on an episode until March '73 ("Diary of a Mad Millionaire," featuring John "Gomez Addams" Astin as an eccentric, Howard Hughes type). The song's lyrics emphasized the traveling band aspect of the title phrase more than the bedroom one.

Side A: "It's One of Those Nights (Yes Love)"


Side B: "One Night Stand"

Chart Song Cinema: Bless the Beasts and the Children (1971)

The biggest musical curiosity in Bless the Beasts and the Children, Stanley Kramer's film version of a novel by Glendon Swarthout, is an early appearance of what came to be known as "Nadia's Theme." Listed as "Cotton's Theme" on the soundtrack, that hypnotic melody gives the proceedings a dusky pathos, even playing in an uptempo arrangement to accompany a buffalo stampede. The movie depicts six adolescent misfits, victims of short-sighted parenting who become known as the humiliation-prone "bedwetters" at an Arizona boys camp. After witnessing a population-control buffalo shoot, they sneak out in the night on an adventure to set the beasts free, with tragedy lurking near the end in proper bummer film-era fashion.

Although Bless the Beasts and the Children resonates loudest as a general study in societal ills, a clearer-cut anti-war moral does struggle to emerge. The boys journey like a rag-tag military cavalry on horseback and also in a rusty jeep, with an angst-ridden ringleader named Cotton who wears an army helmet and addresses them as "men." (Lost in Space-vet Billy Mumy is the coolest of these kids, with his deadpan, mistrustful gaze; Miles Chapin seems based on the 1969 Hardy Boys cartoon character "Chubby," even appearing at one point wearing an ascot.) The Vietnam War looms largest as a parallel, with the boys aiming to rescue a weaker ally in spite of unforeseen complexity. Mere absurdity, too, functions reliably as an allegorical ingredient.

The Carpenters' theme song, written by Barry DeVorzon and Perry Botkin, Jr., is a solid entry in the early '70s hit parade of childhood awareness, a glaring counterpoint during the early upsurge of Me Generation cultural behavior. "The world can never be the world they see," go the lyrics, with musical accompaniment that sounds clearly elegiac, if not funereal. (You can read more about the era's pronounced interest in childhood in chapter 1 of my book, Early '70s Radio.) By the time this song had appeared as the B-side of their "Superstar" single, the Carpenters had become well-established sovereigns in the new realm of soft-rock, where the young adult expressions and concerns of the post-sixties could foster and abide. This sort of balladry had long-reaching influence. Listen to how the melody resolves at the end of each verse in "Bless the Beasts and the Children" and see how it reminds you of Lionel Richie and Diana Ross's "Endless Love," which came out a full decade later.

"Bless the Beasts and the Children" found enough radio traction to peak at #67 on the Billboard Hot 100, riding on the fumes of its movie placement and its hit A-side, which peaked at #2. The soundtrack album included a version with a vibraphone intro, which is different from the oboe intro on the versions the Carpenters would otherwise release on 45 and LP. The vibraphone version, with its blurry, tear-in-the-eye sound, has the more emotional effect.

"Bless the Beasts and the Children" (1971)

The Carpenters

Written by Barry DeVorzon and Perry Botkin, Jr. * Produced by Jack Daugherty * Arranged by Richard Carpenter  * 45: "Superstar" / "Bless the Beasts and the Children" * LP: Bless the Beasts and the Children (soundtrack); A Song for You (1972) * Billboard charts: Hot 100 (#67), Easy Listening (#26) * Entered: 1971-11-27 (peaked in 1972)

"Bless the Beasts and the Children"



"Bless the Beasts and the Children" (soundtrack version)

Bobby Goldsboro - "Watching Scotty Grow" (1970)

"Watching Scotty Grow" (1970) - Bobby Goldsboro 

Written by Mac Davis * Produced by Bob Montgomery and Bobby Goldsboro * 45: "Watching Scotty Grow"/"Water Color Days" * LPs: We Gotta Start Lovin', Watching Scotty Grow * Label: United Artists * Billboard charts: Hot 100 (#11), easy listening (#1), country (#7) * Entered: 1970-12-19 (easy listening), 1970-12-26 (Hot 100), 1971-01-23 (country)

Bobby Goldsboro's #1 hit "Honey" (1968), with its maudlin arrangement, gawky narrative, and crocodile tears, established him as one of pop music's emperors of melodrama. He'd been vying for the crown as far back as 1962, when his first charting single ("Molly") expressed the words of a soldier returning home and revealing to his family that he could no longer see.

Even so, throughout his entire eleven-year run of hits, Goldsboro's material would demonstrate the odd ability to yo-yo from bathos to pathos, drawing listeners into a realm of meaningful reflection against their better judgment. With "Watching Scotty Grow," for example, you hear its smiley-face trumpet hook and Mac Davis's lyrics about a little boy doing little boy things, and you grimace. But then you find yourself caught up in reflection. "You can have your TV and your nightclubs and you can have your drive-in picture show," Goldsboro sings. "I'll stay here with my little man near and we'll listen to the radio, biding my time and watching Scotty grow."

Because I considered the song, as I still do, to be a perfect signature record for the era's pop music preoccupation with children, I titled the first chapter of my Early '70s Radio book "Watching Scotty Grow: The New Top 40 and the Merging Spheres of Parents and Preteens." The song even presented the very scenario I was discovering, a world where kids and adults hung around together and listened to the same station, with everything that implies. ("This mutual radio-listening environment," as I put it then, "was a contradictory affair.")

"Watching Scotty Grow" originally appeared on a late 1970 Goldsboro album called We Gotta Start Lovin' but, presumably because of its radio success, it became the title song to a revamped early 1971 album (with the same track listing and United Artists serial number). Its new cover depicted Goldsboro and a youngster in father-son mode.

Billboard conducted a rather sloppy handling of this album's chart run. Released on November 20 (according to an 11/28/70 ad), it debuted on January 23, 1971, and resided on the chart all the way until March 6, 1971, as the mistitled "You Gotta Start Lovin'." On March 13, the album disappeared from the chart altogether, and on March 20, Watching Scotty Grow appeared as a new entry. On March 27, though, it appeared as an album that had been on the chart for nine weeks, ignoring the fact that it had vanished for one entire week. (It peaked at #120 on February 20, by the way.)

On the single's flipside is a badly dated paint stroke by Kenny O'Dell and Larry Henley. On November 11, 1970, Billboard had spotlighted this "potent interpretation" as the A side. (It also recommends a competing version by a vocalist named Randy Horan.)

Side A: "Watching Scotty Grow"


Side A: "Water Color Days"


See also: A KMPC Playlist circa 1971

Lynn Anderson's Early '70s Pop Chart Crossover Streak

Lynn Anderson, who passed away on July 30, 2015, was early '70s radio royalty. Although her country chart presence stretched all the way between 1967 and 1988, her streak of ten crossover pop hits happened precisely between the years 1970 and 1975. Below is a list of all of these in order:

"Rose Garden" (1970)

Lynn Anderson

Written by Joe South * Produced by Glenn Sutton * 45: "Rose Garden" / "Nothing Between Us" * LP: Rose Garden * Label: Columbia * Billboard charts: Hot 100 (#3), country (#1), easy listening (#5) * Entered: 1970-11-07 (country), 1970-11-14 (easy listening), 1970-11-28 (Hot 100)

This was Anderson's biggie, a country #1 that rose up to #3 on the pop chart. Written and first recorded by Joe South, the song had also been tried out by Freddie Weller, Billy Joe Royal, and Dobie Gray—all chart flops—before Anderson made it her own. Here's the Lynn Anderson quote about the song that pops up most: "I believe that 'Rose Garden' was released at just the right time. People were trying to recover from the Vietnam Years," she said. "The message in the song [was] that... if you just take hold of life and go ahead, you can make something out of nothing."

Maybe, but Anderson's recording transformed the song into a post-"Stand By Your Man" early '70s feminist anthem right up there with "I Am Woman," "One's on the Way," and "The Pill." It's safe to assume that the message more than a few women heard when "Rose Garden" hit the airwaves was "make your own damn dinner." Before Anderson recorded her version of it, it had been earmarked wrongly as a man song because it mentions diamond rings and has an implied focus on bringing home the bacon, but it only resonated once its Scarlett O'Hara-like "I beg your pardon" refrain was voiced by a woman. Anderson probably knew this but wasn't about to use the F word (Feminism) in the country press. A rueful adultery song from the Rose Garden album written by Anderson appears on side B.

Side A: "Rose Garden"


Side B: "Nothing Between Us"

"I'm  Alright" (1969)

Lynn Anderson

Written by Bill Anderson * Produced by Slim Williamson * 45: "I'm Alright" / "Pick of the Week" * LPs: Lynn Anderson at Home (1969); I'm Alright (1970) * Label: Chart * Billboard charts: country (#12), Bubbling under (#112) * Entered: 1970-11-21 (country), 1970-12-05 (bubbling under)

None of Anderson's pop crossover hits after "Rose Garden" made it past #63. Should she have embraced that song's feminist angle more aggressively? Her follow up to "Rose Garden," an ode to independence called "I'm Alright" hinted that she might have considered it, although its relatively low pop and country chart showings could have caused her to back pedal.

Country singer and songwriter Bill Anderson (no relation to Lynn) wrote this and she originally released it on her 1969 At Home with Lynn album on the Chart label. After she had switched to Columbia and had her big hit with "Rose Garden" in 1970, Chart reissued and repackaged the song to capitalize. "I'm Alright" was a suitable choice for an immediate follow up - like "Rose Garden," it was written from a man's perspective but had a much more self-empowering effect when sung by a woman.

The B-side was written by her mother, Liz Anderson, who had not only racked up a few country hits of her own as a singer in the sixties, but also scored some big ones as a songwriter, including two Merle Haggard classics: "(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers" and "I'm a Lonesome Fugitive." Her 1967 country top 5 hit "Mama Spank," though, was an odd equivocation of her man's behavior with that of a toddler from the days of corporeal punishment.

Side A: "I'm Alright"


Side B: "Pick of the Week"

"You're My Man" (1971)
Lynn Anderson

Written and produced by Glenn Sutton *  45: "You're My Man" / "I'm Gonna Write a Song" * LP: You're My Man * Label: Columbia * Billboard charts: Country (#1), Hot 100 (#63), easy listening (#6) * Entered: 1971-05-15 (all charts)

Yes, it's just business, but listening to this string-doused country #1 about Lynn's man being her "reason for living" with the knowledge that it was actually written by her real-life man Glen Sutton makes for an unsettling experience. Coming so soon after the woman-empowering "Rose Garden," both sides of the 45 feel like an effort to right the ideological ship.

The B-side is called "I'm Gonna Write a Song," also written by Sutton, and it contains the lines "Folks sit around with their face in a frown and gripe about the way things are...We need a little more soul savin' and a whole lot more flag wavin'." But it also calls for songs about "sunshine and praise for every living thing." Welcome to the country music of the early '70s. Jerry Reed recorded a version of it in 1973.

Side A: "You're My Man"


Side B: "I'm Gonna Write a Song"

"How Can I Unlove You" (1971)

Lynn Anderson

Written by Joe South * Produced by Glenn Sutton * Arranged by Cam Mullins * 45: "How Can I Unlove You" / "Don't Say Things You Don't Mean" * LP: How Can I Unlove You * Label: Columbia * Billboard charts: Country (#1), Hot 100 (#63), easy listening (#30) * Entered: 1971-08-21 (all charts)

"How Can I Unlove You" was the second of three Joe South-written hits for Lynn Anderson. With its sprightly strings and marimbas, it rode a cheerful sound to the top of the country singles chart while undermining the lyrics' central emotion. Joe South sounds a bit more distraught on his own 1971 recording. Glenn Sutton's "Don't Say Things You Don't Mean" approached the "Rose Garden" attitude but sounded merely like a vulnerable woman's complaint. Arranger Cam Mullins reprised the opening chord change of his "Rose Garden" instrumental hook (root to flat-three) to reinforce the association. The track appeared, along with some other B side interlopers, among charting hits on Lynn Anderson's Greatest Hits the following year
. 

Side A: "How Can I Unlove You"


Side B: "Don't Say Things You Don't Mean"

"Cry" (1972)

Lynn Anderson

Written by Churchill Kohlmann * Produced by Glenn Sutton * Arranged by Cam Mullins * 45: "Cry" / "Simple Words" * LP: Cry * Label: Columbia * Billboard charts: Country (#3), Hot 100 (#71), easy listening (#16) * Entered: 1972-01-29 (all charts)

With "Cry," Lynn Anderson translates Johnny Ray's classic 1951 #1 hit into a classic early '70s country hit. Although Ray, in his original recording, seemed to be shedding tears (and reportedly did during live performances), Anderson's comparative show of restraint gives it emotional complexity, as though she's not the one who's hurting but knows what it's like and is here to help. Composer Churchill Kohlmann, an African American factory worker, is one of pop music history's many casualties of underpaid exploitation. Glenn Sutton's "Simple Words" provides a welcome sense of assurance after the heavy heart strings of "Cry."

Side A: "Cry"


Side B: "Simple Words"

"Listen to a Country Song" (1972)

Lynn Anderson

Written by Alan Garth and Jim Messina * Produced by Glenn Sutton * 45: "Listen to a Country Song" / "That's What Loving You Has Meant to Me" * LP: Listen to a Country Song * Label: Columbia * Billboard charts: Country (#4), Bubbling under (#107)

This was Lynn Anderson's version of a Loggins and Messina song that had appeared on that duo's 1971 Sittin' In album. It embodied a paradoxical early '70s scenario in which a mainstream country artist covered a pop artist's "country" caricature offering—of a sort never usually a part of the country artist's standard repertoire—in the name of "crossing over." (cf. John Denver's "Thank God I'm a Country Boy.") And of course, this track was the most rock 'n' roll Anderson would ever sound. A Glenn Sutton exercise in key changes appears as the B side.

Side A: "Listen to a Country Song"


Side B: "That's What Loving You Has Meant to Me"

"Fool Me" (1972)

Lynn Anderson

Written by Joe South * Produced by Glenn Sutton * 45: "Fool Me" / "What's Made Milwaukee Famous" * LP: Listen to a Country Song * Label: Columbia * Billboard charts: Country (#4), bubbling under (#101) * Entered: 1972-10-14 (country), 1972-11-18 (bubbling under)

"Fool Me" was Lynn Anderson's third and final pop crossover hit to be written by Joe South. As with her version of his "How Can I Unlove You," she missed the emotional mark in comparison to South's own recording. (Anderson had also recorded a spirited version of South's popular "Games People Play" in 1969 as an album track.) The single's flipside was her version of Glenn Sutton's recent classic "What's Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)," which rearranged the perspective of the 1968 Jerry Lee Lewis country top ten recording: she's the loser because her man's a drunk.

Side A: "Fool Me"


Side B: "What's Made Milwaukee Famous"

"Keep Me in Mind" (1973)

Lynn Anderson

Written by Glenn Sutton and George Richey * Produced by Glenn Sutton * 45: "Keep Me in Mind" / "Rodeo Cowboy" * LP: Keep Me in Mind * Label: Columbia * Billboard charts: Country (#1), bubbling under (#104) * Entered: 1973-01-13 (country), 1973-03-03 (bubbling under) 

A shining bit of countrypolitan satin, "Keep Me in Mind" was a co-write between Glenn Sutton and George Richey (who would marry Tammy Wynette in 1978 and stand by her until her death in 1998). Cam Mullins's arrangement gave it an added air of refinement. Sutton's "Rodeo Cowboy" on side B, going in a different stylistic direction from side A, trotted with likable country folk authenticity.

Side A: "Keep Me in Mind"


Side B: "Rodeo Cowboy"

"Top of the World" (1973)

Lynn Anderson

Written by Richard Carpenter and John Bettis * Produced by Glenn Sutton * 45: "Top of the World" / "I Wish I Was a Little Boy Again" (Columbia 1973) * LP: Top of the World * Label: Columbia * Billboard charts: Country (#2), Hot 100 (#74), easy listening (#34) * Entered: 1973-06-02 (country), 1973-06-30 (Hot 100), 1973-07-21 (easy listening)

Although the Carpenters had released "Top of the World" as an album track on their 1972 A Song for You LP, it was Lynn Anderson who had a hit with it first in the summer of 1973; her #2 country chart success convinced them to try it out as a single, which they released in September 1973, eventually reaching Billboard's top slot. Other contemporary pop hits Anderson covered on her early seventies albums included "Knock Three Times," "Joy to the World," "When You Say Love," "We've Got to Get It On Again," "City of New Orleans," "I Believe in Music," "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia," and "Killing Me Softly with His Song," among others.

The B-side of "Top of the World" was a complicated offering from Anderson, who—whether she realized it or not—was one of country music's voices of gender experimentation, having recorded two songs ("Rose Garden" and "I'm Alright") originally intended for men. Songwriting credits for "I Wish I Was a Little Boy Again" went to Darrell Edwards (a frequent George Jones collaborator) and Glenn Sutton, who was a prolific writer of country songs with childhood themes, especially for Tammy Wynette. This one had Anderson pining for her tomboy youth with the following lines: "Girls grow into women and boys grow into men/ And the world of make believe all too soon must end/ And I blame that awful change for the shape my life is in/ Oh I wish I was a little boy again."

Side A: "Top of the World"


Side B: "I Wish I Was a Little Boy Again"

"What a Man My Man Is" (1973) Lynn Anderson

Written and produced by Glen Sutton * 45: "What a Man, My Man Is" / "Everything's Falling in Place (For Me and You)" * LP: What a Man My Man Is * Label: Columbia * Billboard charts: Country (#1), Hot 100 * Entered: 12-07-1974 (country), 1975-01-04 (Hot 100)

With this single, Anderson's then-husband Glenn Sutton again took the opportunity to write her a song in praise of her man. This one—with its memorable guitar lines—and "You're My Man" were both country number ones, though, so who's laughing? This was Anderson's final appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 and also her very last country chart topper, although she'd appear with regularity on that chart until 1988. The gender games continue (see "I Wish I Was a Little Boy Again" above) on the final song on the LP, "I Feel Like a New Man Today," which was written by her mother, Liz Anderson.

"What a Man My Man Is"


Bonus: "I Feel Like a New Man Today"

RCA Soul Ad

Early '70s child imagery in a Billboard ad for RCA's soul roster (1/29/72, p. 33):

"Tonight after dinner, when the dishes are all washed and the new young one is tucked in, a lot of young families are going to settle back and listen to our artists' music. We salute them, and thank you."

First on the artist list: Jimmy "Troglodyte" Castor.

The Primal Sounds of Jimmy Castor

Listening to the Jimmy Castor Bunch feels a bit transgressive today. The New York City vocalist/saxophonist Castor's first charting hit was the 1966 boogaloo Top 40 party track "Hey, Leroy, Your Mama's Callin' You," featuring an African-American taking on a Puerto Rican accent. His 1972 "Troglodyte (Cave Man)" told the story of a neanderthal who growls "gotta find a woman, gotta find a woman" before grabbing the hair of a female named "Bertha Butt" ("one of the Butt sisters"), who, after lying there "frightened and cold," comes around and says "I'll sock it to ya, Daddy!"

This was the stuff of Top Ten hits in 1972. A huge-selling novelty "break in" track called "Convention '72" confirmed this. Recorded by a a Pittsburgh DJ named Bob DeCarlo who called himself "The Delegates," it relied on "Troglodyte" as its central gag. When Castor's follow up single, "Luther The Anthropoid (Ape Man)," conked out at #105, it indicated that he perhaps misunderstood his previous hit's appeal. His 1975 Top Twenty hit "The Bertha Butt Boogie - Part 1," though, showed him in a state of comprehension concerning the profitable (aka "lascivious") side of primal.

Aside from all of this novelty song talk is the fact that Jimmy Castor - who wrote Frankie Lymon and the  Teenagers' "I Promise to Remember" and would often stand in for Lymon in the fifties - was an extraordinary entertainer, sax player, and vocalist who could lay down a monstrous groove with that band of his. You can see what I'm talking about if you watch this whole clip from a 1973 appearance on the SOUL! TV show. Here he leads his six-piece combo through the oft-sampled "It's Just Begun," "Hey Leroy," a savory instrumental version of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," "Troglodyte," a timely investigation of the preteen condition called "I'm Not a Child Anymore," and a scorching "Foxy Lady."

Also worth checking out: "King Kong - Pt. 1," a 1975 Rufus Thomas evocation that followed up "Bertha Butt Boogie" and likely electrified dance floors in its day. By 1977, Castor's Hot 100 days were over, although his back catalog proved to be a borrower's wonderland.

Jimmy Castor Bunch - "Troglodyte (Cave Man)" (Billboard #6, entered 5/13/72). Written by Castor Bunch. Produced by Castor-Pruitt Productions. 45: "Troglodyte (Cave Man)"/"I Promise to Remember" (RCA Victor 1972). LP: It's Just Begun (RCA Victor 1972).

The picture sleeve to Side A misspelled it as "Troglodite." Side B contains an updated version of Castor's "I Promise to Remember," the 1956 #10 hit he'd written for Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers.

Jimmy Castor Bunch - "Luther the Anthropoid (Ape Man)" (Billboard #105, entered 8/5/72). Written by Jimmy Castor, Gerry Thomas, and John Pruitt. Produced by Castor-Pruitt Productions. 45: "Luther the Anthropoid (Ape Man)"/"Party Life" (RCA Victor 1972). LP: Phase II (RCA Victor 1972).

Power to the peephole.

The Delegates - "Convention '72" (Billboard #8, entered 10/21/72), Written by Nick Cenci and Nick Kouselaneos. Produced by Nik-Nik Productions. 45: "Convention '72"/"Funky Butt" (Mainstream 1972). LP: The Delegates (Mainstream 1972).

Side B is a non-album piece of organ-rock instrumental music, the kind teenagers would play at parties on early seventies TV shows.

Jimmy Castor Bunch - "The Bertha Butt Boogie - Pt. I" (Billboard #16, entered 2/22/75). Written by Jimmy Castor and John Pruitt. Produced by Castor-Pruitt Productions. 45: "The Bertha Butt Boogie - Part I"/"The Bertha Butt Boogie - Part II" (Atlantic 1974). LP: The Jimmy Castor Bunch Featuring the Everything Man: Butt of Course... (Atlantic 1974).

The 2 Charting Versions of "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing"

Coca-Cola's "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" is the standard bearer of what I call "jingle singles," charting hits tied to the music from a TV/radio ad for another product. This Coke campaign debuted in 1971, shortly after Budweiser's "You've Said It All" (see previous post). The TV commercial that spawned it had a similar sequence as the Budweiser one, spotlighting a lone female singer who is joined by a growing chorus. The difference: Coca-Cola's singers are multicultural young adults while Budweiser's are American middle-aged nine-to-fivers. The song had a special quality of sounding at once like a commercial, a pop hit, a Christmas song, and a church hymn.

Composed by ad men Bill Backer and Billy Davis along with the British hit songwriting team of Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway, "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" hit it big as a 45 released by the Hillside Singers. According to the Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, this was a group assembled by veteran producer Al Ham specifically to generate a record out of the Coke commercial, an idea he'd hatched along with Metromedia president Jack Wiedenman. That version hit #13 on Billboard, while a version by Australia's New Seekers climbed up to #7 in early '72. According to an article on the Coca-Cola website, the New Seekers were who the writers always had in mind to record it, but the group had scheduling conflicts, which they were able to resolve easily enough when they saw the Hillside Singers' version taking off. Hence the claims of a Billboard ad from Nov. 20, 1971, claiming the New Seekers' version to be the "original."

Note the early seventies tendency toward child imagery being put to use for the Hillside Singers' album cover above.

(Bonus info: The British rock band Oasis were successfully sued for using the opening melody of "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" for their 1994 #11 UK hit "Shakermaker.")

The Hillside Singers - "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" (Billboard #13, entered 11/27/71). Written by Bill Backer, Billy Davis, Roger Cook, and Roger Greenaway. Produced by Al Ham. 45: "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)"/"I Believed It All" (Metromedia 1971). LP: I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (Metromedia 1971).

The New Seekers - "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" (Billboard #7, entered 12/4/71). Written by Bill Backer, Billy Davis, Roger Cook, and Roger Greenaway. Produced by David MacKay. 45: "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)"/"Boom-Town" (Elektra 1971). LP: We'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (Elektra 1971).

Side B is surprisingly palatable glam pop written and sung by New Seeker Peter Doyle, a former solo hit-maker in Australia.

Bobby Goldsboro and Jeane-Claude Borelly: Shared Intros

In early '76 the French trumpeting instrumentalist Jeane-Claude Borelly scored a minor #106 hit with a single called "Dolannes Melodie" (a theme for the 1974 film Un linceul n'a pas de poches). Had to wrack my brain a bit, but I can now report that the song's opening musical motif is taken directly from Bobby Goldsboro's "Summer (The First Time)," a #21 hit in '73.

What a fascinating record "Summer" is, by the way - at once uncomfortable and arresting, with its coming of sexual age lyrics and beguiling arrangement. (Millie Jackson did an equally compelling version of it the following year.) Bobby Goldsboro is a puzzle to me, with a catalog that alternates between deep pathos and shallow bathos, sometimes even within a single song. One day I'll take the time to express this more fully.

Bobby Goldsboro - "Summer (The First Time)" (Billboard #21, entered 8/25/73). Written by Bobby Goldsboro. Produced by Bob Montgomery and Bobby Goldsboro. 45: "Summer (The First Time)"/"Childhood - 1949" (United Artists 1973). LP: Summer (The First Time) (United Artists 1973).

The B-side of "Summer," incidentally, revisits the theme of childhood - a preoccupation for both Goldsboro and the entire early '70s zeitgeist.

Jeane-Claude Borelly and His Orchestra - "Dolannes Melodie" (Billboard #106, entered 1/24/76). Written by Paul de Senneville and Olivier Toussaint. Arranged by Hervé Roy. 45: "Dolannes Melodie"/"Dolannes Melodie (Pipes of Pan Version)" (London 1975). LP: (No US album release).

The B-side is the real charmer, for my money - pan pipes, acoustic guitar, and strings, with no stolen Goldsboro motifs.

The Sugar Bears' Cereal Box Hit

Released at the very tail end of the classic bubble gum era, the Sugar Bears' "You  Are the One" was one of five songs included on a cardboard EP you could cut out from certain 1972 boxes of Super Sugar Crisp. Amazingly enough, Sugar Bear (voiced by ex-First Edition member Mike Settle) and his band of animated mascot sidekicks (including Kim Carnes as "Honey Bear") sold enough of a corresponding 45 of "You Are the One" for it to climb up all the way to #51 on the Billboard Hot 100. No mean feat for a cereal box promotion in any era. As for the Partridge-esque song itself, producer Jimmy Bowen is the one who put it together, and it’s hardly the best this genre got, although it does benefit from a certain Phil Spector cognizance. (I’ll need to refresh my memory and see if Bowen mentions this particular project in his “unapologetic” Rough Mix.)

The Sugar Bears - "You Are the One" (Billboard #51, entered 3/11/72). Written by Baker Knight. Produced by Jimmy Bowen. 45: "You Are the One"/"Someone Like You" (Big Tree 1972). LP: Presenting the Sugar Bears (Big Tree 1971).

Miss Abrams: The Early '70s Charting Singles

Although the enchanting 1970 single "Mill Valley," credited to Miss Abrams and the Strawberry Point School Third Grade Class, only peaked at #90, it seemed to awaken an ear for the voices of children in pop radio. In a 2010 San Francisco Chronicle retrospective, Joel Selvin describes it as a "turntable hit" that got more airplay than record sales, but it nonetheless ushered in an early '70s hit parade of songs featuring kid vocals, childhood images, or topics related to family living. Songs like these were all over Top 40 and MOR formats, functioning like a mass media dialogue between adults and children. A few more singles after "Mill Valley" also found their way to the easy listening singles chart, with a full album finally appearing in late 1972. A CD reissue on the Varese Sarabande label gathered everything up and tossed in an (uncharacteristically) unsettling child-vocal outtake called "Sad Night."

"Mill Valley" (1970)

Miss Abrams and the Strawberry Point School Third Grade Class

Written by Rita Abrams * Produced by Erik Jacobsen and Rita Abrams * 45: "Mill Valley" / "The Happiest Day of My Life" * LP: Miss Abrams and the Strawberry Point 4th Grade Class (1972) * Label: Reprise * Billboard charts: Easy listening (#13), Hot 100 (#90) * Entered: 1970-07-25 (easy listening) * 1970-08-01 (Hot 100)

Richie Unterberger's liner notes for the CD reissue of Rita Abrams' only album, billed to "Miss Abrams and Strawberry Point 4th Grade Class," report that Abrams, a Mill Valley transplant from Ohio, had written the song for the kindergarteners she taught. Producer Erik Jacobsen, an acquaintance of hers, then hatched the idea of making a studio recording with a musically tighter 3rd grade class (they were 4th graders by the time the album came out—hence the disparity between the billing on the 45 and LP), resulting in a track that drew out a standing ovation from the suits at a Warner Bros. sales meeting when they heard it.

Radio airplay and appearances by Abrams on the Steve Allen Show and Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour helped turn the single into a national hit. (It was Terry McGovern at KSFO in San Francisco who gave it its first spin.) The song lilted on a cloud of warm electric piano and the sound of a wooden recorder, which had a way of signifying "school" in listeners' minds, possibly because of its standard use in early-grade music classes; it also tootled in the theme music for the popular public school-themed TV show Room 222, which began a five-season run in 1969. Abrams' double tracked lead vocal found a doppelganger the following year on the self-titled debut album by fellow Northern Californian Judee Sill. The track and its promo clip (filmed by Francis Ford Coppola) still have the power to transport listeners to an idyllic Mill Valley of the mind. Side B contains another recorder-flavored charmer (which borrows a minor key musical figure from the Turtles' "You Baby") written by Abrams, but it would not appear on the 1972 album.

Side A: "Mill Valley"


Side B: "The Happiest Day of My Life"

"Buildin' a Heaven on Earth" (1970)

Miss Abrams and the Strawberry Point

Fourth Grade

Written by Norman Greenbaum * Produced by Erik Jacobsen and Rita Abrams * 45: "Buildin' a Heaven on Earth" / "This Time of Life" * LP: Miss Abrams and the Strawberry Point 4th Grade Class (1972) * Label: Reprise * Billboard charts: Easy listening (#39) * Entered: 1971-01-09

Miss Abrams' co-producer Erik Jacobsen was a studio veteran who had worked with the Lovin' Spoonful, Tim Hardin, and Sopwith Camel, and he was fresh off of doing "Spirit in the Sky," a massive #3 hit for Norman Greenbaum when he teamed up with the Mill Valley grade school teacher. This explains their access to an exclusive song written by Greenbaum called "Buildin' a Heaven on Earth," featuring slide guitar and a contemporary rock attitude. The flipside's "This Time of Life," with its bouncy feel similar to "Mill Valley," was a sung dialogue between Abrams and her kids about the contradictory human needs for dependence and independence.

Side A: "Buildin' a Heaven on Earth"


Side B: "This Time of Life"

"Wonder" (1970)

Miss Abrams and the Strawberry Point

4th Grade Class

Written by Rita Abrams * Produced by Erik Jacobsen and Rita Abrams * 45: "Wonder" / "I Never Asked" * LP: Miss Abrams and the Strawberry Point 4th Grade Class (1972) * Label: Reprise * Billboard charts: Easy listening (#37) * Entered: 1971-07-03

"Wonder," with its strings-and-flute arrangement, made for an easy transition to MOR playlists in the summer of '71. Side B featured no children, only Miss Abrams singing a major-seventh chord composition called "I Never Asked." Despite its title, it uses musical "question" techniques, such as the inclusion of a wavering Vox organ. After all three singles had run their course on radio, the Miss Abrams and the Strawberry Point 4th Grade Class album, collecting all the singles (except for the "Mill Valley" B side "The Happiest Day of My Life") plus five more songs, would finally appear in September 1972. 

Side A: "Wonder"


Side B: "I Never Asked"

*Bonus*

"America (Let's Get Started Again)" (1975)

Miss Abrams and the  Strawberry Point 

Fourth Grade Class

Written by Rita Abrams * Produced by Erik Jacobsen, Rita Abrams, and Ken Melville * 45: "America (Let's Get Started Again) (Mono)" / "America (Let's Get Started Again) (Stereo)" * Label: Reprise * Billboard charts: —

The post-Nixon pre-Bicentennial year of 1975 called for one more offering—"America (Let's Get Started Again)"—by Abrams and her 4th graders. (The original group would have been 7th or 8th graders at this point.) A banjo points to the past while a synthesizer points to the "beautiful dream of all that our country could be" on this promo-only release.

"America (Let's Get Started Again)"

1970 Association Ad

A Billboard ad (2/28/70) for the Association's "Just About the Same" featured one of early '70s pop's favorite subjects: children. The single was a cover of a song by the Millennium, a group led by Curt Boettcher, who had produced the Association's debut LP in 1966. "Just About the Same," which bubbled under at #106, also bore the imprint of the era's Caribbean music trend. The single's entire marketing angle saw a fuller realization in Three Dog Night's "Black and White" two years later.

The Association - "Just About the Same" (Billboard #106, entered 2/28/70). Written by Doug Rhoes, Michael Fennelly, and Joey Stec. Produced by Curt Boettcher and Keith Olsen. 45: "Just About the Same"/"Look at Me, Look at You" (Warner Bros. 1970). LP: (No album appearance).

Although the studio version of this song appeared on no album, a live version made the lineup for the 1970 The Association Live LP. 

"(You're) Having My Baby" in retrospect

Paul Anka and Odia Coates - "(You're) Having My Baby" (Billboard #1, entered 7/6/74). Written by Paul Anka. Produced by Rick Hall. 45: "(You're) Having My Baby"/"Papa" (United Artists 1974). LP: Anka (United Artists 1974).

Paul Anka and Odia Coates's "(You're) Having My Baby" still has the power to stun listeners whether they knew or didn't know that it was once a #1 hit back in mid-'74. The much-maligned song seemed to have a lot of things going against it: biologically frank lyrics ("The seed inside you, baby/Do you feel it growing?"); a mellotron hook that's brazenly derivative of Elton John's "Daniel"; and a lyrical point of view mimeographed from Gloria Steinem's nightmares ("You could have swept it from your life/But you wouldn't do it"). What it had going for it, though, was subject matter that tapped into a national zeitgeist that had been unusually preoccupied with the subject of children for half a decade (see chapter one of my book if you're curious about this). The chauvinist aspect that ususally gets written about in reference to this song is really just a side story. "(You're) Having My Baby" is born of (so to speak), justified by, and a distinct relic of the early seventies preoccupation with children. It should be heard as a pop music culmination of those years. (The single's B side, "Papa," is a tribute to a devoted father that also helps to put the A side into truer perspective.)

Casablanca Records and the "New Bubblegum"

What I especially appreciate about Larry Harris's recent book And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records is that it offers a human relations perspective on a label that still epitomizes carefree '70s hedonism and excess. Harris (former Executive VP and Managing Director of the label) knew and loved Casablanca head Neil Bogart, but also regretted a good many of his tactics and decisions. The label, after all, was notorious for its willingness, as Art Kass puts it in Fredric Dannen 's Hit Men (1991), to spend "three dollars to make two dollars."

I suspect those familiar with some of the stories in Hit Men and elsewhere will be disappointed with the low volume of additional shockers offered up by Harris, whose purpose is not so much to top or refute familiar tales, but to offer some insight into the thought processes of those in charge. I, for one, loved reading about all the radio promo Harris was involved in, working his contacts at WBCN in Boston, WSHE in St. Louis, WNEW in New York, and WMMS in Cleveland, to name only a few. Harris also takes Dannen's revelations concerning the pop-chart doctoring activity of Billboard chart editor Bill Wardlow a step further in a chapter titled "Writing the Charts" - the title of which is evidently no exaggeration.

In Early '70s Radio, I talk about Neil Bogart as one of the key cultivators of the preteen market in the late '60s, which developed into something formidable in the early '70s. He coined the term "bubblegum" for the double entendre-prone genre that flourished under his watch. The preteen market-on-steroids nature of Casablanca in the late '70s, for which the word "transgressive" might apply, was at once an innovation of Bogart's and a natural result of broader, post-sexual revolution cultural forces. Kids loved Kiss, Donna Summer, and the Village People, and observant adults knew that all three trafficked openly in sexual connotations. This was "the new bubblegum," a term Harris uses for another chapter title.

I was curious, incidentally, when I got my hands on the book, to see if I could learn more about Dannen's report in Hit Men about an "adorable little girl" who would make daily rounds in the Casablanca offices to take drug orders, which kinda strikes me as child exploitation to the utmost. Harris claims, though, that this story was probably a cover up fabricated by Dannen's source, Danny Davis. The drug runner, says Harris, was likely an adorable little boy.