The Jesus Christ Superstar hit parade

The Jesus Christ Superstar rock opera was a Tommy-esque concept album first, with the Broadway stage production (October 1971) and movie (August 1973) to follow after. Composed by two fledglings named Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, the double LP focused on the last week of Jesus's life and presented a reimagination of the interpersonal relationships between Jesus, Judas Iscariot, and Mary Magdalene. It appeared in September 1970, buoyed up by considerable hype and a brisk-selling 1969 leadoff single by Murray Head and the Trinidad Singers.

Among the album's participants were Deep Purple's Ian Gillian, members of Joe Cocker's Grease Band, the Hair alumnus Head, and an unknown Yvonne Elliman. The project at once fed off of and stoked the Jesus revival you could hear burgeoning in numerous early seventies radio hits, all of which jibed nicely with the era's soul-searching and its eye for long hair and beards.

A 1971 Billboard story by Elliott Tiegel on the trend ("Jesus Christ, Are You Here Again? Or, Rock Meets the Guy from Above") mentioned that Los Angeles MOR mothership KMPC played the entire album on Thanksgiving 1970 and on Easter 1971. And although the occasional story would surface that a given outlet had banned the album for being too sacrilegious, the consensus would echo Tiegel's assertion that Jesus Christ Superstar was the "granddaddy" of all the era's "Jesus stories."

Here's a chronology of all the JCS-related singles to appear in Billboard with one bonus entry at the end:

"Superstar" (1969)  - Murray Head with the Trinidad Singers

Written and produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice * 45: "Superstar" / "John Nineteen Forty-One" (1969) * LP: Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) * Label: Decca * Billboard charts: Hot 100 (#14) * Entered: 1970-01-31

The 1969 leadoff single for Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's ambitious rock opera starring the Son of God did its part in generating anticipation for an album that wouldn't hit shelves until late 1970. "There are some people who may be shocked by this record," says Martin Sullivan, Dean of St Paul's London, whose quote graces the top of the 45's back sleeve. "I ask them to listen to it and think again. It is a desperate cry. Who are you Jesus Christ?" The single sleeve also attributes the track as coming "from the Rock Opera 'Jesus Christ' now in preparation."

A promo clip featuring vocalist Murray Head, who'd recently starred in a London run of Hair, shows him, who is the voice of Judas (also made clear by the single sleeve), climbing around cathedral ruins and singing alongside a chorus of six women called the "Trinidad Singers," the exact identities of whom seem to be lost. The track's familial resemblance to Aretha Franklin's "Respect" or the Edwin Hawkins Singers' "Oh Happy Day" ought not to be discounted as an early appeal factor. "Superstar" would enter the singles chart three separate times between 1970 and 1971, with its third entry being most successful (peaking on May 29, 1971).

Side A: "Superstar"


Side B: "John Nineteen Forty-One"

"Medley from 'Superstar' (A Rock Opera)" (1971) - The Assembled Multitude

Written by Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice * Produced by Bill Buster and Tom Sellers * 45: "Medley from 'Superstar' (A Rock Opera)" / "Where the Woodbine Twineth" * Label: Atlantic * Billboard charts: Easy listening (#17) / Hot 100 (#95) * Entered: 1971-01-09 (easy); 1971-02-06 (Hot 100)

The studio orchestra led by Tom Sellers (who at the time also participated in the band Gulliver with Darryl Hall and Tim Moore) made its final fleeting chart entry with this medley of four tunes from the hit Jesus Christ Superstar album: "Superstar," "Simon Zealotes," "The Temple," and "Everything's Alright." The first concert performance (July 1971) of the rock opera was still a few months away as was its Broadway debut (October 1971) when this single appeared on the Billboard easy listening chart in early January. The choice of title for the single, which misnames the rock opera, perhaps had to do with label space. Sellers's Assembled Multitude would release a few more non-charting singles after this, including renditions of the theme from The Godfather and the one for the Carl Sagan TV series Cosmos (Vangelis's "Heaven and Hell"). A Sellers original from the Assembled Multitude's lone album appears on the flipside.

Side A: "Medley from 'Superstar' (A Rock Opera)"


Side B: "Where the Woodbine Twineth"

"Everything's Alright" (1971) - Percy Faith

Written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice * Arranged by Percy Faith * 45: "Everything's Alright" / "I Don't Know How to Love Him" * LP: I Think I Love You * Label: Columbia * Billboard charts: Easy listening (#31) * Entered: 1971-02-06

Flowing sheets of high silken strings became arranger Percy Faith's trademark on earlier hit records like "The Song from Moulin Rouge" (1953) and "Theme from a Summer Place" (1960), but you won't hear many of those on his version of "Everything's Alright" (just a little bit at the beginning). Appearing on his 1971 I Think I Love You album, the track relies on the measured muzak-oriented voices of a studio chorus. This would be the first Percy Faith single to chart in the seventies, and although his days in Billboard's Hot 100 were numbered by the late sixties, he'd continue sending a number of tracks to the easy listening chart until 1976. Side B contains another Jesus Christ Superstar number rendered in disembodied vocal fashion. 

Side A: "Everything's Alright"


Side B: "I Don't Know How to Love Him"

"I Don't Know How to Love Him" (1971) - Helen Reddy

Written by Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice * Producer: Larry Marks * 45: "I Don't Know How to Love Him"/"I Believe in Music" * LP: I Don't Know How to Love Him * Label: Capitol * Billboard charts: Hot 100 (#13) * Entered: 1971-02-20

Australian vocalist Helen Reddy launched a successful 1970s career with her version of this Jesus Christ Superstar torch ballad. In her 2006 memoir The Woman I Am, Reddy credits WDRC-AM in Hartford, Connecticut for breaking the single, whose B-side was an early version of Mac Davis's "I Believe in Music," later a hit for Gallery (1972) and a future variety show staple. Her I Don't Know How to Love Him album also included an early draft of "I Am Woman," which she'd later re-record and turn into a feminist anthem. 

Side A: "I Don't Know How to Love Him"


Side B: "I Believe in Music"

"I Don't Know How to Love Him/ Everything's Alright" (1971) - The Kimberlys

Written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice * Produced by Ray Pohlman * 45: "I Don't Know How to Love Him/Everything's Alright" / "Hello and Happy Birthday" * Label: Happy Tiger * Billboard charts: Hot 100 (#99) * Entered: 1971-03-20

The Kimberlys' short but auspicious appearance on the music biz radar started when they teamed up with Waylon Jennings, who'd discovered them in Las Vegas, for a 1969 album called Country-Folk. They were two twin sisters, Verna and Vera Gay, joined by their two husbands, the brothers Harold and Carl Kimberly.

Things got messy in the relationship department after Jennings came along. Here's how he put it in his 1996 Waylon autobiography: "I liked Verna Gay Kimberly. We had a thing going; she was unhappy and so was I... Her and her husband were splitting up, and she and her twin sister didn't get along." Hoping to save the group, who reminded him of his family band in Littlefield, Texas, Jennings got them signed to RCA.

Then things then got messy in the music department. Waylon agreed to record "MacArthur Park," the famously overwrought Jimmy Webb song, as part of the sessions. It had been part of the Kimberlys' repertoire, and it led off the Country-Folk album released in August 1969 under the billing "Waylon Jennings and the Kimberlys." Although the sessions spawned uncharacteristic arrangements and song choices for Jennings (even then, in his pre-outlaw years) and plenty of head-butting with co-producer Danny Davis, "MacArthur Park" ended up wangling a Country Vocal Group Grammy out of the Recording Academy. (The song reached #93 on Billboard's Hot 100.)

A 1970 Billboard reference to the "Kimberly Sisters" leads one to assume that the group had lost the brother component by then, but all three of their post-Waylon albums show the full lineup. Male voices, too, appear on their shrewd medley of Jesus Christ Superstar's "I Don't Know How to Love Him" and "Everything's Alright." The non-album 45 popped in for a short stay at #99, after which the group faded out like the record's echo-drenched choruses.  (A Kimberlys offspring project called Kimberly Springs, though, took a Jerry Fuller song called "Slow Dancin'" to #49 on the country singles chart in 1984.)

The B-side contained a version of "Hello and Happy Birthday," a tune from the lone RCA Victor album by Connecticut singer-songwriter Jill Williams. The producer of Williams's album had Jesus-on-Broadway credentials of his own—he was Stephen Schwartz, who would compose and produce the original cast album for Godspell (1971), a retelling of the New Testament's parables.

Side A: "I Don't Know Hot to Love Him/Everything's Alright"


Side B: "Hello and Happy Birthday"

"I Only Want to Say (Gethsemane)" (1971) - José Feliciano

Written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice * Produced by Rick Jarrard * 45: "I Only Want to Say (Gethsemane)" / "Watch It With My Heart" * Label: RCA * Billboard charts: Bubbling under (#122) * Entered: 1971-05-29

After a string of steady chart appearances throughout the late sixties, the Puerto Rican singer-guitarist Jose Feliciano reached a lull in the early seventies. Perhaps the choice to release a nearly five-minute fuzz guitar-heavy rendition of the anguished, minor-key "I Only Want to Say (Gethesemane)" from Jesus Christ Superstar didn't help matters for an artist best known for romantic moods and exotic grooves. In the US, the track only appeared as a single (although it saw inclusion on a European release called Ché Sara'). After this, Feliciano's only Hot 100 entries would be "Chico and the Man" (1975) and re-entries of "Feliz Navidad" (1970), although he would visit the Latin charts with some regularity until 2004. Another non-LP track—a Santana-style Feliciano original—accompanies "Gethsamane" as the B-side.

Side A: "I Only Wanted to Say (Gethsemane)"


Side B: "Watch It With My Heart"

*Bonus*

"King Herod's Song (Try It and See)" (1970) - Mike D'Abo

Written and produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice * LP: Jesus Christ Superstar * Label: Decca * Billboard charts: — (entered Boston's WMEX airplay chart 1970-06-03)

Mike D'Abo, who up until 1969 had been the lead singer for the British group Manfred Mann, sang the role of King Herod on the Jesus Christ Superstar album but didn't appear in the Broadway musical when it debuted in October 1971. His ragpop mockery of the title character neither charted nor saw release as a single, but it did rack up heavy airplay as an album track over the summer of '71 on Boston AM powerhouse WMEX. (Wikipedia tidbit: In his younger days, D'Abo had been a theology student at Cambridge, but became disillusioned.)

"King Herod's Song (Try It and See)"

"I Don't Know How to Love Him" (1970) - Yvonne Elliman 

Written and produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice * 45: "Overture: Jesus Christ Superstar" / "I Don't Know How to Love Him" (1971) * LPs: Jesus Christ Superstar (1970); Yvonne Elliman (1972) * Label (all releases): Decca * Billboard charts: Hot 100 (#28) * Entered: 1971-06-12

Multiple song renditions still went to battle on the pop charts in the early seventies, a decades-long tradition that finally fizzled out (with few resurgences) after Lost Horizon circa 1973. In the case of "I Don't Know How to Love Him," Hawaiian singer Yvonne Elliman's original 1970 romantic paean for Jesus charted two months after Helen Reddy's cover version did, and one month after the low chart entry by the Kimberlys. Reddy took it to #13, while Elliman, whose version featured a memorable Moog simulation of a wooden flute, saw hers underperform at #28. (In early 1972, she would compete with a version by Petula Clark on the UK singles chart.) She'd later perform the song in the 1973 film as the beshawled Mary Magdalene. The successful Jesus Christ Superstar rock opera LP launched a respectable seventies chart run for Elliman, crescendoing with "If I Can't Have You," her #1 hit from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. By 1980, she'd turn her back on the music biz to raise her two kids.

Side A: "I Don't Know How to Love Him"


Side B: "Overture: Jesus Christ Superstar"

"Everything's Alright" (1971) - Yvonne Elliman

Written and produced by Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice * 45: "Everything's Alright" / "Heaven on Their Minds" * LP: Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) * Label: Decca * Billboard chart: Hot 100 (#92) * Entered: 1971-10-16

As with Murray Head's original version of "Superstar," Yvonne Elliman's "Everything's Alright" (with its distinctive organ/moog intro) has all the ambience and churning grandeur you would expect to hear in a rock opera. That's especially true with the compressed, three-minute 45, which fades out as the orchestra swells. The song is a cheerful, 5/4 reassurance from Mary Magdalene to Jesus, while the flipside (credited to "Various Artists" even though it's Murray Head who sings lead) is the counterbalancing, skeptical voice of Judas. It's a song that begs for a metal version.

Side A: "Everything's Alright"


Side B: "Heaven on Their Minds"

*Bonus*

"I Don't Know How to Love Him/ Superstar" (1971) - Petula Clark

Written by Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice * Produced by Johnny Harris and Claude Wolff * Arranged by Johnny Harris * 45: "I Don't Know How to Love Him/Superstar" / "Maybe" * Label: Warner Bros. * Billboard charts: —; UK: #47 * Entered: 1972-01-15

Petula Clark, the British invader-ette who scored her first US Billboard hit with the #1 "Downtown," charted 21 additional times between 1964 and 1981. Her medley from Jesus Christ Superstar did not rank among these, although it did reach #47 in the United Kingdom in early 1972. The trademark strings missing in Percy Faith's entry (above) turned up in this Johnny Harris arrangement (listen at 2:42), which uses the "Superstar" chorus as bookends. With numerological quirkiness, Murray Head's original 1969 version of "Superstar" also peaked in the UK at #47 in early 1972. Co-producer Claude Wolff was Clark's longtime time publicist and husband. The B-side is a song by John Bromley and arranger Harris—not a version of the Chantels classic.

Side A: "I Don't Know How to Love Him/Superstar"


Side B: "Maybe"

*Bonus*

"Jesus Christ S.R.O. (Standing Room Only)" (1972) - Tom Paxton

Written by Tom Paxton * Produced by Tony Visconti * 45: "Peace Will Come" / "Jesus Christ S.R.O. (Standing Room Only)" * LP: Peace Will Come * Label: Reprise * Billboard charts: — * (entered Boston's WMEX airplay chart on 1972-08-24)

Tom Paxton established himself in the sixties as a folk singer worth paying attention to with songs like "The Last Thing on My Mind," "What Did You Learn in School Today," "Bottle of Wine," and "The Marvelous Toy." His 1972 barb at Jesus Christ Superstar's box office success (with allusions to the nostalgia-boom Broadway production Grease) adopted the jocular gait of the musical's "Herod's Song" and flirted with success of its own after getting added to the playlist of trendsetting Top 40 station WMEX in Boston. His Peace Will Come album made a general bid for pop radio acceptance by getting T. Rex/David Bowie producer Tony Visconti on board. (Session player Gordon Huntley handled the steel guitar riff.)

"Jesus Christ S.R.O. (Standing Room Only)"

Wolfman Jack's "Jesus Crusade"

This headline appeared in the Nov. 27, 1971 issue of Billboard (p. 20), and Nat Freedland's article included the following:

"Wolfman Jack, the raspy-voiced veteran of 16 years in Mexican border super-transmitter radio, is shipping a public service Jesus Rock half-hour show free to any radio station that requests it. Wolfman Jack's 'Jesus Crusade' is already set for 50 major markets and begins broadcasting in December.

" 'The show features music like George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" and Ocean doing "Put Your Hand in the Hand," ' notes Wolfman, 'all the religious-oriented rock songs that have made the charts.' Interspersed with the music will be Jack telling Bible stories in his own inimitable manner. In addition, Wolfman will answer mailed-in questions from his listeners as part of regular conversations with non-denominational Protestant Minister Joe Racculia.

"The show's audience will be encouraged to think of itself as members of a Jesus Christ Fan Club. 'I know this sounds hokey,' says Jack. 'But I feel that the traditional organized religious approach is obviously not reaching the kids and all I want to do is pass on the message in a way they can relate to. Like, when I'm asked if the Bible says it's forbidden to smoke grass, I'll say it's not forbidden, but the Bible says, 'Do not endanger the House of God,' which means the human body.

" 'In recent months I have been brought closer to the Lord and what I want most to do now is bring young people to Jesus. I've certainly made enough money from the other things I do so that I don't have to do this for the money...'

"...A Wolfman Jack Bible Stories album has been completed with back-up music by jazz pianist Victor Feldman and will probably be offered via the Jesus Rock show in a few months, at a lower price than if it was released through a major label."

Nothing is mentioned about any of this in Wolfman Jack's Have Mercy autobiography. I also haven't had any luck finding any other evidence about the show's existence (or the album's), save for another brief mention of it on page 21 of the April 15, 1972 Billboard. Strange.

God Rock Sunday: Two Early '70s Charting Versions of "Amazing Grace"

Judy Collins - "Amazing Grace" (Billboard #15, entered 12/12/70). Arranged and Adapted by Judy Collins. Produced by Mark Abramson. 45: "Amazing Grace"/"Nightingale I" (Elektra 1970). LP: Whales and Nightingales (Elektra 1970).

The Pipes and Drums and  Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards -"Amazing Grace" (Billboard #11, entered 5/20/72). Written by (Traditional; the UK and other international versions credit "Collins"). Produced by Pete Kerr. 45: "Amazing Grace"/"Cornet Carillon" (RCA Victor 1972). LP: Farewell to the Greys (RCA Victor 1972).

Often pointed to as evidence of early '70s radio listeners' quirky tastes, the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards' 1972 version of "Amazing Grace" caught fire in the UK on late night BBC radio after which it marched into the American Top 40. Less of a reflection on any public hankering for bagpipe music, the record had everything to do with the Jesus Movement, which would send an unprecedented number of religion-themed songs to the top of the charts. (Efforts by the Scotsmen to advance on the Harry Simeon Chorale's traditional Christmas chart turf with their own version of "Little Drummer Boy" fell short.)

The words for "Amazing Grace" were written by English poet and Christian clergyman John Newton and first published in 1779. In 1829, an American Baptist song leader named William Walker merged Newton's words with the familiar melody "New Britain," and it was under this title that certain 19th century versions of "Amazing Grace" were published.  It's tempting to connect the "New Britain" title with the song's stirring suitability for bagpipe music and assume British origins, but no evidence seems to take it farther than the USA.

In late 1970, folk singer Judy Collins paved the way for the Royal Scots' invasion by releasing an a cappella version of the song backed by a choir which she took to #15. ("Amazing Grace" had become a staple among sixties folk revivalists.) It appeared on her Whales and Nightingales album, which also included her human voice + humpback whale version of the British folk song "Farewell to Tarwathie," backed by humpback whales. The unique relationship of the Judy Collins and Royal Scots Dragoon Guards recordings of "Amazing Grace," one being voice-only and the other being music-only, begs for a mashup. 

Pacific Gas & Electric's 3 charting hits

The Los Angeles multiracial soul rock outfit Pacific Gas & Electric made their mark with the 1970 top 20 Jesus hit "Are You Ready?" The song begins by acknowledging the Vietnam War and ecological concerns ("There's rumors of war/Men dying and women crying/If you breathe air you'll die") before stirring up a fuzz guitar/gospel choir frenzy. The group had two lesser-known charting hits: "Father Come on Home," a 45-only release that also uses a gospel choir to ear-catching effect, and "Thank God for You, Baby," which evokes the Almighty in title only (and charted at #50 on the Billboard soul chart). This third one is billed to "PG&E" as a result of protestations from a certain utility company.

Featuring lead vocalist (and Arthur Lee-lookalike) Charlie Allen along with former James Gang guitarist Glenn Schwartz, Pacific Gas & Electric likely had Schwartz to thank for its God rock tendency. He had been converted to Christianity by street preacher Arthur Blessitt, the "Minister of Sunset Strip" who is now best known for carrying a cross through every nation of the world. As for the wince-inducing album cover for the group's Are You Ready?, I'm curious if there's anything more to the story than Columbia Records simply wanting to shake up perceptions.  

1. Pacific Gas & Electric - "Are You Ready?" (Billboard #14, entered 5/30/70). Written by Charles Allen and John Hill. Produced by John Hill. 45: "Are You Ready?"/"Staggolee" (Columbia 1970). LP: Are You Ready?

Side B is a bluesy version of the old Staggolee/ Stagolee/ Stack-A-Lee/ Stagger Lee folk song, sticking close to a traditional, pre-Lloyd Price set of lyrics.


2. Pacific Gas & Electric - "Father, Come on Home" (Billboard #93, entered 10/10/70). Written by Bill Soden. Produced by John Hill. 45: "Father, Come on Home"/"Elvira" (Columbia 1970). LP: (No album appearance).

The A-side's songwriter had recorded some singles in the late sixties, also with John Hill as producer. The label for the smokin' B-side "Elvira" lists it as having appeared in the 1970 Otto Preminger film Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon, starring Liza Minelli, even though it doesn't. A promo single released by Columbia does include the correct Pacific Gas & Electric song that appears in the film ("The Rake and Work Your Show"), while the A-side contains "Old Man Devil," a composition by Pete Seeger, who emerges weirdly out of the woods at the end of the film and performs his composition as the closing credits roll.

3. PG&E - "Thank God for You, Baby" (Billboard #97, entered 3/18/72; soul #50). Written by Chris Allen and John Hill. Produced by John Hill. 45: "Thank God for You, Baby"/"See the Monkey Run" (Columbia 1972). LP: PG&E (Columbia 1972).

Sha Na Na's 2 Early '70s Charting Singles

Here's what I wrote about them in my book (p. 66): "Underneath the iconic [Woodstock] music festival's mud, grass, and layers of '60s hippy mythology, a quintessentially '70s seed flowered in the form of '50s revivalism when Sha Na Na, in pompadours and gold lamé, raved up on golden oldies like Danny and the Juniors' 'At the Hop.'"

And here's what their one time manager Ron Weisner wrote about them in his Listen Out Loud (pp. 66-67): "On more than one instance, they duked it out before they took the stage...I often had to break it up; what usually put the kibosh on the scuffle was me telling them, 'If you guys don't get your sh*t together, they'll cancel the show, and if they cancel the show, you won't get paid.' That always ended the fight...for the time being. Sometimes they waited until after the show to beat the sh*t out of each other."

A hard working band, nonetheless, New York City's Sha Na Na was among the most visible manifestations of the seventies' yearning for a simpler time. It's easy to forget, though, that before the band's TV variety show years, which ran between 1977 and 1981, they were comparatively confrontational. The full page ad above appeared on the back of the July 17, 1971, issue of Billboard and flashed their early '70s slogan: "Greased and Ready to Kick Ass."  In his Performing Glam Rock, Philip Auslander equates the group's implicitly violent disdain for the counterculture with that of Alice Cooper. He reports that the group "often taunted their audiences with such lines as 'We gots just one thing to say to you f*ckin' hippies and that is rock 'n' roll is here to stay!'" (pp. 33-34).

Interestingly, out of the three singles Sha Na Na charted with in Billboard, two of those happened in 1971. (Their third, a disco-tinged cover of "(Just Like) Romeo and Juliet," reached #55 in 1975.)  The first of these, "Only One Song," was a ballad no one today would peg as the product of a '50s revival, while "Top Forty," another song on the outer edges of the typical Sha Na Na sound, still managed to tap into nostalgia, radio format lingo, and the concurrent God rock trend while sending up the Statler Brothers. (Both of the 1971 A-sides were written by group keyboardist "Screamin'" Scott Simon.)

Sha Na Na - "Only One Song" (Billboard #110, entered 5/15/71). Written by Scott Simon. Produced by Eddie Kramer. 45: "Only One Song"/"Yakity Yak [sic]/Jailhouse Rock (Medley)" (Kama Sutra 1971). LP: Sha Na Na (Kama Sutra 1971).

Side B contains the more standard representation of the Sha Na Na sound.

Sha Na Na - "Top Forty" (Billboard #84, entered 8/7/71). Written by Scott Simon. Produced by Eddie Kramer. 45: "Top Forty"/"I Wonder Why" (Kama Sutra 1971). LP: Sha Na Na (Kama Sutra 1971).

The picture sleeve for this showed the song title as "Top Forty of the Lord" but with the label simply as "Top Forty." Side B, as with the previous single, delivered a truer rendering of the band's live sound, covering the Dion and the Belmonts classic.