I'm going down to see ELO Saturday Night in Atlanta on their last tour. If music fan hasn't seen them live I'd highly recommend going. I'll post some videos Sunday.
This week in 1974, the Harry Chapin single “Cat’s in the Cradle” debuted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at #88 (October 5)
The folk rock song from the album “Verities & Balderdash” went on to become Chapin’s only #1 song, topping the US charts in December of 1974.
It also reached #3 in Canada and #6 in Australia.
This touching, cautionary tale of a father and son, the fleeting passage of time, and life’s priorities became one of the most recognized and played songs in history.
A folk rock classic.
It was nominated for the 1975 Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011.
The song's lyrics began as a poem written by Harry's wife, Sandra "Sandy" Gaston; the poem itself was inspired by the awkward relationship between her first husband, James Cashmore, and his father, John, a politician who served as Brooklyn borough president.
Chapin also said the song was about his own relationship with his son, Josh, admitting, "Frankly, this song scares me to death."
As it does a lot of us…
Click on the link below to watch “Cat’s in the Cradle” with a touching intro from Harry Chapin’s wife and son:
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This week in 1974, the Lou Reed LP “Sally Can’t Dance” debuted on the US Billboard 200 Albums Chart at #56 (October 5)
While the record was a hit and elevated Reed's status as a star, he reportedly was disappointed in its production (in which he took a largely passive role) and the treatment of the songs.
Reed remarked, "It seems like the less I'm involved with a record, the bigger a hit it becomes. If I weren't on the record at all next time around, it might go to Number One."
His fourth solo studio LP remains Reed's highest-charting album in the United States, having peaked at #10 during a 14-week stay on the Billboard 200 album chart in October 1974.
It also went to #14 in Australia, and #18 in the Netherlands.
It’s also the first solo Lou Reed album not to feature any songs originally recorded by the Velvet Underground, as well as the first of Reed's solo studio albums to be recorded in the US (Reed's previous three albums were all recorded in the UK).
I love the cover art too; one of my favourite album covers…
Click on the link below to watch the title track:
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This week in 1968, the Cream single “White Room” debuted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at #58 (October 5)
This is a beauty…
Written by legendary bass player Jack Bruce with lyrics by poet Pete Brown, the band recorded it for the studio half of the 1968 double album “Wheels of Fire”.
In September, a shorter US single edit (without the third verse) was released for AM radio stations, although album-oriented FM radio stations played the full album version.
The subsequent UK single release in January 1969 used the full-length album version of the track.
In a Songfacts interview with Pete Brown, he recalled:
“It was a meandering thing about a relationship that I was in and how I was at the time.
It was a kind of watershed period really. It was a time before I stopped being a relative barman and became a songwriter, because I was a professional poet, you know.
I was doing poetry readings and making a living from that.
It wasn't a very good living, and then I got asked to work by Ginger and Jack with them and then started to make a kind of living.
And there was this kind of transitional period where I lived in this actual white room and was trying to come to terms with various things that were going on.
It's a place where I stopped, I gave up all drugs and alcohol at that time in 1967 as a result of being in the white room, so it was a kind of watershed period.
That song's like a kind of weird little movie: it changes perspectives all the time.
That's why it's probably lasted - it's got a kind of mystery to it."
The classic rock song went all the way to #1 in Australia, #2 in Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand, #6 in the US, #14 in Belgium, #15 in Spain, and #28 in the UK and Germany.
Rolling Stone ranked "White Room" at #376 on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
Click on the link below to watch:
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This week in 1974, the Neil Diamond single “Longfellow Serenade” debuted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at #59 (October 5)
The song from Diamond’s “Serenade” LP went all the way to #1 in South Africa and Switzerland, #2 in Germany, #5 in the US, #7 in Australia, and #9 in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Diamond said, “Occasionally I like using a particular lyrical style which, in this case, lent itself naturally to telling the story of a guy who woos his woman with poetry."
The title of the song, and the poet in question, is a reference to the 19th-century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Diamond reportedly chose to reference Longfellow specifically after recalling an instance in which, while in his teens, he had used one of the poet's works to successfully seduce a significantly older woman…
Click on the link below to watch:
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On this day in 1973, the Carpenters single “Top of the World” debuted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at #80 (October 6)
The Carpenters originally intended the song, written and composed by Richard Carpenter and lyricist John Bettis, to be only an album cut.
However, after country singer Lynn Anderson covered the song and it became a #2 hit on the country charts, they reconsidered.
The track from the “A Song for You” LP made it to #1 in the US, Australia and Canada, and #5 in the UK, and became one of their most loved songs…
Click on the link below to watch:
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On this day in 1978, “Grease: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture” went to #1 on the UK Albums Chart (October 7)
This one had people around the world singing along…
It has sold approximately 28 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time, also ranking amongst the biggest selling soundtrack albums of all time.
It went to #1 around the world, in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, and many other countries…
The song "You're the One That I Want" was a US and UK #1 for stars John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.
The album also featured the title track "Grease", another US #1 written by Barry Gibb of Bee Gees fame, and sung by Frankie Valli of The Four Seasons.
Additional singles from the album were “Sandy”, “Summer Nights”, Greased Lightnin’”, and the ONJ ballad “Hopelessly Devoted to You”.
In the UK, the album remained at the top of the charts for 13 consecutive weeks.
Click on the link below to watch many of the songs from the album on the “Grease Megamix”:
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On this day in 1977, Queen released the single “We Are The Champions”/ “We Will Rock You” (October 7)
Written by Freddie Mercury, “We Are The Champions” is a song that is still sung in countless victory celebrations around the world, particularly at sporting events, and is one of the most played, sung, and recognizable anthems in rock history.
The flip side (released as a double-A side) was another anthem - “We Will Rock You”, written by Brian May, which is again sung with gusto, stomping feet and clapping hands at events all around the world.
Rolling Stone ranked “We Will Rock You” #330 of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004, and it placed at #146 on the Songs of the Century list in 2001.
In 2009, "We Are The Champions" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame…
Click on the link below to watch “We Are The Champions”:
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OR
Click on the link below to watch “We Will Rock You”:
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On this day in 1972, the LP “Slade Alive!” debuted on the US Billboard 200 Albums Chart at #187 (October 7)
This was Slade's first album to enter the UK charts and also the first to enter the Billboard 200 in the US.
Considered by many to be one of the best live albums of all time “Slade Alive!” contains three original songs, plus cover versions of songs by Ten Years After, The Lovin' Spoonful, Bobby Marchan, and Steppenwolf, and was recorded live at Command Theatre Studio.
The three nights cost £600 to record.
Noddy Holder recalled:
“Our manager, Chas Chandler, had come up with the idea of us doing a live album, because he'd been Jimi Hendrix's manager and he'd seen how some of Hendrix's live performances had been turning points in his career.
So we booked a little studio-cum-theatre on Piccadilly for three nights: the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
The bulk of the album was from the Wednesday night, which was mayhem. 'Coz I Luv You' was number one, and we'd come straight from doing Top of the Pops.
We were still wearing our clobber from the telly, and we went pretty much straight onstage… Our aim onstage was to hit the crowd between the eyes and grab them by the balls."
It worked….the album was a resounding success.
NME ranked it #2 in the magazine's Top 10 albums of 1972.
In Australia, it reached #1 and was the biggest-selling album since The Beatles' “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967).
Elsewhere, the album peaked at #2 in the UK, #5 in Finland, #8 in Austria, #18 in Norway, #25 in Germany, #77 in Canada, and #158 in the US.
Click on the link below to watch “Hear Me Calling”:
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