The music history books are vast and full of interesting bits of knowledge.
“Big” Jay Sorensen gives you a recap of the biggest and most interesting music news from the week; something from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.
This week, Big Jay highlights that time in 1964 when The Beatles were ALL over the Billboard charts, plus Johnny Taylor’s “Disco Lady,” and Styx’s album Paradise Theatre.
1960’s
That Time The Beatles were ALL Over the Charts!
The Billboard Magazine front page headline says it all; “Chart Crawling With Beatles.”
There were 12 songs from the Fab Four on this survey for the week ending April 4, 1964. Next week, there would be a best-ever 14 titles from the Beatles on the Hot 100; the most at one time by any artist to date. Elvis Presley once had nine titles on the chart during one week—that was dated December 19, 1956—then a record-breaking occasion. “Can’t Buy Me Love” (with “You Can’t Do That” on the B-side) was released in the United States on March 16, 1964 on Capitol Records, with advance orders of over a reported two million copies globally. “Can’t Buy Me Love” debuted on the Hot 100 Singles chart at No. 27 just last week, and jumped all the way to the chart’s most coveted position—an astonishing feat.
No. 85 – (LW 86) – “A LETTER TO THE BEATLES”
The Four Preps – CAPITOL – 5143
No. 79 – (LW Not Charted) – “THANK YOU GIRL”
The Beatles – VEE-JAY – 587
No. 68 – (LW 75) – “ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN”
The Beatles – CAPITOL of CANADA – 72133
No. 65 – (LW Not Charted) – “YOU CAN’T DO THAT”
The Beatles – CAPITOL – 5150
No. 58 – (LW 71) – “ALL MY LOVING”
The Beatles – CAPITOL of CANADA – 72144
No. 46 – (LW 78) – “DO YOU WANT TO KNOW A SECRET”
The Beatles – VEE-JAY – 587
No. 42 – (LW 57) – “WE LOVE YOU BEATLES”
The Carefrees – LONDON INTERNATIONAL – 10614
No. 41 – (LW 50) – “FROM ME TOO YOU”
The Beatles – VEE-JAY – 581
No. 31 – (LW 26) – “I SAW HER STANDING THERE”
The Beatles – CAPITOL – 5112
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No. 5 – (LW 4) – “PLEASE PLEASE ME”
The Beatles – VEE-JAY – 581
No. 4 – (LW 2) – “I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND”
The Beatles – CAPITOL – 5112
No. 3 – (LW 1) – “SHE LOVES YOU”
The Beatles – SWAN – 4152
No. 2 – (LW 3) – “TWIST AND SHOUT”
The Beatles – TOLLIE – 9001
No. 1 – (LW 27) – “CAN’T BUY ME LOVE”
The Beatles – CAPITOL RECORDS – 5150
It was with this analysis of record sales and radio air-play that the A side of the single became No. 1 on the Hot 100 Singles chart (the week ending on April 4, 1964) and the next top 4 positions were correspondingly occupied by Beatles singles. “Can’t Buy Me Love” stayed at the chart’s apex on this register for five consecutive seven-day survey-spans. The basic tracks for the song were recorded at the Pathé Marconi Studios, Rue de Sevres, Boulogne-sur-Seine, Paris, France on January 29, 1964. When back in London, Paul McCartney added a doubling vocal, with George Harrison also doubling his guitar solo. Just four takes were needed to nail the basic tracks in Paris. This occurred right after they had reluctantly recorded German versions of “Sie Liebt Dich” (“She Loves You”) with totally new vocal and instrumental tracks, and “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand” (“I Want To Hold Your Hand”) with just new vocals inserted on a rhythm track for the German-speaking market—making those three recordings the only EMI/Parlophone/Apple sessions the Beatles ever did outside of England.
Both producer George Martin and Norman “Hurricane” Smith (EMI’s balance engineer) joined the Mop Tops in France for this recording session. Next week, every Beatles song seen above (not counting the tributes) appeared again; most in a different order, obviously, but with the addition of two more 45 RPM’s from “The Boys”—“There’s A Place” (the B side of “Twist And Shout”) and “Love Me Do” (No. 1 Pop) the A side of their first U.K. single, that was backed with “P.S. I Love You.” That song later reached No. 10 on the Hot 100. “There’s A Place” was on the chart for just that sole week, garnering the No. 74 position; then gone. But nothing in the music business was ever the same from this week forward—and likely– no artists will ever have this much saturation again. This feat is still a marvel 51 years later. Little did anyone realize (including the band itself) that the act would remain overpoweringly fashionable over a half-century after they first landed on our territory.
1970’s
“Disco Lady”
Johnnie Taylor
It was the biggest hit in Johnnie Taylor’s career, and his very first on Columbia Records (after a long tenure at Stax Records through much of the ‘60s through ’74)) with “Disco Lady.” The song was in week-one of an eventual six-week run at the top of the Hot 100 Singles chart. The record was in the fourth of an ultimate six survey-phases at the summit of the Hot Soul Singles chart during this time in ’76. Taylor began having pop chart hits as early as 1963, but he had replaced Sam Cooke when he left the Gospel Group the Soul Stirrers way back in 1957; even signing to Cooke’s own label SAR Records for a brief time. When he inked his signature with Stax (billed as “The Philosopher of Soul) he had smokin’ hot songs like: “Who’s Making Love” and “I Believe In You (You Believe In Me)” both million-selling singles, produced by Don Davis. “Disco Lady” would succeed the Four Seasons with “December ’63 (Oh What A Night)” at the high point of the Hot 100 next week. “Disco Lady” would be there for four uninterrupted weeks in ‘76. Here’s the long version of the song from the album Eargasm. That’s not a typo.
Four members of the conglomerate Parliament/Funkadelic performed their instrumental magic on this track. Yeah, that’s William “Bootsy” Collins on the slap-bass. Plainfield, New Jersey-native Bernie Worrell was featured on the electric piano, Plainfield-native Glenn Goins was plucking the guitar strings and Jerome “Bigfoot” Brailey was hittin’ the skins. That was Brailey who played the incredible drumming track on “O-o-h Child” by the Five Stairsteps in 1970. And, that’s one of the voices of (Tony Orlando and) Dawn—future actress Telma Hopkins on backing vocals on “Disco Lady.” It was not recorded in Memphis as Taylor had been doing for almost a decade. Instead, “Disco Lady” was recorded in Detroit at United Sound Studio. The longtime associate of Johnnie Taylor, Don Davis produced the track there, as he owned the landmark studio founded way back in 1933 at 5840 Second Avenue in the Motor City. In fact, Berry Gordy, Jr. recorded what is considered the first Motown record at this facility in 1959. That historic song was from Marv Johnson called “Come To Me” for your Record Pigs. “Disco Lady” was the very first certified “Platinum” single (over two-million copies) listed by the RIAA—Recording Industry Association of America. Certainly other 45 RPM’s sold two million or more, but this was the first to be certified. It was the seventh biggest single of the year in New York City on the AM Top 40 station WABC’s Musicradio 77 Survey. “Disco Lady” became the third biggest record on the national Billboard’s Hot 100 of 1976’s year-end chart. Johnnie was given a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm & Blues Foundation in 1996. In 2000, Taylor died of a heart attack suffered at a Dallas-area hospital. He had been working at the time as a radio personality, known as “The Wailer, Johnnie Taylor” at radio station KKDA-FM in the Metroplex—Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas.
1980’s
Paradise Theatre
STYX
Replacing the huge album Hi Infidelity by REO Speedwagon at No. 1 on the Top LPs & Tape chart this week in ’81 was undertaken by Paradise Theater by Styx. This was the initial survey-phase (of an eventual three non-consecutive weeks) for the A&M Records album to sit at the apex of this listing. Hi Infidelity would roar back to the peak of the chart in a couple of weeks; only to lose the slot to Paradise Theater for one sole survey-period again for the week ending on May 9, 1981—with REO Speedwagon coming back yet again for another six weeks during the late spring. Their first and only chart-topping album, Styx’s LP was a concept record about a real theater built in 1928 in the West Garfield Park section of Chicago. However, the album was a made-up description of the movie theater’s rise, downfall and eventual demolition in 1956; used as a metaphor to describe the changes of Chicago and the nation as we morphed from the late ‘70s into the early ‘80s. The theater that was supposedly built to last forever, took over six months do take down and cart away. The LP Paradise Theater was a huge success, selling over three million copies in the U.S. alone, and was the last multi-million-selling album for Styx. The first single from Paradise Theater was “The Best Of Times,” written by Dennis DeYoung, reaching No. 3 on the Hot 100 singles survey for three weeks. It was the second No. 1 song for Styx on the Canadian singles listing. The Dennis DeYoung-penned and sung track ended side-one of the Long-Player with a sad tale about the demise of the Paradise Theater. But the song was uplifting at the same time—seeing the positive side of being with the one you love. The second single “Too Much Time On My Hands” debuted on the Hot 100 for the week ending March 31, 1981 and was currently in the second survey-phase of an ultimate 19 weeks on the Hot 100; eventually climbing to No. 9 on that monitor of sales and radio airplay. “Too Much Time On My Hands” was written and sung by Styx’s guitarist Tommy Shaw.
Ultimately, the unraveling of the core members of Styx was caused by tensions about the path of the band’s music. DeYoung was doing more Pop-oriented songs (many ballads) while Tommy Shaw and the other members of the ensemble desired a more rock-slanted sound. DeYoung was even briefly fired over his aspiration to follow-up one of his ballads with yet another. The band had to fight to prevent it. DeYoung was rehired, but the giant split happened while Styx was making their next album after Paradise Theater called Kilroy Was Here. Tommy Shaw left the group citing musical differences, and joined with Ted Nugent and Night Ranger’s bassist/singer Jack Blades and an unknown drummer to form the band Damn Yankees. Founding drummer John Panozzo died of gastrointestinal bleeding in 1996. His twin brother announced he is living with HIV and campaigns for AIDS awareness and no longer performs with the group. DeYoung continues as a solo artist. Guitarists Shaw and James Young also have had solo careers but still tour with the current line-up of Styx. Lingering bad blood between Shaw and DeYoung will likely prevent any reunion between the two with or without Styx.
–Big Jay Sorensen/WCBS-FM