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"1900 Yesterday" song

J

johnbasalla

"1900 Yesterday" was a modest hit single by Liz Damon's Orient Express in 1970-1971. Whenever I play it, I think "Beautiful Music". The vocals have it done correctly, most notably, when singing the songs title. However, and particularly, when they get to instrumental bridge, the song gets "punchy" and when the electric guitar kicks in, even for a short time, it can be jarring to the Mantovani fans.

Did any Beautiful Music stations play, and/or services record, all-smooth cover versions of this song for airplay on Beautiful Music radio stations? Did any stations or services get around to airing the actual hit version when things got more contemporary in sound?

Since the hit version was on the charts in early 1971, and it got into the Billboard Top 40, that means Casey Kasem's (sp) "American Top 40" would have played it.
 
To nitpick, it was late 1970, barely into 1971, when 1900 Yesterday was a hit. I don't remember it being on any Easy Listening/Beautiful Music stations, at least not in Indiana.

ARSA | About This Site

An historical archive of Radio Surveys & Nostalgia.
www.las-solanas.com
 
KeithE4 said:
To nitpick, it was late 1970, barely into 1971, when 1900 Yesterday was a hit. I don't remember it being on any Easy Listening/Beautiful Music stations, at least not in Indiana.
Click to expand...

It debuted 12/26/70 and stayed on the Hot 100 for 12 weeks, reaching as high as No. 33. And according to Wikipedia, it went to No. 4 on the Easy Listening chart.
 
Talk about an absolute blast from the past.🤯 I’ve not heard or even thought of 1900 Yesterday since it was a very modest hit over 54 years ago, yet the tune immediately popped into my head. Fascinating what you have buried in your brain that just needs a jolt to jar loose.😳😆

I don’t remember it being on any BM/EZL stations either, and it appeared to be ignored by a lot of Top 40 outlets. In Austin I recall it was played on (the now long forgotten) KTAP but not on KNOW or any other similar stations I could receive.
 
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For the uninitiated:


Even for Beautiful Music, that instrumental break is pretty darn mild. It absolutely got play at KBIG, KOST and KJOY in L.A. If other parts of the country had an issue, that's a really easy edit to make.

It was also HUGE on Southern California MOR stations (KMPC, KFI, KGIL), and the nascent Adult Contemporaries (KIIS-AM and KHJ-FM).

The wild story is Top 40 KHJ, where it peaked at #13, holding that peak for three weeks before dropping off the chart entirely in its eighth week.

Looking at ARSA, I can kind of hazard a guess as to what happened.

Liz Damon's Orient Express was a lounge band at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. They released an album and "1900 Yesterday" as the single from it on a local Hawaiian label.

Then---out of nowhere---White Whale Records---floundering after its only big act, The Turtles, stopped getting hits, does a deal to release "1900 Yesterday" on the mainland.

And the first mainland station to play it---was KHJ.

When Bill Drake vacationed, it was almost always Hawaii. I can't prove it, but I'm betting Drake heard the song on local radio (it was rocketing to #1 on every island station), caught Liz' act in the hotel bar, made a phone call, and boom.

Drake was a massive square. It would have been right up his alley. The second station in mainland America to play it was also Drake's--- KYNO in Fresno.

In those days, KHJ and KYNO could start a stampede by themselves, and a few big stations (KCBQ, KYA, KIMN, WCFL) were on the record within two weeks of KHJ, which had it to itself for a week before it went on KYNO.

Three weeks after KHJ, it was KJR and KLIF. Drake's own KFRC waited a month. KHJ's hometown rival, KRLA, waited until the week it peaked at KHJ to add it, and it looks like they were only on it for a week or two. After that, it was largely medium and small markets, some adding it as late as March of 1971 (KHJ added it the first week of December, 1970).

KHJ actually dumped the record two weeks before it peaked at #33 in Billboard. Very few stations saw it chart as high as KHJ did.

KHJ was drowning in MOR material the week "1900 Yesterday" peaked on the Boss 30... The Fifth Dimension's "One Less Bell To Answer" was #1, Tony Orlando and Dawn's "Knock Three Times" was #2, Gladys Knight and The Pips' "If I Were Your Woman" was #3, Barbra Streisand's "Stoney End" was #6, Lynn Anderson's "Rose Garden" was #7, Ray Price's "For The Good Times" was 11th, Perry Como's "It's Impossible" was 15th, and Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" was 19th.
 
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"Stoney End" was Barbra Streisand's first move away from purely Adult material. I perceived it as Rock! She quickly retreated and didn't return until the Disco era.

We used "1900 Yesterday" as a theme song for one of our Talk show hosts in the mid-70s.
 
Never heard it before. Perhaps my lack of recall was a consequence of living near the Iowa-Missouri border at the time, where my Top 40 listening was KIOA Des Moines and Storz’s WHB Kansas City plus WLS at night. It sounds like something that WHO might have played during the few hours of music it played (PM drive and scattered other hours), but I didn’t listen to WHO for music, generally.

I suppose someone will dig up a WHB survey from that time that will show it being played. KIOA isn’t much remembered by people outside Iowa, though it’s still around as a classic-hits FM station.
 
michael hagerty said:
For the uninitiated:


Even for Beautiful Music, that instrumental break is pretty darn mild. It absolutely got play at KBIG, KOST and KJOY in L.A. If other parts of the country had an issue, that's a really easy edit to make.

It was also HUGE on Southern California MOR stations (KMPC, KFI, KGIL), and the nascent Adult Contemporaries (KIIS-AM and KHJ-FM).

The wild story is Top 40 KHJ, where it peaked at #13, holding that peak for three weeks before dropping off the chart entirely in its eighth week.

Looking at ARSA, I can kind of hazard a guess as to what happened.

Liz Damon's Orient Express was a lounge band at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. They released an album and "1900 Yesterday" as the single from it on a local Hawaiian label.

Then---out of nowhere---White Whale Records---floundering after its only big act, The Turtles, stopped getting hits, does a deal to release "1900 Yesterday" on the mainland.

And the first mainland station to play it---was KHJ.

When Bill Drake vacationed, it was almost always Hawaii. I can't prove it, but I'm betting Drake heard the song on local radio (it was rocketing to #1 on every island station), caught Liz' act in the hotel bar, made a phone call, and boom.

Drake was a massive square. It would have been right up his alley. The second station in mainland America to play it was also Drake's--- KYNO in Fresno.

In those days, KHJ and KYNO could start a stampede by themselves, and a few big stations (KCBQ, KYA, KIMN, WCFL) were on the record within two weeks of KHJ, which had it to itself for a week before it went on KYNO.

Three weeks after KHJ, it was KJR and KLIF. Drake's own KFRC waited a month. KHJ's hometown rival, KRLA, waited until the week it peaked at KHJ to add it, and it looks like they were only on it for a week or two. After that, it was largely medium and small markets, some adding it as late as March of 1971 (KHJ added it the first week of December, 1970).

KHJ actually dumped the record two weeks before it peaked at #33 in Billboard. Very few stations saw it chart as high as KHJ did.

KHJ was drowning in MOR material the week "1900 Yesterday" peaked on the Boss 30... The Fifth Dimension's "One Less Bell To Answer" was #1, Tony Orlando and Dawn's "Knock Three Times" was #2, Gladys Knight and The Pips' "If I Were Your Woman" was #3, Barbra Streisand's "Stoney End" was #6, Lynn Anderson's "Rose Garden" was #7, Ray Price's "For The Good Times" was 11th, Perry Como's "It's Impossible" was 15th, and Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" was 19th.
Click to expand...
Were KBIG, KOST and KJOY Beautiful Music formatted stations?
 
semoochie said:
"Stoney End" was Barbra Streisand's first move away from purely Adult material. I perceived it as Rock! She quickly retreated and didn't return until the Disco era.
Click to expand...

Not quite.

The first move was her album "What About Today" from the summer of 1969. Three Beatles songs, a Paul Simon, a Buffy Sainte-Marie. Trouble was, her producers and arrangers (chosen by Columbia Records) didn't understand the material. The album stalled at #31---by far the worst of any non-Christmas album. Her previous low was #12. None of the three singles charted.

The "Stoney End" album was the same approach (songs by Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Harry Nilsson, Gordon Lightfoot and Carole King), but with Streisand's choice of a single producer, Richard Perry.

The album went Top 10. The lead single, "Stoney End", peaked at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, but number 2 on the Easy Listening chart. Why? Because MOR/Adult Contemporary stations of the time weren't as limp as people seem to think.

The follow-up single was Laura Nyro's "Time and Love". Laura was on a hot streak as a songwriter---Blood, Sweat & Tears and the Fifth Dimension had big hits with her material. But hot on the heels of a top 10 "Stoney End", Streisand stalled at #51 with "Time and Love", though it made #3 on the Easy Listening chart.

The third single was also a Laura Nyro---"Flim Flam Man". Even worse. Peaked at 82 on the Hot 100 and #7 on the Easy Listening chart.

Streisand did not retreat---she doubled down. By the end of 1971, a new album "Barbara Joan Streisand", again produced by Richard Perry. Material from Carole King, Laura Nyro, John Lennon and a then-unknown songwriting duo---Donald Fagen and Walter Becker (only a year from launching Steely Dan).

The first single from that album---Carole King's "Where You Lead"---only made #40 on the Hot 100 (but #18 at KHJ) but a solid #3 on the Easy Listening chart.

The follow-up, John Lennon's "Mother"---was a disaster. #82 on the Hot 100 and #24 Easy Listening.

The album, though, sold respectably, peaking at #11.

After that, Streisand had back-to-back movie commitments ("What's Up, Doc", "Up the Sandbox", "The Way We Were" and "For Pete's Sake"), as well as a TV special ("Barbra Streisand and Other Musical Instruments").

At the end of that string, editing on the movie "The Way We Were" was finishing up and the film about to hit, so Columbia rushed an album to go along with it. Streisand only had time to record a studio version of "The Way We Were" different from the soundtrack, Stevie Wonder's "All In Love Is Fair", Paul Simon's "Something So Right" and Carole King's "Being at War With Each Other" (which Carole wrote for Streisand, but because of the film schedule, she released first on her "Fantasy" album).

The studio fleshed out the rest of the album with stuff in the vaults back to 1969. Looking at Streisand's choices, if she'd had time, it's pretty clear this would have been in line with what she'd been doing since "Stoney End".

This is getting (?) long, but after "The Way We Were" came "ButterFly", with songs from Bob Marley, David Bowie and Graham Nash, "Lazy Afternoon", produced by Rupert Holmes, with his songs, a Stevie Wonder track and a Four Tops cover, and then (following a classical album with Claus Ogerman), the string of hit albums and Top 10 singles from "Superman", "Songbird", "Wet" and "Guilty".

That streak began pre-disco, with "Evergreen", "My Heart Belongs To Me" and "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" (with Neil Diamond) before "The Main Event/Fight" and "Enough is Enough/No More Tears" (with Donna Summer) and "Woman In Love", "What Kind of Fool" and "Guilty" (with Barry Gibb).


So, Streisand never retreated---until 1985's "The Broadway Album". She just wasn't getting airplay.
 
michael hagerty said:
That streak began pre-disco, with "Evergreen", "My Heart Belongs To Me" and "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" (with Neil Diamond) before "The Main Event/Fight" and "Enough is Enough/No More Tears" (with Donna Summer) and "Woman In Love", "What Kind of Fool" and "Guilty" (with Barry Gibb).
Click to expand...

According to Wikipedia...
In 1977, Diamond released the album I'm Glad You're Here with Me Tonight, which included the track "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" as a solo performance. Early in 1978, Barbra Streisand covered the song on her album Songbird. These recordings were spliced together by different radio stations, creating unofficial duets, the success of which led to the studio bringing them together for an official duet recording, which reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1978.
Click to expand...
 
michael hagerty said:
Streisand did not retreat---she doubled down. By the end of 1971, a new album "Barbara Joan Streisand", again produced by Richard Perry.
Click to expand...
Is that how her name was spelled?
michael hagerty said:
The first single from that album---Carole King's "Where You Lead"---only made #40 on the Hot 100 (but #18 at KHJ) but a solid #3 on the Easy Listening chart.
Click to expand...
"Gilmore Girls" fans such as myself have a reason for knowing that one.
michael hagerty said:
That streak began pre-disco, with "Evergreen", "My Heart Belongs To Me" and "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" (with Neil Diamond) before "The Main Event/Fight" and "Enough is Enough/No More Tears" (with Donna Summer) and "Woman In Love", "What Kind of Fool" and "Guilty" (with Barry Gibb).
Click to expand...
I like the first three and the last three.
 
Ed Nielson said:
According to Wikipedia...
Click to expand...

That's correct. Gary Guthrie at WAKY in Louisville was the first to do the edit.


I have no idea whether he was inspired by it or not, but the year before (1977), KFRC in San Francisco created a Boz Scaggs/Rita Coolidge duet on "We're All Alone". It was her current single at the time, but Boz wrote it and recorded hit for his "Silk Degrees" album in 1976. It survives on this December 28, 1977 KFRC aircheck.

Cue to the 1 hour, 47 minute mark (the "Close Encounters" sounder at the beginning relates to a contest KFRC was running at the time and was not part of the song---Mark McKay's backannounce of "We are not alone" wasn't a flub, but another reference to the Close Encounters contest):


archive.org

KFRC San Francisco (December 28, 1977) : Mike Schweizer : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Aircheck recording of KFRC San Francisco (December 28, 1977). Recorded off the air by Mike Schweizer, these airchecks include commercials, songs, and DJ...
archive.org


KFRC had also created a version of Streisand's "Evergreen" in 1976 by taking the single and editing in the "Evergreen" reprise from the album near the end...giving it more of Kristofferson's backing vocal and ending with their kiss, Kristofferson's "Holy Moly" and Streisand's laugh:


 
I was playing it at KOVA in the Ventura-Oxnard CA market as early as 1975, when the station upgraded its MOR format to be more contemporary.

It was in regular rotation in the late-1990s/early-2000s on the syndicated Music Of Your Life format.

I still play it occasionally on the AC station I program in Albuquerque.
 
michael hagerty said:
Not quite.

The first move was her album "What About Today" from the summer of 1969. Three Beatles songs, a Paul Simon, a Buffy Sainte-Marie. Trouble was, her producers and arrangers (chosen by Columbia Records) didn't understand the material. The album stalled at #31---by far the worst of any non-Christmas album. Her previous low was #12. None of the three singles charted.

The "Stoney End" album was the same approach (songs by Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Harry Nilsson, Gordon Lightfoot and Carole King), but with Streisand's choice of a single producer, Richard Perry.

The album went Top 10. The lead single, "Stoney End", peaked at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, but number 2 on the Easy Listening chart. Why? Because MOR/Adult Contemporary stations of the time weren't as limp as people seem to think.

The follow-up single was Laura Nyro's "Time and Love". Laura was on a hot streak as a songwriter---Blood, Sweat & Tears and the Fifth Dimension had big hits with her material. But hot on the heels of a top 10 "Stoney End", Streisand stalled at #51 with "Time and Love", though it made #3 on the Easy Listening chart.

The third single was also a Laura Nyro---"Flim Flam Man". Even worse. Peaked at 82 on the Hot 100 and #7 on the Easy Listening chart.

Streisand did not retreat---she doubled down. By the end of 1971, a new album "Barbara Joan Streisand", again produced by Richard Perry. Material from Carole King, Laura Nyro, John Lennon and a then-unknown songwriting duo---Donald Fagen and Walter Becker (only a year from launching Steely Dan).

The first single from that album---Carole King's "Where You Lead"---only made #40 on the Hot 100 (but #18 at KHJ) but a solid #3 on the Easy Listening chart.

The follow-up, John Lennon's "Mother"---was a disaster. #82 on the Hot 100 and #24 Easy Listening.

The album, though, sold respectably, peaking at #11.

After that, Streisand had back-to-back movie commitments ("What's Up, Doc", "Up the Sandbox", "The Way We Were" and "For Pete's Sake"), as well as a TV special ("Barbra Streisand and Other Musical Instruments").

At the end of that string, editing on the movie "The Way We Were" was finishing up and the film about to hit, so Columbia rushed an album to go along with it. Streisand only had time to record a studio version of "The Way We Were" different from the soundtrack, Stevie Wonder's "All In Love Is Fair", Paul Simon's "Something So Right" and Carole King's "Being at War With Each Other" (which Carole wrote for Streisand, but because of the film schedule, she released first on her "Fantasy" album).

The studio fleshed out the rest of the album with stuff in the vaults back to 1969. Looking at Streisand's choices, if she'd had time, it's pretty clear this would have been in line with what she'd been doing since "Stoney End".

This is getting (?) long, but after "The Way We Were" came "ButterFly", with songs from Bob Marley, David Bowie and Graham Nash, "Lazy Afternoon", produced by Rupert Holmes, with his songs, a Stevie Wonder track and a Four Tops cover, and then (following a classical album with Claus Ogerman), the string of hit albums and Top 10 singles from "Superman", "Songbird", "Wet" and "Guilty".

That streak began pre-disco, with "Evergreen", "My Heart Belongs To Me" and "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" (with Neil Diamond) before "The Main Event/Fight" and "Enough is Enough/No More Tears" (with Donna Summer) and "Woman In Love", "What Kind of Fool" and "Guilty" (with Barry Gibb).


So, Streisand never retreated---until 1985's "The Broadway Album". She just wasn't getting airplay.
Click to expand...
I knew this would come back to haunt me. I was basing my comments on my memory of singles I remember and I forgot about "Where You Lead" or thought it was later. Were these songs you mentioned actually rock leaning or like "101 Strings Plays the Beatles" with vocals?

Didn't she have an early album called, "My Name is Barbra."?
 


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