HIT SONGS THAT WEREN'T HITS ON YOUR FAVORITE STATION

[firepoint525]

"Badlands" was also a single, it peaked at #42 in the late summer of '78.
As others have noted, you can't go by the singles charts, especially for rock artists of the 70s where most of their audience was listening to AOR and bought albums, not 45s.

I've never even seen a 45 for that one. But I remember "Prove it All Night" getting some airplay back then. And I lived in an area that wasn't serviced by album rock, at least not at that time.

With Springsteen, you had to buy 45s to get all his stuff because his b-sides often never made it onto the albums, except for maybe compilation CDs years later.

 

[Markieo]

With Springsteen, you had to buy 45s to get all his stuff because his b-sides often never made it onto the albums, except for maybe compilation CDs years later.

Elton John, Tom Petty, The Police and R.E.M. did the same thing with their b-sides, all non-album tracks!

 

[bpatrick]

The Civil War song by Joan Baez was called "The Night They Drove
Old Dixie Down." IIRC, it was originally recorded by Don Rich, who
worked with Buck Owens, but she didn't change the gender of the
main character of the song.

I never could find Isaac Hayes' version of "Never Can Say Goodbye"
on WSGN Birmingham but heard it incessantly on WQXI Atlanta.
Somebody from Birmingham correct me but I don't remember "Resurrection
Shuffle" by Ashton, Gardner and Dyke on WSGN, but heard it a lot on
WQXI. My memory may be playing tricks on me on this one.

BTW, Rick Dees did a stint on WSGN; he came there about the time
I graduated from high school and moved to Tampa. He went to
high school in Greensboro, and I remember that every time he played
something by James Taylor he'd say, "North Carolina's own James Taylor."
Now Taylor lived in Chapel Hill for part of his formative years but why
Alabama listeners would care is beyond me.

 

[davideduardo]

BTW, Rick Dees did a stint on WSGN; he came there about the time
I graduated from high school and moved to Tampa.

Rick moved on to WMPS and Disco Duck fame when Mooney's new Top 40 FM kicked WSGN out of first place. Among the memorable moments was when the private elevator climbed to the SGN offices atop the First Federal building and opened up to display a funeral wreath from "Mr. Hooper and Family."

 

[Oldbones]

The Civil War song by Joan Baez was called "The Night They Drove
Old Dixie Down." IIRC, it was originally recorded by Don Rich, who
worked with Buck Owens, but she didn't change the gender of the
main character of the song

Since Robbie Robertson wrote the song, I'd consider the Band's version the "original".

 

[LKellerIII]

The Civil War song by Joan Baez was called "The Night They Drove
Old Dixie Down." IIRC, it was originally recorded by Don Rich, who
worked with Buck Owens, but she didn't change the gender of the
main character of the song

Since Robbie Robertson wrote the song, I'd consider the Band's version the "original".

Yes - The Band's version was the original - and the best, in my opinion.

I'm pretty sure Joan Baez did not change the male gender of the main character, either. She sings:

"Virgil Caine is my name..."

"Back with my wife in Tennessee, and one day she says to me..."

 

[michael hagerty]

As far as Top 40 was concerned, there was nothing from Springsteen between Born to Run and Hungry Heart.

And the RKO chain (KHJ,KFRC, WHBQ, WRKO, WFYR and WXLO) ignored Born to Run...so it stalled at #20 in Billboard. But they played Prove It All Night. Go figure.

 

[Oldbones]

And the RKO chain (KHJ,KFRC, WHBQ, WRKO, WFYR and WXLO) ignored Born to Run...so it stalled at #20 in Billboard. But they played Prove It All Night. Go figure.

WRKO did play "Born To Run"...I'm looking at a survey dated 10/17/75 and there it is at #16. If they played "Prove It All Night", it's not on any survey I have (granted there are some gaps, but if it charted it wasn't on the survey for more than a couple weeks).

 

[firepoint525]

The station that I mentioned earlier (the one that didn't play anything from the Cars' first album) did play "Don't Look Back" by Boston. Now of course, it went top five, but the station started playing it nearly a month before it cracked the charts! Now Boston was an established band by then, but I only remember all of this because they made such a big deal about rolling out that new Boston single a good month or so before everyone else did. But I seem to recall that they stuck with the radio edit of that song, which faded out at about the 4:00 minute mark, for the entire chart run of that song, and not going on to the album version the way those other stations (the ones who added it later) did.

 

[michael hagerty]

And the RKO chain (KHJ,KFRC, WHBQ, WRKO, WFYR and WXLO) ignored Born to Run...so it stalled at #20 in Billboard. But they played Prove It All Night. Go figure.

WRKO did play "Born To Run"...I'm looking at a survey dated 10/17/75 and there it is at #16. If they played "Prove It All Night", it's not on any survey I have (granted there are some gaps, but if it charted it wasn't on the survey for more than a couple weeks).

My mistake on "Born To Run"...thanks for catching it. "Prove It All Night" wasn't big and didn't last long.

 

[michael hagerty]

The station that I mentioned earlier (the one that didn't play anything from the Cars' first album) did play "Don't Look Back" by Boston. Now of course, it went top five, but the station started playing it nearly a month before it cracked the charts! Now Boston was an established band by then, but I only remember all of this because they made such a big deal about rolling out that new Boston single a good month or so before everyone else did.

First single from the second album of a band that went multi-platinum first time out with a 2-year wait for the new LP? I'd go out of the box on that too.

 

[bpatrick]

The Civil War song by Joan Baez was called "The Night They Drove
Old Dixie Down." IIRC, it was originally recorded by Don Rich, who
worked with Buck Owens, but she didn't change the gender of the
main character of the song

Since Robbie Robertson wrote the song, I'd consider the Band's version the "original".

Yes - The Band's version was the original - and the best, in my opinion.

I'm pretty sure Joan Baez did not change the male gender of the main character, either. She sings:

"Virgil Caine is my name..."

"Back with my wife in Tennessee, and one day she says to me..."

You're right; The Band was first to record it. I had heard Rich's version on a country
station in Birmingham (WYDE) that my parents liked to listen to before I heard anyone
else's, which is why I thought his came first. I don't recall any Birmingham station playing
The Band's version although WSGN did play the Baez version.

BTW, Baez chabged some other lines in the song:

In the original, after Virgil Caine introduces himself, he says, "'Til Stoneman's cavalry
came and tore up the tracks again." This is a reference to Union Gen. George Stoneman's
destructive raids on the South (a marker in Athens, GA notes that he came through there
as well). Baez changed that to "'Til so much cavalry came..." (Stoneman, I believe, was
a distant relative of the musical Stoneman family whose best-known member, banjoist/comedienne
Roni, was a regular on "Hee Haw.")

The original: "By May 10th (1865) Richmond had fell..." Baez: "I took the train to
Richmond that fell..."

In the original, Virgil says, "Like my father before me, I will work the land." Baez:
"Like my father before me, I'm a working man." And the original says, "Like my
brother above me, I took a rebel's stand"; Baez says, "Like my brother before me..."

The original: "I swear by the mud below my feet..." Baez: "I swear by the blood
below my feet..."

 

[bpatrick]

There's also some debate about whether Virgil's wife says,
"Virgil, quick, come see, there goes Robert E. Lee" or "there
goes the Robert E. Lee (a steamboat)." Lee never passed
through Tennessee, probably never went beyond Charlotte, NC.
There were numerous people who claimed to have seen either Lee
or Abraham Lincoln (sort of like Elvis sightings) but in reality had not.
Possibly the line "there goes Robert E. Lee" is a reference to these
alleged sightings.

 

[cyberdad]

Sorry for being late to this thread, but I recall in Chicago in the summer of '66. "Double Shot of My Baby's Love" was going bonkers nationally, but invisible on WLS and WCFL. I can think of a few others from the sixties, but for the most part those were secondary national hits (i.e. top 20, but not top 10).

 

[michael hagerty]

Sorry for being late to this thread, but I recall in Chicago in the summer of '66. "Double Shot of My Baby's Love" was going bonkers nationally, but invisible on WLS and WCFL. I can think of a few others from the sixties, but for the most part those were secondary national hits (i.e. top 20, but not top 10).

"Double Shot" peaked at only #17 in Billboard. I thought it was bigger, but then at KHJ, it went to #2.

According to the Smash Records discography at bsnpubs.com, WLS had problems with content:

The lyrics in question for "Double Shot" apparently included the word "hangover" in the opening verse, "Woke up this morning I was feelin' so bad, the worst hangover I ever had." Likewise, the lines, "She loved me so long and she loved me so hard, I finally passed out in her front yard" were deemed objectionable. Some stations, notably Chicago giant WLS, flatly refused to play the song. Smash had the singer re-record some lyrics ("the worst morning after I ever had"; ""she kissed me so long and she kissed me so hard"), and rather crudely spliced them into the song and offered the new version to the radio stations, but by that time it was too late.

 

[cyberdad]

Michael....

Thanks for the info. I didn't know about the WLS "ban", but it makes perfect sense given my recall how management was approaching things at the time. I'm not sure what WCFL's problem was. They may have looked at it pretty much the same way, but I believe they generally tended to have tighter playlists than "the big 89".

I also recall around the same time not being able to hear the Kingsmen's "Annie Fanny" on Chicago radio. I automatically assumed "Anny Fanny" was regarded too racy for 'LS, but I never considered "Double Shot" to be out of line.

Both songs were getting airplay in Milwaukee as well as on KIOA and other stations in Iowa where I was going to school at the time. Odd that what what was acceptable in Iowa during the decade of peace and love would be considered "over the top" in the big city! :

I'm also surprised to learn that "Double Shot" only peaked at #17 nationally. I had thought it cracked the national top ten. Anyway, the version on my iPod (as well as the one I have on vinyl) contain the original lyrics. I also have "Annie Fanny" on bothy vinyl and iPod.
Nothing really objectionable here, but this was from the heyday of Will Elder/Harvey Kurtzman's very popular (and IMHO brilliant) bawdy comic strip running in Playboy magazine.

 

[michael hagerty]

Michael....

Thanks for the info. I didn't know about the WLS "ban", but it makes perfect sense given my recall how management was approaching things at the time. I'm not sure what WCFL's problem was. They may have looked at it pretty much the same way, but I believe they generally tended to have tighter playlists than "the big 89".

I also recall around the same time not being able to hear the Kingsmen's "Annie Fanny" on Chicago radio. I automatically assumed "Anny Fanny" was regarded too racy for 'LS, but I never considered "Double Shot" to be out of line.

Both songs were getting airplay in Milwaukee as well as on KIOA and other stations in Iowa where I was going to school at the time. Odd that what what was acceptable in Iowa during the decade of peace and love would be considered "over the top" in the big city! :

I'm also surprised to learn that "Double Shot" only peaked at #17 nationally. I had thought it cracked the national top ten. Anyway, the version on my iPod (as well as the one I have on vinyl) contain the original lyrics. I also have "Annie Fanny" on bothy vinyl and iPod.
Nothing really objectionable here, but this was from the heyday of Will Elder/Harvey Kurtzman's very popular (and IMHO brilliant) bawdy comic strip running in Playboy magazine.

In the case of "Annie Fanny", it was probably a case of smaller markets being willing to take a chance on records earlier. Chicago passed because the record....um...stiffed. Peaked at #47 in Billboard.

 

[cyberdad]

You may well be right, Michael. But my theory has always been that it stiffed because a lot of broadcasters in 1966 thought it was too hot to handle. But that said, "Annie Fanny" wasn't exactly '60s pop's finest hour....although not a bad effort by any means IMHO.

To those unfamiliar, "Annie Fanny" was a tongue-in-cheek reworking of The Hollywood Argyle's "Alley Oop"

 

[1954]

The reason KHJ didn't play Nashville Cats" by The Lovin' Spoonfull was that the filp side "Full Measure" was the hit in L.A.

 

[johnbasalla]

"(How 'Bout A Little Hand) For The Boys In The Band" by The Boys in The Band wasn't a big hit, but I remember it being played in Cleveland, Ohio on the legendary WIXY 1260. The DJ came on and said the song wasn't doing as well as it was doing in other areas. They soon dropped the song.