Reviewing The Top Ten Country Hits From This Week In 1975

 

Predictably, 1975 in country music was not a year for the history books. Scanning the Top Forty for the week of April 19 reminds me why I mostly gave up on country all together. I don't even recognize most of the charting singles. 

But was it worse than the country of today? That's what I'm here to find out.

Fortuitously, I'm not going to review the entire Top Forty; only the top ten. To do so, I have to teleport back to twenty-year-old me and review the singles as if I'm hearing them for the first time on the radio.

Three other simple rules apply:

• I am required to listen to the entire track before offering my critique.
• As I noted above, I am limiting myself to the Top Ten only. Believe me, even ten quickly become tedious.
• If I can't find a music video ("What's a music video?" I ask in 1975) I will use a video of the recorded song.

 My Source
 

 I'm ready if you are. 

 

#10 ~ She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles) ~ Gary Stewart

Immediately, I like the singer. He's got a southern country soul sound going on, and isn't afraid to use his vocal range. And he sounds nothing like any of the other artists currently on radio. The song itself is well-written. I like how the writer rhymes "doubles" with "troubles" and ties it all together in a tale about the man's pain, watching his woman betray him. And this Gary Stewart fella really sells it. This is an artist I'll be watching. He's got a future.

A

 

#9 ~  Have You Never Been Mellow ~ Olivia Newton-John

Am I looking at the country chart? I've enjoyed a couple of the singer's prior hits, but those were at least nominally country. This? It's not even good pop. Although Olivia is cute and could do well in, say, a movie musical. I don't review pop songs, so I'm only going to rate this as it relates to country.

D

 

#8 ~ (You Make Me Want To Be A) Mother ~ Tammy Wynette 

This is quite formulaic, sort of like I Don't Wanna Play House ~ very similar melody and cadence, complete with the Billy Sherrill signature background oohs and ahhs ~ but unlike the former song, it's oh, so bad. Perhaps Tammy is going back to the well, trying to recapture past glory, but wow, this was a bad choice. I'm not even sure what the song is saying. She's been trying out men and has now found one she'd like to procreate with? That's kind of...icky. I hope I don't have bad dreams about this track.

F

 

#7 ~ The Best Way I Know How ~ Mel Tillis

I hope it's not Pig Robbins doing the noodly piano on this, because I really like Pig Robbins. Jerry Chestnut is a master songwriter, having penned songs like Another Place, Another Time, A Good Year For The Roses, and It's Four In The Morning. This, though? Did Mel fish this out of Jerry's garbage? Why didn't he just record one of his own phenomenal songs? I'm tempted to blame the horrible production, but let's face it ~ this song is beneath both Jerry Chestnut and Mel Tillis.

F

#6 ~ (Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song ~ B.J. Thomas

I've loved B.J. Thomas's voice since Eyes Of A New York Woman. It's like warm honey. And unlike other pop pretenders, when B.J. decided to go country, he went country. One cannot deny the catchiness of this single. I have a feeling this one might define 1975.

A

 

#5 ~ Still Thinkin' 'Bout You ~ Billy Crash Craddock 

 

This isn't completely horrible. Just mostly. The first verse sounds like a song one could get into, but then the background soul singers come in, and suddenly the listener realizes the song has no chorus ~ it's semi-written. I don't even want to know who wrote it, because it'll probably be a songwriter I like and I'll be crestfallen. And don't try to sucker us in with the fiddles. It's too little, too late. I'm only going to bump this up a notch because it starts out okay.

D+

 

#4 ~ Roll On Big Mama ~ Joe Stampley

 

The song is okay if you like this sort of thing. This seems to be about a guy singing to his truck, which he's named "Big Mama". I don't know many truck drivers, but I don't see them singing paeans to their trucks. I could be wrong. The singer is a barely competent bar band vocalist, but apparently a lot of people like him. Maybe he has a winning personality.

 

C

 

#3 ~ Roses And Love Songs ~ Ray Price

 

I'm a big fan of Ray Price's earlier work; not so much his "For The Good Times" phase, but there is no denying his way with a line. He remade himself into a stylist after his honky tonk days, though I suspect this isn't really where his heart lies. This track lands in the sweet spot of Perry Como-like pop-country. It's not to my taste, but Price delivers it well. The song itself is cliche; like patting the "little woman" on the head, and in 1975 it may resonate with my mom (I doubt it), but not with me. I have to work, not stay home and bake cookies, so obviously I must have some skills other than sobbing over love songs. Dated message aside, the sound of this isn't grating, and the singer is a legend.

B-

#2 ~ Blanket On The Ground ~ Billie Jo Spears

Spears seems like a nice person. Her voice kind of reminds me of Melba Montgomery, and both got signed to major record deals despite mediocre talent. Spears' first hit, Mister Walker, It's All Over, was kind of a cousin to Harper Valley PTA, and in fact, she recorded Harper before Jeannie C. Riley did. Mister Walker was a bit more interesting than this one, but was delivered by a singer who didn't have the attitude to sell it. And that's the trouble with this song. The singer's personality doesn't match the song's message. But who am I to say? This single is a hit, after all. The song itself, while maybe trying to be edgy, is actually milquetoast. I wouldn't change the station if it came on the radio, but my mind would definitely wander.

B-

 

#1 ~ Always Wanting You ~ Merle Haggard

Just when I was wondering whatever happened to Merle Haggard, here comes this.

From the outset, the flamenco-like guitar and the low notes on the Telecaster immediately raise this track to another level. Then Merle's ambrosia voice along with, I'm assuming, Bonnie Owens' harmony, enters the room and is immediately intimate and warming. Haggard is truly a master songwriter. Amateur writers would do well to dissect his songs and try to discern how it's done. (Good luck there.)

It seems that Haggard has grown more introspective since his "fugitive" days (which were awesome, by the way) and this song fits his gracefully growing older persona. 

A

And there you have it ~ three timeless tracks and seven forgettable ones. Par for the country course. Actually, above par. How many weeks in history have three A's in the top ten?

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviewing The Top Ten Country Singles From This Week In 1980

 

I didn't get out of the house much in 1980. I had a two-year-old and a four-year-old at home and up 'til May I was working part-time at a retail store ~ and by "part-time", I mean three or so hours a few weeknights and six hours on Saturdays. We needed to supplement our meager income, yet I wasn't comfortable leaving my children in the hands of a stranger. Thus, I found an evening job at a recently-erected catalog store located approximately one minute away from my house. Looking back, the pay was barely worth the gas fumes it took to motor there, and while I did get a ten per cent discount on merchandise, I really couldn't afford to buy anything. Like every job I've ever had, I only landed this one because I possessed one (just one) of the skills listed on the job description ~ I knew how to run a cash register. Thinking back over my long and varied career, if I had (or could bullshit through) at least one of the required competencies, I was pretty good at glossing over the ones I didn't have**.

**Note to job-seekers: Learn how to type. 

By May I'd landed a high-paying (for my town and my skill set) job as a Communications Clerk at the hospital where I'd delivered my boys. I think my success lay again in my typing skills, plus I was interviewed by a lovely, compassionate lady, who may have noted my earnestness (I really needed to make more money). My shift was from 3:00 to 10:00 p.m., which eliminated the need for paid child care, although my live-in caretaker wasn't necessarily vigilant. I loved that job. It was right up my alley. I worked on the medical floor, transcribing doctors' orders, getting the necessary forms ready for each patient, scheduling surgeries for the next day, preparing menu orders, assigning rooms to new admissions. I was often called upon to help lift or reposition patients due to staff shortages. I found the entire medical world fascinating. Plus, I even managed to sock a little money away every two weeks in my hospital credit union account to save up for a yearly vacation. 

Occasionally, my mom invited me to see a movie with her, which was odd because she and I weren't the best of friends. I guess my older sister must have been busy. We saw Coal Miner's Daughter together that year, and in 1977 Saturday Night Fever, which made me slink down in my seat when I got to witness the "sex in a car" scene with my mom. In 1980 (again for unknown reasons) my dad and I saw Ordinary People together. The film was great, but afterward I had to listen to Dad enumerating the many ways the film's cold mother reminded him of Mom. All in all, my movie outings with my parents were uncomfortable. But Mom and I also caught Urban Cowboy, which began with an uptempo Charlie Daniels song accompanying the scene of a black pickup barreling down a dusty country road.  The film was mediocre at best, and the music mostly ehh. But, oh, what a fad that movie wrought.

I'm curious as to whether any of those Urban Cowboy tracks made the top ten this week. My source is the American Country Countdown Wiki.  If you've been reading along, you know my rules:

• I review each single as a first-time listener.
  
• I must listen to the entire track before offering my critique.  
• I stick with the Top Ten only, because this is unbelievably time-consuming.
  
• I do my best to find music videos. If all else fails, I use a video of the recorded song
  

 

Grab that mechanical bull by the horns! Let's go!

 

#10 ~ Pecos Promenade ~ Tanya Tucker

As 1980 songs go, this is okay. I like the fiddles and the two-step beat and (of course) the singer has plenty of chops and attitude. The familiar voice of her (reputed) boyfriend can be heard singing one line ~ "needs a cowboy". This track would be a great one to dance to in a country bar, if I ever had the chance to dance in a country bar, though it doesn't match the quality of Tanya's earlier hits. People Magazine tells me she's apparently going through a period of abandon right now. I hope she gets her mojo back in the future.

B

 

#9 ~ Steppin' Out ~ Mel Tillis

I'm willing to bet that the 2022 me will have no recollection of this track, even though I apparently own the album from which it came. For some reason this song reminds me of something a future country star who I'm imagining is named George might record. It's got a nice shuffle beat and the requisite country instrumentation. I don't even have to guess whether Mel wrote it, but it's a filler song. It really says nothing new and worse, doesn't say the old in an interesting way. I'm a huge Mel Tillis fan, but it's no wonder I won't remember it.

B-

#8 ~ Hard Times ~ Lacy J. Dalton

I don't know this gal, but I'm not a fan of the tremulo. For my musical taste, this track has nothing to recommend it. It seems important to the singer to belt out those lyrics, but she slaps on a nothing tom-tom accompaniment. Apparently Bobby Braddock, who is a much better writer than this song demonstrates, penned the tune. And unfortunately, it's so unremarkable that I've already forgotten it.

D

#7 ~ Lady ~ Kenny Rogers

Oh, is this the one written by Lionel Richie? That explains a lot. Kenny has apparently been able to hustle the country music charts, I guess on the strength of his actual country hits. 

Disclaimer: I saw Kenny Rogers in concert one summer on vacation with my immediate family and my parents. We were in Duluth, Minnesota, and there are only so many times one can traverse the boardwalk and wave at the ore ships that breach the harbor. My mom learned from the local paper that Kenny was appearing at the waterfront arena, so we purchased last-minute tickets. I honestly wouldn't even remember the show except for that white suit.

I don't hate Kenny Rogers, but I can't say I'm a fan of even his country tracks. It's just that "you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em" is so ubiquitous that's it's turned into an earworm. 

And I certainly am not a fan of this. The Commodores probably could have done it better, and at least they'd stay in their lane. I'm a country fan, so...

D

 

#6 ~ Old Habits ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

 Was this melody cribbed from Merle Haggard?

 

I fully admit my bias. I rarely like anything Hank does, and yes, I did walk out on his concert once in the 70's. That said, his uptempo songs are far better than this. It's dull and not in his wheelhouse. I don't know what else to say about this. It's a nothing.

D

#5 ~ I Believe In You ~ Don Williams

Don Williams is kind of the Perry Como of the eighties. He's impossibly laid back, which is actually a nice contrast to the more bombastic tracks spun by local DJ's. And Don picked a good one to record, written by Roger Cook and Sam Hogin. It definitely confers a vibe, a "snuggle under a blanket", "sip hot cocoa" ambience, and what's wrong with that? 

What the song has going for it: First, melody, Second, singer. Third, memorable chorus. Fourth, a nice warm feeling. I think this is one that will be remembered.

A

#4 ~ Could I Have This Dance ~ Anne Murray

Ahh, Urban Cowboy weighs in.

I read somewhere that Anne recorded this in a lower register because it was supposed to be a duet with Kenny Rogers. I like it as it is.

The first thing one can say about this track is that it is country. The second thing is, Anne Murray is one of the seminal voices of her generation. Thirdly, I'm a sucker for waltzes. This could and most likely will be the first wedding dance of just-married couples everywhere. The lyrics are lovely and the melody hits the sweet spot. Good songs don't have to be complicated; just honest.

A

#3 ~ I'm Not Ready Yet ~ George Jones

Like the Mel Tillis track, I'm willing to bet that I'll have zero recollection of this forty years in the future. It's got the required Jones recitation, which is kind of a lazy affectation, unless the song is Detroit City. The melody is pedestrian, the sentiment has been recounted countless times, in much better ways. Granted, unlike other die-hard country fans, I don't think George Jones is the best thing that's ever happened to country music, but I like a ton of his songs. Just not this one.

C-

 

#2 ~ On The Road Again ~ Willie Nelson

The first two or three times one hears this song, it's fine. Pedestrian, but fine. The third through the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time, it becomes grating. For a master songwriter, this must have been a throwaway written for his bandmates on the bus. A lark. Then somebody hollered out, "Hey! You should record this!" And the rest is history. I imagine that Willie will collect tons of royalties from all the future commercials that'll use this track. Everything from cars to first-aid kits (?) to probably dog food. An amateur songwriter could pen something like this, but he'd be afraid everyone would laugh at him. Kudos, though, Willie, for your success!

C

#1 ~ Theme From The Dukes Of Hazzard (Good Ol' Boys) ~ Waylon Jennings

 

I have a four-year old this year (1980) who somehow knows when it's Friday, at which time he plops himself on his stomach in front of the TV, his chin propped on his hand, to watch his favorite show of all time, The Dukes Of Hazzard. He, of course, doesn't know whose hands on the guitar are being shown on the screen, but his mom does. He's far more interested in Luke and Bo and the General Lee, which magically flies through the air in every episode. He knows all the characters, including the one he refers to as "Roscoe Peeko Train". 

I'm assuming most adults are like me, and only tolerate the goofy show for their kids, but I do appreciate hearing Waylon Jennings on my TV once a week.

Waylon wrote the song, and it's got something that the monotonous On The Road Again doesn't. Number one, it's got Waylon Jennings, one of country's legendary singers; but it's also got changes, appealing instrumentation, and creative lyrics. It's far more interactive than simply snoring along the highway on cruise control. This one is barreling down the road, feeling every bump, offering a wave (or the finger, depending on the situation) to fellow travelers.

Sure, the lyrics don't exactly relate to the average man's or woman's circumstances, but it still makes them feel good when they hear it.

A

Much to my surprise, only one track from Urban Cowboy appears in this week's Top Ten. I'm not dumping on the movie's soundtrack. There were actually several good songs inserted into the film; not just Could I Have This Dance. "Darlin'" by Bonnie Raitt, "Look What You've Done To Me" by Boz Scaggs, Charlie Daniels' "Devil Went Down To Georgia", and even "Love The World Away" from Kenny Rogers and "Here Comes The Hurt Again", a Mickey Gilley tune. 

Unfortunately, of those, only Charlie Daniels hit the jackpot. Instead we got Johnny Lee's "Lookin' For Love" ad nauseum. And it beget an unsavory fad that eclipsed more quality country songs. 

Still, this week included three A's. I think that's a record. Sometimes we forget that certain musical times were better than our cluttered brains recall.

 

 

Pam Tillis

Contrary to common belief, kids are not their parents. Parents have a problem with that concept. Or rather, baby boom parents have a problem. Baby boomers grew up self-absorbed, contemplative. I don't know if it was a symptom of the times or the fact that for most of us our parents were lackadaisical, removed. Baby boom kids were hardly the center of their parents' lives. It may have been that grownups were expected to have kids, so producing a brood was no big deal in the scheme of everyday life. Everybody had 'em. (That's why there are so many of us.) I have cousins I am completely unaware of, unless they are approximately my age. It was, for instance, Cindy and "the others". The rogue aunt and uncle who only managed to pop out one kid were viewed as odd and frankly, there had to be something wrong with that kid; therefore we avoided her.

All parents weren't necessarily like mine. All parents didn't contend with issues of substance abuse and the fallout. Nevertheless, I grew up essentially alone, and thus self-obsessed. I knew by the seventh grade what the name of my future son would be, because I contemplated things like that in my isolated bedroom. I became steeped in music, my lifeline in a lunatic world. I begged and borrowed to upgrade my sonic experience when the tiny speaker on my transistor could no longer drown out the cacophony.

Am I my parents? Sure, in some ways. DNA works like that. I have a lot of the good and some of the bad, but in the end I'm me.

When I heard a song on the radio in 1990 and the DJ uttered the name "Pam Tillis", I flashed back to an artist I'd appreciated much more as a writer than I did as a warbler. In 1968 I'd fallen in love with a recording by someone named Mel Tillis that went like this:



"Tillis" certainly wasn't a common name, so I surmised that Pam had to be Mel's offspring. And the song itself wasn't all that far removed from Heart Over Mind:



Except that Mel never did anything like this:



Or this:



Yep, this is a remake, but damn:



Mel was lamenting Ruby taking her love to town, while meanwhile, Pam said this:



Pam was not Mel. She was her own person. Pam benefited from Mel in her DNA, but she was simply Pam. Baby boomers took it from there.

September Is Country Music Month (The Middlin' Seventies)

Country music in the seventies was such a schizophrenic time, it's almost impossible to sum up the decade in one post. Whereas in pop music, the sixties could be separated by a solid line right through the middle of the decade, the seventies in country music are more like thirds, or even fourths.

In 1970 Merle Haggard was still at his peak, with The Fightin' Side of Me; Conway Twitty had re-recorded and had a monstrous hit with Hello Darlin'; Ray Price had For The Good Times.

'71 saw Easy Loving by Freddie Hart; Sammi Smith's recording of Kristofferson's Help Me Make It Through The Night was huge. Conway and Loretta teamed up and recorded After The Fire Is Gone.

By 1972 record labels began flexing their muscle, and radio suffered the consequences. Even Merle and Faron Young became a bit poppier, with Carolyn and It's Four In The Morning, respectively. And the cringe-worthy Happiest Girl In The Whole USA shot to number one.

'73 still had some gems, like Charlie Rich's Behind Closed Doors, but it also produced dogs like Teddy Bear Song.

By 1974 we saw the likes of Olivia Newton-John and John Denver, pop singers, take over the charts. Even many of country's stalwarts buckled to record company demands and recorded covers of pop hits ~ it wasn't a good look. On the list of the top 100 singles of 1974 it's almost impossible to find a true country track. One of the only bright spots of that year was the emergence of a new guy named Ronnie Milsap.

And 1974 is kind of where I stopped.

I didn't stop completely, but I began to wean myself. The preset button on my car radio no longer landed on the country station. The emotion I most distinctly recall is disgust. I truly believed country music was gone forever, and it wasn't right. I'd given almost a decade of my musical existence over to country; had grown to cherish it, and it went and knifed me. Most of the country music I was even familiar with by now was the pond scum featured on network variety shows ~ Convoy by CW McCall and Rhinestone Cowboy by Glen Campbell.

One could find some real country if they searched long and hard enough. Gary Stewart and a new girl singer, Emmylou Harris, were recording real country. Merle even dipped a toe back in the country music brook. Then there was Gene Watson. I didn't miss out on these artists, because I became an album connoisseur and took a stab in the dark and plunked down three dollars and ninety-nine cents at Woolworth's solely on faith. Emmylou was giving corporate country a dainty middle finger and recording true country in the face of the pop-country pap radio was forced to play. Gene Watson was who he was, which was stone country, and take him or leave him, he reckoned. Gary Stewart was the hillbilly renaissance of Jerry Lee Lewis.

Around this time, Wanted: The Outlaws became a thing. Truth be told, The Outlaws was a compilation LP put together solely by a producer in Nashville. This was no concept album by any stretch. But it took over, much like the Urban Cowboy soundtrack hijacked the airwaves. I'd loved Waylon Jennings since 1967, so there was no "discovery". The Outlaws was a new Waylon, and I was okay with it; but it wasn't the "best country album of all time", regardless of what fable Rolling Stone Magazine tries to foist upon us.

And this is where my consumer story comes in. I grew weary of kneeling on the living room carpet to spin Gary and Emmylou on my mom and dad's castoff console stereo. The built-in fabric-covered speakers had one setting, and poor as I was, I was ready to step into the new audio world. One Saturday I scuttled off to a little sound shop ensconced inside a crumbling strip mall and innocently placed myself in the greasy salesman's hands. "This new Swedish company, Bang and Olufsen, has these speakers that are bad!" They were definitely ponderous, as was the price tag. Inside that little shop, everything sounded exactly the same, but boy, these B&O's were big! Oh well, I had my BankAmericard inside my crocheted shoulder bag. What the heck? Throw in that Technics turntable and the Pioneer receiver!

Merle's "Movin' On" LP did sound better on my new setup. Though there were few current albums worth purchasing, I made the most of what I already owned. As 1976 dawned, I discovered a couple of new artists who were different, and thus good. Eddie Rabbitt was one of those. Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers were the other.

'77 produced a hit that struck me, "Stranger" by Johnny Duncan with a nameless female singing strong backup (who we eventually would learn was named Janie Fricke). A group previously ensconced in gospel suddenly began releasing country singles. They went by the old-fashioned moniker of "Oak Ridge Boys". On the minus side, Dave and Sugar, a thoroughly stupid name, became huge, and yep, I fell for it, too. I bought their albums, even though it was impossible to keep up with their changing personnel.

1978 was mostly forgettable, except for the rise of another artist who would take country even further from its roots. Thanks, Kenny Rogers. And, of course, Barbara Mandrell scorched everyone's eardrums with "Sleepin' Single In A Double Bed". There was, though, John Conlee's "Rose Colored Glasses".

Nothing much changed in 1979. The cast of players didn't change. The only memorable hit was by a folk-pop group called "The Dirt Band". Gosh, whatever happened to those guys?

If a year produces at the most two great songs, I'd label that a failure, which is essentially my take on the seventies. I think my fondest memories of the seventies were albums by Julio Iglesias (seriously) and Marty Robbins (very seriously). Is it any wonder I threw my hands in the air and surrendered?

However, let's not just let the decade go without reviewing the best.

1970:



1971:



1972:



1973:



Bonus Track:



1974:



1975:



Bonus Track:



1976:



1977:



Bonus Track:



 

Bonus Track #2 (Rodney Crowell!):



Bonus Track #3:



1978:



1979 (written by Rodney Crowell):

Gotta use this one, because the song is not the same without Linda Ronstadt:






If one is an easy grader, the seventies weren't all that bad. If one has scruples, yea, the seventies were bad. But at least they brought us Gene Watson and Eddie Rabbitt and the Oaks.

I'll settle for that.

Music's Worth

If I'd been a rich little kid, I would have owned the world's greatest collection of 45 RPM singles.

As it was, ninety-nine cents was damn hard to come by. My mom refused to pay me for housework, of which I actually did none, but nevertheless. I had to depend on the generosity of my Uncle Arnold, who would flip me a nickel or dime once in a while when he was helping my dad repair machinery on the farm. It was hard to save these coins, however, because the creamery truck showed up once a week to deliver milk and butter, and those fudgsicles the deliveryman carried in the back were almost impossible to resist.

By age ten I begrudgingly agreed to "help out" around the house in exchange for a weekly salary of twenty-five cents. Thus I whipped some dust around with a rag and possibly dried dishes, although my memory is unreliable on this. (In my defense, I don't recall my older sisters helping out, either. They probably remember it differently, but I am correct on this. Mom never enforced chores; I think because if you want something done right, well, you know...)

Eventually I managed to save up a dollar and promptly traipsed off to Poppler's Music to choose one lone single. My decision was not easy. I really liked The Lovin' Spoonful and The Dave Clark Five, but I almost always came home with a Beatles single. Like this:

There were, of course, other ways to consume music; most often my way was by borrowing my big brother's singles and albums when he was away. I needn't actually purchase music, because my brother had everything; but there is something about owning, holding, admiring one's own personal records. 

Then there were birthdays. I always asked for singles. I knew about albums, of course, but I really wanted the hits. My brother did buy me albums for my birthdays. He bought me The Mamas and Papas and The Yardbirds. Those two albums were the sum total of my LP collection for years to come.

This was a single I asked my best friend for, for my eleventh birthday:

When we moved in late 1966, I got myself a real job (albeit still working for my parents) and my wages increased to seventy-five cents per hour. Since my dad was constantly getting sloshed and embarking on rambling road trips, and since Mom felt an obligation to follow and track him down, I was regularly left in charge of their motel. I was eleven-going-on-twelve, but hey, the money was good!

If Mom forgot to pay me, I dinged open the cash register and withdrew the wages I was due. Dahmer's Music was my new local record store. A couple of records I purchased with my hard-fought money:

I did buy albums, too, once a year, every September, for my brother's birthday. I owed him, after all. I only purchased Beatles albums for him. In my mind, I wanted him to continue his collection. He was married by then and didn't actually care that much.  I bought Sgt. Peppers and asked him later how he liked it. He said, "It's okay", which kind of hurt my feelings. Shoot, I wasn't rich and I'd only tried to pad his repertoire. But people, and life, move on.

Once my new best friend, Alice, introduced me to country music, I dove into it headlong. Dahmer's wasn't flush with country singles (or albums) and our local country station was firmly ensconced in the Top Forty. I did buy albums, but I was limited to the offerings racked in JC Penney's basement. Thus I made some unfortunate purchases. I bought a duet album by Ernest Tubb and Loretta Lynn that I listened to approximately two times. Penneys was into "old fashioned", which was not my taste, but they hardly cared. Who but a couple of thirteen-year-old geeks was browsing their bins anyway? Their basement was flush with matrons queuing up at the catalog counter to order damask draperies. Country albums were essentially worthless unless one zeroed in on greatest hits compilations, which I definitely did buy, when available.

Soon I took to listening to far-away country stations, WHO in Des Moines (which came in crystal-clearly after midnight) and sometimes WSM in Nashville on a cloudless night and WBAP in Fort Worth. Ralph Emery and Mike Hoyer and Bill Mack understood country music -- real country music -- and I heard wondrous songs that were never once spun on my local station. But I had nowhere to buy them.

The internet was still a woozy science fiction fantasy, and computers? You mean those gargantuan whirring, beeping cyclops they showed on Lost In Space? I had a manual typewriter.

In the wee hours of Saturday nights, when I was able to tune in to WSM, right after the Opry, there was a program broadcast from Ernest Tubb's Record Shop. I figured, well hell, that store surely must have every country record known to man. I found the address in an issue of Country Music Roundup magazine, and found my way to the post office to purchase a money order*.

*the way kids who had no checking account could buy things through the mail.

I wrote long letters to the shop, specifying exactly which singles I wanted -- "not the fifties version, but the current recording by Mel Tillis". I tucked my money order inside and crossed my fingers.

That's how I eventually and joyfully received this:

And this:

Also this:

When music was hard to get, it meant more. 

Today I have tons and tons of songs on my hard drive, plus racks of CD's; not to mention my cache of fifty-year-old albums. And I never listen to any of them. But I would still get an ache in my heart if I could drop the needle on those obscure singles I strived so hard to procure. 

It's a truism that the more hard-fought a victory, the more it matters. When I click my mouse on an Amazon mp3, okay, now I've got it. I've downloaded songs that I've never once listened to. On the other hand, I played "We Can Work It Out" on my monaural record player approximately five hundred and twenty-three times, until the phonograph needle dug trenches in the vinyl. 

There is really no discovery now. No "you've got to hear this". Everybody knows everything and music doesn't matter because it's easy.

I cherish the times when I was forced to seek out music. When it was a victory to secure it. 

Now? Ehh. It doesn't really matter.

Mel Tillis

The guys who write obituaries for newspapers are probably around thirty or so. Maybe forty at the most. Everyone knows that companies are in the midst of showing baby boomers the door. That leaves a gap when it comes to writing about someone's life, because these young guys (and/or girls) don't have a clue who Mel Tillis was. It makes me mad when I realize that an obituary consists of bits gleaned from Wikipedia. A life should mean more than that. Especially Mel Tillis's.

Country music would have been so much less if Mel Tillis hadn't come along.

When I first became involved with country music, I didn't know Mel Tillis. I might have seen "M. Tillis" in parentheses beneath the song title on a '45 single, but at that time, I only cared about who sang the song. Granted, I was only around thirteen, so I was as shallow as a...well, thirteen-year-old.

I didn't even know that the title song of my all-time favorite album (because it was Dad's all-time favorite album) was written by this Mel Tillis guy. Dad bought the LP in 1965, when I was still engrossed in the orange and yellow Capital '45's released by this group called "The Beatles".

Sorry, apparently they didn't make videos in 1965, but this is still awesome:

Seeing as how I was a remedial country music student, once my best friend Alice began schooling me in the ways of (good) country music, I caught up with this next song. Alice also was the person who taught me how to play (chord) guitar (I never actually learned how to "play"), and she taught me the intro to this song. 

Detroit City was released in 1963, and while I didn't listen to country music then, one could not help but be exposed to it, because the radio stations played an eclectic mix of musical styles. My cousin and I created a comic book about "singers when they get old". Bobby Bare was one of our subjects, but in our version he was an actual bear. Our comic was a huge hit among my Uncle Howard's bar crowd. Orders rolled in, but unfortunately we would have had to recreate the whole thing by hand over and over, so we sacrificed the big bucks (twenty-five cents) we could have made from the venture, essentially because we were lazy. 

Around 1967 Alice and I were excited to see Bobby Bare in person, but thanks to a freak winter fiasco, we never got to. We ended up going back to her house and watching the local TV broadcast of Bobby's performance. 

A lot of my musical history is tied up in Detroit City, and it was all thanks to Mel Tillis:

The very first song I ever wrote went like this:

1967, you taught me how to play

All those Merle Haggard songs

Man, he had a way

And the intro to Detroit City

I remember it today

You were my hero then

You still are today

So, again, it all started with Mel.

Much like I traveled back in time to capture songs like "City Lights", I didn't quite catch that Mel had written this hit song from 1957. Was Mel around forever? 

I never understood why this guy named Webb Pierce was considered the Hank Williams of the fifties. Pierce didn't even write his own songs! And he was rather an awful singer, but apparently the "nasal" sound worked for him. In the fifties, who was the competition? Pat Boone? The only thing I know about Webb Pierce is that he had a guitar-shaped swimming pool and he was a renowned asshole. Regardless, Mel Tillis wrote this song and Webb should have thanked him for it, but apparently that wasn't Pierce's modus operandi:

More my style was this single released in 1967:

And seriously, all this time, I had no idea that a guy named "Mel" had written these songs.

So, when did I become aware of this Mel Tillis guy? In the mid-sixties, I began hearing songs on the radio by someone who had a different sort of voice. He was no Ray Price. He sang like the words were stuck in his gullet. I was judgmental. The songs were good, but I was perplexed by the singer.

Eventually, as more of this guy's recordings got played by the DJ's, I became used to him.

In 1970, I got hooked. This is one of my favorite recordings ever.

 In the mid-seventies, Mel's career took off. He was still writing songs and still writing hit songs, like:

By then, I'd bought his live album, and it was hilarious. I never knew that Mel Tillis stuttered! Of course, if you read the various obituaries, that's practically all that is written about him.

Yea, Mel Tillis was funny. And Clint Eastwood and all the Hollywood set loved him. 

This might have been from a Clint movie, or maybe not, but I think it was:

This one, I'm pretty much convinced is from a Clint movie:

Here's one more (Mel did it better):

I'm going to guess that the most famous song Mel Tillis ever wrote was this next one. It would have been nice if Kenny Rogers had tweeted a few words and had thanked Mel for his career, but whatever. I'm not going to judge the propriety or impropriety of not acknowledging.

Mel Tillis was with me all my life and I didn't even know it. I didn't know that Mel was wrapped up in my musical belonging. 

Pay it forward, they say.

Mel paid a lot of artists' ways.

Mel Tillis is wrapped up in my musical memories. Ir's not everyone who can encompass a person's life. I wanna cry just thinking about him. And I truly miss him.

Thank you, Mel Tillis, for things I didn't even know you taught me.

People Who Don't Like Country Music...

My husband, no country music fan, remarked the other day that the reason early-to-mid-sixties rock was so good was because of the harmonies. "That's when producers were still in charge," he said. His unspoken conclusion was that the rock artists of the late sixties weren't overly concerned with production. It's true. There were exceptions, but the late sixties were an anarchic time; artists were naive in their "let it all hang out" mindset toward music. Unlike now, which is essentially an anarchic time, too, but artists are now willing to bend a knee in worship of dollars and "likes". Perhaps that's why I find modern music tiresome -- it's so blatantly manipulative. I'll gladly take the naive badly produced song. At least it was honest.

But as my husband uttered the word, "harmonies", I thought, exactly! That's country music!

If the Everly Brothers had begun their career only a few years later than they did, they would have been country artists. Because country music is (or was) all about harmony.

There is an innate reason why humans are drawn to harmony. I'm not a scientist, so I don't know the reason for that. Maybe the answer is found in nature -- the way the flutter of the wind through the trees mingles with a bird's trills; and we feel alive and soft, cradled inside the earth's hands.

We're drawn to harmony and yearn to sing along. Even if we do it badly, it doesn't matter because it feels so good, so natural.

When I was sixteen or so, I'd recently purchased my first "real" reel-to-reel tape recorder, and I impressed myself with my wondrous ability to sing three-part harmony to this song, by bouncing tracks (the recording itself only featured two-part harmonies, but I said, let's go all out!):

In the early sixties, country music featured not only two-part, but three-part harmonies, where I no doubt got the idea for my "Silver Wings" rendition.

For example:

The absolute master of harmonies was Ray Price. Ray had his Cherokee Cowboys, of which a guy named Roger Miller was once a part. As an added bonus, Roger wrote this song and added his half-step to Ray's vocals:

And don't forget Buck Owens and Don Rich. In the early sixties, country music basically drizzled down to Buck Owens. The Grand Ol' Opry kept doing its thing, but nobody could compete with Bakersfield, and Nashville keenly knew it. If it wasn't for Don Rich, well...

There is no question what my favorite harmony song from the late sixties was. I know I recently featured this video in another post, but bear with me -- I can't find an original performance video of Mel Tillis doing:

From the Everlys to Porter and Dolly to Restless Heart to Brad and Dolly to Waylon and Willie, to Naomi and Wynonna, up to Vince and Patty, harmony is what country music is known for:

My visceral reaction to harmony singing, when it's good, is that it stabs me in the heart.

Everybody needs that little stab sometimes. That's how we know we're alive.

Back To Work ~ 1979 ~ And Music

When my youngest son was 6 months old, I knew the jig was up, and that I would have to go back to work.

It had been a nice sabbatical, if you call toddler/infant duty a sabbatical, but I enjoyed it.  I would have been happy to stay home awhile longer.  Alas, the checkbook spoke to me and told me otherwise, so off to find a job I scurried.

There was one of those signs along the street in front of our complex, advertising, "Future Site of LaBelle's".  And as we drove past it, I announced, "That's where I'm going to work.".  The pluses were that it was approximately 3 blocks from my home, and well, that's about it.  But I decided that I was going to get a job there.

Did you ever apply for a job for which you had no qualifications whatsoever, but you took what little experience you did have and twisted it into something that looked faintly like what the job required?  Well, who hasn't?  I had run a cash register at my mom and dad's business, so there you go.  Cash register experience.  Voila.

I don't know if anybody even remembers LaBelle's Catalog Showroom.  It apparently became defunct sometime in the mid-1980's.  But for awhile there, it was the thing.  It was a forerunner, I guess, of those warehouse stores, but on a much more pitiful scale.

There would be one of each object displayed on the shelves, and people would take one of those little stubby pencils and an order form and write down the item number, hand it to somebody, and the warehouse guys (who were just standing around with nothing much to do) would get right on it.

I worked in the "Will Call" department, which apparently meant that I would "call" people when their order came meandering up on the conveyer belt.  Another qualification I had for the job, now that I think about it, was a good speaking voice.  Because once the item finally trudged through those leather hanging strips, out to the front of the store, I would grab the little microphone off its wall mounting and announce, "Gary Pompandreaus, your order is ready at register three.  Gary Pompandreaus, register three please."

(Now that I think about it, I'm not so sure that everybody loved having everybody else in the store know that they were there, so that they'd all come running up to the cash register, clamoring, "What'd you get?", but that's how LaBelle's rolled.)

And the whole "register three" bit was sort of unnecessary.  There were generally two of us working the registers, and therefore, it didn't exactly matter which register somebody strolled up to.  We'd ring 'em up, regardless.  I wasn't going to be an ass and say to them, "No, I said register three!", and make them move one slot over.  Although, in hindsight, it would have been fun to grab that mic again and scold people publicly for their malfeasance.

I liked the job.  Sure, it got crazy at Christmas time, but that actually was much more interesting than standing around on a Wednesday night, ringing up a purchase every 20 minutes or so.  That could get boring and uncomfortable, seeing as how we had to wear high heels.  So more customers meant less time thinking about how much our feet hurt.

I even liked working the "returns" register.  Of course, times were different then.  Everybody (mostly) was polite, and we had a generous return policy.  It made me feel good to make customers happy, by just handing them their money back.  It's not like that now, is it?  They want you to bring three forms of ID, the original receipt, and heaven forbid if you've (gasp!) opened the package!  And then they begrudgingly hand you a slip of paper as "store credit".  But customer service is not exactly geared toward the "customer" anymore, is it?  They shouldn't even label the counter "Customer Service".  They should call it the, "What the hell do you want?  You're bothering me!" counter.

At the time I worked at LaBelle's, the cabbage patch doll craze was in full swing.  People were nuts about those dolls.  I sort of felt out of the loop, being a mother of boys.  And sadly, had I wanted one of those grotesque, large-headed babies, I could have had my pick.  I could have perused the shelves, picked out whichever cabbage baby was the least ugly, and had it set aside for me.  Too bad I wasn't working at LaBelle's when Transformers were popular.  I would have saved TONS of money.

Sadly, for me, retail didn't pay worth crap.  So, I didn't stay at LaBelle's long.  And apparently, LaBelle's didn't stay at LaBelle's long, either.  They folded up just a few years after I had moved on.  Their marketing concept was quaint, but they couldn't compete with the WalMarts, et al.  And really, when you think about it, would you like to stand around waiting for your item to come trudging up a conveyer belt, when you could much more quickly grab your crock pot from a WalMart shelf, and stand in line for 20 minutes, waiting to pay for it?

I don't even know if LaBelle's was a national chain.  I'm thinking it probably wasn't.  But for those of you who remember the store, here is one of their Christmas commercials (and really, cameras were dang expensive then!  I had me one of those SLR's, albeit a Minolta; not a Canon ~ purchased at LaBelle's with my employee discount ~ and I have lost all memory of the usurious amount I paid for that thing!  Now, we have digital crappy cameras, that you have to hold two feet from your face in order to focus on whatever object you're trying to snap, and you have little control, and generally, one lens, and you have to pull out your "memory card" and take it to a store and pick out your pics and have them print out, and most of them are throwaways, but dang!  Aren't those cameras cheap now!)

But 1979 wasn't just about getting back out into the working world.  There was also (country) music.

I have mostly foggy memories of many times of my life, but the music brings it all back.  That's what I love about music.

I will say, though, that nobody thought that 1979 country music was worth preserving on video, apparently, because most of it is just not there to share.  Maybe 1979 was a throwaway year?   I didn't think so.

But here is some of what I could find:

Don Williams ~ Tulsa Time



A haggard-looking Waylon Jennings ~ Amanda




Mel Tillis ~ Coca-Cola Cowboy




Charlie Daniels Band ~ The Devil Went Down To Georgia



T.G. Sheppard ~ Last Cheater's Waltz (sorry for the bad video quality)




Marty Robbins ~ All-Around Cowboy



Emmylou Harris ~ Blue Kentucky Girl (shhh, yes, you and I know that this was a Loretta Lynn song)



Oak Ridge Boys ~ Come On In



Hank Williams, Jr. ~ Family Tradition

(Hank, Jr. was always great at referring to himself in the third person ~ "Ol' Hank".  He couldn't quite pull it off like Jerry Lee did, though.  I once got up and walked out of a Hank Williams, Jr. concert.  Seriously, the only time I ever walked out of a concert.  In hindsight, if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't have walked out, but I would have stayed and been really bored.)




The Statler Brothers ~ How To Be a Country Star



Just give me some Jerry Lee Lewis any day (and he can call himself "Ol' Jerry Lee" as much as he wants, Hank.) ~ Rockin' My Life Away



Texas (When I Die) ~ Tanya Tucker



These videos, such as they are, remind me of how seminal 1979 really was in country music.  And those are just the videos I could find.  I couldn't find Eddie Rabbitt, nor Kenny Rogers, nor Anne Murray, among others.

I never before really put two and two together ~ my re-entry into the working life and my immersion in country radio.  But, you know, I had more important things on my mind then.

Two boys,

And not buying cabbage patch dolls.

More Bad Years In Country Music

I was browsing our local record store with my husband today.  Local record store....that's a term that will cease to exist soon.  Like "pay phone".

I don't really buy music anymore, so I was just keeping my husband company, while he sifted through the shelves of used CD's.  (He insisted I buy something, so we could get the "buy four" special deal, whatever that was.  So, I bought the soundtrack from "Footloose" - $4.50!)

Calling this place a "record store" is to use the term loosely.  They do (still) have CD's and albums (for the pretentious music lover), but the store is mostly filled with tchotchkes of all manner; novelty key chains, little metal tins of "things", I guess; mood rings, t-shirts, posters.  The CD aisles keep getting pushed aside for the real money-making items.

As I was apathetically flipping through the selection of CD's, I saw one titled, "Top Country Hits of 1971", and I thought, were there some?  But thinking about it later, I realized that 1971 wasn't the worst seventies year for country music.  A lot of them were the worst.  You can't really pick just one.

But for fun, tonight I decided to pick on 1974.

What I remember about 1974 is driving around to various mobile home sales lots, to pick out just the right mobile home.  No, we didn't call them trailers, although they weren't exactly "mobile", either.  People like to use the pejorative, "trailer trash", to describe someone who's crude, disreputable, tawdry.  Oh, I could find many more adjectives.  But I don't remember being "trash"; I just remember being "poor".  The interest rate in 1974 was 17%.  Who could afford to buy a real house?  Not me.   And actually, as I was browsing, I found a lot of mobile homes that I thought were cute.  I liked them.  Sure, I didn't realize the issue of little-to-no insulation, which became a problem during the North Dakota winters, but overall, they mimicked a "real house" ~ they had real appliances and everything!  I didn't have to use a wood cook stove or a washboard to do my laundry, believe it or not.  People can be such snobs.

Anyway, I was driving around, looking, then coming back and looking again, and of course, the AM radio was keeping me company in my 1970 blue Chevy Impala.  So, I heard a lot of country music.  But, of course, one did not need to drive around to hear music.  Music was a big thing back then.  We only had about 15 TV channels provided by our cable "service", and you know, most of those were public access or other stuff that you just whipped right past, in order to get to the NBC channel to watch Phil Donahue.  So, we listened to music a lot, even at home.

When I browse the country music charts for 1974, I find a lot of either losers or completely forgotten tunes.  A lot of the songs were either boring or "icky", but we put up with them; tolerated them, because really what options did we have?

In featuring the hits of 1974 tonight, I'm going to randomly mix the good with the bad, and I'm not going to comment (too much), because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.  Something that I just hate, hate!  is probably someone else's all-time favorite song.  But if you're unfamiliar with the year, you can certainly make up your own mind.  And, or course, the usual caveat is, I will feature what I can find.  There's not a lot of what you'd call "historical" music available on YouTube, because, you know, technology was so bad back then.  We barely had electricity most of the time.

TOM T. HALL (dueting with Dolly Parton here - which he didn't actually do on the record; fyi.)



Speaking of DOLLY PARTON:



Let me just say that I know a lot of people love this song.  I do not.  I think it's one of Dolly's lesser efforts, but if you listen to a bunch of Janie-come-latelys in the music biz, you would think this is one of the best songs EVER.  While it's always a temptation to write a song completely in minor chords, it rarely turns out well.  Because it's just too depressing.  And I don't like the sing-songy, "Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jo-LEEEN"; it just grates on my nerves.  I said I wasn't going to comment "much".  Sorry.

I always loved JOHNNY RODRIGUEZ.   Here is his version of a song written by Lefty Frizzell.  You may be more familiar with the Merle Haggard version.



The song that probably most defines 1974 for me, was recorded by CAL SMITH.  This was a number one song, and possibly the number one song of the year.  Lord knows, it was played often enough to become the number one song.



I'll just be honest here, and admit that I HATE recitation songs.  Hate them.  They're always maudlin and sickly sweet.  Are they supposed to make you cry?  Of course they are!  But I don't really find them "sad", per se.  Well, yes, they're "sad", but not in a good way.

And I liked Melba Montgomery.  By the way, before Tammy came along, ol' George recorded a lot of duets with Melba.  And I like the name "Melba".  You don't hear that name anymore.  Unless you're having some toast.

So, MELBA MONTGOMERY (not the original performance, obviously):



In 1974, RONNIE MILSAP was a new performer on the scene.  Sometimes somebody comes along who has staying power.  Here's the proof (and have you ever heard Cap'n Crunch referenced in a song before?  Silly question.)



You know, Whitney Houston didn't originate this next song.  While everybody else was oohing and ahhing over this "new" hit song by Whitney, country fans were like, well, that's a different take on an oldie!

Here's DOLLY again:

 

While not an original MICKEY GILLEY song, it was still a good one.  Again, this is not a 1974 performance, obviously.  My dad always liked this song, and that's good enough for me.  Unfortunately, this performance is a "medley", so you don't actually get the full benefit of what the song was like in its entirety, but doesn't he sound more and more like his cuz all the time (and I don't mean Jimmy Swaggart)?  Mickey had a good run in the Urban Cowboy days, but more power to him, I say.  At least he wasn't Johnny Lee.



BOBBY BARE has never gotten his due.  We're really quick to move on to the next big thing, and we forget people.  Bobby Bare belongs in the Country Music Hall of Fame, but I'm not holding my breath anymore.  I fought that fight, and nobody listened to me, but I keep listening to Bobby anyway.  This is a novelty song, really, but it was a big hit in 1974, and I did have the single.  Of course, I bought a lot of singles back then....at Woolworth's.



I don't know what to say about DONNA FARGO, really.  Let me say that she is, I understand, a really nice person.  I'm sure it's my personal problem that I just can't forgive her for The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA.  I wrote about that song in a post a long time ago, and, let's face it, the lyrics of that song were some of the stupidest, most asinine lyrics ever written ever.

But Donna had other hits, too.  Here's one (but she really should have lost the coveralls):



BILLY "CRASH" CRADDOCK was the precursor to Billy Ray Cyrus, I guess.  That faux-sexiness, that wasn't really sexy at all, unbeknownst to the Billy Rays.  He did try hard, though, and he had dazzlingly white teeth.  Here is "Rub It In":



I know people are going to flog me, but I think this next song is FAR BETTER than He Stopped Loving Her Today.  I know it's heretical to say this, but the truth is the truth.  It's a better song.  Better written; more soulful.  Says the EXACT SAME THING, essentially, as that other song.  Norro Wilson wrote this.  He wrote a great one, and this is a great performance, by GEORGE JONES:



WAYLON JENNINGS was represented (well) in 1974.  Here is Ramblin' Man:



Did I say before that I hated the song, Jolene?  I was maybe too harsh.  If my choices were to listen to Jolene, or to listen to this next song all day long, I'd go with Jolene.  You know that sensation of fingernails on a chalkboard?  Well, here's DOLLY again (and why does she keep wearing that purple jumpsuit every time?  Doesn't she have any other outfits?):



I used to be so biased against JOHN DENVER, back then, in the seventies.  I don't even remember why.  There was something; something going on, but I forget what it was.  Because, actually, in hindsight, this next song is more country than most of the so-called "country" songs that I have featured in this post.  I don't get it.  But I'm not going to lose sleep trying to remember, because I was obviously wrong.  And this song proves how wrong I was.



Another song I blithely dismissed, back then, in 1974, was this next song, recorded by BILLY SWAN.  Because, every time I hear it now, which isn't too often, but occasionally it gets played on oldies radio, lo these 38 years later (seriously?), I like it, and I completely enjoy hearing it.  I'm beginning to think I was just stupid 38 years ago.  Or I had bad taste, or no taste.  But I still hate Love Is Like a Butterfly.  That hasn't changed.

Here is "I Can Help":



So, I scrolled through the list of number one songs from 1974, and then I moved on to what Wikipedia labels "other singles released", and I realized that some of the best songs apparently never hit that number one spot.  Well, there's no accounting for taste, as evidenced by the fact that I hated John Denver, inexplicably.

Here's one of those "other songs".....CONNIE SMITH:



In case you forgot, and you probably did, MEL TILLIS had a slew of hit records in 1974.  Here's one of them:



Speaking of novelties (which I think I did at some point, earlier), here's one.  Do you remember JIM STAFFORD?   Maybe you had to be there.  Jim Stafford was kind of an odd duck, but an entertaining one!  I remember working at my first ever real job, at the State Capitol, and they'd play this song on KFYR (AM) a whole lot.  My Girl Bill:



Can't believe that one is considered one of the "others", because I sure heard it a lot in 1974.

I'll leave you with this, because I'm tired, and there were a lot of songs that charted in 1974; too many for one post, and maybe 1974 wasn't as awful as my selective memory told me that it was.  I will say that, surprisingly,  the "others" were some of the best ones.  I don't get that.  But hindsight is 20/20.

Here is GEORGE & TAMMY: