Saturday, January 11, 2014

The Saturday Surveys (1-11)

Three more great charts for your perusal in our brand new 2014 Saturday feature!

First up, a Top 20 Chart from KPOI in Hawaii!!!  (How many Hawaiian charts have you seen before?!?!?)    

We've told you that Chicago's own New Colony Six were EXTREMELY popular over there ... and here you'll find their latest hit "Long Time To Be Alone" (a song that petered out at #93 in Billboard ... and only climbed as high as #13 here at home) sitting at #8 ... on its way DOWN the chart after reaching #1 a few weeks earlier!  (It was this record that allowed the band to fly over to the Hawaiian Islands for a series of shows in 1972, still one of Ronnie Rice's all-time favorite New Colony Six memories!)  

Other than that, Hawaii was pretty much in-tune with the rest of the country ... although "American Pie" seems to be inching its way up the chart here rather than the full head-on attack it had nationally.





The Twist was all the rage in Louisville, KY, this week in 1961.  You'll find Chubby Checker on top of the chart with his '60's anthem "The Twist", followed at #2 by Joey Dee and the Starliters and "The Peppermint Twist".  Checker was climbing the charts with his follow-up hit, too ... "Let's Twist Again" is sitting at #16 in its second week on the chart.  

Local group Cosmo had a Top Ten Hit with "I'm A Little Mixed Up", a track we featured AGES ago as part of our "Show Me Your Hits" feature where we spotlighted local, regional hits by artists that never made Billboard's Chart.










Here's a pretty amazing chart out of Oklahoma City, circa 1971.  

Check out the #1 Song ... "D.O.A." by Bloodrock ...  

This track was banned on numerous stations at the time.  
(It IS pretty dark!!!  And definitely not the kind of track you'd see the kids dancing to on American Bandstand!!!) 
Seeing this one in The Top Five alongside such teeny-bopper fare as "Knock Three Times" by Dawn and "I Think I Love You" by The Partridge Family REALLY makes this typically "FM-Only" track stand out even more from the rest of the pack!  

Then again, look at the hodge-podge of variety on the radio back then.  Those really WERE the days ... when you could hear Bloodrock, Santana and Led Zeppelin all played during the same hour as hits by Lynn Anderson, Jerry Reed and Perry Como!!!  (Man, what a different time it was!!!)  

Another Forgotten Hits favorite on this list ... "Games" by Redeye, a track that peaked at #27 in Billboard but was already in the WKY Top 20!







All of this week's charts come courtesy of Clark Besch ... thank you, Clark!  

Be sure to check back NEXT Saturday for more great Top 40 Memories!  (kk)