Redartz: Good day, all; and welcome to another trip aboard the Retro Metro. You're just in time- today we head back to the early Bronze age, the Spring of 1973. Skylab is launched, Secretariat wins the Kentucky Derby, and everyone is talking about the growing Watergate scandal. But we're here to check out pop culture, and we start with the song at the peak Casy Kasem's "American Top 40" today:
Top US Billboard Pop Hit: Edgar Winter Group, "Frankenstein"
According to Fred Bronson's "Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits", writer Edgar Winter named the song for all the cuts and stitching required during the editing. The single version is a couple minutes shorter than the live.
Rounding out the top five:
2. Paul McCartney and Wings, "My Love"
3. Elton John, "Daniel"
4. Dawn featuring Tony Orlando, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree"
5. Stevie Wonder, "You are the Sunshine of My Life"
Other notables: "Night the Lights Went out in Georgia", and Hocus Pocus: "Focus". Seems to be an abundance of story songs these days. Vicki Lawrence's "Night the Lights Went Out" just became the first 45 this preteen has purchased. Great lyrics, "...his cheatin' wife had never left town, that's one body that'll never be found"...
Hocus Pocus, "Focus"(complete with cool yodeling)
Tops in the UK: Wizzard, "See My Baby Jive"
Having checked out some tunes, now we'll tune in and check out tonight's tv offerings:
US Television Schedule:
ABC: The F.B.I., The ABC Sunday Night Movie
CBS: The New Dick Van Dyke Show, M*A*S*H, Mannix, Barnaby Jones
NBC: The Wonderful World of Disney, NBC Sunday Mystery Movie (Hec Ramsey), Night Gallery
NBC Sunday Mystery Movie opening
BBC1: Glory, Glory, Owen M.D., All Time Greats: On the Beach, Song of Summer
BBC2: The World About Us, Ballet From Europe, Away From it All, M*A*S*H, The John Denver Show
Our family still starts Sunday nights with Walt Disney, and usually follows with the New Dick Van Dyke Show and Mannix. Sometimes I'll get to catch Night Gallery, though. Occasionally my Dad will watch the Sunday Mystery Movie. That has such a memorable intro...
Alas, at this point in time, your humble host hasn't yet been bitten by the comics bug. I'm still picking up Archies (including this issue of "Riverdale High"), and the occasional Gold Key humor book. In a few years I'll be shopping for many of these books in the back issue bins. Some pretty sharp books here, that Spider-Man cover is dynamite, as is the Avengers. I noticed that first issue of "Prez" but passed on it. Looked like an unusual concept. How many of these do you remember on the stands?
And with that fond glance at the spinner rack, we turn away from 1973 and return to the present. Hope you had fun, and will be back to join us in our next trip on the Retro Metro!
14 comments:
I've never heard "Frankenstein" before but I thought it was awful and I couldn't wait for the clip to end...sorry. Wizzard had a second UK #1 called "Angel Fingers" but nowadays they are most famous for their Christmas 1973 hit "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" which is impossible to escape at Christmas as it is one of those festive songs that gets played in shops, on the radio, on TV, everywhere. I'm surprised that John Denver had a TV show on BBC 2 in 1973 because I thought he was unknown in the UK at that time. Believe it or not John Denver had only one UK Top 40 hit ever - "Annie's Song" reached #1 for 1 week in October 1974 but he had no other British hit singles AT ALL. That is rather baffling as Denver's albums sold in the UK and he appeared on TV.
The only one of those comics I had was "Prez" #1, which was a very strange artefact, involving a villain with an emoji for a head. Truly, it was a comic decades ahead of its time.
The BBC channels were dull as ditch water on that day. I wish TV listings for ITV were available from that period. ITV was far more low class than the BBC and therefore more fun.
Things were a lot better on the music front. My favourite songs from that week's UK chart were:
1 - "See My Baby Jive," by Wizzard, which is an awesome slab of Spectoresque Pop. It seems it was a total flop in America. If it's not known over there, it's well worth checking out.
5 - "Can The Can," by Suzi Quatro. Totally meaningless but great.
9 - "Brother Louie," by Hot Chocolate. A total classic. Famously, the only band to have a Top Ten hit in Britain in every year of the 1970s.
10 - "Giving It All Away," which was pretty much the entirety of Roger Daltrey's solo chart career in Britain.
35 - "Stuck in the Middle With You," Stealers Wheel.
"Frankenstein was a new entry at Number 50. I have to say I've never heard of it before, so I assume it didn't climb much higher than that but I could be wrong.
The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mannix, Barnaby Jones and Night Gallery all used to be shown on Friday nights on ITV, around midnight, somewhere around 1980, along with The Mary Tyler Moore Show. ITV must have bought them all in one go and then left them on a shelf for about seven years before noticing they had them.
Red! You sooooo hit my comic sweet spot! Funny that I was just a few years from exiting comics and you were approaching the on ramp.
Luke Cage was my man! Punching Spidey in the face... awesome! I still have it in the long box!
Hard to believe I was still reeling from the gut punch of Marvel replacing Colan with Heck on DD and in just a month Conway would kill Gwenn in ASM. The beginning of the end for me, but I guess if you never knew Gwenn, her death would not be an "event" but just "the way things were" when you started reading ASM.
Frankenstein and Hocus Pocus - listened to the 45s over and over and over and over...
UK pop charts... I've never understood them b/c a 20 year old song can suddenly be # 1 for several weeks. Like suddenly Elvis or Beatles go to number 1. What triggers that? A new movie, news event...?
Steve D.C. - I just checked out Wizard's "See my baby jive." The first thing I thought was "That's gotta be the inspiration for Catweazle!" (I plan to check out a Catweazle on youtube.) Well, to be honest, it wasn't bad but I probably won't add it to a playlist. It very much has that "wall of sound" that the motown groups pioneered in the early 60s. It's really cool you guys come up with suggestions for us US guys to check out!
B.t.w as I was reading comments on Youtube on Wizard "My baby jive" I noticed a lot of discussion about Wizard having a strong influence on ELO? THoughts?
Charlie, in the late 1960s, Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne were both members of The Move, along with drummer Bev Bevan. The three of them then formed ELO together but kept The Move going for a short while before concentrating purely on ELO. Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne shared the songwriting and singing duties on ELO's first album but Lynne and Wood fell out and Wood left to form Wizzard while Lynne stayed with ELO. Wizzard had more chart success in the first half of the 1970s than ELO did but ELO had more success in the second half of the 1970s. It's hard to believe now but when ELO were formed, Wood was seen as the group's main man and Lynne was seen as his sidekick.
As for old songs making the charts, usually when an ancient track reappears like that it's because its featured in an advert or in a movie or TV show.
Man - I learn something new everyday. So, Wood never busted the charts in the US w/ Wizzard but ELO surely did with Lynne.
Truly, I never understood what someone like Lynne (based on ELO's style) with the rest of the Traveling Wilburys (Harrison, Dylan, Petty...) He just seemed to "electric."
Hmmm, well I was only a year old in 1973, so I don't remember any of this stuff :) I have read some of the comics after the fact, though.
For anyone who's interested, here's ELO with Roy Wood on lead vocals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7xTurH6oLk
Roy Wood has to be the hairiest man in the history of the human race.
I would have said Jeff Lynne was the hairiest guy in the world. Those ELO albums seemed to always have spaceships on the cover, and Lynne looked like a short Wookie that stepped out of one wearing sunglasses and holding a guitar. Maybe bringing us a message of peace, love, and symphonic rock n' roll from a galaxy far away.
I rather liked his stuff, actually. I'm a pushover for a good melody.
M.P.
Colin J and Steve DC- checking out Wizzard on YouTube was educational. Had never heard of them prior to writing this post; quite interesting to learn of the ELO connection. Love how educational this all is!
Charlie- well, it appears we had a couple years overlap in our collecting eras! Ah, those early-to-mid 70's...
Mike W.- never fear, our next "Retro Metro" will cover a later Bronze age date, perhaps one that might trigger a memory or two. Our Bronze age spans a pretty good time frame; and we haven't even visited 1970 yet...
By the way, a sad note today; artist Rich Buckler passed away Friday. He leaves many fine stories as a legacy, including some of my favorite Fantastic Four issues. Godspeed, Rich.
Yep, this was certainly MY YEAR for Marvel and all fun things... Loved the Vicki Lawrence song, Live and Let Die (with McCartney's theme), All In The Family, avoiding Watergate, ASM 123 and Avengers 114 (who knew the greatest Marvel team battle, the clash of Summer '73 was only a month or so away...?), sooo much was suddenly going on.
Sheesh, even Ringo had a couple of Number 1 hits that year. It was THAT incredible.
And lest we forget FOOM..., 'nuff said.
It was certainly the best of times for me, a short but glorious roller-coaster ride.
David_b- great summation of the year! Avengers/Defenders was a blockbuster. Having only read it years later, I missed the week-to- week anticipation between issues.
Also, love your comment about "avoiding Watergate". As kids, it just seemed an annoyance that interrupted the tv schedule...
I'm a little late to this party but could not let this ride on the Retro Metro go by without chiming in.
May of 1973 was very clearly for me THE first month that I was buying Marvel Comics knowing which issues to expect each week. I had always dabbled in comics of various sorts prior to this, but that Iron Man #61 was the conclusion of a two-parter that I was anxiously awaiting. In hindsight, that story wasn't so great. I guess it just came along at the right time in young me's life.
Some real favorites that month - Avengers with Swordsman and Mantis, ASM with Luke Cage, Hulk guest starring Hawkeye, that first Thor reprint with Hercules, my introduction to the Avengers kooky quartet via reprints, and on, and on, and onward...
From this month on for a good 6 or so years I was buying some 20-odd Marvel comics a month. Good times!
So...that was 44 years ago??? Damn, I feel old.
Tom
Tom- never too late to take a ride! You chose a great time to dive into Marvel. And a fine ride lay yet ahead!
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