This Weekend the 40th reunion of my high school class will be held. I will not be attending. 40 years ago this week I graduated from high school and the top ten songs of that week were:
1. The Candy Man by Sammy Davis Jr.
2. Nice To Be With You by Gallery
3. Sylvia’s Mother by Dr. Hook And The Medicine Show
4. I’ll Take You There by The Staple Singers
5. Outa Space by Billy Preston
6. Song Sung Blue by Neil Diamond
7. Lean On Me by Bill Withers
8. Walkin’ In The Rain With The One I Love by Love Unlimited
9. Oh Girl by The Chi-Lites
10. (Last Night) I didn’t Get To Sleep At All by The 5th dimension
Perhaps if I heard them again I would recognize them all but I don’t remember Nice To Be With You, Outa Space,Walkin’ In The Rain With The One I Love, Oh Girl or (Last Night) I didn’t Get To Sleep At All.
The strange thing is that except for maybe Sylvia’s Mother by Dr. Hook there are no rock songs or rock bands on the list. This was 1972, was rock music already dead by then? It was twenty years past their heyday but the Rat Pack still made the charts with Sammy’s Candy Man but where are The Stones, The Who, The Kinks, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Neil Young, James Taylor or virtually any of the music that I was listening to? It’s no wonder that the early Seventies were a low point in Rock & Roll which wouldn’t rise again until Punk and New wave came around in ‘78 or ‘79.
1. The Candy Man by Sammy Davis Jr.
2. Nice To Be With You by Gallery
3. Sylvia’s Mother by Dr. Hook And The Medicine Show
4. I’ll Take You There by The Staple Singers
5. Outa Space by Billy Preston
6. Song Sung Blue by Neil Diamond
7. Lean On Me by Bill Withers
8. Walkin’ In The Rain With The One I Love by Love Unlimited
9. Oh Girl by The Chi-Lites
10. (Last Night) I didn’t Get To Sleep At All by The 5th dimension
Perhaps if I heard them again I would recognize them all but I don’t remember Nice To Be With You, Outa Space,Walkin’ In The Rain With The One I Love, Oh Girl or (Last Night) I didn’t Get To Sleep At All.
The strange thing is that except for maybe Sylvia’s Mother by Dr. Hook there are no rock songs or rock bands on the list. This was 1972, was rock music already dead by then? It was twenty years past their heyday but the Rat Pack still made the charts with Sammy’s Candy Man but where are The Stones, The Who, The Kinks, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Neil Young, James Taylor or virtually any of the music that I was listening to? It’s no wonder that the early Seventies were a low point in Rock & Roll which wouldn’t rise again until Punk and New wave came around in ‘78 or ‘79.
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