If you enjoy the original American Top 40 countdowns from the 1970s, you’ll want to catch the one scheduled for this weekend. It’s the very first show, dated July 4, 1970. Casey was on only seven stations that first weekend, and although I won’t hear the show until this weekend myself, I’m told that it’s much, much different from what AT40 would eventually become.
I’ve said before on this blog that when I look at the record charts from the summer of 1970, I see my life mixed up in the test tube but not yet poured out. Songs that will be among my first discoveries in the fall begin appearing, and a few are there on July 4, 1970. Some are in the Top 40 already: “Tighter, Tighter,” “Are You Ready,” “Westbound #9,” “Signed Sealed Delivered.” Many more are in the bottom 60 or bubbling under the Hot 100: “Make It With You,” “I Just Can’t Help Believin’,” “Spill the Wine,” “War,” “Snowbird,” “Groovy Situation.” But in July 1970, I wasn’t paying attention yet. I was more interested in baseball. So let’s take five songs I probably heard on Mom and Dad’s radio stations, but otherwise missed.
72. “Big Yellow Taxi”/The Neighborhood (up from 92). OK, I do remember hearing this one on WLS that fall. It charted before Joni Mitchell’s own version did (in late June compared to late July), and rose higher (29 compared to 67, although Joni’s 1975 live version went to Number 24). The Neighborhood itself is mighty obscure—nine members, apparently; their debut album was the first released on the Big Tree label, which would later release records by Lobo, Brownsville Station, April Wine, Hot Chocolate, England Dan & John Ford Coley, and even Johnny Rivers and Wilson Pickett.
80. “Everything a Man Could Ever Need”/Glen Campbell (debut). When I was a kid, we would occasionally load up the family and go to the drive-in theater, which was located on the way into town from the farm. Mom would make a bucket of popcorn and a jug of Kool-Aid, and we’d enjoy the singular experience of watching a movie in the car. I cannot imagine through what alchemy I can remember seeing the movie Norwood, starring Campbell and Joe Namath, and featuring this song, but I do. (The drive-in is still operating, by the way—one of the few remaining in the Midwest, 56 years after it first opened.)
88. “Hello Darlin'”/Conway Twitty and 90. “I Wonder Could I Live There Anymore”/Charley Pride (debuts). Twitty had a long resume as a pop star, going back to his version of “It’s Only Make Believe” in 1958, and he’d score five Hot 100 hits in all between 1970 and 1976. Pride’s biggest pop success was “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” in 1972. There’s not much that’s pop about either of these: “Hello Darlin'” is a waltz with crying steel guitars; in “I Wonder Could I Live There Anymore,” Pride wants to romanticize rural life, but just can’t do it.
97. “Humphrey the Camel”/Jack Blanchard and Misty Morgan (up from 99). In which Jack and Misty do the only sensible thing given the smash country and pop success of “Tennessee Bird Walk” in the spring—turn it sideways and do it again.
108. “Wear Your Love Like Heaven”/Peggy Lipton (up from 112). With the success of The Mod Squad among young TV viewers, there was little doubt that if any of the stars could sing, they’d get a shot at a recording career. Lipton’s debut album, released circa 1969, included songs by Carole King and Laura Nyro, as well as some compositions of her own. (Larry Grogan discussed it at Iron Leg earlier this month.) “Wear Your Love Like Heaven” is the Donovan song, and it may have been the title song from her second album, although I’m having trouble tracking that down.
So you won’t be hearing any of these on AT40 this weekend. (Apart from “Big Yellow Taxi,” you wouldn’t hear any of them on the show, ever, because it was the only one to crack the 40.) If you can’t get AT40 out of the air where you live, we’ll be streaming that first show on Magic 98 Saturday night from 9 to midnight U.S. Central. It’s part of a whole day of vintage AT40 countdowns on Magic.
“Big Yellow Taxi”/The Neighborhood (out of print)
The Hits Just Keep On Comin' 
I’ve got a 45 of The Neighborhood’s version of “Big Yellow Taxi.” It was one of the first I ever bought. It was back when our local drug store not only filled prescriptions, but sold a whole host of other things, including records. I bought a slew packs of baseball cards from that store before I started ordering them in sets.
The original 7/4/70 show was re-aired for AT40’s fifth anniversary. I’ve never heard the original, but I have heard the 1975 rebroadcast on XM.
It was a weird, sort of double-recursive flashback to hear 1975 Casey commenting on 1970 Casey coming over the radio in 2009.
Peggy Lipton might have been better off waiting until she got together with Quincy Jones.
It’s funny, I actually have a copy of that Neighborhood album (as well as a 45 where they cover the Free Design tune ‘You Could Be Born Again’) and it’s all pretty bland. It looks like something a suit put together to tackle the youth market – as opposed to a real group. Lots of interesting covers though
I have a copy of the first AT40, converted to CD, that I purchased online a few years back. I think you’re going to enjoy it, though some of the political nature may seem unusual (for example, the lead-in to the oldie “Spinning Wheel” — of course, they don’t always play the “oldies” on the AT40 rebroadcasts).
So your station is able to stream the shows online? Our local affiliate doesn’t do that because it says it isn’t allowed to (it doesn’t stream any of the syndicated programming …) Is that just a matter of the station paying a certain fee to stream the shows, too?
JB, you must be talking the SkyVu. I remember that place. I haven’t been there is years. I should take my 5 year old there sometime.