American Top 40 3/31/73

Topping the charts this week in 1973:

 

1. Killing Me Softly With His Song - Roberta Flack
2. Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001) – Deodato
3. Neither One Of Us Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye - Gladys Knight and the Pips
4. Love Train - O'Jays
5. Ain't No Woman (Like The One I've Got) - Four Tops
6. Break Up to Make Up - Stylistics
7. Last Song - Edward Bear
8. Danny's Song - Anne Murray
9. Sing - Carpenters
10. The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia - Vicki Lawrence

 

"Killing Me Softly..." retakes number one, after a one week break for "Love Train".  Top-10 debuts this week: "Sing" and "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia",  Dropping out:  "Cover Of The Rolling Stone" and "Dueling Banjos"....

Interesting Top 100 debuts (w/ eventual peak in parenthesis):

• Will It Go Round In Circles - Billy Preston (1)
• The Right Thing To Do - Carly Simon (17)
• Thinking Of You - Loggins & Messina (18)

American Top 40 3/24/73

Sorry, a day late posting this one...

 

Topping the charts this week in 1973:

1. Love Train - O'Jays
2. Killing Me Softly With His Song - Roberta Flack
3. Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001) – Deodato
4. Neither One Of Us Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye - Gladys Knight and the Pips
5. Last Song - Edward Bear
6. Cover of the Rolling Stone - Dr. Hook
7. Dueling Banjos - Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell
8. Danny's Song - Anne Murray
9. Break Up To Make Up  - Stylistics
10. Ain't No Woman (Like The One I've Got) - Four Tops

 

"Love Train  Takes over #1 this week, displacing "Killing Me Softly...".  Top-10 debuts this week: "Break Up To Make Up" and "Ain't No Woman (Like The One I've Got)",  Dropping out:  "Could It Be I'm Falling In Love" and "Daddy's Home"....

Interesting Top 100 debuts (w/ eventual peak in parenthesis):

• Playground In My Mind - Clint Holmes (2)
• Pillow Talk - Sylvia (3)
• Let's Pretend - Raspberries (35)

Palm Sunday, 2013

3/24/2013, Snow Snow, Snow!

 

 

American Top 40 3/17/73

Topping the charts this week in 1973:

1. Killing Me Softly With His Song - Roberta Flack
2. Dueling Banjos - Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell
3. Love Train - O'Jays
4. Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001) – Deodato
5. Last Song - Edward Bear
6. Cover of the Rolling Stone - Dr. Hook
7. Could It Be I'm Falling In Love – Spinners
8. Neither One Of Us Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye - Gladys Knight and the Pips 
9. Daddy's Home - Jermaine Jackson
10. Danny's Song - Anne Murray

"Killing Me Softly With His Song" remains at #1, for a fourthweek.  Top-10 debuts this week: "Neither One Of Us Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye " and "Danny's Song",  Dropping out:  "Crocodile Rock" (after 9 weeks in the Top 10) and " Rocky Mountain High"....

Interesting Top 100 debuts (w/ eventual peak in parenthesis):

• You Are The Sunshine Of My Life - Steve Wonder (1)
• Cherry Cherry - Neil Diamond (31)  Re-entry of 1968 hit.
• Hallelujah Day - Jackson 5 (28) 
• Blue Suede Shoes - Johnny Rivers (38)

The Beaten Path?

Taken with my iPhone during a short walk today.  When they converted our railway traks to bike trails, they generally selected 1 of the 2 parallel paths to pave.  This is one example of the "other" track, along the Nickle Plate Trail.  Just a few dozen yards north of the Medidian Connector.

The Problem Is...

"The problem is that most of the time art  gets created by artists in ways that they themselves don't understand.  When they do understand it, all they tell you is how they applied the rules that they know.  And all I can tell you is that when I play a specific note against a specific chord, it is in general because I know what it's going to sound like, or I don't know whtat it's going to sound like."

- Scott Thunes, as quoted in Thomas Wictor's book "Ghosts And Ballyhoo - Memoirs Of A Failed L.A. Music Journalist"

The image, of course is mine.  You can figure out if there's a connection, or not.

Water's Edge

Another from last week, at St. Ellen Mine Park.  I'm rather eager for things to start growing again...  Click on image for larger view.

Remembering 2002 - Palm Frond

I was digging through some old boxes recently, and found a CD labeled "Photos - Relays and Industry"...  It includes a few hundred images from the 2002 <--> 2003 time frame, from various business trips.  Along with work related inages of electric substations and conferences are a several dozen from various side trips.

Most were taken with my first digital camera; a Kodak DC210.  When I bought it, it was the first digital camera with over 1MP available for undeer $500.  One review noted that Kodak had "achieved a quality level that reasonably matches conventional point and shoot cameras"...  But looking at these old images, I'm amazed at how mediocre the quality is.  Regardless, I've enjoyed browsing through them.

The above image is from Ocala National Forest in central Florida, from September 2002.  I was at a conference just south of Jacksonville, and made a road trip during a free afternoon.  Somehow I ended up almost 2 hours south, and missed dinner with my peers (whoops!).  Totally worth it, from my perspective.  This photo has pretty significant post-processing (obviously), which was my typical response to the limitations of the camera.

Larger version here.

American Top 40, 3/10/1973

Topping the charts this week in 1973:

1. Killing Me Softly With His Song - Roberta Flack
2. Dueling Banjos - Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell
3. Last Song - Edward Bear
4. Could It Be I'm Falling In Love – Spinners
5. Love Train - O'Jays
6. Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001) – Deodato
7. Crocodile Rock - Elton John
8. Cover of the Rolling Stone - Dr. Hook
9. Rocky Mountain High - John Denver
10. Daddy's Home - Jermaine Jackson

"Killing Me Softly With His Song" remains at #1, for a third week.  Top-10 debuts this week: "Cover Of The Rolling Stone" and "Daddy's Home",  Dropping out:  "You're So Vain" and "
Don't Expect Me To Be Your Friend"....

Interesting Top 100 debuts (w/ eventual peak in parenthesis):

• Stuck In The Middle With You - Stealers Wheel (6)
• Hocus Pocus - Focus (9)
• The Cisco Kid - War (2)

Waiting For Spring

Mud flats at St. Ellen Mine Park.  Taken at lunch last week. Click on image for larger view.

Slice Of Life #6964

Driving through Maryville, IL on my evening commute; sitting at a red light...  This is the kind of view that catches my eye.

Album Debuts, March 1973

Continuing the series (January & February), let's look at albums released in March of 1973:

Not so much in quantity, but pretty impressive from the standpoint of quality:

Only 3 releases I own, but they are a big 3:

• Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon.  Perhaps the most iconic rock album ever.  741 weeks on the album charts.  Ranked #43 on Rolling Stones list of best albums.  I remember my listeneing to "Money" in Moddle School music class, the teacher talking about using everyday sounds as part of music composition.
• Doobie Brothers - The Captain and Me.  Though not as "important" as DSOTM, this was the first in a long string of Top 10 album for the Doobies.   A solid album, with the Classic Rock classics "China Grove" and "Long Train Runnin'". 
• Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy.  Probably the 5th most popular of Led Zep's 8 studio albums, Houses Of The Holy still topped the Billboard album charts, and sold 11x Platinum.  It ranks #149 on the Rolling Stone list (#148 on the 2012 update) behind I, IV, Physical Graffiti and II, all of which are Top 100.

American Top 40, 3/3/73

Topping the charts this week in 1973:

1. Killing Me Softly With His Song - Roberta Flack
2. Dueling Banjos - Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell
3. Last Song - Edward Bear
4. Could It Be I'm Falling In Love – Spinners
5. Crocodile Rock - Elton John
6. You're So Vain - Carly Simon
7. Love Train - O'Jays Soul
8. Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001) – Deodato
9. Rocky Mountain High - John Denver
10. Don't Expect Me To Be Your Friend - Lobo

"Killing Me Softly With His Song" remains at #1, for a second week.  Only one Top-10 debut this week: "Also Sprach Zarathustra ",  Dropping out:  "Do It Again"....

Interesting Top 100 debuts (w/ eventual peak in parenthesis):

• Stuck In The Middle With You - Stealers Wheel (6)
• Hocus Pocus - Focus (9)
• The Cisco Kid - War (2)

By The Way, The Ground Hog was WRONG!

Four weeks ago was groundhog day.  And across the country, ground hogs were deemed to have declared an early spring.  A month later, I don't think anybody would say they were right...

Photo above is a slice of life from this morning's commute.  This morning as in 3/1/2013.  Not exactly spring-like.  In fact, our winter was pretty much non-existant until the furry critters declared it over.

So there.

[aside:  yes, this picture was taken from the driver's seat of my car.  No, the car was not moving at the time.  Yes the light is green.  But it turned green as I was pressing the shutter, you can tell as the cars in front of me are all still at the stop lines.  All perfectly safe, I assure you.]