June 1972 on the Music Charts

  Continuing the series of hits -of-the-month, moving to June 1972.  Fifty years ago (Yikes!)

There were 4 weeks in June of 1972, and there were 61 songs that spent time in the Top 40.  That's a good bit more than the prior months of the year the rest of the year.  And over those 4 weeks, only 2 songs topped the charts: The The Staple Singers started the month at the top with "I'll Take You There", and the rest of the month was dominated by Sammy Davis Jr's "The Candy Man".  

Here's the top 10 songs of the month, ranked by average chart position over the 4 weeks of the month. 

• The Candy Man - Sammy Davis, Jr. - 1.75
• I'll Take You There - The Staple Singers - 2.5
• Oh Girl - The Chi-lites - 4.5
• Song Sung Blue - Neil Diamond - 5.25
• Nice To Be With You - Gallery - 5.75
• Sylvia's Mother - Dr. Hook And The Medicine Show - 7.5
• Outa-Space - Billy Preston - 8.75
• (Last Night) I Didn't Get To Sleep At All - The 5th Dimension - 9.25
• The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face - Roberta Flack - 9.75
• Morning Has Broken - Cat Stevens - 11

Another so-so week at the top, but lots of good syuff bubbling up.

Meanwhile, Twenty (20) made their Top 40 debut. And time there's some great stuff headed up the charts that will be making an impact in July:

• (If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want To Be Right - Luther Ingram  - 19
• Too Late To Turn Back Now - Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose - 23
• Layla - Derek and The Dominos - 32
• Where Is The Love - Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway - 33
• How Do You Do - Mouth and MacNeal - 34
• Conquistador - Procol Harum - 34
• How Can I Be Sure - David Cassidy - 35
• Take It Easy - Eagles - 35
• Too Young - Donny Osmond - 35
• Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast - Wayne Newton - 36
• Living In A House Divided - Cher - 37
• Immigration man - Graham Nash and David Crosby - 37
• Day By Day - Godspell - 37
• I Wanna Be Where You Are - Michael Jackson - 38
• Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You) - Stevie Wonder - 38
• Long Haired Lover from Liverpool - Little Jimmy Osmond - 39
• Automatically Sunshine - The Supremes - 40
• All The Kings Horses - Aretha Franklin - 40
• Hot 'N' Nasty - Humble Pie - 40
• School's Out - Alice Cooper - 40

Foxglove Beardtongue...

 

Funky little flowers, from a short visit to Silver Lake Park, Highland, IL. I really liked the wide crop...

From the Unprocessed Folder # 002

 

Another from the archives of unprocessed photos.  This is from June 2021, last year.  Taken on the same excursion as this one. but never processed or presented...  until now!  This si Southern Illinois, just east of Millersburg, IL.

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nd for comparison, the straight Out Of Camera version :

This was processed on the computer, in Photoshop Elements, and using Topaz Labs' Black and White conversion.  As usual I didn't record my workflow, it's all jazz.

From the Unprocessed Folder # 001

 I was poking around my unprocessed photos the other day, and came across several that never got processed or posted to any of the internet places I frequent.  That happens occasionally, especially when travelling and lots of photos get taken in a short period of time.  

So I picked a couple, imported them to my iPad, and did dome quick edits, using the Snapseed AP.  I'm pretty pleased.  I'll try and post before and after here (or really after and before!), so you can see how my brain works.  First is a photo from our trip to South Dakota back in 2020, as the pandemic was just hinting at going wild.  This is the back side of the Mount Rushmore monument, taken from the road to the visitor center.

Here's the final version:  

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And the "Straight Out Of Camera" version:

What do you think?

RIP Jim Seals

 Jim Seals, who was 1/2 of the duo Seals & Crofts passed away Monday 6/6/2022.  Jim Seals was 79, cause of death was reported as a “chronic ongoing illness.”

Seals and Crofts were one of the singer songwriter explosion of the 1970s, along with everybody from James Taylor to Jim Croce to Gordon Lightfoot, to Paul Simon and countless others.

Seals and Crofts had a nice run of 8 Top 40 hits (in USA) between 1972 and 1978, including 3x Top 10.  Quite respectable.  And they were really big in 1972-73.  GREAT harmonies.  I wasn't a huge fan, but have their greatest hits album.  And Summer Breeze is one of those songs that's pretty close to perfect.  Side note:  when my (now adult) son was pre-school age, Seals and Crofts' song "Hummingbird" caught his attention and he would request it often.  

I learned a couple of things about the duo when poking around the internet:

Seals and Croft's second album includes the song "Cottonmouth", which was recorded 2 years later by The Doobie Brothers.  Its a really good song, that I had not previously realized was a cover. Here's the Original, and the Doobie Brother's version.

In 1974, Seals & Crofts released a song called "Unborn Child" over their record company's objection.  The song was released shortly after the Roe V Wade decision.  Unsurprisingly it created a stir, and probably hurt their career.  Later Seals would say "If we’d known it was going to cause such disunity, we might have thought twice about doing it. At the time it overshadowed all the other things we were trying to say in our music."  I didn't remember this controversy, but thanks to Youtube, I was able to play it.  And I kind of remember it, so it must've been on the radio in Pittsburgh.  As a 13 year old kid, I didn't have a clue about the lyrics at the time.  Not:  I'm not intending to be political, or imply support for either side of that issue, which continues to stir emotions almost 50 years later.  

Anyway, rest in peace, Jim Seals.