Fifty Years Ago This Week

by whiteray

Big, round numbers are fun. It’s sometimes worthwhile to look at what folks were listening to thirty, forty or fifty years ago. One of my chief tools for doing that is the files I have of the main pop chart from Billboard magazine –now called the Hot 100 – from sometime in the 1950s up through the 1990s. 

Looking at the Hot 100 from the first week of May 1972 would give us an idea of what folks all across the U.S. were listening to fifty years ago. And that’s fine. But this is a big country, and what folks were listening to where I grew up – Central Minnesota – wasn’t always what folks were listening to in Southern California, where I had four cousins (whose access to Disneyland I envied in the 1960s). 

So it’s fun sometimes to go local, and the best place to do that is the Airheads Radio Survey Archive, which has a vast collection of the weekly surveys collated and distributed by radio stations, often at music stores. The ARSA collection ranges as far back as 1922 and as recently as last month. 

So, I’m going to go digging in the ARSA collection this morning, looking at station surveys from fifty years ago this week. I’m going to play what I call Games With Numbers and take today’s date – 5/2/20 – and add those three together to get 27. And I’m going to check out surveys from four stations in different regions of the country and see what records were at No. 27 at those stations. (Along the way, I’m going to check out the No. 1 record at each station as well.) 

We start with my Top 40 station of the time, KDWB in Minnesota’s Twin Cities and its survey titled “What You See Is What You Hear.” Sitting at No. 27 in the survey released fifty years ago yesterday was “Isn’t Life Strange” by the Moody Blues, whose chart history is, of course, massive. The lengthy and string-laden single – clocking in at 6:03 – came out of the sessions that would result in the album Seventh Sojourn, which was released in the U.S. in November 1972. I’m not sure how far up the KDWB survey the single went: The last available 1972 survey at ARSA or at Oldiesloon – another survey compiler – comes from two weeks later, when the record sat at No. 12 on KDWB. Nationally, “Isn’t Life Strange” would peak at No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100. 

The No. 1 record at KDWB fifty years ago this week was “I Gotcha” by Joe Tex. 

We’ll head next to Babylon, New York, on the south shore of Long Island, and the survey released on May 1, 1972, by WGLI. Sitting at No. 27 was “You Could Have Been A Lady” by the group April Wine. The record was a guitar-driven tune whose lyrics offer, evidently, a warning to a young lady: 

They all need you
To make love to
When you awake
You’ll find them on the bed
Lying beside you
They all love you
You’re a good girl
And are you surprised
When you realize
Which way you’re going to 

You could have been all right
You could have been here tonight
You could have been sweet as wine
You could have been a lady 

There are no more WGLI surveys from May 1972 at ARSA (and Oldiesloon limits its collections to Los Angeles, Chicago, the Twin Cities and, oddly, Albany, New York) so we don’t know where the April Wine record ended up on WGLI, but nationally, it was the first of seven records by the group from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to reach the Hot 100, where it peaked at No. 32. 

The No. 1 record at WGLI fifty years ago this week was “Betcha By Golly Wow” by the Stylistics. 

We head from the East Coast to the West Coast, stopping in Los Angeles to check out the survey released fifty years ago today by the mighty KHJ. In that survey, we find Cat Stevens’ “Morning Has Broken” at No. 27. Steven’s adaptation of the hymn whose words were inspired – according to Wikipedia – by the village of Alfriston in East Sussex came from his album, Teaser & The Firecat. There are no further KHJ surveys of singles from May 1972 at ARSA, but an album survey from the station later in the month showed Steven’s album also at No. 27. Nationally, “Morning Has Broken” peaked at No. 6 on the Hot 100, one of fourteen records the Brit with Greek heritage placed in the Hot 100. 

The No. 1 record on KHJ fifty years ago was “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” by Roberta Flack.

And we double back across the continent, stopping in Louisville, Kentucky, for a look at the “Top 30 Hits In Kentuckiana,” released fifty years ago tomorrow by WKLO. Sitting at No. 27 in WKLO’s survey is “In The Rain” by the Dramatics. Starting with thunderclaps, raindrops and wind, the records is a stark and string-laden lament that had peaked at WKLO at No. 4 during April 1972. Nationally, the record went to No. 5, one of sixteen records the Detroit group placed in the Hot 100. 

The No. 1 record at WKLO fifty years ago was “The First Time Ever I Saw Your 
Face” by Roberta Flack.

So, which of the four records we found at No. 27 do I prefer? Here it is.