Rant #2,793: Family Affair

It is time to put to bed a semi-regular feature of the Ranting and Raving Blog.

That feature that I am retiring after this particular entry is the one where we look back 50 years ago to go over the Top 10 hit singles of a particular week.
 
I usually do it the final Friday of the month, but even though we have two more Fridays to go in December, one is on Christmas Eve and the other is on New Year’s Eve, and I would like to write about other things on those days.
 
The reason that I am retiring this sometimes feature is that this is the last month where 50 years ago takes us back to 1971, and that year is an important year in my life.
 
1971 was the final year that I lived in what I consider my hometown of Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, New York, a fairly new neighborhood at the time where I turned from a little kid—we moved in when the development was brand new when I was seven years old—to when we left, on July 28, 1971, when I was a young teenager of 14 years of age.
 
Not only did I change during those seven years there, but the world changed greatly, too, with the Vietnam War taking many of our young men, the Civil Rights movement picking up steam, and the deaths of Bobby Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marring those years.

And we had men walk on the moon, which took us into new areas that I thought we would have conquered by now.
 
We moved away just like everyone else moved away … the neighborhood had become unsafe, the schools were terrible, and the entire environment was not conducive to one where my sister and I could prosper.
 
So we moved to the wilds of Long Island, and I had as hard a time adjusting to my new neighborhood as the neighborhood had in adjusting to me.
 
And while TV still kept me going, there was a mood swing on TV, too, where family shows like “Mayberry R,F.D.” were being replaced by the more socially relevant shows like “All in the Family.”
 
The music that I liked wasn’t there anymore, either, and if you want to be frank about it, the Beatles pretty much ending their run together in 1971 or so really put the bow on the music that I liked, and I pretty much stopped listening as fervently as I once had.
 
It took the punk/New Wave music of the mid-1970s to get me back to where I was with my music and record collecting, and again quite frankly, I consider the years 1972 to 1975 as really dark years in music, with little or nothing catching my ear back then.
 
So, with all the changes happening in my life back then, I feel that looking at one of the final charts of 1971 would be the best end to this feature, and thus, here it goes, the top 10 singles for the week of December 18, 1971.

 
Holding the number 10 spot on the chart was David Cassidy’s remake of “Cherish.” The original version by the Association is the best-remembered version of this song, but Cassidy was hot as a pistol with the Partridge Family at the time, so his version had its moments.

 
Coming in at number 9 was one of the greatest singles of the era, Don McLean’s “American Pie.” The future number 1 song was split into two parts on the 45, so many programmers simply played the album version of the track on the radio.
 
Sonny and Cher continued their hit-making ways in the 1970s with “All I Ever Need Is You,” which was at number 8 this week. I always thought of this song as a sort of sequel to “I Got You Babe,” with pretty much the same sentiment in the two songs.
 
Bread had a slew of hits during this time period, and one of the most fondly remembered was “Baby I’m a Want You,” which was at number 7 this week. The group was led by David Gates, who was better known as a songwriter prior to the formation of Bread, including writing "Saturday’s Child” for the Monkees.
 
Isaac Hayes created one of the best remembered tunes from the “blaxploitation” era of movies with “Theme From Shaft,” a former number 1 record which was at number 6 this week. This song, along with Curtis Mayfield’s “Super Fly,” pretty much defined that movie genre’s musical soundtrack.
 
Along with the popularity of David Cassidy, this was the era of the new teen idols, and one of the newest—and hottest—of these idols was Michael Jackson, who took “Got To Be There” to number 5 on the chart this week. Of course, I don’t have to tell you much more about Jackson, one of the most successful recording artists of all time.
 
Three Dog Night continued their run of hits with “An Old Fashioned Love Song,” which was at number 4 this week. Once again, a former Monkees song writer, Paul Williams, penned this song, one of many hits he had as a songwriter during the 1970s.
 
The Chi-Lites brought the smooth sound of Chicago soul to the charts with "Have You Seen Her,” which clocked in at number 3 this week. Softer than the Motown and Stax lines of soul, the act had numerous hits on the charts during the 1960s and 1970s.
 
“Brand New Key” by Melanie came in at number 2 this week. It would hit number one the very next week, but this song resonates with me, as I have described it in this blog as the last song I heard on the radio as we drove away from Rochdale Village for the final time that fateful day in July 1971, when it was first being introduced to radio listeners.
 
And at the top spot on the charts, a song by a performer that has a link to my old Rochdale Village neighborhood …
 
“Family Affair” by Sly and the Family Stone, spending its third and final week at the top of the Hot 100 singles chart.
 
Sylvester Stewart, aka Sly Stone, had a girlfriend who lived in Rochdale, whose name escapes me now, and yes, as I have described in previous Rants, he did come and visit her at least once, in his Rolls Royce, and I remember chasing the vehicle along with a lot of other kids as he pulled away into the ether.
 
Or was that Walt Frazier?
 
Anyway, the highest debut on the chart this week was the Partridge Family’s “It’s One of Those Nights (Yes Love)," which came into the Hot 100 at number 57. The tune, with David Cassidy on lead vocals, of course, would get up to number 20 on the chart in a few weeks’ time.
 
The “Biggest Mover” on this week’s Hot 100—the song that moved up the most places from one week to another—was “Sugar Daddy” by the Jackson 5, and the tune, with lead vocals by Michael Jackson, of course, would get up to number 10 on the chart by the end of January 1972. It moved up to number 45 from number 72 the prior week.
 
So there you have it, the final Top 10 chart I am going to discuss at the Ranting and Raving Blog, filled with some of the last music that I personally found any interest in until the punks and the New Wavers came to the fore a few years later.
 
Anyone for the Sex Pistols, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, or Blondie?
 
Have a good weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.