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Love Train - The O’Jays

In March of 1973, I was living in New Jersey and working a good job. I particularly remember The O’Jays and their infectious song “Love Train”. There were several stations on the radio that played Top 40 music (Most coming from New York City). I would stay on one station until I heard “Love Train”, then when I heard it, I would switch over to another station to wait for it again. As long as I was in the car, I would do this hoping to hear the song as many times as possible.

The O’Jays were a trio in 1973. They had been in business for over ten years by this time and had struggled to make it in the competitive world of pop music. Finally they released “Back Stabbers” which didn’t hit number one, but was a big hit for them. After a short time, they decided to release “Love Train” and it became their one and only number one hit.

The O’Jays went on to a great career, however, with songs like “Put Your Hands Together”, “For the Love of Money” and “I Love Music”. Their last hit was in 1980, but I just listened to “Love Train” and it sounds as good as it did 35 years ago. It’s still one of my favorites.

In 1973, Nixon was President. The Vietnam War was pretty much over, but Nixon had new problems: Watergate. He was still trying to talk his way out of that. We all know how that ended. The Viet Cong were still holding American prisoners and we were negotiating for their release. On TV, people were definitely into comedy. One one night you could watch “Bridget Loves Bernie”, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Bob Newhart Show”. For the country fans, “Hee Haw” was still going strong. Some of my favorite comic strips were still being published. “Steve Canyon”, “Rib Kirby” and “The Phantom” being three examples. I really love “story” comic strips. They are few and far between these days.

A quick check of the newspaper of 1973 find that your money still went a relatively long way. You could get a turkey dinner at a diner for $1.66 and a four piece dinette set at a furniture store for $49.95. A three bedroom “starter” home could be had in the low 20’s. Keep in mind this was only 35 years ago. How far we have fallen.

Here’s a chance to hear The O’Jays and “Love Train” one more time.

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“Purple People Eater” Great Novelty Song of 1958

My wife writes a blog about her life which you can read here. She talked about a song she sang as a little girl called “The Little Blue Man” by Betty Johnson. This was a very cool song in the fifties and you can hear it at her blog. The Little Blue Man was one of many novelty songs which came out of the fifties. It made us think of a famous number one which I’d like to spotlight in this post. That was “Purple People Eater” by Sheb Wooley.

Wooley grew up on a ranch in Oklahoma and did everything a cowboy does. But, music was his first love, even though he was not that successful at it. He first auditioned for the president of MGM records and sang all of his ballads. MGM didn’t think much of them and asked if he had anything else. He reluctantly brought out “Purple People Eater”. Three weeks later it was number one where it stayed for 6 weeks. Truly one of the great novelty songs of the fifties.

Sheb Wooley never again had that kind of success on the charts, but he became a fairly big actor. He’s most known for his role on “Rawhide” which starred a very young Clint Eastwood.

“Purple People Eater” hit number one on Jun 9, 1958. Of all the years of the 20th Century, I think 1958 is my favorite. This was the summer between my Sophomore and Junior years in high school. Eisenhower (Ike) was president and Khrushchev was in charge of Russia. You remember him and his banging his shoe on the table at the U.N. That happened later during Kennedy’s reign, I think. I saw a cool story from the week of Jun 9, 1958.

“Britain’s girl soldiers were up in arms today because the army says holding hands with boy soldiers is illegal. Members of the Women’s Royal Army Corps at Camp Hounslow, complaining that the army has cracked down on kissing and cuddling on or off the camp premises, cited the case of a girl lance-corporal and her soldier boy friend. They were court-martialed for kissing. She was demoted to private and transferred. He spent 14 days in the stockade. “It’s not fair,” the girls claim.”

I’d love to see a story like that today. In 1958, food was a little cheaper than today. Coffee was 79 cents a pound. Butter was 67 cents a pound and hot dogs could be bought for 39 cents a pound. Does anybody remember the Studebaker. A car that advertised 33.9 miles per gallon and this was when a gallon of gas cost about a quarter. You could buy a Studebaker for $1795. It was an automatic (which had to be mentioned in those days when everything was stick) and would easily hold 6 people.

There were only 16 teams in all of baseball. 8 in the National League and 8 in the American League. In June of 1958, San Francisco and the New York Yankees were number one in their respective leagues. Pogo, Joe Palooka and Mark Trail were comics that we read in the paper. And, of course, one of my favorites, Capt Easy was solving crimes and saving the world. On TV, we watched Wyatt Earp, Combat and Sergeant Bilko. I love the fifties and I particularly love 1958.

Here’s Sheb Wooley:

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Disco Has Begun: “Car Wash”

Disco was alive and well in 1977. I am probably in the minority but I loved Disco. Truth be told, I still do. There are many number one Disco songs that we will talk about, but I am sitting here watching the Olympics on TV and they played a snippet from the 1977 number one by Rose Royce, “Car Wash”. I thought, “Wow, what a great song.”

“Car Wash” was the theme from the movie by the same name. It was about a day in the life of a L.A. Car Wash, the men who worked there and the crazy customers who came to have their cars washed. Written by Norman Whitfield, the song took about 3 months to get to number one. Whitfield worked for Motown and wrote and produced songs for the Temptations, Marvin Gaye and Edwin Starr.

Rose Royce started out as an eight man ensemble, when Whitfield decided to add a woman, Gwen Dickey, to the mix. She ended up singing lead for the group. The song hit the top of the charts on January 29, 1977. Car Wash was the only number they had, but they had a decent run on the charts during the late seventies.

I just realized that I was in the hospital when Rose Royce hit number one. I remember that month very well. The main show on TV was “Roots”. I watched the entire thing. Weather was a major story that week as a major winter storm blasted through the east killing at least 54 people. President Jimmy Carter was said to be thinking about a 4-day work week in order to save fuel. Thirty years later, the state of Utah makes the news by doing that very thing. Progress is indeed slow.

Bad news that we all remember was the actor Freddie Prinze star of the TV show “Chico and the Man” died on this January day after a self-inflected gun shot. A sad day for the fans of that show. Besides “Roots”, we were watching “Little House on the Prairie”, “The Captain and Tennille”, whose number one song we will cover in this blog and “The Jeffersons”, among others.

In the grocery store, chicken could be bought for 39 cents a pound. Bananas were 12 cents a pound. You could get four cans of Del Monte vegetables for a dollar. A 25 pound of dog chow was $4.99. At the movie theater “Rocky” was doing a great run. Clint Eastwood was Dirty Harry in “The Enforcer” and Barbara Streisand stared in “A Star is Born”.

Put your dancing shoes on for “Car Wash” by Rose Royce.

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