I was familiar with all the songs on Barry Williams Presents One-Hit Wonders of the 70s except for “Life is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled On) by Reunion from 1974–until I listened to it. It’s a patter song like Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Here’s how the first verse goes:
B.B. Bumble and the Stingers, Mott the Hoople, Ray Charles Singers
Lonnie Mack and twangin’ Eddie, here’s my ring, we’re goin’ steady
Take it easy, take me higher, liar liar, house on fire
Loco-motion, Poco, Passion, Deeper Purple, Satisfaction
Baby baby, gotta gotta, gimme gimme, gettin’ hotter
Sammy’s cookin’, Lesley Gore, Ritchie Valens, end of story
Mahavishnu, Fujiyama, Kama Sutra, Rama Lama
Richard Perry, Spector, Barry, Righteous, Archies, Nilsson Harry
Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko Bop it, Fats is back and Finger Poppin’
And it goes on from there. I literally have NOT heard “Life is a Rock” since 1974! Even though these are One-Hit wonders, some of these songs live on in more successful cover versions. Brooks & Dunn had a hit with B. W. Stevenson’s “My Maria” in 1996 that made it to Number One on the Country & Western charts. Laura Branigan covered Vicki Sue Robinson’s “Turn the Beat Around” in 1990 and Gloria Estefan released her version in 1994.
Many of these songs are One-Hit Wonders for a reason. Do you remember them? Any favorites here? GRADE: B-
TRACK LIST:
| 1 | Wild Cherry– | Play That Funky Music |
| 2 | B. W. Stevenson*– | My Maria |
| 3 | Brewer & Shipley*– | One Toke Over The Line |
| 4 | Starland Vocal Band– | Afternoon Delight |
| 5 | Reunion (3)– | Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me) |
| 6 | Billy Swan– | I Can Help |
| 7 | Mungo Jerry– | In The Summertime |
| 8 | Terry Jacks– | Seasons In The Sun |
| 9 | Paper Lace– | The Night Chicago Died |
| 10 | Climax (6)– | Precious And Few |
| 11 | Stories– | Brother Louie |
| 12 | Dave Loggins– | Please Come To Boston |
| 13 | First Class (3)– | Beach Baby |
| 14 | The 5 Stairsteps*– | O-o-h Child |
| 15 | Vicki Sue Robinson– | Turn The Beat Around |
| 16 | Dan Hill– | Sometimes When We Touch |
| 17 | Lynn Anderson– | Rose Garden |
| 18 | Edison Lighthouse– | Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) |
| 19 | Wadsworth Mansion– | Sweet Mary |
| 20 | Vicki Lawrence– | The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia |
I know every one of these songs—surprise! I don’t like all of them, but each of them holds a place in my 1979s youth. My favorites here are “My Maria” (BW Stevenson, who died tragically young, also wrote “Shambalaya” which was a hit for 3 Dog Night), “Turn the Beat Around” (Disco Dolly that I am), “Beach Baby”, and the aforementioned “Life Is A Rock”. If I never hear “Seasons in the Sun” or “Sometimes When We Touch” again, that will be fine with me. And if you’re ever feeling trippy, check out the Lawrence Welk singers doing “One Toke Over the Line”. I’m sure Lawrence thought the song was safe for family viewing because it includes the words “sweet Jesus”. I’m guessing that one told him what a “toke” was.
1970s
Deb, Welk thought the song was a “modern spritual.” Their rendition of “One Toke Over the Line” has given the song an immortality it may never otherwise have had. It has to be seen to be believed, Sweet Jesus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8tdmaEhMHE
Jerry, my mother watched THE LAWRENCE WELK SHOW faithfully for years and years.
Yes, Jerry, a true classic. As Lily Tomlin said (in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe):
“Is this happening, or is it the hash?”
Jeff, with marijuana legalized in NY State now, hash is everywhere. One of my friends when to a local McDonads drive-thru and was greeted by two employees who were as high as a kite. Of course, the order was completely wrong…but my friend didn’t complain because the McDonald employees gave him over $30 of food and only charged him $10!
Deb, I’m sure you’re right about Lawrence Welk’s misconceptions about “One Toke Over the Line.” Sweet Jesus, indeed!
Do I remember these? Do I indeed. I remember all of them. For many, I can recall specific times and places where I heard them on the radio. Trivia fest: “Rose Garden” was a Joe South composition, and it’s a shame he’s forgotten today. “Brother Louie” was about an interracial teen romance kiboshed by Louie’s intolerant parents. “She was black , , , as the night. / Louie was whiter than white.” “Seasons in the Sun” was Rod McKuen, and it isn’t a shame he’s forgotten today. “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” became a Kristy McNicol/Dennis Quaid movie in the ’80s. Thanks, Deb, for reminding me that the Welk gang performed “One Toke Over the Line.” Classic ’70s surrealism worthy of David Lynch.
Fred, between you and Deb, we’ve got the Seventies covered!
There was a lot of really good music in the 70s and I must have been concentrating on that instead of this stuff, which is mostly awful, because I only remember five of them and have no desire to ever hear any of them again.
Michael, they’re called One-Hit Wonders for a reason. You’ll get a different perspective on 1970 next Thursday.
I don’t recognize every title but would probably know the songs if I heard them. This was a very weird, plasticy, earwormy era of AM radio and because my family moved from the city to the country in 1974 and doing anything meant a 20-miute car trip (with the radio always on) this stuff is burned into the recesses of my brain.
We drove to Florida for a family vacation the week “Afternoon Delight” broke and heard the song every half-hour for two days straight. Not a memory I relish, trust me. I also remember “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” being huge at the time and Vicki Lawrence performing the song on “The Carol Burnett Show.” That would have been about the last gasp of the seventies story song fad.
I would probably get some guilty, nostalgic pleasure out of this CD if I were to listen to it but I don’t think I’d want to hear it more than once. I know a lot of seventies pop compilations and am surprised I somehow missed this one.
I also just realized that all these years I was mishearing the song as “One TOE over the Line” which I swear made perfect sense at the time to a kid.
Byron, I remember those long car rides while listening to the radio. Most of our local TOP 40 stations have been sold to Christian Radio broadcasters.
Like Deb, I know them all, of course. I agree about the awful Terry Jacks/Rod McKuen “Seasons in the Sun,” which should be beaten to death with a rock. Don’t care for the Vicki Lawrence or a couple of the others (Please Come to Boston), either. I know a lot of people hate “Afternoon Delight” but it never bothered me.
Since we’re doing trivia, Tony Burrows was the English singer who had four singles (supposedly) by four different groups – all one-hit wonders – all his the top or near the top of the British pop charts, at around the same time in early 1970:
Edison Lighthouse, Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)
The Brotherhood of Man, United We Stand
White Plains, My Baby Loves Lovin’
First Class, Beach Baby (also here)
Play That Funky Music was featured in THE FULL MONTY, I believe.
Jeff, I’m adding your name on the Expert Seventies list with Deb and Fred! Tony Burrows certainly got around!
I think he mostly Stayed There, in Britain, for a brief period.
And, of course, some of these people had sustained careers, such as Lawrence and Lynn Anderson (even if not in music or not on the pop charts, vs. Anderson I think having some success in country), and some were happily (for us) banished to performance in dive bars or at least ontheir jukeboxes: as noted by me among others previously, Stories, Paper Lace and Terry Jacks…and the similar crime against humanity that is that Billy Swan song (and if anyone deserved to have the obvious joke made about him…). I can still remember Swan’s frat-boy wit, “If your baby needs a father, let me help…it’ll do me good, to do you good, let me help…” (someone get Lawrence Welk on the line!).
The best thing about the Welk Orchestra “Toke” video, I recall from seeing it a decade or so back, is how obviously the lead singers are enjoying the joke Welk is playing on himself.
While Mungo Jerry’s and Climax’s songs were at least pleasant enough, among a few others…and First Class’s “Beach Baby” is one of the key sustained hits of the “beach music” community of the Carolinas and parts nearby.
I guess you were lucky not to have Barry Williams’s recordings on the comp: https://popdose.com/worlds-worst-songs-its-a-sunshine-day-by-the-brady-kids/
Or, I’m sure, but will not listen to it again to clear it up for myself, the Swan smugging probably goes “I Can Help” at least once where I above recount him singing, while admiring his own wit, “let me help”…
Todd, Barry Williams gets around!
Though I’ve probably head most of the songs I only remember Mungo Jerry.
If possible I’d switch channel to some real Rock or Blues …
Wolf, I’m stuck in the 1970s music for the next couple of weeks. Then, more surprises!
I’m familiar with most of these songs and I like a few of them! I seem to be a cult of one in my admiration for “Afternoon Delight!”
Bob, I’m with you on “Afternoon Delight.” A cult of two!