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JUMP TO:
• 1988 – WHERE DO BROKEN HEARTS GO / Whitney Houston
• 1978 – NIGHT FEVER / The Bee Gees
• 1968 – HONEY / Bobby Goldsboro
• 1958 – WITCH DOCTOR / The Music of David Seville
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Welcome to another #1 Songs On This Date! – and another four-pack of the best of the best from the Top 40 Rock ‘n’ Roll music era.
Since early January, 176 distinct number one singles from the years 1956 through 1995 have been featured – with hundreds more to follow.
They’re all part of a permanent archive that’s being built at HouseoftheHits.com which will ultimately feature ALL 837 different number one singles as listed in 2,080 weekly national music charts published by Billboard® within that 40-year timeframe.
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Fortunately, HouseoftheHits has every one of those charts – plus secondary data – as published in the essential Joel Whitburn’s Record Research series (CD-ROM and eBook edition formats).
Everything is stored digitally on a HouseoftheHits computer – as are all 837 number one singles (in high-quality audio) from the music vault.
With the availability of precise data and the HOTH song files – together with some amazing technology – approximately 600 – 700 of those Billboard® chart-toppers will be presented this year – with the remainder to follow in early 2017.
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As the archive grows you will have continual free access to the accumulating repository, indexed by Decade, Month and Year. Plus, EVERY Title and Artist will be (blue) hyper-linked for smooth, easy navigation from song to song – with more great features to be added along the way.
Again, it will contain every #1 single in America, plus interesting commentary about each song (written by yours truly) and presented with a crystal clear High-Definition audio version of the complete original hit to instantly play as often as you wish.
The ever-expanding library is found HERE and you can bookmark this link for future instant access.
Enjoy! 😎
[NOTE]
Due to copyright issues, some audio song files may not play on smartphones, tablets and connected devices. A PC, Mac or laptop may be required.
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#1 / April 28th, 1988
WHERE DO BROKEN HEARTS GO
Whitney Houston
[1988]
Number One: 2 weeks
Replaced: GET OUTTA MY DREAMS, GET INTO MY CAR / Billy Ocean
Succeeded by: WISHING WELL / Terence Trent D’Arby
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What is the result when a Broadway tunesmith teams up with a 1960’s R&B singer-songwriter? Another huge hit for Whitney Houston!
Bright lights song composer Frank Wildhorn (‘Jekyll & Hyde’) and Chuck Jackson (Any Day Now) penned this poignant ballad – the last of seven consecutive #1 hits for Ms. Houston. That broke the six-in-a-row record jointly held by The Beatles and The Bee Gees.
The genesis for Whitney’s smash hit on this date occurred four years earlier when Wildhorn heard her and the ex-frontman for Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes, Teddy Pendergrass, Jr., on the duet Hold Me. It immediately put Houston on the composer’s ‘to-do’ list.
Fast-forward to late 1987. Jackson called Wildhorn with the song’s title and Where Do Broken Hearts Go was completed in literally a couple of hours.
[Trivia Bit] In addition to occupying the Hot 100’s prime position for two weeks, Where Do Broken Hearts Go topped Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart and hit #2 on their R&B rankings.
Other #1 Singles by WHITNEY HOUSTON (11)
• 1985 / SAVING ALL MY LOVE FOR YOU
• 1986 / HOW WILL I KNOW
• 1986 / GREATEST LOVE OF ALL
• 1987 / I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY (Who Loves Me)
• 1987 / DIDN’T WE ALMOST HAVE IT ALL
• 1988 / SO EMOTIONAL
• 1990 / I’M YOUR BABY TONIGHT
• 1991 / ALL THE MAN THAT I NEED
• 1991 / I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU
• 1995 / EXHALE (Shoop Shoop)
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#1 / April 28th, 1978
NIGHT FEVER
The Bee Gees
[1978]
Number One: 8 weeks
Replaced: (Love Is) THICKER THAN WATER / Andy Gibb
Succeeded by: IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU / Yvonne Elliman
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The Bee Gees had already enjoyed huge success with their first two singles from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack album hitting number one; How Deep Is Your Love and Stayin’ Alive. But the most impressive accomplishments were yet to come.
Single number three, Night Fever, soared up the Hot 100 after its debut on February 4th of 1978, with chart moves of #76, 32, 17, 8, 5, 2 and, on this its seventh week, to #1.
On this date, NF was about to enter its 7th week of an impressive eight-week sojourn at #1 – tops for 1978 and enough to propel the record to the ‘biggest single’ category on Billboard’s year-end listing.
And just for good measure, songs either directly recorded by the Brothers Gibb or written by them for others occupied exactly half of the Billboard Top 10 on this date: Night Fever (#1), Stayin’ Alive (#2), Yvonne Elliman‘s If I Can’t Have You (#5), Emotion by Samantha Sang (#6) and sibling Andy Gibb‘s (Love Is) Thicker Than Water (#8).
Other #1 Singles by THE BEE GEES (9)
• 1971 / HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART
• 1975 / JIVE TALKIN’
• 1976 / YOU SHOULD BE DANCING
• 1978 / HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE
• 1978 / STAYIN’ ALIVE
• 1979 / TOO MUCH HEAVEN
• 1979 / TRAGEDY
• 1979 / LOVE YOU INSIDE OUT
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#1 / April 28th, 1968
HONEY
Bobby Goldsboro
[1968]
Number One: 5 weeks
Replaced: (Sittin’ On) THE DOCK OF THE BAY / Otis Redding
Succeeded by: TIGHTEN UP / Archie Bell & The Drells
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Native Floridian Bobby Goldsboro was a somewhat prolific 1960’s hitmaker with five Top 20 offerings including Little Things, Autumn Of My Life and the Mac Davis-written Watching Scotty Grow.
However, the primary story of Honey is that it was penned by a successful Nashville singer-songwriter named Bobby Russell, who scribed a number of hits over a few genres. The most significant was a 1973 chart-topper for his then-wife Vicki Lawrence called The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia.
But Russell’s first Top 40 chart triumph as a writer came seven years prior with a Brian Hyland single titled The Joker Went Wild hitting #20 in 1966.
Two years later, he authored O.C. Smith‘s mellow million-seller Little Green Apples (1968 • #2), a double Grammy Award winner for ‘Song of the Year’ in both the Pop and Country categories.
Russell also hit Billboard’s Top 30 as a solo vocalist. His version of the self-composed Saturday Morning Confusion topped out at #28 in the summer of 1971.
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Goldsboro’s heart-tugging rendition of Honey was actually a cover version of an original take released only weeks before by folk music’s Kingston Trio (Tom Dooley) founder Bob Shane.
The recording of Honey was successfully performed by Goldsboro on his very first try – without any re-remixing required. A second take was done for good measure and essentially it was a duplicate of his first, so the latter was kept.
[Trivia Bits] Bobby Goldsboro wrote a number of songs recorded by other artists such as Vicki Carr, Billy Vera and John Denver.
He also was the original leader of what eventually became the backup band for the great Roy Orbison known as The Candymen.
Goldsboro’s group started out in Alabama as The Webs before Orbison took notice and hired them – at which time The Webs became The Candymen, named after ‘The Big-O’ song call Candy Man (1961 • #25).
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#1 / April 28th, 1958
WITCH DOCTOR
The Music of David Seville
[1958]
Number One: 2 weeks
Replaced: TWILIGHT TIME / The Platters
Succeeded by: ALL I HAVE TO DO IS DREAM / The Everly Brothers
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The 1958 novelty hit Witch Doctor by David Seville (real name Ross Bagdasarian) was, in essence, a successful test-run of a recording technique on which the Californian had been working – one that soon led to a decades-long musical franchise known as The Chipmunks (a.k.a. Simon, Theodore and Alvin) … ALVIN!!
Naturally, the song’s music tracks were recorded first, after which it took weeks of practice for Bagdasarian to perfect the audio imagery of a witch doctor, complete with his “Oo-ee-oo-ah-ah’s.”
By year’s end, Bagdasarian and company – as The Chipmunks with David Seville – were back on top of the Hot 100 for a 4-week stint with the soon-to-be seasonal classic called The Chipmunk Song.
[Trivia Bits] In my early radio days as a audio board operator at 1050 CHUM/Toronto, I worked with a very talented air personality named J. Michael Wilson who employed the same concept with a similar recording technique of ‘half-speed/slow speed’ for his character ‘Rodney The Rodent’ – only using a slightly different method.
Talking at a carefully measured ‘half-speed’ tempo, Wilson would record his own voice (for Rodney) into a tape machine running at ‘normal’ speed. Then, a custom-made metal sleeve was placed over the machine’s drive motor spindle so that it sped up the tape to create a perfectly-pitched animated rat having a seemingly real back-and-forth conversation with the ‘live’ dee-jay. Ingenuous!
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Produced & Written By: Rick Murray Hunter / HouseoftheHits.com
Songs Source: The Music Vault of HouseoftheHits Inc.
Billboard® Chart Data: Joel Whitburn’s Record Research (eBook Editions)
References: The Billboard Book Of Number One Hits (5th Edition) by Fred Bronson
The Archives of RollingStone.com
Record Sleeve & Label Graphics: Courtesy of 45cat
Other #1 Songs on This Date Posts are HERE
