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JUMP TO:
🎬 1989 – LIKE A PRAYER / Madonna [Official Video]
🎵 1979 – REUNITED / Peaches & Herb
🎵 1969 – AQUARIUS/LET THE SUNSHINE IN (The Flesh Failures) / The 5th Dimension
🎵 1959 – COME SOFTLY TO ME / The Fleetwoods
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Welcome to another installment of #1 Songs On This Date!
Since it began during the first week of January, 2016 – including this post – 195 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!
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[NOTE]
Due to copyright issues, some audio song files may not play on smartphones, tablets and connected devices. Whenever possible, an alternate working audio source will be provided, but a PC, Mac or laptop may ultimately be required in some cases.
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#1 / May 10th, 1989
LIKE A PRAYER
Madonna
[1989]
(Official Video)
Number One: 3 weeks
Replaced: SHE DRIVES ME CRAZY / Fine Young Cannibals
Succeeded by: I’LL BE THERE FOR YOU / Bon Jovi
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Madonna and songwriter-record producer Patrick Leonard turned out their third collaboration for the ‘Material Girl’ – and her first re-visit to the Billboard Hot 100 in some 18 months.
Like A Prayer, the title track from her then-new album, took but 5 weeks to claim America’s top chart position – no doubt helped by it’s appearance in a Pepsi commercial, for which Madonna was paid $5-million dollars and copped Pepsico’s corporate sponsorship of her tour.
Concurrently, the singer and her songs were to be seen and heard in the beverage-makers ads.
First, here’s the Pepsi spot in which Madonna re-creates a birthday party from her childhood. It aired in the U.S. on March 2, 1989 and ran for 120 seconds.
https://youtu.be/rM-0rmUgOnY
Citing what Pepsico called “consumer confusion” between the commercial and the official video for Like A Prayer, the ad was withdrawn after just that single airing.
Although dismissed by the company as the possible primary reason for the spot being yanked, several fundamentalist groups threatened to boycott Pepsi products, citing Madonna’s performance in the commercial’s video as “blasphphemous.”
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Here’s the much-different official video of ‘Like A Prayer.’
https://youtu.be/rDnUIXF2ly8
Other #1 Singles by MADONNA (12)
• 1985 / LIKE A VIRGIN
• 1985 / CRAZY FOR YOU
• 1986 / LIVE TO TELL
• 1986 / PAPA DON’T PREACH
• 1987 / OPEN YOUR HEART
• 1987 / WHO’S THAT GIRL
• 1990 / VOGUE
• 1991 / JUSTIFY MY LOVE
• 1992 / THIS USED TO BE MY PLAYGROUND
• 1995 / TAKE A BOW
• 2000 / MUSIC
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#1 / May 10th, 1979
REUNITED
Peaches & Herb
[1979]
Number One: 4 weeks
Replaced: HEART OF GLASS / Blondie
Succeeded by: HOT STUFF / Donna Summer
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Indeed, the story of the R&B vocal duo Peaches & Herb was a tale of three ‘Peaches.’
In 1967, Herb Fame, from Washington DC, teamed up with Francine “Peaches” Barker and together they scored a #8 song on Billboard called Close You Eyes.
After a couple of Top 20 follow-ups – cover versions of Ed Townsend‘s For Your Love (1967 • #20) and the Mickey & Sylvia classic Love Is Strange (1967 • #13) – Barker quit the duo, citing the rigors of touring.
Fame, born Herbert Feemster, was left to seek a replacement, finding Marlene Mack, and from 1968-1969 Mack was the ‘Peaches du Jour.’
A series of abject chart failures ensued, followed by Mack’s departure and Fame’s ‘retirement’ from the music business in 1970. The latter enrolled in the police academy of the nation’s capitol and then toiled as a DC cop for the next six years.
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But in 1976, Fame decided to form a new P&H, this time with Linda Greene, a DC vocalist trained at the area’s prestigious Sewell Music Conservatory.
The third time was the charm for Peaches & Herb, as Fame and Greene became the most successful incarnation of the duo.
First came a moderately successful album for MCA called Peaches & Herb, followed by Herb and Linda signing a new deal with MVP/Polydor, a move which led to an album titled 2 Hot.
Two ‘hot’ singles emerged from that work – first, the funky, up-tempo Shake Your Groove Thing (1978 • #5, million-seller) with it’s successor, the love ballad Reunited, scaling the Hot 100 right to its summit on this date, and achieving platinum status.
https://youtu.be/XMj8qKDjqWM
[Trivia Bits] After recording seven albums together, Fame and Greene again retired the duo, with the former going back to law enforcement – this time joining the U.S. Marshals Service.
But Fame would again return to music to ‘shake the tree’ twice more, producing ‘Peaches’ numbers four and five: Patrice Hawthorne and a female vocalist named Miriamm, respectively.
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#1 / May 10th, 1969
AQUARIUS/LET THE SUNSHINE IN (The Flesh Failures)
The 5th Dimension
[1969]
Number One: 6 weeks
Replaced: DIZZY / Tommy Roe
Succeeded by: GET BACK / The Beatles with Billy Preston
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[Note] Any record or artist achieving a 6-week stay at #1 on the music charts – as did Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In The 5th Dimension in 1969 – warrants a lot about which to talk.
But a big part of the real story is the source from which their song medley came – ‘Hair,’ the Off and On-Broadway ‘American Tribal Love-Rock Musical. Where can one find a good tribal love-rock musical these days?!
For the stories of those productions and the first two recordings of the song Aquarius, please refer to the links below.
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The Southern California vocal quintet The 5th Dimension, led by vocalist Marilyn McCoo, recorded a terrific cover version of a two-song medley from ‘Hair.’
And the record’s producer, “Bones” Howe, expertly executed the same role on virtually all of their hits, along with those of The Association (Cherish, Never My Love, Windy).
McCoo’s voice is heard on Aquarius, with her then-fiancé Billy Davis, Jr. belting out the lead vocal parts on Let The Sunshine In.
The gentleman cranking out those amazing bass guitar riffs throughout the latter tune of the medley is none other than the great Joe Osborne, a member of the ensemble of L.A. studio musicians famously known as The Wrecking Crew.
https://youtu.be/HbwGIreETcs
[Trivia Bits] The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical ‘Hair’ produced 5 cover version singles on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969 – all but one of which were Top 5 hits: Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In (#1) – and a platinum-seller. Where Do I Go/Be-In/Hare Krishna from The Happenings (#66), Three Dog Night‘s Easy To Be Hard (#4), Good Morning Starshine by Oliver (#3) and The Cowsills with Hair (#2) – also a million-plus seller.
All the music from ‘Hair’ was co-penned by a team of three writers – original cast members James Rado and Gerome Ragni, along with Canadian tunesmith Galt MacDermot.
Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. were married in July of ’69 – one source of inspiration for the 5th Dimension to record their second #1 hit: a cover version of the Laura Nyro-penned original of Wedding Bell Blues, which followed that summer. (BILL!!)
The label for which the 5th Dimension recorded, Soul City, was owned by singer Johnny Rivers (Secret Agent Man, Poor Side Of Town, Baby I Need Your Lovin’‘).
Other #1 Singles by THE 5TH DIMENSION (2)
• 1969 / WEDDING BELL BLUES
• More on the original off-Broadway production of ‘Hair’ (including the original recording of the song Aquarius.
• More on the smash Broadway production of ‘Hair’ (including the second version of the song Aquarius by cast member Ronnie Dyson.
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#1 / May 10th, 1959
COME SOFTLY TO ME
The Fleetwoods
[1959]
Number One: 4 weeks
Replaced: VENUS / Frankie Avalon
Succeeded by: THE HAPPY ORGAN / Dave “Baby” Cortez
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This two gal-one guy trio hailed from Olympia, WA., with both girls – Barbara Ellis and Gretchen Christopher – growing up together in the same neighborhood and attending the same elementary and junior high schools.
Singing was their common passion and inevitably they formed a duo known as the Saturns. That permutation eventually became a trio called Two Girls and A Guy when vocalist Gary Troxel was added.
A self-penned tune – called ‘Come Softly’ at the time – was the first original number in their repertoire which the group first performed during a high school assembly and then at a post-football game dance.
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Not long after, a Japanese-American singer named Pat Suzuki introduced Two Girls and A Guy to the head of Dolphin Records in Seattle, Bob Reisdorff, who signed the trio to his label. But not before changing their name to The Fleetwoods and amending their signature song’s name to Come Softly To Me (to avoid possible sexual innuendo with the original title).
With sparse instrumental accompaniment and no drums or percussion, the record climbed to the top of music charts across America in early 1959 and, during four weeks #1, was spending its final day there on this date.
https://youtu.be/Urr0Y9SB5yk
[Trivia Bit] Along with Reisdorff, the trio derived their new moniker from the telephone exchange nomenclature that was used universally for numbers across the country back in the day – in their case it was FL (Fleetwood).
Other #1 Singles by THE FLEETWOODS (2)
• 1959 / MR. BLUE
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CREDITS
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 Billboard Book Of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits by Adam White and Fred Bronson
• The Billboard Book Of Number One Adult Contemporary Hits by Wesley Hyatt
• The Billboard Book Of Number One Albums by Craig Rosen
• The Billboard’s Hottest Hot 100 Hits (4th Edition) by Fred Bronson
• 1000 UK Chart Hits (Kindle Edition) by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh
• The Archives of RollingStone.com
Record Sleeve & Label Graphics: Courtesy of 45cat.com
Special thanks to the patio of Starbucks, Little Road in New Port Richey, FL 😎
Other #1 Songs on This Date Posts are HERE
