Classic rock, pop, and soul songs from the '60s, '70s, and '80s
Classic rock, pop, and soul songs from the '60s, '70s, and '80s
“It’s Not Unusual” was the big breakout hit for Welsh singer Tom Jones, and it’s today’s classic song of the day. Released in January of 1965 in the UK (March in the U.S.), this track went to #10 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100, and #3 on Billboard’s Easy Listening chart. The song went all…
I’ve written often in this blog about Todd Rundgren’s 1972 album, Something/Anything? and featured several songs from that album as classic songs of the day, including “I Saw the Light,” “It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference,” and “Hello It’s Me.” Well, here’s another one. Today’s classic song of the day is “Couldn’t I Just Tell You.” This is yet another…
For some reason I think of Neil Diamond primarily as a 1970s artist. (Probably because that’s when I started listening to top 40 radio.) That ignores Mr. Diamond’s many, many hits in the 1960s and then on into the 1980s. Case in point is today’s classic song of the day, “Thank the Lord for the Night Time.” Released in July…
“My Old School” is an early one from Steely Dan, and today’s classic song of the day. Included on their second album, Countdown to Ecstasy, “My Old School” was released as a single in October of 1973 and went all the way to #63 on the Billboard Hot 100. Not one of their bigger hits, to be sure, but a…
“Stairway to Heaven” is one of the most famous and most popular rock songs of all time, and it’s today’s classic song of the day. Believe it or not, this eight-minute-long epic was never released as a single, appearing only as the last cut (track 4) on the first side of the group’s untitled 1971 album, informally known as Led…
Singer/songwriter Neil Sedaka passed away yesterday. In his honor, today’s classic song of the day is one of his big 1960s hits, “Stairway to Heaven.” No, this isn’t Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” which came along a decade or so after Mr. Sedaka’s tune. This one was written by Neil Sedaka and his partner Howard Greenfield back in 1960. RCA…
Today’s classic song of the day is “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)” by Betty Everett. Released as a single in January of 1964, this one went all the way to #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on Cash Box’s R&B chart. “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)” was written by professional songsmith Rudy…
Back in 1976, even though the Beatles had been disbanded for a half-dozen years or so, there was a continuing hope among fans that the Fab Four would reunite at some point in the future. That’s when radio programmers became aware of a band called Klaatu that arrived on the scene with an album that sounded kind-of sort-of like something…
“I Got You Babe” by Sonny & Cher is today’s classic song of the day. Released as a single in June of 1965, this one went all the way to #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100, and was a top ten hit all around the globe. Sonny Bono wrote “I Got You Babe” and…
Today’s classic song of the day was a hit for two different R&B artists. The song is “Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)” and it was written by Betty Nelson, the wife of Ben E. King, and Ahmet Ertegun. (Probably all by Betty; it wasn’t unusual for the producer to take co-songwriting credit back in those days.) The first recording…