Your classic song with the day of the week in the title song of the day is “Come Saturday Morning” by the Sandpipers. It was released in late 1969 and peaked at #17 on the Billboard Hot 100 (and #5 on the Easy Listening Chart) in June of 1970. Written for the movie The Sterile Cuckoo, which starred Liza Minelli, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. (It lost to Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, of which no one should feel ashamed.)
Even given the incredible musical variety on the radio in 1970, “Come Saturday Morning” sounded a little out of place, or maybe out of time. That may be due to the song’s composers, Fred Karlin and Dory Previn. Mr. Karlin composed more than a hundred songs for theatrical and television movies, including music for films like Up the Down Staircase, Lovers and Other Strangers, Westworld, and Greased Lighting; his song, “For All We Know” (from Lovers and Other Strangers), won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and was a #3 hit for the Carpenters. Ms. Previn, once married to composer André Previn, was a famous lyricist specializing in Broadway and movie tunes. They weren’t your typical rock and rollers.
As to where “Come Saturday Morning” fit in with the other music of the day, consider the top ten Billboard singles the week that “Come Saturday Morning” peaked on the charts:
- “The Long and Winding Road”/”For You Blue” (The Beatles)
- “Which Way You Goin’ Billy?” (The Poppy Family featuring Susan Jacks)
- “Everything is Beautiful” (Ray Stevens)
- “Get Ready” (Rare Earth)
- “Love on a Two-Way Street” (The Moments)
- “Cecilia” (Simon & Garfunkel)
- “The Letter” (Joe Cocker with Leon Russell & The Shelter People)
- “Up Around the Bend”/”Run Through the Jungle” (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
- “Make Me Smile” (Chicago)
- “The Love You Save”/”I Found That Girl” (Jackson 5)
That is one powerhouse top ten. I’m not sure “Come Saturday Morning” fit in with that bunch, although that list includes a lot of different types of tunes. It’s certainly true that 1970 was a particularly diverse year for popular music, so why not?
The Sandpipers were an “easy listening” trio with roots in the 1960s folk revival. They had a previous hit in 1966 with their equally white bread version of “Guantanamera,” which hit #9 in the Billboard Hot 100. Jim Brady, Mike Piano, and Richard Shoff, along with friend Nick Cahuernga, originally formed a group called the Four Seasons, but they weren’t those Four Seasons, so they dropped friend Nick and renamed themselves the Grads. Discovered by Herb Alpert while playing Harrah’s Lake Club in Lake Tahoe, the Grads changed their name to the Sandpipers, after picking it out at random from a dictionary. As the Sandpipers, they kept recording and performing until they broke up in 1979—and, unlike many bands of that era, never reunited.
Sandpiper Mike Piano passed away in 2014. Jim Brady passed in 2019. Songwriter Fred Karlin died in 2004 and Dory Previn passed in 2012. Richard Shoff is apparently still with us, although he hasn’t been active in the music business since the Sandpipers broke up.
