The Top Hits of 1969 - Part One Quiz

Answer: I Heard It Through The Grapevine

In a quirky turn of events, Gladys Knight and The Pips scored the big Number Two hit with it in 1967 despite Marvin Gaye actually having recorded the song first. Hence, Knight's version was actually the cover! Norman Whitfield, a producer with Motown Records, composed the song with the able assistance of Barrett Strong and he was convinced that it would be a big hit for Gaye.

The head of Motown, Berry Gordy, had other thoughts and chose Knight's version instead. The label had just signed them and Gordy was anxious to see them score a hit. That accomplished, Whitfield was finally able to convince Berry to release Gaye's recording and, true to Whitfield's speculation, it became a smash hit.

It entered the charts exactly 56 weeks after Knight's version debuted, rose right to the top and became Motown's biggest hit up to that point in time, "Endless Love" by Diana Ross and Lionel Ritchie finally supplanting it in 1981.

Answer: Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In

In 1968, members of The 5th Dimension caught a performance of the Broadway rock musical "Hair" and were so enraptured with the songs and music that they immediately approached their producer, Bones Howe, to try to create something from the rock musical that they could record themselves. This song, a medley of two pieces within the musical, was his handiwork. It would go on to sell over two million records, easily the biggest hit the group would ever have.

Other groups had success with songs from the production as well. Three Dog Night took "Easy To Be Hard" to Number Four on the charts and it ranked number 43 in this countdown. "Good Morning Starshine" was a Number Three hit for Oliver and finished the year ranked number 46. Finally, The Cowsills version of the title song "Hair" hit Number Two for a couple of weeks and was rated the 18th biggest song of the year. It's little wonder that the musical was such a runaway Broadway hit!

Answer: Sugar, Sugar

Almost all bubblegum music was performed by studio musicians and vocalists brought together for recording purposes only. The Archies were no exception. They were assembled by producer Jeff Barry who composed the song with his wife, Ellie Greenwich. She also served as one of the back-up singers along with Andy Kim who would go on to have his own success as a solo artist in the early 1970s.

The lead vocalist was Ron Dante and the other prominent voice was that of Toni Wine... hers was the sexy voice that sang the part of the lyric noted in brackets in the question.

It was the combination of this vocal talent that made this song a hit, in my opinion. There was a certain maturity to it that was missing in the squeaky, nasal vocalizations of other bubblegum acts that made it more palatable to people other than adolescents, the prime target group for this style of music. Ultimately, The Archies would take four Barry/Greenwich compositions into the Top 40 but by the middle of the next year, bubblegum music was already passé and the group, such that it was, disbanded. Barry and Greenwich continued to compose songs in other musical genres for several years and Dante moved onto production work.

He was the man behind all of Barry Manilow's hits during his pinnacle of success in the 1970s.

Answer: In The Year 2525 (Terminus And Exordium)

This would be Zager and Evans only Hot 100 hit, true one hit wonders. Richard Evans wrote the song in 1964 but it wasn't until he joined Denny Zager in 1968 that his "vision" was put to vinyl. Together, they recorded three albums. The album featuring this hit did okay but their subsequent efforts were panned by the critics and the public alike.

The two went their separate ways in 1971, ultimately fading into obscurity.

Answer: Everyday People

Sylvester "Sly" Stone wrote the song as his way of protesting discrimination in its many forms and it obviously resonated with most listeners... it would become the group's biggest hit. Stone "walked the talk". His group was mixed both in gender and race, and in personal life, he actively participated in causes that fostered equal rights for all.

Unfortunately, his idealism was compromised with an addiction to narcotics. Although he managed to maintain a creative edge and produce a number of big hits throughout the early 1970s, the onset of disco music and his escalating drug abuse led to the group's decline by the middle of the decade and its dissolution by 1983.

His arrest that year on charges of cocaine possession, and then again in 1987, effectively signaled the end of his career.

Answer: Honky Tonk Women

The Rolling Stones had the top ranked song in 1965 with "Satisfaction" and it seemed certain that they would be perennial challengers for the honor for many years to come. But despite a steady stream of hits, this was the first song since then that achieved a top ten year-end ranking.

Originally, the song was intended to be "country" oriented, their take on Hank Williams' "Honky Tonk Blues" but by the time it reached the recording studio, it evolved into the rocker it was. Mick Taylor played lead guitar on this hit, Brian Jones so drug addled by this time that he was incapable of performing, even in the studio. Jones was axed from the group three days later and within three weeks was found floating in his swimming pool, dead of an overdose. Taylor would remain with the group until 1975.

Answer: Get Back

"Get Back" was one of the last up-tempo songs The Beatles would record and the title suggested their intent to get back to their rocking roots. Some of Ringo's best drumming licks are evident on this hit! Lennon later noted that the song was basically a reworking of "Lady Madonna", released the previous year. It has been speculated that the "Jo Jo" in the song is in reference to Linda McCarthy's first husband, Joseph Melville See Jr., who lived in Tucson until his suicide in 2000. In a similar vein, Lennon often suggested that McCartney looked directly at Yoko Ono in the recording studio when he sang the words "Get back to where you once belonged". Tensions certainly were high in those latter sessions!

On May 24 and 31, 1969, it was a simultaneous Number One hit in the U.K., the U.S. and Australia, the fifth and last Beatles' hit to score that hat trick. The other Beatles' hits to achieve the feat were: "A Hard Days Night" in August 1964; "I Feel Fine" in December 1964; 'We Can Work It Out" in November 1966; and, "Hello, Goodbye" in January 1968. The only other song to turn the trick during the decade was "I'm A Believer" by The Monkees in February 1967. "Get Back" was also Number One in Canada for those two weeks and in all four markets, the record topped the charts for exactly five weeks.

Answer: Crimson And Clover

Tommy James composed the song and recorded it, playing all the instruments himself save for drums, all in one evening! His record producer up to this point was Bo Gentry who also wrote virtually all his previous hits like "Mirage", "I Think We're Alone Now" and "Mony Mony". Gentry left Roulette Records in a salary dispute and critics suggested that James' career was in jeopardy without Gentry's input and support.

He concocted this piece just to prove the critics wrong and it became his biggest hit ever.

Incidentally, the record first started its chart run during the Christmas season of 1968 and because of the reverberation effects that James utilized in its production, many listeners thought they heard "Christmas is over" rather than "crimson and clover".

Answer: I Can't Get Next To You

Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield composed this hard driving song that epitomized the Motown R&B sound. It was unique in that each member of the group took the lead in singing a line of the song ranging from deep baritone to falsetto tenor. Quite effective.

This was their 23rd top 40 hit since their debut in 1964 and they would have 13 more before their career would lose momentum in the mid-1970s.

Answer: Dizzy

"Dizzy" was Roe's second Number One hit. His previous chart topper was "Sheila" in 1962 when he was hailed as the next Buddy Holly largely due to the "hiccup" style vocalization and basic rock 'n roll treatment featured in that song. Well, Roe was not a Holly and by the mid-1960s, he was firmly entrenched as a pop singer whose fans were primarily adolescent females.

It worked for him though as he scored six top 10 hits over the decade. By the end of the 1960s, however, he threw in his lot with the bubblegum style of music and with its demise, so went his career.

After a brief fling with country music in the 1970s, he toured the oldies circuit and remained an active campaigner in that milieu with the turn of the new century.

Answer: Come Together

Mmmmmm... "One and one and one is three" - Paul IS dead! At least that was the speculation when the public heard that line. Lennon and his red herrings! Lennon insisted that there was nothing hidden in any part of this lyric... it was merely a collage of images he conjured up over a period of time and other songs he composed around then were similarly constructed, most notably "I Am The Walrus".

The song had its genesis earlier in the year when Timothy Leary was part of the back-up chorus that sang on "Give Peace A Chance".

He was initiating his run for the U.S. presidency at the time and mentioned that he intended to use as his slogan the line "Come together, join the party". Lennon thought it clever and pieced together a demo-tape jingle that was used as part of Leary's campaign. Later, he fleshed out the lyrics for release as a single, much to Leary's chagrin.

Answer: Leaving On A Jet Plane

Peter, Paul and Mary finally recorded a Number One hit with this song and ironically, it would be their final entry on Billboard's Hot 100. They would soon split up to pursue other individual projects after spending eight years performing together. The song was written by John Denver a couple of years earlier while he was a member of the Chad Mitchell Trio and it's curious that they didn't record it for release as a single. Denver's intention with the lyric was to describe the feelings engendered when a young musician would leave his loved one to go on tour. What it became was an anthem for men in the military who were leaving their homes to go to Vietnam. Certainly, the lyric is even more poignant in that context and undoubtedly contributed to the song's enormous popularity at the time.

Answer: Wedding Bell Blues

One of the hottest song composers at that time was Laura Nyro. Besides this song, she had two other compositions of hers achieve top 10 status in the autumn of 1969 - "Eli's Coming" by Three Dog Night and "And When I Die" by Blood Sweat and Tears. Those hits would ultimately finish at number 54 and number 39 respectively in this countdown. When the 5th Dimension recorded this song, the group's lead singers were Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis and it so happened that they were engaged at the time. The rest of the group saw the humor in the song when McCoo sang the lyrics to Davis, especially the lines -

"Bill, I love you so, I always will
I look at you and see the passion eyes of May
Oh, but am I ever gonna see my wedding day"

Happily, they were married a year later and remain so, to the best of my knowledge.

Answer: kiss him

The actual title of the song was "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" and it was recorded by a no-name group of studio musicians assembled by producer Paul Leka, formerly a member of The Lemon Pipers who scored a hit with "Green Tambourine" in 1968. Originally, this song was intended to be the B-side for another song, "It's The Magic In You Girl".

When it was recorded, the "na na" bits were actually "placeholders", that is, meaningless syllables placed in the recording to note where real words are to be sung when the lyric got completed.

The whistling at the end of "Dock Of The Bay" by Otis Redding served the same function. In that instance, Redding didn't live long enough to complete the lyric so the whistling segment was retained. With this song, meant as a throwaway B-side at best, the lyrics were never completed due to time pressure at the recording studio so Leka decided to just leave the "na na's" in.

When the disc was completed, management at the Fontana record label became smitten with this song and decided it would be the A-side. Bingo! Just another surprise, accidental smash hit. Eventually, Leka formed a group he named Steam to take the song on tour and record a follow-up release. That was as far as the group went - the follow-up only charted at Number 46 and Steam was dismantled a short time later.

Answer: Crystal Blue

This was the group's third biggest hit ever and penultimate top ten hit. Softly psychedelic, its production values were similar to "Crimson And Clover" released earlier in the year. Like several other hits of the era, it invokes a spirit of brotherhood and peace and apparently James wrote the piece after being inspired from a tract from the Bible, either the Book of Solomon or the Book of Revelation. Lyrical revisionists insist that it is about amphetamines, no doubt only because of the "crystal" reference in the title. Aren't all songs about drugs?

1969 was a great year for music and normally I've presented 20 questions in this series of quizzes. But because of the wealth of good material from this year, I will be crafting another 1969 quiz very shortly from songs that didn't make the elite 15.