Tag: 1972

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1970s Blogging Music Radio

My Top 5 Hits RETRO – 1972

Hello again retro music fans. Every Friday I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from either 15, 20, 25, or 35 years ago this weekend (rotating each week).

It’s the 5TH Friday of the month, so it’s a special. This week I’m going back 50 years ago. Here it is – for the week ending Sunday October 01ST 1972:

  1. “Baby Don’t Get Hooked On Me” – Mac Davis
  2. “Black & White” – Three Dog Night
  3. “Saturday In The Park” – Chicago
  4. “Back Stabbers” – The O’Jays
  5. “Ben” – Michael Jackson

That’s actually the Top 5 from the Billboard Hot 100 that week, and Casey Kasem counted them down from coast to coast on #AT40 from Hollywood.

I’m familiar with all of those songs – and I remember hearing them all on the radio as a 5-year-old kindergarten kid – aside from “Ben”. I don’t remember that one.

Both “Baby Don’t Get Hooked On Me” (905 plays since 2013) and “Saturday In The Park” (732 plays since 2013) are in heavy rotation on my iPod Shuffles that play at my desk at my workplace.

I remember the “45” spinning on the record player for the Mac Davis track. My Grandmom loved it. I think a lot of older women loved it (and loved Mac). My Grandmom was 56 when the track was # 1 – a year older than I am now !

https://youtu.be/bUzKPOg_3eU

Next #RetroFriday I’ll go back 15 years ago to October 2007. It’s when my favorite rock band from Fayetteville Arkansas scored a # 1 smash with 1 of their 6 hits on my chart back when I was a baby Christian learning how to follow His light.

It’s halftime my friends. I’ll be back on Sunday and Monday with 2 more blog posts for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks for going retro with me !

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

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Animals History Home Life Music People Radio Travel

Saturday Night Retro

This week on the ‘Retro’ I’m taking us back 38 years ago to 1972. Many of you reading this weren’t even alive back then, but I was an active 5-year-old kid roaming around my new Bowie Maryland house and yard off Peach Walker Drive. I can actually see our old family house and neighbourhood today on Google Street View. It looks like a 40-year-old neighbourhood. I could fly to Washington D.C., drive to my old ‘hood in Bowie, walk up to my old house, knock on my old front door, and introduce myself as the guy that lived in that house as a little boy 35 to 38 years ago – and it would be the eeriest thing that I’ve ever done. You always hear of older people doing that – returning back to a home that they grew up in some 40 or 50 or 60 years ago – but a 43-year-old ?  38 years ago seems like such an eternity for me. I can’t believe that I’m now two generations old. I don’t feel old, but numbers don’t lie.

All we’ve got is the uncertainties of the future and the memories of the past. No matter how far we’ve come. No matter how much time has passed. We should never forget where we came from. We should never forget what we once were.

In 1972 I liked to play with my German Shepherd ‘Brandy’ out in the backyard. He loved to run. I loved to chase him. I just wished that he would stop digging holes underneath the fence and escaping into the outside world around him !

On WWDC AM-1260 (before FM radio hit it big) Raspberries were near the top of the pop charts with back-to-back hits. You may not remember the name of the band, but how about its lead singer – the legendary Eric Carmen – who enjoyed a late-1980s comeback courtesy of the “Dirty Dancing Soundtrack”. Here he is leading his band back then with two rockin’ hits – “Go All The Way” and “I Wanna Be With You”. Let’s Rock the ‘Retro’ !

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Blogging Driving History Home Life Music People Radio Travel

Saturday Night Retro

37 years ago at the end of 1972 I was a 5-year-old Kindergarten student at Magnolia Elementary School in Lanham Maryland.

Magnolia Elementary School, Lanham Maryland

The school was located about a mile away from my grandparents’ house. On most school half-days my Granddad would drop me off at school just after 12 noon and then pick me back up again 3 hours later. That was back in the days when you could attend any school that you wanted to no matter where you lived. I actually lived about 20 to 30 minutes away in Bowie Maryland. Later in the afternoon after getting off of work in NW Washington D.C. my Dad would pick me up from his parents’ house in this car:

Late in the afternoon as we drove southeastward from Lanham to Bowie along U.S. Route 50 (John Hanson Highway) we’d listen to WWDC AM-1260 as the TOP 40 hits were cranked out one after another. This was one of the top hits at the time at the end of 1972. It’s legendary British singer-songwriter Albert Hammond. He’s currently celebrating his 50TH anniversary in music, but back then he was enjoying a successful career as an International performance artist. Here’s “It Never Rains In Southern California” – his biggest hit as a singer ever – and one of the greatest pop radio tunes of my early childhood !

That’s ‘Saturday Night Retro’ for this week, and we’ll go back in time again – from the late-1990s – next Saturday night.

This concludes an awesome week of blogging. I’m taking Sundays and Mondays off from now on, so be sure to check back here on Tuesday night as we kick-off an all-new week of all of your favourite blog series. See ya then !

Categories
Blogging History Life Music Radio

Saturday Night Retro

You can’t schedule Life. Life happens. Some of it you expect. Some of it comes from beyond sight and theory. I had fully expected to continue a previously-scheduled 10-week romp through the decade that was the 1990s here on the ‘Retro’. The goal was to reach 1999 on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. That won’t happen because 1992 has been delayed until perhaps next Saturday night. I’m flashing back this week nearly 38 years ago to the start of 1972, and it’s all because of a song.

So there I was on a random day this past week minding my own business working at my desk at work when a song came on a coworker’s radio. I could barely hear it, but during those 3 minutes that it was on it was the loudest thing in my mind. It was as loud as a speeding locomotive. It cut through me and took me back to a mysterious time and era that I had previously forgotten. A time when I was a wondering 4-year-old kid exploring the world around me from inside of a moving car. I was mentally and emotionally transported back to that time.

It’s crazy how a single song can be so powerful as to totally consume you in the moment. It brought tears to my eyes, and even tonight as I post this and hear it again it gives me the chills over and over again.

I often wonder if today’s hit songs on the radio will remind me of the good and the not so good times of my Life today some 10, 25, or 40 years from now. A little over a month ago I was at cruising speed enjoying Life, bragging about it, and planning it out weeks, months, and even years from now. Unfortunately the other end of my Life was suddenly imploding in an irreversible manner. There I was looking too far into the future while I was neglecting the foundation of the Life of the now. Life happened. You can’t schedule Life.