Billboard Hot Soul Singles – April 6, 1974

-
Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye
Enjoy this weekend's Billboard soul top 20 from 1974, counting down from 20 to 1! 😊 It is a special year to me, because 1974 was the year that I discovered pop music. 

The Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart from exactly 50 years ago mainly contains a lot of classic (Motown) soul, with some early disco here and there. Only some lyrics are no longer acceptable in 2024. For instance, Bobby Womack mainly wants a woman to clean the house and prepare delicious food for him and Leon Haywood seems to justify domestic violence by stating that problems should be kept indoors. Ecstasy Pleasure & Pain, Spinners, Billy Paul and MFSB are the representatives of The Sound Of Philadelphia, or Philly Soul for short, the sound that would start the disco craze in years to come. 

The sessions for Diana & Marvin, a duets album by then super stars Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye, started in 1971 and took until the beginning of 1973. Diana Ross told in an early 1973 interview in Blues & Soul magazine that the album, produced by Ashford & Simpson, was to be titled Art & Honey. Motown held the album from being released, because Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye had solo albums ready to be launched. Diana Ross brought out her album Touch Me In The Morning, which coincidentally contained a cover of a Marvin Gaye song, Save The Children, which was part of a medley. Marvin Gaye released his LP Let's Get It On by the end of the summer. Both albums were very successful and both peaked in the top ten. Marvin Gaye's album sold more than three million copies, becoming his best-selling Motown album ever, surpassing his masterpiece What's Going On. Eventually Motown renamed the long-awaited duets album Diana & Marvin and dropped it on October 26, 1973. The LP reached number 26 on the Billboard 200 and number 7 on the R&B albums chart, selling over half a million copies in the United States.

Next up is a new part of Sunny Breeze From The West Coast!

Tracklist:

Tyrone Davis – I Wish It Was Me
Jackson 5 – Dancing Machine
Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye – My Mistake Was To Love You
Ecstasy Pleasure & Pain – I Wouldn’t Give You Up
The Temptations – Heavenly
Eddie Kendricks – Boogie Down
Earth, Wind & Fire – Mighty Mighty
Spinners – Mighty Love
Billy Paul – Thanks For Saving My Life
Leon Haywood – Keep It In The Family
James Brown – The Payback
New Birth – It’s Been A Long Time
Main Ingredient – Just Don’t Want To Be Lonely
Barry White – Honey Please, Can't Ya See
Chi-Lites – Homely Girl
Staple Singers – Touch A Hand, Make A Friend
MFSB Feat. The Three Degrees – TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia)
Bloodstone – Outside Woman
Bobby Womack – Lookin’ For A Love
Gladys Knight & the Pips – Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Disco Knockouts!

-
Image
Apart from the picture of Sharron Davies, there are two songs that inspired me to make this mix. One of them is a recent track from Duck Sauce. The repetition of the female vocals reminded me of Stars On 45 (I believe they both sampled 'Gotta Go Home' by Boney M). The other one is from Dutch singer Dee Dee. I heard ‘I put a spell on you’ on a recent episode of Tim Sweeney’s ‘Beats in space’. In the accompanying video she looks a little bit like a sex doll, but I love the song! I like the closing track from soul veterans the Drifters, but isn’t it strange to hear guys who were in their thirties at the time sing about schoolgirls? Different times, I guess, when no one had heard of R. Kelly yet... One of my personal favourites is ‘Night time’ from Maggie MacNeal. I bought the 7” which was produced by Michael Lloyd (known for his work for the Osmonds, Lou Rawls and Solomon Burke) way back in 1979. Maggie MacNeal was one half of successful Dutch duo Mouth & MacNeal. Their bigg
Read more

The Smooth Operators Present Classic Yacht Rock

-
Image
Unsplash The Smooth Operators (Martijn Soetens and I) introduce you to yacht rock songs that you must have heard at least once in your life! We present some real yacht rock classics and yacht rock songs that we think should have been classics. Harden My Heart by American pop/rock group Quarterflash was written by guitarist Marv Ross and included on the band's debut album, Quarterflash (1981). The song was originally released as a single in early 1980 by Seafood Mama, Quarterflash's predecessor band. Quarterflash's version became a top-10 hit in the United States, peaking at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1982. Guitarist and songwriter Marv Ross remembered that a friend of his had given him the title and that he came up with the lyrics very quickly. Last Monday Michael McDonald, front man of the Doobie Brothers, celebrated his 72th birthday: "Emerging from the laid-back California rock scene of the '70s, McDonald found his niche in a unique blend of
Read more

West Coast Sundown: Yacht Rock, Late Night Pop & Sunset Soul

-
Image
Unsplash Enjoy the soundtrack to a West Coast sundown! 😊 The closing track by Matt Duncan is brand new, by the way. It sounds like a lost recording from The Nightfly sessions by Donald Fagen. At the time critics sometimes called David Cassidy’s music bubblegum pop. That was simply defined  music manufactured to sell as much records as possible and it was mostly aimed at a very young audience. Bubblegum's classic period ran from the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies. At that point disco music took over the single market. However, David Cassidy certainly made some very good records, although in later years he found it difficult to shake off his teen idol image. “His wispiest, breathiest hit was called ‘I Am A Clown’. Poor, sweet, forlorn sexy David – marshmallows could’ve bruised this sound.“ (Bob Stanley in his book Yeah Yeah Yeah )  Midas Shadow by Al Stewart is from his classic 1976 album The Year Of The Cat . The message of this song is that when a successful businessman stops
Read more