Throwing back to the week of Nov. 16, 1954, Eddie Fisher tops the Billboard hits chart with ‘I Need You Now.’ This was the song’s third straight week at #1, and its last, because it was about to be overtaken by the song at #2.
That was ‘Mr. Sandman’ by The Chordettes. This song would go on to spend seven weeks at #1, giving the vocal quartet their biggest hit (followed closely by ‘Lollipop’ four years later).
The week of December 10, 1984, saw four songs topping the Billboard Hot 100 that have already been featured on the blog. They were, in order, Billy Ocean’s ‘Caribbean Queen,’ Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You,’ Prince’s ‘Purple Rain,’ and Wham!’s ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.’
That brings us to #5, where R&B/funk singer Chaka Khan had her highest-charting song as a lead performer with ‘I Feel For You.’
Throwing back to the week of November 9, 1974, we find Bachman-Turner Overdrive atop the Billboard Hot 100 with their only #1 hit (and only one to reach the top ten), ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.’
This is a case of a song stumbling its way to success without really trying. Songwriter and frontman Randy Bachman says he wrote the song as a joke for his brother, who had a stutter, and the band recorded it with the intention that it would only ever be heard by him. (Incidentally, I’m not sure that’s a very funny joke, but I guess brothers find weird things amusing.)
The week of Nov. 3, 1964, found The Supremes atop the Billboard Hot 100 with their classic ‘Baby Love.’ I posted that song way back at Song of the Day #339, early on in a Motown Weekends series.
At #2 was J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers’s ‘Last Kiss,’ a recording of a song originally released a few years earlier by the song’s writer, Wayne Cochran. While that version stalled out on the charts, this one did quite well.
Throwing back to the week of Nov. 2, 1954, we find a familiar trio hanging on at the top three of Billboard’s singles chart: Eddie Fisher’s ‘I Need You Now‘ and two Rosemary Clooney tracks, ‘Hey There‘ and ‘This Ole House.’
At #4 that week was Perry Como’s ‘Papa Loves Mambo,’ a tune that capitalized on a nationwide interest in the Cuban dance music style.
Meet Me In Montauk 