Today’s Throwback Weekend song comes from the week of September 15, 1973, when Helen Reddy’s ‘Delta Dawn’ topped the Hot 100 for a single week as part of its eight-week run in the top ten.
The song had previously been recorded by Bette Midler and Tanya Tucker, with the latter scoring a top ten hit on the Country chart. But Reddy, adding choir-like background vocals, was the first to score a major crossover hit with the track.
Throwing back to the week of September 14, 1963, we find The Angels on top of the Billboard Hot 100 with their only top ten hit, ‘My Boyfriend’s Back.’
This simple tale of promised revenge was inspired by a conversation overheard by co-writer Bob Feldman. A teenaged girl was rejecting the advances of an unwanted suitor, unaware that her dismissal would result in a massive hit. I wonder how many women of the era believed they might have been that girl.
In 1967, The Rolling Stones released their last album to receive different versions in the U.S. and UK. That record, Between the Buttons, continued their move away from R&B infused rock and toward the more experimental sounds of their peers.
That means a little Beatles here, a little Kinks there, a little Dylan on today’s SOTD, and a generally more fussed-over sound than they were known for.
April of 1966 saw the release of the first classic Rolling Stones album, Aftermath. Inspired by The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, the band moved away from their R&B staples and recorded a collection of entirely original songs. I love how the hottest bands of that era used the competition to fuel their creativity.
The UK version of this album clocked in at 52 minutes, then the longest running time for a popular release. The American version ran ten minutes shorter, cutting four songs and adding hit single ‘Paint it Black.’ Among the songs left off the tracklist were the great ‘Mother’s Little Helper’ and ‘Out of Time,’ making the American version the lesser of the two (‘Out of Time,’ today’s SOTD, was used beautifully in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.)
The Rolling Stones’ third UK studio album, Out of Our Heads, was released in the U.S. two months earlier — July vs. September of 1965. It was a major hit on both sides of the pond, reaching #1 in the U.S. and #2 in the UK. Once again, the lineups were significantly different.
Because the tradition was not to include single releases on UK albums, that version of Out of Our Heads didn’t feature the band’s biggest hit to date (and one of their biggest overall), ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.’ That smash did appear on the U.S. edition, as did hit ‘The Last Time’ and its haunting B-side, ‘Play with Fire.’
Meet Me In Montauk 