Throwing back to the week of January 5, 1974, we find Jim Croce at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with the beautiful love ballad ‘Time in a Bottle.’
Sadly, Croce had died the previous September in a plane crash that also took the lives of five others — including bandmate Maury Muehleisen, who played guitar on this song.
The week of December 9, 1973, saw the Carpenters atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Top of the World.’ This country pop song spent two week at #1 as part of a ten-week stint on the chart.
This was the second of three career #1s for the duo, though they had five #2 hits between this song and their first chart-topper, ‘(They Long to Be) Close to You.’
The week of November 17, 1973, saw former Temptations member Eddie Kendricks in his second week at #1 with ‘Keep On Truckin’ (Part 1),’ an abbreviated version of an 8-minute album track.
Kendricks had left The Temptations on bad terms two years earlier, and received some musical shade from his former band through a song called ‘Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are).’ This song, his only solo #1, gave him some measure of revenge. Kendricks even name-drops his former band during the song’s final verses.
The week of October 27, 1973, found Gladys Knight & The Pips at #1 with the classic ‘Midnight Train to Georgia.’ This song, the band’s first #1, spent two weeks at the top spot. It became Knight’s signature song.
‘Midnight Train to Georgia’ was written by country singer-songwriter Jim Weatherly as ‘Midnight Plane to Houston.’ His plaintive version is worth a listen, though the track definitely reached a higher level in the hands of Gladys Knight & The Pips.
In the #1 spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 the week of October 6, 1973, is a Throwback Weekend selection that has not aged well. The song is ‘Half-Breed,’ Cher’s second of four career #1 hits, and it’s about as cringeworthy as its title suggests.
To be fair, the lyrics paint a sympathetic portrait of a woman with a white father and Cherokee mother, decrying the racism that mixed-race children face from both sides. But should a pop song about this topic have been written and performed by people without a drop of Native American blood?
