Fantastic 22 Original Hits Original Stars
Long, long before anyone ever heard of “Now That’s What I Call Music” our generation had K-tel. I think Fantastic was their first compilation and they advertised it like crazy on TV and my parents probably bought mine at Two Guys. In case you’re wondering, I do still have the album. I’m looking at it right now! I was searching the internet for a track listing and I was surprised to find several different versions of this LP, but I was finally able to find the listing that matched the version I had.
Side One
Tony Orlando & Dawn - Tie A Yellow Ribbon
Focus - Hocus Pocus
The Sweet - Little Willy
Bill Withers - Lean On Me
Raspberries - I Wanna Be With You
Albert Hammond - The Free Electric Band
Foster Sylvers - Misdemeanor
Jerry Jeff Walker - L.A. Freeway
New York City - I'm Doin' Fine Now
Barry White - I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little More Baby
Side Two
Maureen McGovern - The Morning After
Rod Stewart - Twisting The Night Away
Vicki Lawrence - The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia
Donny Osmond - The 12th Of Never
First Choice - Armed & Extremely Dangerous
Lobo - It Sure Took A Long, Long Time
Blue Mink - Randy
Gunhill Road - Back When My Hair Was Short
Gary Glitter - Rock 'N Roll Part 2
Cliff Richard - Power To All Our Friends
Elton John - Rocket Man
The K-tel albums were supposed to be a collection of top hits, but to be honest, every time I got one of the records, there was always a couple of the songs I never heard before and I would never hear anywhere else, but on that album. From the first record – I don’t think I ever heard Albert Hammond, Jerry Jeff Walker or Blue Mink on the radio, but the folks at K-tel promised me these were all top 10 hits! Of course some of these songs still make rounds on Oldies and Classic Rock radio. When I got older I was glad to find that The Sweet and the Raspberries still had Greatest Hits collections and I have many of their songs in my iTunes library. It’s great to be able to share this stuff with my kids, too. They dig a lot of this stuff now just as much as I did then.
On the other, while the K-tel collections contains some of the greatest one-hit Wonders hits from the 1970’s, there are also those songs that still cause people to shudder and wonder what were we thinking?? I loved The Night Chicago Died by Paper Lace. I mean I loved it. I can still remember standing on the asphalt playground at St Pete’s and singing this one with my buds at lunch time. This one probably made a lot of the critics of the day cringe, but I didn’t care. Seasons in the Sun still gets derided as an example of the worst from that era, but I would bet it’s still a guilty pleasure for a lot of you. However, I wouldn’t mind if every copy of Afternoon Delight was destroyed.
Side 1:
The Night Chicago Died-Paper Lace,
Takin Care Of Business-Bachman Turner Overdrive,
This Flight Tonight-Nazareth,
Be Thankful For What You Got-William De Vaughn,
I Shot The Sheriff-Eric Clapton,
Hollywood Swingin-Kool & The Gang,
Stuck In The Middle With You-Stealers Wheel,
I'm A Train- Albert Hammond,
Rock Your Baby-George McCrae,
Honky Cat-Elton John,
Side 2
Seasons In The Sun-Terry Jacks,
Rock & Roll Hoochie Koo-Rick Derringer,
Meet Me On The Corner Down At Joe's Cafe-Peter Noone,
Save The Last Dance For Me-Defranco Family,
Rings-Lobo,
The Lord's Prayer-Sister Janet Mead,
Love's Theme-Love Unlimited Orchestra,
Show And Tell-Al Wilson,
On And On-Gladys Knight,
Let's Put It All Together-Stylistics
There is also something about this particular collection from 1974 that I think is rather interesting. It wasn’t uncommon to hear a lot of these songs on the same radio station in 1974. Sure WIBG was top 40, but the mix of styles was rather eclectic. You had the Power Pop of the Raspberries and the Sweet, the bubble gum pop of Paper Lace, or the Bay City Rollers, R&B and proto-disco, funk. It was almost like the wild west of radio and it was all gold! GOLD! Or maybe I should say it was like some sort of Fantastic, Dynamite Music Machine colliding with a Hit Machine somewhere on the Music Express of Radio!!
I never heard the Peter Noone song anywhere but on this collection, and I didn’t even realize he was the singer form Herman’s Hermits until years later. There were a few songs from this collection that would hint at the course of music to come by the end of the decade. George McCrea’s “Rock Your Baby” Barry White’s “Love’s Theme” got a lot of air play, but they were definitely part of the musical foundation that would evolve into Disco. In about 4 years, Disco would eclipse just about everything else out there, but for now, it was just a proto life form crawling around in a musical swamp somewhere in Los Angeles.
Another prescient song was represented by Rick Derringer’s Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo. If you hear that song now, on Oldies or Classic rock, it fits right in, but in 1974 you usually had to go to one of the fledgling FM stations to find something like that. This song was a big AM hit and, I think paved the way for the commercial acceptance of hard rock. I mean, look where it is positioned on the track listing – right after Terry Jacks. That’s a bizarre juxtaposition of musical styles – but that’s what was happening on the radio in 1974. The song featured a heavily distorted guitar track and some wicked riffs along with a blistering solo. Later on KISS and Van Halen would bust through the door that Rick Derringer propped open for them, but I think the success of “Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo” on AM radio really pushed the envelope of what people would accept as popular music.
The K-tel collections were great snapshots of the year, and they usually captured what was going on, for at least some part of the year they were released. While a lot of these songs still make the rounds on the radio, others have faded off and there are others that have been forgotten all together. One song I miss from that era was Vanity Fair’s Hitching a Ride. You don’t seem to hear that one on the radio anymore. But the Five Man Electric Bands’ “Signs” still gets played. “Signs” is alright, but there was so much great music from that era that has been overlooked.
Back then I definitely had my favorites. The Sweet and the Raspberries were tops on the list. While I listened to everything, I did find myself drifting to the Rock side of top 40 more than the Pop side. Even though that crunchy power pop sound would always be hovering at the fringes of the mainstream it would turn out to be part of the foundation for a lot of the music I would be listening to in the 1980s and 1990s.
Next: 1975: Kiss, Queen and Bruce Springsteen
I have a couple of multiple copies of various K-tel albums, and as a kid I was fascinated by the differing track listings. I assume they reflected regional chart differences (or sometimes countries - I've got a couple of Canadian K-Tels).
ReplyDeleteHi! Thanks for writing - It's been almost two years since I wrote these posts. Glad to know someone's out there reading them! I hope to pick it back up again someday and start chroniciling 1980 onward. - Chris
DeleteAustralia also has K Tel releases, same titles but different track listing to US
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