A history of popular music, as told by 100 one-hit wonders (part 1)
The ground rules for defining a one-hit wonder: Each of these artists must have hit the Billboard Top 40 with only one song. Ever. That makes them a one-hit wonder. The Buffalo Springfield, regardless of their legacy, are a one-hit wonder by this definition. The Knack are not since their follow-up to “My Sharona” made the Top 40. This list only captures songs from 1955 to 1989, more or less paralleling my interest in this kind of minutiae and freeing me from having to comment on “Who Let the Dogs Out,” “The Macarena” or “Barbie Girl.” If this list covered the greatest one-hit wonders based on personal tastes, it would look much different. This is more about the one-hit wonders that are culturally, historically or aesthetically significant – or at the very least offered something I could say about them.
100: Hillside Singers –•– I’d Like to Teach the World — (Peaked: January 15, 1972 at #13)
99: T-Bones –•– No Matter What Shape — (Peaked: February 5, 1966 at # 3)
As Middle America went about its business humming these commercial jingles, adapting them as standalone songs seemed almost too easy. The T-Bones were the LA studio musicians known as The Wrecking Crew, channeling the Ventures with their remake of the Alka-Seltzer jingle. The Hillside Singers were a studio creation that sounded too close to Up With People for comfort. Like an opened can of Coca-Cola that’s been allowed to sit, "I'd Like To Teach The World" had no fizz; it was just sweet and syrupy.
98:
Grateful Dead –•– Touch of Grey — (Peaked: September 26, 1987 at #
9)
The 60s really ended at some point in the 80s with John Lennon and Marvin Gaye murdered, Keith Richards and David Crosby perpetually zonked; Brian Wilson unable to get out of bed; Bob Dylan with writer’s block; and Paul McCartney thinking it would be a good idea to write and record with Michael Jackson. But by the late 80s, with tie-dyed shirts back in fashion and the 20th anniversary of the Summer of Love, that 60s incense was in the air again. The Grateful Dead, a 60s survivor not known for their self-preservation skills (or their ability to write a catchy tune), somehow tapped into all this and caught late-inning lightning with an ode to growing old gracefully – “old” in this case meant approaching 50.
97: The
Jamies –•– Summertime, Summertime — (Peaked: September 22, 1958 at # 26)
In a 1978 movie called Fingers, Harvey Keitel plays a gifted pianist with a knack for violently shaking down people who owe his gangster father money. Fidgety, impulsive -- in short a poster child for Asperger's -- when Keitel’s character isn't practicing dramatic piano concertos, he’s walking around Manhattan with a portable tape machine obsessively playing "Summertime, Summertime” over and over. Heard mostly on oldies radio, predictably when the seasons changed, the song was always pleasant enough, backed by with what sounds like a harpsichord.
96: Edie
Brickell & New Bohemians –•– What I Am — (Peaked: March 4, 1989 at #
7)
Stoner anthem celebrating a complete lack of metaphysical awareness and depth on the part of the singer.
95: Gary
Numan –•– Cars — (Peaked: June 7, 1980 at # 9)
Maybe it was all the synthesizers, but something about New Wave music brought out the automaton in everybody. Gary Numan (new man – get it? Like an android!) offered non-emotional vocals and looked like a department store mannequin, but it was the very human drums and tambourine that kept this record moving until the end when the synthesizers threaten and then take over.
94: Moms
Mabley –•– Abraham, Martin and John — (Peaked: July 19, 1969 at #
35)
93:
Pigmeat Markham –•– Here Comes the Judge — (Peaked: July 27, 1968 at # 19)
Possibly spurred by the late-career success of Redd Foxx, a handful of entertainers who spent most of their lives working the ‘chitlin’ circuit’ of nightclubs and theaters that catered to black audiences found themselves nearly in the mainstream of popular entertainment. Moms Mabley left her raunchy nightclub act to become a semi-regular on the Merv Griffin Show and at 75 was the oldest living person to make the Billboard Top 40, croaking a melancholy “Abraham, Martin and John.” When Sammy Davis Jr. (who began as a child tap dancer on the chitlin’ circuit) used the “Here Comes the Judge” line on Laugh-In, he was recalling an old Pigmeat Markham comedy routine and creating a new national catch-phrase overnight. Markham, 64, was rushed into the studio to capture the moment with some Jurassic Period rap.
92:
Victor Lundberg –•– An Open Letter to My Teenage Son — (Peaked: December 2,
1967 at # 10)
Surely a hit on VFW hall jukeboxes, with “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” swelling behind him, moonlighting newscaster Victor Lundberg in a “conversation” with his long-haired son starts out sympathetic, before veering right and ending with a promise that if the kid burns his draft card, "burn your birth certificate at the same time. From that moment on, I have no son." Like a troublesome stomach virus, this record thankfully moved through the charts quickly. Three weeks after its debut, it peaked at #10. The next week it slipped to #22 and then it was gone. As might have been any kid whose father, looking to send some sort of message, played this on the family stereo. OK pop, and if you’re looking for me to throw out the garbage tonight, I’ll probably be halfway to Toronto.
91: Jim
Backus and Friend –•– Delicious — (Peaked: July 21, 1958 at # 40)
Listen as Mr. Magoo sits in a dark cocktail lounge
plying his date with champagne.
