One of one hundred, 1969 

Songs that entered the Billboard Hot 100 at #100 are obviously at a huge disadvantage when it comes to getting airplay and selling records, but a few become unlikely success stories or just have an interesting narrative around them. Here are nine such records from 1969, listed by song title, artist and date it entered the Hot 100. 

Twenty-Five Miles – Edwin Starr (2/15/69). Journeyman Edwin Starr had a minor hit in 1965 with Agent Double O Soul but faced a long climb with Twenty-Five Miles. Eight weeks later the song rose to #6, making it the second-most successful single of the year to open on the charts at #100. 

Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show – Neil Diamond (2/22/69). After a nearly six-decade career that included some regrettable movie roles and duets with Barbra Streisand, it’s easy to forget that Neil Diamond was once “just” a singer/songwriter with a knack for writing great pop songs. This was his last record before breaking into the big time later in 1969 with Sweet Caroline. Diamond copped the title of his 1972 live album from Brother Love’s “hot August night” opening line. And speaking of regrettable, what’s up with the cover of that album? 

Hawaii Five-O – Ventures (3/8/69). Ironically, the Ventures’ best-selling record ever didn’t sound like the Ventures at all, twangy guitars buried under the weight of an orchestra. It hit #4 in June 1969 and without bothering to check, I’d venture (get it?) that it may be the most successful TV theme to chart. 

Idaho – Four Seasons (4/5/69). The Four Seasons changed their hairstyles and clothes, then recorded an unlikely trip into psychedelia and social commentary with the album The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette, from which Idaho was taken. They were past their original expiration date at this point, but still years away from their 1975 disco comeback. 

Born To Be Wild – Wilson Pickett (5/10/69). Out of original material, Wilson Pickett took off on a second-wind career covering white rock artists like Steppenwolf, the Beatles (Hey Jude) and strangely, although he makes it his own, The Archies’ Sugar, Sugar. 

Tell All the People – Doors (6/14/69). As Jim Morrison’s behavior grew increasingly erratic and his interest in performing and songwriting diminished, The Soft Parade was the Doors’ lamest album. This was the lead cut from that record and just by virtue of debuting at #100 speaks to how far the band that recorded Light My Fire had fallen. 

Kool and the Gang – Kool and the Gang (9/13): Other songs with the performer’s name in the title: Bad Company, Black Sabbath, Bo Diddley, This is Radio Clash, Stray Cat Strut. 

He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother – Hollies (12/20): Charting as high as #7 in 1970, the title was the slogan for Boys Town, supposedly said by one of the residents while carrying another boy with polio up a set of stairs. (Actually, the slogan is “He ain’t heavy, Father, he’s my brother,” which I always hear in Leo Gorcey’s voice, “He ain’t heavy, faddah, he’s my bruddah.”) 

The Thrill Is Gone – B. B. King (12/27): B.B. King had three singles enter the charts at #100 in 1969; this is the one that stuck, going to #16 in early 1970, and earning him a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. King hit the #10 spot on Billboard in 1996, in a fashion, when his voice was sampled for the Primitive Radio Gods’ Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth, released just in time before phone booths disappeared off the face of the earth. 

 The Twilight Zone: Steel 

(This post is part of the 10^th Annual Favorite TV Show Episodes Blogathon hosted by A Shroud of Thoughts)

In real life and otherwise, happy endings are rare in boxing. 

It’s 1974 and professional boxing between humans has been banned, with androids now taking their place in the ring. Steel (Lee Marvin) is an ex-prizefighter and manager of Battling Maxo, a robot boxer whose best days are behind it. Steel, his partner and Maxo have traveled by bus from Philadelphia to Kansas for a fight, lured by the promise of a $500 payday – money that be used for new parts and patches for Maxo. 

While running Maxo through its paces before the bout, an internal spring breaks, leaving the android useless. His back against the wall and desperately in need of the cash, Steel disguises himself as Maxo, darkening his hair and taking on the blank look and stiff posture of an automaton, to climb into the ring against a far superior boxing robot. 

Steel takes a pounding from his android opponent and since the fight barely lasts a round, the promoter will only fork over half the prize money. Afterwards, a battered and exhausted Steel begins to recalculate how to make it back to Philadelphia and repair Maxo with less money. 

Steel first aired in October 1963 amidst an air of unease about boxing. On a nationally televised fight in March 1962, Emile Griffith backed Bernie Paret into a corner and pounded him with 29 unanswered punches. Paret collapsed, fell into a coma and died ten days later from massive brain hemorrhaging. In a 1963 televised bout, Sugar Ramos staggered opponent Davey Moore, who fell into a rope, injuring his brain stem. Moore died 75 hours later. 

Moore’s death immediately became a cause célèbre. Editorials cried out for boxing to be outlawed. Pope John XXIII called the sport “barbaric” and “contrary to natural principles.” Bob Dylan wrote “Who Killed Davey Moore,” taking the voice of Ramos: “I hit him, I hit him, yes, it’s true/But that’s what I’m paid to do/Don’t say ‘murder,’ don’t say kill/It was destiny, it was God’s will.” 

It also led toy designers Marvin Glass and Associates to abandon development of a toy featuring two metal boxers facing off in a ring, their actions activated by control buttons. But when it was suggested using boxer robots that fall apart rather than human figures that fall over when hit, Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots was born, hitting toy store shelves in 1964. We’ll likely never know if the airing of Steel somehow influenced it.

Steel is probably the best known of several Twilight Zone episodes that revolved around boxing. Rod Serling had a lifelong passion for the sport, as participant (17 Golden Gloves matches) and author (Requiem for a Heavyweight). 

While the episode’s underlying theme of man vs. machine resonates in these days of AI, Serling’s elegy at the end of Steel is a positive and hopeful statement about the human spirit that transcends boxing: “No matter what the future brings, man's capacity to rise to the occasion will remain unaltered. His potential for tenacity and optimism continues, as always, to outfight, outpoint and outlive any and all changes made by his society.” 

Given that, maybe Steel is a boxing story with a happy ending.