Talkin' Music with Jack - One Hit Wonders

One Hit Wonders

By Jack Coll

10-10-13

One hit wonders in the music world is one of my favorite subjects, I’m likely to write several columns about this subject in the coming months, everyone has a favorite one hit wonder. I should define “One Hit Wonder,” in my music world a one hit wonder is a group known for their one big hit. A lot of groups have follow-up, minor hits, a group who has just landed a number one hit is sure to get follow-up air play as a courtesy, but only mild success is achieved before fading into obscurity. For instance, The Fantastic Johnny “C” hit gold with “Boogaloo Down Broadway,” in 1967, the song went to number 7 and hung around for more than three months on the pop charts, Johnny had a follow up tune called “Hitch It To The Horse,” a song that only reached number 34, and was on the charts for two weeks. The argument can be made that he had two hits, but in my world he was a one hit wonder.

So let’s take a look at a partial list, I’m sure that you will say, “hey, I remember that one,” or “oh my, I totally forgot about that one,” and of course I can hear you saying out loud, “I can’t believe I liked that song,” or “I can’t believe I bought that record,” let’s give it a shot.

1966 ? (Question Mark) & The Mysterians—-96 Tears

1983 Quiet Riot—-Cum On Feel The Noize

1967 Bob Crew—-Music To Watch Girls By (Pepsi commercial)

1967 The Easybeats—-Friday On My Mind

1980 Steve Forbert—-Romeo’s Tune

1968 The Human Beinz—-Nobody But Me (recorded by the Isley Brothers in 1962)

1968 The Fireballs—-Bottle of Wine

1965 Barry McGuire—-Eve of Destruction

1963 Randy & The Rainbows—-Denise

1976 Thin Lizzy—-The Boys Are Back In Town

1967 Arthur Conley—-Sweet Soul Music

1968 The Chambers Brothers—-Time Has Come Today

1965 The Beau Brummels—-Laugh Laugh

1966 The Knickerbockers—-Lies

1969 Crazy Elephant—-Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’

1966 The Cyrkle—-Red Rubber Ball (I know they also had Turn Down Day, but there’re from Pa)

1971 Cymarron—-Rings (my favorite line, “come on in I got James Taylor on the stereo).

1969 Smith—-Baby It’s You

1972 Hurricane Smith—-Oh Babe, What Would You Say

1965 Mel Carter—-Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me

1970 Alive and Kicking—-Tighter, Tighter

1967 Soul Survivors—-Expressway (To your heart) (Philly boys, and yes they were singing about 76)

1962 Gene Chandler—-Duke of Earl (yes he had three other top 20 hits, but can you name them)

1965 The McCoys—-Hang on Sloopy (Rick Derringer lead singer of the McCoys, later went solo, see next)

1974 Rick Derringer—-Rock And Roll, Hoochie Koo

1967 The Lemon Pipers—-Green Tambourine

1961 Curtis Lee—-Pretty Little Angel Eyes

1966 Count Five—-Psychoyic Reaction (Bet you can’t sing that one)

1966 The Outsiders—-Time Won’t Let Me

1967 The Seeds—-Pushin’ Too Hard

1965 Billy Joe Royal—Down In The Boondocks (Cherry Hill Park)

1958 Lloyd Price—Stagger Lee

1966 The Swinging Medallions—-Double Shot of My Baby’s Love

1967 Keith—-98.6 (A Philadelphia guy)

1970 Norman Greenbaum—-Spirit In The Sky (Norman still makes about $70,000 a year from that song)

1968 Iron Butterfly—-In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (remember when this 17 minute song first started out the lyric was “In The Garden of Eden)

1966 Napoleon—-They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa! (Don’t lie, I can hear you singing it)

1969 Thunderclap Newman—-Something In The Air

1966 The Troggs—-Wild Thing (I know they also had “Love Is All Around,” but did you know Chip Taylor wrote Wild Thing, Chip’s real name is James Wesley Voight, the younger brother of Jon Voight, the award winning actor. Wild Thing was not only a hit for the Troggs, but a live version by Jimi Hendrix was also a hit. Chip also wrote other songs like “Angel of the Morning,” recorded by several different artists but became a million selling hit for Merrilee Rush in 1968, and yet sold another million copies plus for Juice Newton in 1981. Chip Taylor also had his music recorded by artists including Willie Nelson, Evie Sands, The Hollies, Linda Ronstadt, Johnny Tillotson, Barbara Lewis, Jackie DeShannon, Billy Vera, Janis Joplin, Bobby Fuller Four, Emmy Lou Harris, Anne Murray, Waylon Jennings and many other successful artist.

Perhaps I’ll write a column on song writers in the future, they are a very interesting group of people.

And this my friends is what brought me to this one hit wonder column to begin with. This song pops into my head, and as I’m singing and mumbling my way through it wondering what they are really saying, I was also thinking how does a group have this one big smash hit, and then disappear. The song that popped into my head, and don’t ask me why was “Incense and Peppermints,” by the Strawberry Alarm Clock. Sing it with me;

Good sense, innocence, da-da mankind

Dead kings, many things da-da-da-da,

Da-da, da-da-da-da it blows your mind,

Incense and peppermints color of time

(Everybody now, help me out)

“Who cares what games we choose?

Little to win, but nothing to lose.”

The second verse starts out with “Incense and peppermints, but then the DA-Da’s really start flying.

It turns out that this psychedelic band took their name from the Beatles “Strawberry Fields Forever”, and one of the band members Mark Weitz had this Baby Ben electric alarm clock in his bedroom that he seemed to like, and so the Beatles and an alarm clock is the name sake of the band. A funny side note to all of this was that an unknown band back in 1970 Lynard Skynyrd opened a number of shows for the Strawberry Alarm Clock, and one of the co-writers of “Incense and Peppermints” was band member Ed King, who got to know the members of the Skynyrd band and joined the group in 1973.

So as the story goes, the six members of Alarm Clock checked into a recording studio back in 1967, laid down the tracks for the song but weren’t happy with anyone’s vocals. Greg Munford, a 16 year old lead singer of the Shapes was recording down the hall from the Alarm Clock and Greg was asked to stop by and give the vocals a shot. A few takes later it was Greg’s voice that we hear on the song, Greg was asked to become the lead singer of the band on several occasions but he refused. The music was laid down by the Strawberry Alarm Clock, the vocals are by a 16 year old kid who never sang with the band before or after the song was cut.

“Incense and Peppermints” hit number one the week of October 14, 1967, and stayed on the charts for three and a half months. So there are actually two set’s of lyrics to this song, well really only one line changes, there was the original Alarm Clock version, and then the Austin Powers movie version. Let us all sing along to the Strawberry Alarm Clock version, but I’ll note the Austin Powers change.

Incense And Peppermints

Good sense, innocence, crippling’ mankind

Dead kings, many things I can’t define

Occasions, persuasions clutter your mind

Incense and peppermints, the color of time.

(The third line in the Austin Powers movie version goes,

“Oh Cajun spice, sweats and blushers your mind.”)

Who cares what games we choose?

Little to win, but nothing to lose.

Incense and peppermints, meaningless nouns

Turn on, turn in, turn your eyes around

Look at yourself, look at yourself, yeah, yeah

Look at yourself, look at yourself, yeah, yeah, yeah!

To divide this cockeyed world into two

Throw your pride to one side, it’s the least you can do.

Beatniks and politics, nothing is new

A yardstick for lunatics, one point of view

Who cares what games we choose?

Little to win, but nothin’ to lose.

From there a few verses and chorus are repeated, so lets us get on with “One Hit Wonder” Trivia.

#1 In 1961, the capris were basically a one hit wonder, but it was a monster hit, one that you have

sang parts of a million times, this hit has appeared in countless movies, and has nothing to do with

the sun, can you name this one hit wonder?

#2 In 1964, a group named the Carefrees produced a song pertaining to their favorite singing group,

although it was a hit it’s a song that I think got on most of our nerves, oh yes I do, can you name it?

#3 In 1982, while we were busy playing Pac Man Fever, I mean while we were spending time with our

children with video games, this song shot up the charts and became number one, how about it, are

you feeling lucky enough to name this tune?

You know the drill, answers next week

Answers to last week’s trivia questions:

John Fred and his Playboy Band hit number one on the pop charts in 1967 with a parody of the Beatles song “Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds.” John Fred and his Playboy bunch hit gold with “Judy In Disguise” (with glasses)