Category: 1970-1974

“(I Can Feel Those Vibrations) This Love Is Real” (1970) – Jackie Wilson * Written by Johnny Moore and Jack Daniels * 45: “(I Can Feel Those Vibrations) This Love Is Real” / “Love Uprising” * LP: This Love Is Real * Produced by Willie Henderson * Label: Brunswick

This was a top ten soul chart hit for the legendary “Mr. Excitement,” featuring his famous octave leaps in the choruses. (This was the third to last of his Billboard Hot 100 appearances, peaking at #59.) In the intro and at the 1:42 mark, it pays specific tribute to “Danny Boy,” which Wilson had taken to the charts in 1965. Songwriting credits go to Johnny Moore and his frequent collaborator Jack Daniels. (Moore is not the same one who sang vocals with the Drifters; neither is he the former leader of the Three Blazers. He’s an unheralded Chicagoan whose catalog as a singer and songwriter is most familiar to Northern Soul fans.)

“Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her?)” (1973) – Blue Ash * Written by Bill Bartolin and Frank Secich * 45: “Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her)” / “Dusty Old Fairgrounds” * LP: No More No Less * Produced by Tom Grazier * Label: Mercury

By the late seventies, Cincinnati’s Blue Ash were already a cult presence in the still-germinating power pop canon of the seventies. The Records’ 1979 cover version of “Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her),” though, which appeared on the bonus EP included with their Shades in Bed debut LP (released in the US as The Records) helped nudge them into the “fixture” category. Blue Ash’s best-remembered moment continues to be “Abracadabra,” which nonetheless has a two-songs-in-one quality. The “Abracadabra” part at 1:40 was likely an unfinished snippet the group didn’t know what to do with, so they stuck it on to a bridge-less “Have You Seen Her” with Scotch tape, like magic.

“Shout” (1970)—Arik Einstein and Shalom Chanoch * Written by Shalom Chanoch * LP: Shablool * Produced by Tzvi Shissel * Label: Phonodor

Israeli go-go music with mischief afoot. You need to listen to this while looking at the album cover, which shows Arik whispering something to Shalom. After the two minute mark you’ll start discerning some of the words: “I like to play in the barnyard/She took me down to the water/That’s where I met her daughter/Hiding behind a treeeee… She remembers who is he/He is me/We are three.”

“Across 110th Street” (1973) – Bobby Womack * Written by Bobby Womack and J.J. Johnson * 45: “Across 110th Street” / “Hang On In There” * LP: Across 110th Street * Label: United Artists Records

Although the ultra-violent blaxploitation film that Womack’s theme song appeared in was better regarded than most others in that genre, the track is best approached independent of any film association (especially its pastiche usage in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown). It’s cinematic enough as it is, with the opening organ flickering like city lights and Womack’s first-person lyrics, which he sings with equal parts world-weariness and self-assurance.

“ABC” (1970) – The Jackson 5 * Written and produced by The Corporation (Berry Gordy, Freddie Perren, Alphonzo Mizell, and Deke Richards) * 45: “ABC” / “The Young Folks” * LP: ABC * Label: Motown

A full listen-through is what keeps this overly familiar song fresh. Let the cheerful Sesame Street images of the original album cover come into focus. Open yourself up to flashbacks of the Jackson 5 cartoon’s vibrant colors and happy childhood Saturday mornings. Then let eleven-year-old Michael knock you sideways once again with his wondrous authority: “Sit down, girl! I think I love you! No! Get up, girl! Show me what you can do! Shake it, shake it, baby!…” The 1969 single, with its usage of the “na na na na boo boo” melody in the second verse, appeared on the forefront of an early ’70s pop music preoccupation with children. The song also hearkens to Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers’ “ABC’s of Love,” with Lymon being the same sort of vocal prodigy frontman that Michael appeared to be. The flipside offsets any childishness with a contribution (previously done by the Supremes) to the era’s expanding catalog of socially-conscious soul. “We’re marching with signs, we’re getting in line,” sings Michael at possibly his highest-ever point of political activism on record. 

“Across the Universe” (1970) – The Beatles * Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney * LP: Let It Be * Produced by Phil Spector * Label: Apple

This Lennon number with the tricky guitar intro brings to mind the following: 1) Its far Eastern poetic aura, as if it were a hymn to John Lennon’s liaison with Yoko Ono; 2) evidence that the Maharishi era enhanced the Beatles’ artistry; and 3) that Lennon was a craftsman to the core. The Let It Be album version featured overwrought Phil Spector choirs, while an earlier version included bumble bee hums and horses. The Anthology version presents Lennon having trouble controlling his breath. Perhaps the best version overall is on Let It Be Naked, although it doesn’t include the ascending eighth notes that reinforce the outro on the Spector version. The chorus words jai guru deva are Sanskrit for, roughly, “hail the divine guru.” Lennon had learned them from the Maharishi, and we’re lucky Lennon’s disillusionment didn’t squelch his adoption of those beautiful words in this song. That he places the cosmic affirmative word om on a V chord instead of a I, though, does suggest a characteristic ambivalence. 

“It’s a New Day (Part 1 and 2)” (1970) – James Brown *Written and produced by James Brown * 45: “It’s a New Day (Part 1 and 2)” / “Georgia on My Mind” * LP: It’s a New Day – Let a Man Come In * Label: King

James Brown’s first charting single of the 1970s—a two-part slab of high grade funk—echoed a familiar strain of soul chauvinism, instructing a woman that where a man is concerned, she should “do what he wants and give what he wants.” Brown’s spoken opening lines, though, sound in retrospect like an incredulous dispatch from the dawn of women’s lib. “Fellas, things have gotten too far gone,” he says. “We’ve gotta let the girls know what they’ve gotta do for us.” In Brown’s “man’s man’s” world, it was girls vs. men. “A man can’t do nothing no more,” he says, before letting out a big, crucial laugh.

“Morning Girl” (1970) – Jim Pike * Written by Tupper Saussy * 45: “Morning Girl” / “Here, There and Everywhere” * LP: The Lettermen – Everything Is Good About You * Produced by Jim Pike and Tony Butala * Label: Capitol

Although the label on the Capitol 45 label and the chart listings all credited “Morning Girl” to the Lettermen’s Jim Pike, this version of the Neon Philharmonic’s #17 hit from 1969 eventually showed up on the 1971 Lettermen album Everything Is Good About You. Pike and fellow group member Tony Batula get credit for the production, which might imply that they also did the shimmering, Percy Faith-conscious string arrangement. This was the last chart entry for anything written by the Neon Philharmonic’s Tupper Saussy, although future teen idol Shaun Cassidy would release a version of “Morning Girl” as his very first single in 1975. The B-side featured a Pike rendition of the Beatles’ “Here, There and Everywhere” with more of the A-side’s alluring strings.

“If You Leave Me Tonight I’ll Cry” (1972) – Jerry Wallace * Written by Gerald Sanford and Hal Mooney * 45: “If You Leave Me Tonight I’ll Cry” / “What’s He Doin’ in My World?” * LP: To Get to You * Produced by Joe E. Johnson * Label: Decca

The TV show Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, which aired from 1969 to 1973, had a format similar to The Twilight Zone, with Serling as the host introducing creepy tales with twist endings. An episode called “The Tune in Dan’s Cafe” spawned the Jerry Wallace 1972 country #1 hit “If You Leave Me Tonight I’ll Cry.” The episode told the story of a jukebox that played the same record over and over again due to its being haunted by the ghost of a jilted lover. After the episode ran in January of ’72, radio stations received enough requests for the nonexistent record to prompt an official release by vocalist Wallace, who’d had moderate pop chart success until the mid-sixties, when he’d shifted gears to country. This overbaked hit version—barely listenable today—is sadly inferior to Wallace’s unavailable TV version, which had a harder country sound.