Billboard's Hot 100/ Top 40 Motown Chronicles - 1974 - [Pt. 1]

[Boogiedown]

Billboard’s Hot 100/ Top 40
Chart #11
March 16, 1974
Number of singles reviewed this week: 117
last week: 105

including:
GLORIA GAYNOR - Honey Bee [2:58]; producer: Paul Leka
for DCA; writers: M. Steals, M. Steals, M. Ledbetter;. MGM 14706. A stomping, buzzing arrangement sets the climate for the vocalist's adequate vocal range.

Record World Sleeper:
* GLORIA GAYNOR,"HONEY BEE" [prod. by Paul Leka]. The finest soulstress to emerge on the label in years, Gloria buzzes out with a real pop and r&b crossover stinger. There's no insecticide imaginable that can prevent this one from making a bee-line to the highest chart hive. Disc should make her a queen bee of soul.MGM14706.

Cash Box Pick:
THE NITE-LITERS [RCA APBO 0244]
Serenade For A Jive Turkey [3:05] [Russell]
Coming from the same home run league that "Jungle Boogie" came from, this high powered instrumental should make just about that same impact. Great dance track will be a strong disco item and will pick up r&b support with pop market attention following soon after. Definitely no turkey here. Just stone hitbound.

Record World:
FRANKIE VALLI & THE FOUR SEASONS - Motown 1288
HICKORY [prod.by Bob Crewe]
The Seasons 4 are most assuredly back on the hit track with this "Sherry"- styled foot stomper in contemporary boots. It's their new rock renaissance and most welcomed!

ZELL BLACK - Motown1290
I BEEN HAD BY THE DEVIL [prod. by Bob Crewe]
Funky personal account no doubt brought on by seeing "The Exorcist." Belting it out in pop-soul style, Zell should bring Satan to the charts in a helluva hurry with her own black magic. [not found on you tube]

The Motown Review:

Eddie Kendricks is #1!!
in both Cash Box and Record World, at Billboard, Eddie holds steady at #2.
Not a moment too soon, Motown places two new releases on the Hot 100 bringing their dwindling total up to five. The J5 have the week's highest Hot 100 debut and The Temptations come in at #94. Diana Ross is still in the Top 40 [and Top 5 Easy Listening] while she and Marvin continue to move up toward it with MY MISTAKE WAS TO LOVE YOU.

The Top Ten:

SEASONS IN THE SUN by Terry Jacks is still #1, third week there. Eddie Kendricks' BOOGIE DOWN goes neither up or down staying fixed at #2 for week 2. John Denver's SUNSHINE ON MY SHOULDERS bullets five spots from #10 to #5.
One new record in the Top 10: Wings' JET lands at #10 from #14. Off drops Aretha Franklin's UNTIL YOU COME BACK TO ME to #19 from #9.

The Top 40:

Motown:
Two 45s from Motown are on the Top 40:
^ BOOGIE DOWN - Eddie Kendricks repeats at #2 from #2 from #4 from #7 from #9 .
LAST TIME I SAW HIM - Diana Ross slips to #33 from #27 from #16 from #14
Offs : none

Biggest mover in the Top 40, 2 titles, 11 notches
BENNIE AND THE JETS - Elton John again - at #12 from #23 from #32
THE LORD'S PRAYER - Sister Janet Mead to #20 from #31

5 score, all US, 3+Top 10 bound+, 1 PI related, 0 Motown, 0 by proxy, 0 Country
highest debut:
+TSOP+ - MFSB #25 up 17 from #42 [One Hit Wonder]

WE'RE GETTING CARELESS WITH OUR LOVE - Johnnie Taylor #38 up 5 from #43 [9th Top 40 hit]
+JUST DON'T WANT TO BE LONELY+- Main Ingredient #36 up 11 from #47 [2nd Top 40 hit]
+I'LL HAVE TO SAY I LOVE YOU IN A SONG+ - Jim Croce #38 up 20 #58 [7th Top 40 hit]
W.O.L.D. - Harry Chapin #40 up 4 from #44 [2nd Top 40 hit]

The Hot 100:

9 debuts: 5 Top 40 bound, 1 first time to chart on the Hot 100, 0 Philly International related, 2 Motown, 0 by proxy, 0 Country
Highest debut:
3rd tier:
#79 - DANCING MACHINE - Jackson Five

#80 - IVE BEEN SEARCHIN' SO LONG - Chicago
#84 - SKY BIRD - Neil Diamond
#87 - HELP ME - Joni Mitchell
#88 - OH VERY YOUNG - Cat Stevens
#89 - DANCE WITH THE DEVIL - Cory Powell
#90 - THE SHOW MUST GO ON - 3 Dog night
#96 - HEAVENLY - Temptations
#99 - ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK - Bill Haley & The Comets

Motown:
debuts: two:
1st week: ^DANCING MACHINE - Jackson Five DEBUT #79
1st week: ^HEAVENLY - Temptations - DEBUT -#96

4th week: ^MY MISTAKE WAS TO LOVE YOU - Marvin Gaye & Diana Ross #55 up 12 from #67 from #78, from #84.
OFFS : none
______

A very good week for:
Devilsh tunes
21 year-old Mike Oldfield's TUBULAR BELLS [music from The Exorcist movie] is #60 with a bullet in its 4th week and
Record World reports:

'Exorcist' Sparks 'Devil Disc' Craze
By, ROBERT ADELS

NEWYORK -
Concurrent with the popularity of the film "The Excorcist," the record business is
witnessing a resurgence of titles and the mesdealing with Satan, the occult and death.
New Releases
Devil-oriented singles released last week include Zell Black's vocal "I Been Had By the Devil" [Motown], an instrumental by Chapter Thirteen entitled "My Exorcism"
[Playboy], the debut disk from Exorcist Records in L.A., Lucifer's version of the Stones '"Sympathy for the Devil" and from another
L.A.-based independent, Sam Fuller's "Devil, I Command You"
[Joyce]. Warner Bros. will soon release
the original soundtrack to "The Exorcist." Meanwhile, Mike Oldfield's"Tubular Bells" featured in the score is already a hit album
[9] and single [bulleted 53].

***

More grumblings from the Soul Sauce column. Rather than focusing on Soul music's substantial wins within this year's Grammy and AMA awards, Robinson is dismissive of the ceremonies because of their weak focus on jazz [Donald Byrd in particular]:
In part:

AMA & Grammy Awards Point Up R&B's Advances
By LEROY ROBINSON
LOS ANGELES-
Well, now that we've had two groups of music
awards - the Grammy and its painstaking attempt to become meaningful, and the American Music Awards which is meaningless from the outset, and only serving to reduce Grammy to a more meaningless position - it's time for Black Music and its acts to continue its unequivocal credibility posture in 1974....

....But even with the accuracy in voting the correct winners, there is still
the inaccuracy when extending acknowledgements to viable elements
of our music. Namely, the gross and harmful crime committed by the
American Music Awards with the absolute disregard for the only music indigenous to America, Jazz. How any award for "American Music" could exclude jazz is beyond this
writer, and because of that oversight it was beyond this writer's plans to attend and support such an insult to Black Music, and American music in particular.
It is beyond us as well as to why another awards show, especially one
that put jazz and blues, the roots for all the music awarded for greatness,
back another 100 years. And at a time when Donald Byrd, a sterling
jazz artist, had overcome and "Black Byrd," showed that jazz and rhythm
and blues is really one with his album.....

In his coverage of these events, Robinson might have included a mention of this showstopper performance at the Grammys by the Spinners



of MIGHTY LOVE which peaked last week at #1 on the Soul Singles chart which Robinson's Soul Sauce column each week runs alongside.
This week MIGHTY LOVE moves up to #21 on the Top 40.

***
Another group benefitting from the Philly sound and will soon to be charting Top 5 disco, is NYC's Ecstasy Passion & Pain lead by North Carolinian Barbara Roy, breaking into the Soul charts Top 30 this week with their debut, I WOULDN'T GIVE YOU UP:



***
Full-page ad from Stevie Wonder proclaiming MOTOWN IS THE PLACE FOR ME as he gives thanks to those that assisted his Grammy wins.

***
*weeks ago HONEY BEE was released on Columbia records [see Chart #5] but it went nowhere. Now MGM has picked it up and tweaked its sound a little.