Great hidden gem one hit wonders from the 1960s-1970s

Ten from the 1960s:

Denise - Randy and the Rainbows

I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight - Barry And The Tamerlanes

Last Kiss - J Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers

Sally Go Round the Roses - the Jaynetts

The Boy from New York City - the Ad Libs

Popsicles and Icicles - the Murmaids

You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry - the Caravelles

Ode to Billie Joe - Bobbie Gentry

I Will Follow Him - Little Peggy March

Just Like Romeo and Juliet - the Reflections

IN the year 2525

Everyone's Gone To The Moon (1965)

Tell them Boris sent you

Easier Said Than Done - The Essex

I Love the Nightlife - Alicia Bridges

[quote]Great hidden gem one hit wonders from the 1960s-1970s

If they were hits they aren't hidden. DUH!

"Up in a Puff of Smoke" by Polly Brown. It was one of those curious cases where a British record flopped in the UK but became a hit in the USA.

"Tar and Cement" - Verdelle Smith.

My top three:

Billy Don’t Be a Hero - Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods

Afternoon Delight - Starland Vocal Band

Midnight at the Oasis - Maria Muldaur

"Anyway That You Want Me" - Evie Sands.

"Amoureuse" - Kiki Dee.

"Oh Me Oh My" - Lulu.

I'm on Fire- Dwight Twilley Band A great rock and roll song.

"Sweet Inspiration" - The Sweet Inspirations.

"Selfish One" - Jackie Ross.

Mason Williams, "Classical Gas"

The Safaris, "Wipeout"

"Just One Look" by Doris Troy

Cissy Houston sounding a bit like her more famous daughter Whitney in that R15 clip!

"Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes."

I love everything about this video, especially the go-go dancers in microminis.

Since Cissy Houston was already mentioned as a group, here she is with her popular disco solo.

Venus - The Shocking Blue

Ma Belle Amie by the Tee-Set

"Nothing But a Heartache" - The Flirtations.

"Where Are You Now (My Love)" - Jackie Trent.

"I Go to Sleep" - The Truth.

Speaking of Houstons

"Let's find a place, they say/Somewhere far away/With no blacks, no Jews and no gays..."

1968

Got to #17 on the charts in 1971

I don't think it would get on the air today

Sister Janet Meade - The Lord's Prayer, 1974

Come on down!

"Let's find a place, they say/Somewhere far away/With no blacks, no Jews and no gays..."

Sounds awesome!

Do You Know What I Mean?

Jay & The Americans? One hit wonders? Are you fucking kidding, R29?

enjoy

I've always liked the groove of this one from 1970.

Not exactly a =n unknown band, but this song seemed to go under the radar. I don't think teen dream pop was done better than with this song.

Spain's entry in Eurovision 1973 was surprisingly a HUGE hit in the United States.

Influential one hit wonder.

Lady Bump sung by a woman with no tits is the height of irony

Thunderclap Newman - Something in the Air. Labelle (the group) did a good cover a few years later.

R27 she also sang Never can Say Goodbye & was on the View on Fri for Whoopi’s bday, still sounds great!!

Karen Young, Hotshot

[quote] Lady Bump sung by a woman with no tits is the height of irony

The song is a reference to a popular dance of that time (you did the bump by bumping parts of your body, usually the hips, against each other) and a wink and nod to doing bumps of powder drugs. Nothing having to do with curves.

My 2 cents, Walk Away Renee still makes me cry. Does it count if Left Bank was later covered by The Four Tops?

Sorry, Left Banke

The Four Tops (one of them was a bottom) verdion

r45 we did the bump-bump-bump, yes we did, yes we did, yes we did, yeah

Thank you, posters for the opportunity to be 16 again for a few minutes.

^^^ WWs ^^^^

Chirpy Chirpy Cheep

Down to the Nightclub (Bump City), Tower of Power

Test

She's Not There, The Zombies

96 Tears, Question Mark and the Mysterians

The biggest one-hit wonder of the seventies and also the most ridiculous one, right after Disco Duck (also a one-hit wonder). It was huge globally and a hidden gem in the U.S., to be topped two decades later by a fellow Spanish group and their huge dance craze Macarena.

And speaking of one-hit wonders from Spain…

Mony, Mony, Tommy James & the Shondells

I’m, r54, the Zombies were hardly a one-hit wonder

Ozark Mountain Daredevils - Jackie Blue

P.S. R58, you're an idiot.

Jigsaw - Sky High

Take my hand Come with me baby to Love Land .... FLOAT!

Pilot - It's Magic

Are you mad, r58? Tommy James and the Shondells had at least 10 major hits, spanning both the sixties and the seventies.

Mouth & MacNeal - How Do You Do

Also, are you mad [R52]...Tower of Power? TOWER OF POWER? Surely you jest.

Len Barry (as a soloist) with 1 2 3, featuring a young Donna Mckechnie wildly doing the pony up in front.

R66 Tower of Power was a local SF band that rated in the middle to bottom of "Top 100" on music charts in the early '70s. Legendary, they most certainly were not.

This song blew my little gayling mind.

David Essex - Rock On

I love that song, R62! It always makes me smile.

I'm not going to follow the assignment exactly. Jackie DeShannon wasn't a one-hit wonder. But she wrote a few classic songs that were hits for other acts while her own versions are obscure.

Her version of When You Walk in the Room is one of my favorite songs of the '60s. It was one of the first pop singles to incorporate folk music. And it perfectly captures the feeling of being infatuated with someone. Her version went to #99 while the Searchers made it a hit a few months later.

Isn't it Time, by The Babys.

Wiki says the all-girl band Fanny had two hits, but the only one I remember was "Charity Ball" (which they performed on the Sonny & Cher Show).

R58 - So in your eyes Crimson and Clover, I Think We're Alone Now and Mirage weren't hits?

[quote]My 2 cents, Walk Away Renee still makes me cry. Does it count if the Left Banke was later covered by the Four Tops?

No. What may count is the fact that "Pretty Ballerina" was, if not as big a hit, then nearly as good a follow-up. I WW'ed you anyway, because I like "Walk Away, Renee" so much. Two-hit wonders, the Left Banke.

Smith, Baby It's You

!!!

Andy Kim brings the Canadian funk.

Honey Cone, "Want Ads."

One of the funkiest, get-up-and-get-over-your-lame-man songs EVAH!

Forgive me: Honey Cone had four top 25 hits and one #1. But nobody remembers them today, which is a crime!

Add Honey Cone to your playlists, bitches!

In the year 2525.

Love Grows (where my Rosemary grows)

Love Love Grows R20, great pick.

I don’t know about the U.S but both David Essex and Hot Chocolate were massive multi hit makers in the U.K.

“Run, Joey, Run” by David Geddes The chorus, “Daddy please don’t” is the memorable part.

The original Tainted Love by Gloria Jones (1964)

Chris Farlowe covered a 1962 Bob and Ray song - both versions are great!

The original really has a Ricky Nelson feel to it.....

This one takes me back. I miss early 70s R&B, those gorgeous background harmonies

1965

Boy meets girl.

Boy loses girl.

Boy wants girl back.

LOL R87. That song sounds like it's being sung by Georgie Cooper from YOUNG SHELDON!

"Yes I'm Ready" - Barbara Mason.

"You'll Lose a Good Thing" - Barbara Lynn.

The bookish looking Randy Vanwarmer had this one memorable hit...

“And the sign said ‘long haired freaky people need not apply’”

R29, Jay and the Americans:

Cara Mia

Only in America

Come a Little Bit Closer

She Cried

Let’s Lock the Door (and Throw Away the Key)

as well as This Magic Moment

I think this was a regional hit in the New York area. We were going through an energy crisis during the winter of 1973-74, and we were encouraged to bear through the lack of gas and oil in the most positive way possible. These kids sang about it in this foot-stomping song.

This gem from The Undisputed Truth, written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong.

The Temps had an extended version of this track on one of their albums. It was magnificent.

Psychotic Reaction - The Count Five

Nobody But Me by Human Beinz

[quote] Isn't it Time, by The Babys.

Except for the fact that The Baby’s had another wonderful hit with “Every Time I Think of You.”

[quote] “Run, Joey, Run” by David Geddes

1974 was a goldmine of sappy melodramatic one-hit wonders of all walks of life and qualities. RJR (from 1975) was definitely a result of this trendy craze. The culprits include the following one-hit wonders:

Billy Don’t Be a Hero

The Night Chicago Died

Seasons in the Sun

Midnight at the Oasis

Radar Love

With an honorable mention to superstar Paul Anka (certainly not a one-hit wonder) for Having My Baby and dead-too-soon Harry Chapin for Cat’s in the Cradle

And the operator says 40 cents more … for the next … three … minutes

Mungo Jerry, "In the Summertime"

Cheryl Lynn, "Got To Be Real"

"ACK-SHOWN, I got so much to give!"

Watch this German audience go MAD with excitement at Alicia Bridges's glamorous butch-realness!

Oh, yeah. That one's well hidden.

If it's a one-hit wonder then it was ipso facto a hit. So how can it be well hidden too?

Some hits keep getting exposure (radio play, commercials, movies etc.). Others fall by the wayside and become "hidden."

R68 -- Tower of Power is straight up Oakland, not SF. Legendary to some, most certainly not one hit wonders.

Now here's Jackie Moore with "Personally" :

"I've got something to give ya / that the mailman does not deliver!"

The Egyptian Shumba-The Tammys

442 Glenwood Avenue-The Pixies Three

Silver Heels-Blaze

Gayle McCormick, "It's a Cryin' Shame"

R13, Lulu, though, wasn't a one-hit wonder, which the term usually denotes.

R29, ARE YOU KIDDING?!

Not really a “hit” but this one from Evie Sands is one of my faves. I discovered her a few years ago. She was the first to record several songs that went on to be hits for others. She was really talented, and is still making music today. Should have been a big star.

“The Curse of Evie Sands”

I would love to make a movie about her.

I love her original version of "Angel of the Morning" (1967). Chip Taylor, Jon Voight's brother, who was one of her producers early in her career, wrote it and first offered it to Connie Francis, who turned it down because the lyrics were too spicy. It got good airplay but never charted due to lack of promotion—Cameo Records went bankrupt right after it was released. Merrilee Rush had a #7 hit with it less than a year later.

Evie Sands' "I Can't Let Go"

Shicky bum

Marvelettes

Young-Holt Unlimited, "Soulful Strut".

I wasn’t born then

I wonder if the person who coined the term “one-hit wonder” came up with any other popular phrases.

Not what I'd call a "one hit wonder":

R100. I was kinda young at the time but I am positive this was a bigger hit.

R56 I've seen two commercials using this song this month.