Music played a big role in probably everyone attending high school in 1967 through 1971. It was a “golden age” for rock music which now is called “classic rock.”
At some point, the reunion team will be asking about music for our Reunion #50. Would you want a band or a deejay? Would you want music from those years or more contemporary music?
I took a look at the Bilboard Top 100 hits from our high school years. Of course, that list leans to the pop side of music. Most of the top hits back then were being played on AM radio stations like WABC and WMCA. But many of us were listening to albums and AOR (album oriented radio) stations like WNEW-FM.
The 1971 Billboard Top 100 looked like this at the top.
- Three Dog Night – Joy To The World
- Rod Stewart – Maggie May / (Find A) Reason To Believe
- Carole King – It’s Too Late / I Feel The Earth Move
- Osmonds – One Bad Apple
- Bee Gees – How Can You Mend A Broken Heart
- Raiders – Indian Reservation
- Donny Osmond – Go Away Little Girl
- John Denver – Take Me Home, Country Roads
- Temptations – Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)
- Dawn – Knock Three Times
Of course, these hits are singles and many of us were more interested in the non-hits on albums. The Top Hits of 1970 list was topped by “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel, and #2 was “(They Long to Be) Close to You” by The Carpenters.
But look at the top-selling albums for 1970 and you get a better sense of what we were listening to as we headed into senior year: Led Zeppelin II and III, Abbey Road, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Cosmo’s Factory, Abraxas, Déjà Vu, Woodstock Soundtrack, McCartney, Blood, Sweat & Tears III, and Let It Be.
1969 also runs the AM gamut from The Archies – “Sugar, Sugar” at #1 and the Fifth Dimension doing “Aquarius / Let The Sunshine In” from the musical Hair (The Cowsills did the title song from Hair) to the hippie vibe of The Youngbloods’ “Get Together.”
The Beatles are there in 69, as they were for every year since we were in elementary school back in 1963. In 1969, it was “Come Together” from Abbey Road and “Get Back” which is the end of the band. Elvis had two late hits with “Suspicious Minds” and “In the Ghetto.” One of my current neighbors, Tommy James, had two big hits with his Shondells band with “Crimson And Clover” and “Crystal Blue Persuasion.” The #15 hit in 1969 was Henry Mancini and His Orchestra playing the “Love Theme From Romeo And Juliet” but Creedence charted with four songs from three albums ( “Proud Mary”, “Green River,” “Bad Moon Rising”, and “Down on the Corner”/”Fortunate Son”), while The Doors only hit #49 with “Touch Me.”
1968 was a big year in rock music but we entered high school right after the “Summer of Love” in 1967. We watched the 100,000 “hippies” who converged in San Francisco. We weren’t there, but the music and fashions certainly made their way across the country to us. Our class was a bit young for Haight-Ashbury and Vietnam War protests, but they were omnipresent. Our class was the last one to be in the draft lottery. There were a half dozen guys from IHS 1971 with me at Rutgers in the fall of that year and we gathered around a dorm TV set to watch that lottery hoping we would have a high number and avoid going to ‘Nam.
Irvington High School Class of 1971 