Double sided hits on 60s/70s radio

In the sixties and seventies you would often see double sided hits on the Billboard charts (think any number of Beatles or CCR singles). How exactly did radio handle these, play both sides or pick just one? If they played both, was there some rule about not playing them within a certain time of each other? If they played only one, was there any real pattern to how your local radio station picked them? And for that matter, how did radio handle songs like "I'd Like To Teach The World to Sing" where two different versions were hits at almost the same time?

installLSC said:

In the sixties and seventies you would often see double sided hits on the Billboard charts (think any number of Beatles or CCR singles). How exactly did radio handle these, play both sides or pick just one? If they played both, was there some rule about not playing them within a certain time of each other? If they played only one, was there any real pattern to how your local radio station picked them? And for that matter, how did radio handle songs like "I'd Like To Teach The World to Sing" where two different versions were hits at almost the same time?

Click to expand...

My memory is that they were treated separately. So, for example, the Beatles "Something..." might have been number one on the KHJ Boss 30, and the flip side, Come Together was number 2 or number 6. IIRC, chart placement was based on multiple factors, such as telephone requests; so it didn't rely totally on sales figures, which obviously would have been the same for both songs.

By the way - I've often wondered if this was part of the reported friction between John and Paul. As great as they both were, McCartney's songs tended to be more tuneful, more mainstream, and probably more popular than Lennon's, which were edgier. Although in this case, I believe Something was written by George Harrison.

Buck Owens was very proud of his double-sided #1: Together Again/My Heart Skips a Beat in 1964. One side spent 7 weeks at the top of the chart, the other side spent just two. He actually had a few double-sided hits in his career. But that was the only one where both sides topped the chart.

landtuna said:

This subject raises a question to me.

Did record producers intentionally try to put garbage on the 'B' side of a record they thought would be an 'A' side hit?

Click to expand...

99.99999% of the time, the B side was a loser. I don't think the intention was to only put "garbage" on the B side, but I think that in most cases, producers didn't want the B side to be a potential hit. Obviously, they could make more money releasing 2 big hits a few months apart on two separate 45 rpm singles, than releasing 2 big hits on the disc. I always noticed that the B sides were on the albums, but they were generally the less appealing songs - even compared to some album cuts that were never released as singles.

The Beatles, and to a leser extent, the Stones, could do no wrong. Especially in the early years, any Beatles song was a hit. But they were the exception to the rule.

Typically the decision of which side went to radio was made by the record label promotion team. They're the ones charged with taking the songs to radio.

However, in his book, Berry Gordy said HE made the decision at Motown (no surprise) in concert with top execs. The interesting decision was with "Heard It Through The Grapevine." The song was recorded by both Marvin Gaye and Gladys Night & The Pips. The two versions were very different, and both were released as singles, and both became hits.

Seems to me the Monkees had a two-sided hit in their career. Any time there was a big star who gave radio two songs (the A & B side), that was more new music by a big star to play. Even today, it's not unusual for a big star to release an album, and have at least five songs chart in the first week after release.

landtuna said:

This subject raises a question to me.

Did record producers intentionally try to put garbage on the 'B' side of a record they thought would be an 'A' side hit?

Click to expand...

Some did. Phil Spector was infamous for putting out inept jam sessions on the B sides, that way preventing split airplay. An allied pratice was putting a mediocre song cowritten by the producer or his friends, since even an unplayed "B" side got the exact same sales royalties as the "A".

There were even cases where the song that was intended to be a B-side that became the actual hit. I remember a case of Conway Twitty back in the 50's hearing his song was being played on a radio station somewhere, and he drove to that town listening to the station that he was told was playing it...but to his surprise, it was not the song that was supposed to be the hit, it was the B-side...and that turned out to be one of his big rock and roll hits before he switched to country. The name of the song escapes me. I'm sure that was not the only case where that happened.

TheBigA said:

Typically the decision of which side went to radio was made by the record label promotion team. They're the ones charged with taking the songs to radio.

However, in his book, Berry Gordy said HE made the decision at Motown (no surprise) in concert with top execs.

Click to expand...

That still didn't stop radio from playing some of his acts' B-sides. On WRKO Boston, I recall hearing both sides of the Four Tops' "7-Rooms of Gloom"/"I'll Turn to Stone" and the Supremes' "Love Is Here and Now You're Gone"/"There's No Stopping Us Now." In the Tops' case, it was the B-side that got played first, but after a couple of weeks "7-Rooms" started to get the airplay and "I'll Turn to Stone" was dropped. But I'm pretty sure both sides of the Supremes single were played for a good part, if not all, of its run on the station.

Around the same time period, I heard the Bee Gees for the first time, but it wasn't "New York Mining Disaster 1941" but rather "I Can't See Nobody." For whatever reason, WRKO got on "Disaster" late, after an initial push for the B-side.

Now, were these airplay decisions made in Boston by someone trying to cater to local musical preferences, or out in Los Angeles?

Swinging On A Star, by Big Dee Irwin and Little Eva was one of those B sides that became a pretty popular tune, later turning up on the flip side of Charlie Ryan's Hot Rod Lincoln. The label read "Swinging On A Star", but when you played it, it was "Hot Rod Lincoln". On the flip side the label read, "Hot Rod Lincoln", but when you played it, it was "Swinging On A Star". Both made the Top 40 at home an in the UK.

Another B side gimmick I just recalled was putting the instrumental track from the A side onto the B side, without the vocals. Sometimes, it would be called "The Theme from_____." There were at least a few times that I found "The Theme From" superior to the A side hit. Not all vocals were great...hit or not.

The single for the Animals' "Sky Pilot" contained ... the rest of the song!

The flip side of "Wild Weekend", by The Rebels was "Wild Weekend Cha Cha", at least on the later, remade 45.

Silkie said:

The flip side of "Wild Weekend", by The Rebels was "Wild Weekend Cha Cha", at least on the later, remade 45.

Click to expand...

Hmmm the remakes were often two sided hits. By that, I'm speaking of the ones that had "oldies" labels.

Really? I had no idea what with a several hundred of them and all.

Silkie said:

Really? I had no idea what with a several hundred of them and all.

Click to expand...

And how would I know that?