Started from the Bottom: Week of 2/22/1969

Like most music enthusiasts, I love the Billboard charts - and like most music writers, I am constantly trying to think of different ways to look at and talk about pop music. In that spirit, I present a regular free feature called Started from the Bottom, where I take a look at a random Hot 100 chart's lowest 10 entries. Are they classic hits on the way down? Future favorites just starting their run? Forgotten fun that never reached the highest heights? Come and take a look with me!

Hot 100 date: February 22, 1969

At the top: Sly & The Family Stone spend their second of four weeks on top with the terrific "Everyday People." The previous No. 1, Tommy James & The Shondells' "Crimson and Clover," is holding at No. 2. No future chart-toppers are in the wings, though there are plenty of classics in the Top 10, including The Foundations' "Build Me Up Buttercup," Jay & The Americans' "This Magic Moment" and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary."

100. Neil Diamond, "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show" (chart debut)

I think something that people who aren't obsessed with music charts don't know about is what an inexact science they are at this time, and frankly would be until the advent of SoundScan to track actual record sales with greater precision. That generally makes older charts more interesting, because their successes have longer tails - typically, parabolic rises and falls instead of debuting nearer the top. (This, for example, is one of 11 debut singles on this chart; the highest was Aretha Franklin's cover of The Band's "The Weight," which debuted at No. 52.)

Anyway: this is one of the bigger hits of this bottom bunch - destined to peak at No. 22, a prelude to two much bigger Top 10s from Neil in 1969 - but not particularly my favorite Neil tune of this era, although it came alive on 1972's legendary Hot August Night live album, which takes its name from the first line in the song (and, as always, begs the question: what is the camera capturing Diamond doing on the album sleeve?).

99. Johnny Rivers, "These Are Not My People" (chart debut)

Johnny Rivers' biggest success on the charts - a chart-topping ballad called "Poor Side of Town" - pales in comparison to what's probably his best-known work today (a rendition of the P.F. Sloan/Steve Barri TV novelty "Secret Agent Man"). But this obscure non-album song (which would peak at No. 55) is a good indicator of what I think he probably did best: big, boogieing rock and soul. Interestingly, Rivers was tangentially related to rising trends by founding the Soul City label, who'd strike it big with The 5th Dimension and their second-biggest song of the year, "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In."

98. Billy Stewart, "I Do Love You" (re-entry - previously peaked at No. 26)

It's fascinating that this delicious tune would briefly, inexplicably reappear on the Hot 100 a full four years after its chart peak. The vocal arrangement and intro sound like a neat twist on Motown balladry and sort of hint at the structure of soul music for the next decade or so. (It's not what you'd expect from a recording on the Chess label.) Sadly, Billy Stewart died in a car crash less than a year after this chart published; he was only 32 years old. Off the strength of this song, what he could have done in the next decade feels like a painful "what if" for R&B.

97. Ruby Winters, "I Don't Want to Cry" (peak position)

The Kentucky-born Winters didn't have much success in America with her good (if not entirely spectacular) Southern soul. This was the highest "I Don't Want to Cry" - a cover of the Chuck Jackson hit - got on the charts, and none of her work would break out of the bottommost reaches of the Hot 100. A 1973 single, "I Will," became an out-of-nowhere Top 10 hit in England, four years after the fact. It's always funny how that stuff works.

96. Cliff Nobles & Co., "Switch It On" (current peak position)

Cliff Nobles occupies his own trivia section in pop chart history that would be more unique if producers weren't releasing records as artists: he's completely unheard on the hits that bear his name. A singer/bandleader from Alabama, Nobles had his biggest hit with "The Horse," a great soul instrumental that reached No. 2. As such, more vocal-free singles were released like "Switch It On," which wouldn't get past No. 93 but has a killer horn riff that's chart-agnostic.

95. Carla Thomas, "I Like What You're Doing (to Me)" (current peak position)

The last song approaching hit territory (a Top 10 on the R&B charts) by one of the indispensable voices of Memphis soul - best known for duetting with her father Rufus and Otis Redding as well as the solo hits "Gee Whiz (Look At His Eyes)" and "B-A-B-Y." It would reach No. 49 on the pop charts, and remains, like most of Thomas' work, a sterling example of the Stax Records sound.

94. Edwin Starr, "Twenty Five Miles" (current peak position)

Seemingly unfairly stricken from the Edwin Starr conversation when a song as big and universal as "War" reached the peak of the Hot 100, Starr's first Top 10 hit was only in its second week on the charts here but was poised to do well - that Motown touch hadn't lost a step all decade, really. (Bizarrely, I think I knew slightly better the cover Motown had Michael Jackson record, which wouldn't be released until the label wanted to counterprogram against the release of Bad in 1987, and did so with some ridiculous overdubs.)

93. Percy Sledge, "My Special Prayer" (peak position)

Percy Sledge might have the opposite condition Edwin Starr does, where you might think he has more hits than he does. (Debut single "When a Man Loves a Woman" was an international home run, and then there was an almost-Top 10 in 1968 called "Take Time to Know Her," and that's mostly it.) This was the peak for "My Special Prayer," a fine enough song that doesn't take full advantage of Sledge's "When a Man"-style impassioned delivery in favor of a more laidback, almost Muppet-y tone.

92. Sonny James, "Only the Lonely" (peak position)

Like many country acts, Sonny James had a myriad of minor pop hits that crossed over off the strength of their incredible chart performances with country audiences. James, in particular, had plenty such songs thanks to a streak of 16 Billboard No. 1 country singles between 1967 and 1971, including this Roy Orbison cover. Perhaps owing to Orbison's ability to thread the needles of country, rock and pop, James' arrangement is not terribly different from the original: slower but not twangy, with backing vocals that are more lightly choral than Everly.

91. The Fireballs, "Long Green" (chart debut)

Six years removed from their signature chart-topper "Sugar Shack" (as well as an odd side career overdubbing unused Buddy Holly recordings for his, and their, producer Norman Petty), Jimmy Gilmer and The Fireballs notched one last single with "Long Green," a simple rock number built on timeless tropes (the chorus' chords are similar to "La Bamba," and there's a "Twist and Shout"-style vocal build in the bridge). Sounding neither as calcified as early '60s garage rock nor as out there as later psychedelia, this is a good one that probably deserved a little more than its No. 73 peak.