Journey hit #2 for 1st of 6 weeks with “Open Arms”

Open Arms Journey

This post has been moved here.

Today in Music (1932): Duke Ellington charted with “It Don’t Mean a Thing”

It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Ain’t Got That Swing Duke Ellington with Ivie Anderson

Writer(s): Duke Ellington (music), Irving Mills (words) (see lyrics here) First Charted: February 27, 1932 Peak: 6 PM, 18 GA, 4 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 23.27 video, 5.83 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Duke Ellington is “perhaps the single most important creative talent in Americna popular music history.” PM After forming his first band in 1918, he went to New York in 1923 and started working at the famous Cotton Club. In the early ‘30s, his “unparalleled genius as a jazz band composer became unmistakable.” PM He charted 70 songs from 1927 to 1953. Ellington originally wrote “It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Ain’t Got That Swing” as an instrumental. His trumpeter, Bubber Miley, then came up with the title WK and Irving Mills added lyrics to it later. The lyrics “insist that what makes a tune complete is not the melody…It’s the rhythm, the most primitive musical element that makes a song swing.” TY2 Jazz historian Gunther Schuller called the now jazz standard “legendary” and “a prophetic piece and a prophetic title.” WK The song is especially notable because it gave the swing era its name. PM It became “the most popular music of the last half of the ‘30s and into the early ’40s.” TY2 Ellington himself said the song became famous “as the expression of a sentiment which prevailed among jazz musicians at the time.” WK Ellington recorded it with Ivie Anderson on vocals and solos by Johnny Hodges and Joe Nanton. His version reached #6. That same year, the Mills Brothers got to #7 with their rendition. PM Others to record the song include Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, the Boswell Sisters, Teresa Brewer, Dr. John, Ella Fitzgerald, Stephane Grappelli with Django Reinhardt, Thelonious Monk, and Mel Tormé. WK Resources: TY2 Don Tyler (2007). Hit Songs, 1900-1955. McFarland & Company, Inc.: Jefferson, North Carolina. Page 187. PM Joel Whitburn (1986). Pop Memories 1890-1954. Record Research, Inc: Menomonee Falls, WI. Pages 147 and 530. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 5/13/2025.

 

J. Geils Band hit #1 with “Centerfold”

Centerfold J. Geils Band

Writer(s): Seth Justman (see lyrics here) Released: September 13, 1981 First Charted: November 6, 1981 Peak: 16 US, 16 CB, 15 HR, 2 RR, 1 AR, 3 UK, 14 CN, 11 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.2 UK, 1.25 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 36.4 video, 260.47 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: The J. Geils Band had been around since 1967. They’d even been invited to perform at Woodstock in 1969, but turned it down. FB The group landed six songs on the Billboard Hot 100 from 1971 to 1977 before switching to EMI-America and charting five more singles, although none reached the top 30. They finally broke through with “Centerfold” in 1982, an “uptempo rock tune – no dobut aided in popularity by its schoolgirls-in-lingerie music video.” BB Joe Viglione of All Music Guide described the song as an “amalgam of rock, pop, blues and tongue-in-cheek humor.” AMG The more new wave leanings of “Centerfold” was considered a departure for a band who had established themselves as “a great live act with a blues-based sound.” SF The band’s keyboardist, Seth Justman, said they hadn’t used synthesizers much before simply because they couldn’t afford them. SF Critics accused the band of selling out by abandoning their “traditional boogie sound and…pandering to the rock crowd” FB but lead singer Peter Wolf said, “We were always a rock ‘n’ roll band. We just had blues and R&B roots.” FB Wolf also said it was never the group’s goal to have a #1. They just wanted “to make a good rock ‘n’ roll record and have some excitement.” FB The song, written by Justman, is about a guy who discovers his high school crush posing in a men’s magazine. He is torn between “the disappointment due to her loss of innocence and his lust.” WK It was “commercial, cool, and a pop record that could stand up to repeated listenings.” AMG Seth’s brother, Paul, directed the video. Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for J. Geils Band AMG All Music Guide review by Joe Viglione BB Billboard (9/08). “All-Time Hot 100” FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 552. SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia First posted 1/26/2021; last updated 10/27/2022.