Continuing the oblation at the #1 hits of Billboard’s charts and after the first post about the #1 Hits of the 80s, I’m continuing with the hits of 70s. According Billboard the #1 Hits per year for the 70s are:

1970: Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water

Bridge Over Troubled Water is the fifth and final studio album by Simon and Garfunkel. First released on January 26, 1970, it reached number one on Billboard Music Charts pop albums list. It won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year, as well as for Best Engineered Recording, while its title track won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Song of the Year in the Grammy Awards of 1971. It has since sold over 25 million worldwide.

1971: Three Dog Night - Joy To The World

“Joy to the World” is a song written by Hoyt Axton, and made famous by the band Three Dog Night. The song is also popularly known by its incipit, “Jeremiah was a bullfrog”. The words are nonsensical. Axton wanted to convince his record producers to record a new melody he had written and the producers asked him to sing any words to the tune.

Three Dog Night never really wanted to record the song but they needed one last track for their Naturally album. The group had been on an overseas tour when that album was released and were greatly surprised to hear that the song they didn’t want to record ended up being a big hit.

1972: Three Dog Night - Joy To The World

“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” is a 1957 folk song written by Ewan MacColl for his wife Peggy Seeger. It was popularized by Roberta Flack and became a breakout hit for the singer after it appeared in the film Play Misty for Me. Though the song first appeared on Flack’s 1969 album First Take, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 and won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year three years later.

MacColl wrote the song for Seeger, a folk singer, after she asked him to pen a song for a play she was in. The song, as performed by Seeger, featured a faster tempo than the Flack version and clocked in at two and a half minutes long.

1973: Tony Orlando & Dawn - Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round The Ole Oak Tree

Written by Irwin Levine and L. Russell Brown and produced by Hank Medress and David Appell, “Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round The Ole Oak Tree” was a massive worldwide hit in 1973 for Dawn featuring Tony Orlando.

The origin of the idea of a yellow ribbon as a token of remembrance may have been the 19th century practice that some women allegedly had of wearing a yellow ribbon in their hair to signify their devotion to a husband or sweetheart serving in the U.S. Cavalry - the official color of the cavalry is yellow (worn on insignia, etc.), and the song “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” which later inspired the John Wayne movie of the same name, is a reference to this.

The symbol of a yellow ribbon became widely known in civilian life in the 1970s as a reminder of an absent loved one, either in the military or in jail that they would be welcomed home on their return. In Singapore, an initiative by the Singapore Prison Service to generate social acceptance of ex-offenders is named the Yellow Ribbon Project, having drawn inspiration from the song’s title.

1974: Barbra Streisand - The Way We Were

“The Way We Were” is the title song to the 1973 movie The Way We Were, starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford. The song was written by Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman; and scored by Marvin Hamlisch. Barbra Streisand is best known for singing “The Way We Were” and her version is the one used for the movie. The song won the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Song. It also made AFI’s list of top 100 songs from film; it was ranked number eight.

Streisand’s version of “The Way We Were” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for a week in 1974 and was replaced by “Love’s Theme” by Love Unlimited Orchestra. It then returned to number one for two additional weeks.

1975: Captain & Tennille - Love Will Keep Us Together

“Love Will Keep Us Together” is a popular song written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield in 1973.

Although Sedaka (and Wilson Pickett) recorded the song in the 1970’s, it is best remembered for the subsequent 1975 cover version by Captain & Tennille. It was their debut single, reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending June 21, 1975 and remaining in the top position for four weeks, and was the top US single for the entire year. Their recording also received a Grammy Award for Record of the Year. The Captain & Tennille acknowledged Sedaka’s authorship as well as his early-1970s comeback by working the phrase “Sedaka is back” into the song’s fadeout.

1976: Paul McCartney & Wings - Silly Love Songs

McCartney had been often teased by music critics for writing lightweight songs, and McCartney wrote this number in response. In addition, “Silly Love Songs” was McCartney’s first foray into the then-popular disco sound, with his bass guitar taking a lead role against a steady disco-style drumbeat. As such it was the forerunner for other 1960s-era British musicians trying their hand at disco; examples that followed included The Rolling Stones’ “Miss You” and Rod Stewart’s “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”.

The song was included on the album Wings at the Speed of Sound as well as being released as a single, where it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the UK singles chart. It became not only one of the Wings’ best-selling singles, but one of the best-selling singles of the 1970s.

1977: Rod Stewart - Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright)

“Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright)” is the name of a song written and recorded by Rod Stewart at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Muscle Shoals, AL for his 1976 album A Night on the Town. The song became his second US chart topper and charted well in other parts of the world as well. The song features whispers from Britt Ekland who was Stewart’s girlfriend at the time.

The song is considered one of the stronger works on the subject of seduction. The singer is addressing a girl (later it states that she is a virgin) in which he demands she not do certain things, states some things he wants her to do, and tells her where she is to go and informs her of some of the things he wants to do with her.

1978: Rod Stewart - Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright)

“Shadow Dancing” is a song by Andy Gibb that reached #1 for seven weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978. According to Billboard’s Book Of Number One Hits, Gibb became the first solo artist in the history of the U.S. pop charts to have his first three singles hit the number-one spot. Additionally, “Shadow Dancing” was listed by Billboard as being the number one single of 1978.

The song was written by Andy and his brothers (Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb) in Los Angeles, while the trio of brothers were working on the film Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. “And one night,” Andy would recall, “while we were relaxing, we sat down and we had to start getting tracks together for the album” (also titled Shadow Dancing, which would eventually hit #7 on the U.S. album charts). “So we literally sat down and in ten minutes, we had a group going, (singing) the chorus part. As it says underneath the song, we all wrote it, the four of us.”

1979: The Knack - My Sharona

“My Sharona” is a 1979 song which was the debut single by and international hit for The Knack. Written by Doug Fieger and Berton Averre. It was produced by Mike Chapman and released June 18, 1979. The single went gold in eight weeks and, on August 25 it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Constructed around a guitar riff, “My Sharona” remains a popular song, definitive of early 1980s rock music, and the genre of power pop. It is known for its slamming drums played by Bruce Gary, driving guitar work, and simple, infectious beat. The song has been subject to numerous cover versions, parodies and sampling. The song is also often confused on the Internet to be by pop bands The B-52’s and The Kinks and punk band The Ramones.

The easily recognizable riff of “My Sharona” was written by the band’s guitarist, Berton Averre, long before he ever joined The Knack. According to lead singer/guitarist Doug Fieger, he met a girl named Sharona (who was 17 at the time), and fell in love with her. Whenever he thought about her, he would think of Averre’s riff. The two worked out the structure and melody from there. The girl who inspired the song is Sharona Alperin, now a real estate agent in Los Angeles, California.

The song’s bright, driving bassline, played mainly in G octaves, appears in the playlist of many aspiring bass players, often cited as a superb technical example of its genre.