Rate-A-Record

Fall 1969: Rate These Two, Too

Continuing our Medium obsession

Photo by Hasse Lossius on Unsplash

Fall of 1969 — could it really be 53 years ago? Could I ever have been 13 and entering 8th grade? Would I ever learn to drive, be kissed, or find Neil Young?

American Bandstand was still a Saturday obsession, even though my friends wondered why I’d waste even an hour of our glorious free Saturdays on Dick Clark and his antics — his Spotlight Dance, his lip-synching guests, and most of all:

Rate-A-Record.

If I could tell you that I love you…excuse me, I’m listening to A Group Called Smith right now, which is entirely pertinent to you because they feature in this year and in this edition of Rate-A-Record.

We have two songs — two cover songs actually — each peaking on the charts in that fall of 1969, one even reaching #5 on the Billboard Hot 100, the other reaching #22. I’ll let you guess which one as you weigh in with your own rating, remembering that you have a low of 35, a high of 98. And anything in between to state.

Ready….????

Here goes.

First up, a band covering a song originally written and recorded by Tommy James. For your entertainment please, let me introduce The Clique, rendering “Sugar On Sunday”: