Friday, April 23, 2010

Rock and Roll – 1970 Top Hit Songs


The year was 1970 . . . remember when. . . .

Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge over Troubled Water rose to the top of the charts. A young man named Elton John scored his first hit with Your Song. Creedence Clearwater Revival must have been considering a move to Southern California after writing their two hit songs Who’ll Stop the Rain, and Have You Ever Seen the Rain. Folk icon James Taylor, not to be outdone, added Fire and Rain. Santana chose to go against the trend by doing Black Magic Woman, and Oye Como Va.

The Beatles produced Let it Be, and The Long and Winding Road, but there was trouble in Paradise. John Lennon and Paul McCartney, whose collaboration had led to most of the Beatles’ wildly successful songs, began going in different creative directions. They both got married — John to the controversial Yoko Ono — and the group drifted apart. Almost immediately each of them, other than Ringo Starr, began producing strings of solo hits. In 1970 these were led by George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord, and Paul McCartney’s Maybe I’m Amazed.

Videos of the top hit songs of the 1970s are at 1970s greatest hits.