Song Of The Day 3/23/2016: Popcorn Wylie – “Funky Rubber Band”
The show was divided into six segments of music, with each segment containing either (a) all hits that listeners were most likely to know, and (b) relative obscurities -- regional hits, deep album tracks, or other stuff not as well-known or popular. Furthermore, each hour would be divided between time periods. Hour 1 covering everything up until 1969, Hour 2 covering music from 1970 and after. The parts were going to be distributed thusly:
- Hour 1 (195?-1969) - (a) (b) (b)
- Hour 2 (1970-198?) - (b) (b) (a)
That's a 2-to-1 ratio favoring the obscurities, bookended by the hits. Meticulously structured and planned. Editorially tight.
Yeeeeah, then I started putting the show together and realized that wasn't gonna work. It was hard to determine what was truly an obscurity, for one thing. It was slightly easier to do it for the '60s songs -- there's an incredible glut of small-time R&B labels that put out great regional hits -- but for the '70s stuff, after the record business had conglomerated a little more deeply, it took a lot more work. Songs like today's feature, which disappeared sort of quietly after it came out in 1971, still managed to hit the top 40 on the R&B charts for a little bit. So it's not totally unknown. Someone remembers it. Then I realized the whole structure would defeat the purpose of the show, which was to present the hits and obscurities in context of each other, to make a little parallel universe on the radio where the songs were all enjoyed next to each other. And let's face it, it's a lot of work, and I think we've all had enough disconnection amongst ourselves lately.
I'm keeping the hour strategy with the time periods intact; it'll still be the '60s in Hour 1 and the '70s in Hour 2. Other than that Star Time going to be everything schmooshed together: hits, obscurities, album tracks, the whole thing. You can sort it out later if you like.