One Hit Wonders are like rare coins. They have only the value the collector and buyer puts on them, and they appear only once in our lifetime. Here are more of our favorite ‘One Hit Wonders.’
“They’re coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” was performed by a man with the business name of Napoleon XIV, but was in fact aspiring music and studio engineer Jerry Samuels. Jerry was dying to get on the radio, and tired of recording everyone else’s stiffs, so he wrote the song in 26 minutes, getting Warner Brothers to release with song without the studio owners ever finding out. Oddly, radio programmers pulled it out of airplay rotation after a mental health professional backlash.
In 1966, the crazy song “(We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet” by the Blues Magoos hit the top 10. The music world would never be the same. The Magoos were born in the Bronx, and split up in 1968. The world then became the same.
“Little Girl” by the band Syndicate of Sound from San Jose hit the charts in 1966, remaining one of the shortest and catchiest songs from that era. This garage band first began performing as the Pharaohs, but won a Bay Area “Battle of the Bands” and signed a recording contract with the respected Del-Fi label. The boys are in the San Jose Rocks Hall of Fame, primarily because of this great one hit wonder.
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