Chevy Van

1973

Sammy Johns

I do believe it's time for some more One Hit Wonders. We're heading back to 1975. The year 'The Jeffersons', 'Barney Miller', and, most importantly, 'Saturday Night Live' premiered on TV. The year that the very first predecessor to the PC, the Altair 8800 microcomputer was released, boasting about 1/10^th of the processing power of a $3.00 supermarket check-out counter pocket calculator. The year that it was decreed from on high that Daylight Saving Time would kick off two months early because of the energy crisis, causing some real, real dark, real, real cold mornings at school bus stops. The year that The Boston Red Sox beat the Cincinnati Reds with a 12^th inning homer in what was, arguably, the best World Series game ever played.

And the year that saw fewer 'One Hit Wonders' hit the charts than any other year of 'The Awesome Music Decade' that was The Seventies. (Yep...I counted). There were, by my count 26 of 'em. Of that quarter century and small change worth, sixteen of 'em cracked the Top 20 and of that sixteen, nine made the Top 10, two of 'em snagging the coveted 1-spot.

I'm posting 'em slightly out of order...there's a method to my madness here...so the second of those nine Top-10 one Hit Wonders was a tune that just about everybody who was a teen in 1975 knows by heart, has sung along with, and very well may have even utilized the classic hairbrush/ comb/ what-have-you microphone while singing along with it. It's been called 'The Song of The Seventies', and was a surprise crossover hit that was written as a country song. Dirt road main streets and bare feet were involved. Know what song it was?? Give up??

Here's a hint:

I Gaaaaave a giiiiiiirrl...A ride in my waaaagon...She crawled iiiiiin and took contro-ol.

That's right...North Carolina native Sammy John's beloved hit about a lovely young lady who hitched a ride with the owner of the titular Chevy Van, seduced him along the way, then got out in a tiny, unnamed 'Town that was soooo small...You could throw a rock from end to ennnd '

Of course, it was actually conceived as a country song. That was the genre that Sammy Johns, who had been singing since he got a guitar for Christmas at the tender age of nine, was most comfortable with, and the genre that the majority of his songs called home. It was the genre that The Develles...the garage band that he fronted in high school... covered as they performed across the region, doing a good enough job while they were at it for Dixie Records to take a serious look at them. And it was the genre that he wanted to embrace when he moved from his native Charlotte to Atlanta and signed with General Recording. It was also the genre he was thinking of when he penned 'Chevy Van'...back in 1973.

And once the song was written it just...sat. I couldn't find out just why it just sat...trust me, I tried...but I'm thinking that the label wasn't real sure just what to do with it. True, country songs that crossed over to Pop., becoming hits when they did so, weren't exactly a new thing (I'm lookin' at you Olivia Newton John!) but the powers that be might not have thought it sounded like a country song. If that is the case it turned out, of course, they were right. It wasn't a a Country song...it barely cracked the Top 100 on the Country charts when it was released.

When Chevy Van finally showed up on The Billboard Hot 100 on the first day of February, 1975 it debuted at #81. By the next week, though, it jumped a solid 13 places, well on it's way to cracking the Top 20 eight weeks in, at #20. By then it was a several-plays-a-day staple on the AM Top 40 powerhouses of the era, and three weeks later it cracked the Top 10 at #8, peaking at #5 on May 3^rd, 14 weeks into it's 18 week chart run...eight of those weeks in the Top 20, and four of them in the Top 10. It'd stay at #5 for a single week before dropping off the charts three weeks later.

Of course, by then it had been permanently and pleasantly etched into the minds of all of us Seventies Kids, and what wasn't to like...It was a simple, high-energy, feel-good tune, and you absolutely couldn't stay in a bad mood when you heard that short guitar intro start up and segue into Sammy Johns crooning that iconic first line. 'Chevy Van' was kind of a three minute and change portrait of being young in The Seventies. That was an era the likes of which we'll never see again, and to be honest I feel sorry for the kids of today...they really have no clue what they missed out on.

Bet when you heard the intro, you got a smile on your face...and I bet you sang along with the whole thing.

Sammy Johns lived in his native, and beloved,Tarheel State for most of his life, and like many of the good ones, we lost him too young...he passed away at 66 on January 4^th, 2013, secure in the knowledge that his biggest hit had become one of the most beloved songs out of the decade with the most awesome music that was ever recorded..