A KOOL Day for Music

We grab a snapshot of the music charts during the summer of 1969 that was a very strange year for most Americans.

Zager & Evans

In The Year 2525

In the midst of the 1969 counter-cultural revolution, everything was evolving. Hippie anthems like ‘Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In’ was headed to the number one spot on the music charts along side with bubble-gum songs like ‘Sugar, Sugar.’

The Beatles, Elvis and The Temptations all had classic number one songs that year, but the songwriting duo had THE longest stay at the top of the American chart (six weeks) and British music charts (one week) with their bleak look at the future earning them one-hit wonder status.

Denny Zager and Rick Evans met and began playing together in Nebraska and co-wrote the song in 1964, but didn’t get it into the recording studio until 1968.

Local Nebraska radio stations added the song to their playlist as a regional break-out hit where it caught the attention of a national record label.

Zager & Evans received notations in the rock and roll history books as the only duo performing act to have a chart-topping hit on both side of the Atlantic and never have another charting single.