4 Hits From 1968 That You Didn’t Know Came From Legendary Songwriters

If you were listening to the radio in 1968, you likely marveled at the wild mixture of music that you could access at that time. Amidst the psychedelic rock were expertly constructed pop and soul songs that highlighted the interpretive skills of their performers.

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You might not have realized the songwriters behind the scenes who put these songs together. These four hits from 1968 came from tunesmiths whose bodies of work, when all was said and done, can rank with just about anybody.

“Harper Valley P.T.A.” by Jeannie C. Riley (Written by Tom T. Hall)

Before she laid down her debut hit single, Jeanie C. Riley was working as a secretary in Nashville while signing on demos in the hopes of fostering a recording career. Tom T. Hall had enjoyed some success as a writer and performer. But his songs were somewhat quirky compared to what was accepted by the country music mainstream. With “Harper Valley P.T.A.”, this pair of unheralded artists shot to the top of the pop charts with one of the biggest country crossover singles of all time. The winking tale of small-town hypocrisy brought more attention to Hall’s writing. His solo career also received a nice boost from the exposure as well.

“Stoned Soul Picnic” by The 5th Dimension (Written by Laura Nyro)

Laura Nyro proved to be a reliable provider of hits for a wide variety of artists. Nyro generally wrote the songs to record for her own albums. But because she tended towards jazzy, drawn-out arrangements, these songs didn’t receive much notoriety from the mainstream, making them ripe for interpretation. The 5th Dimension, who carved out a niche as a soul act that could dip into psychedelia, dipped into Nyro’s work time and again. There was “Wedding Bell Blues”, which they’d take to the top of the charts in 1969. Meanwhile, “Stoned Soul Picnic”, which featured Nyro’s idiosyncratic way with melody and song structure, earned them a No. 3 hit in ’68.

“Angel Of The Morning” by Merrilee Rush And The Turnabouts (Written by Chip Taylor)

Songwriter Chip Taylor’s three most well-known songs couldn’t have been more varied. First, there was “Wild Thing”, the garage-rock classic that The Troggs rode to No. 1. Down the road, Taylor penned the nakedly romantic “Always On My Mind”, well-known versions of which were recorded by Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson. In between those two landmarks, Taylor came up with the tender, albeit heartbreaking, “Angel Of The Morning”. A few artists took a crack at the song after it was written in 1967. But Merrilee Rush did the definitive take a year later, capturing all the vulnerability and anguish of the narrator in her performance. Juice Newton scored a hit with this one more than a decade down the road from that.

“Worst That Could Happen” by The Brooklyn Bridge (Written by Jimmy Webb)

Interestingly enough, The Fifth Dimension was involved here as well, recording this Jimmy Webb classic in 1967. By that time, Webb had already developed a reputation as being the go-to guy for ornate songs of heartbreak. When The Fifth Dimension’s version didn’t go anywhere, The Brooklyn Bridge, a group featuring the acrobatic lead vocals of Johnny Maestro, did their own spin on it, releasing it in late 1968. “Worst That Could Happen” possesses everything you would hope for from a Webb song, including a swooping and soaring melody and a highly dramatic plot. Maestro, to his credit, took the song to another level by playing the narrator’s woe to the hilt.

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