The mystery of Sad Girl by Jay Wiggins & how did a song that never charted & never received current airplay on WIBG become one of the biggest songs in Philadelphia history? First released in 1963 it charted for 1 week at #116 on The Billboard Bubbling Under the Hot 100. Re-released on a different label in 1965, it would not chart nationally or locally. I never remembered this song or heard it when it was new but to be sure I scoured through every WIBG Top 99 weekly survey & came up empty. For quite sometime I concluded that it must have been a big song at local record hops & recently my good friend Kathryn confirmed that. She even purchased it in 1965 after DJ Ron Diamond played it at his hops. That still doesn’t explain how it wound up being played on the radio. My guess is that in May 1968 when WIBG announced they were compiling an All Time Top 300 survey based on listeners sending the station a Post Card listing their Top 3 songs, there was an organized plan by a group of fans to get Sad Girl on that chart. In June, Sad Girl got that long overdue airplay & finished at #45. It would become one of the most requested oldies & moved up to #10 all time on the 1969 edition. The song continued to grow well into the 70’s. If you were on a date & it came on the radio, immediately a hand from the passenger side would reach for the volume control & you would get a shhh. Next week on Philly Phriday I’ll take a look at an early 60’s hit that I thought was sang by a female until last year.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 06:04:31 +0000
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