Rich here. By the end of the Sixties the Album-Era had definitely arrived. It wasn't just the Beatles and The Who and The Beach Boys making great albums, anymore. Many of the major bands liked the freedom that making an album provided, with longer songs and thematic & sonic experimentations, and some of them were turning away from making singles altogether.
But making albums was an expensive proposition, and a band had to earn a certain level of stature and experience before the record company would give them the budget to make an album.
All of which meant a band needed to score some hit singles first, and the early '70s were full of one-hit wonders -- bands that recorded their best song as a single, which might go on to garner lots of radio play and an admirable showing on the singles charts. But, oftentimes, a band was unable to follow up their hit single with another record its equal.
But, indeed, there were some GREAT one-hit wonders in the early '70s. And one of my favorites was by Crabby Appleton. No, not the villain from the animated Tom Terrific cartoons on the daily Captain Kangaroo TV show, but a band who released a terrific single in 1970.
"Go Back" is a radio-friendly rocker full of fizzy guitar riffs, hard-charging drums & percussion fills, lots of guitar-jangle, and a catchy straight-through-to-the-chorus by a commanding lead singer whose occasional welps explode into the mix.
"Go Back" was unquestionably as good as songs being released by other bands from the newly emerging Power Pop movement, like Badfinger, The Raspberries, and Big Star -- but, unfortunately, just like their one-hit-wonder brethren
Sugarloaf, nothing else by Crabby Appleton ever made a dent on the charts. Nonetheless, the song remains a classic power pop gem.
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