The Buckinghams in Concert

There are many truly knowledgeable Buckinghams fans to be sure, and many are from Chicago, so it seems right to ask a few questions to check your trivia knowledge while we wait for more music and concert dates. Three questions to start: 1) How many week(s) was “Kind of a Drag” at the #1 Spot on Billboard? 2) Which exact one or more week(s) was it at the #1 spot in 1967? 3) What song was previously in the #1 spot that “Kind of a Drag” replaced? If you’re a longtime Buckinghams fan, you likely know the answers but just in case, scroll down and check your answers. Question 1, it was at the #1 spot for 2 weeks. Question 2, they were at the top the week of Feb. 18 and the week of Feb. 25, 1967, according to the Billboard Top 100 charts. Now, for Question 3…if you’ve been to a Buckinghams’ concert in person, you just might have heard lead singer Carl Giammarese tell how The Buckinghams knocked The Monkees out of the top spot. And he does it with great flourish and satisfaction.

Music lovers don’t always have time to reflect on this, but if they have fallen in love to, or with, a song, chances are good that all over the country, thousands of others have too. In the spring and summer of love, 1967, songs by The Buckinghams filled the airwaves and the Billboard charts. The renewal of Classic Rock via package tour vehicles such as Happy Together, Flower Power Cruises, Concerts at Sea, and others have kept the bands playing their signature hits all these years as well. As of 2021, “Don’t You Care” has been heard all over the world regularly since 1967, over 2,000,000 times. Every teenager listening to 50,000 Watts of power broadcast from superstations to their transistor radios across the country has heard this one song that many times…in the past 54 years. Thanks to Chicago-born vocalist and guitarist (and founding member of The Buckinghams) Carl Giammarese and Lisa McClowry, the popular versatile vocalist whose talents range from power-driven 80s ballads to