China Grove (1973) 4/4/20

Fictional lyrics about a real small town: That's a brief summary of today's “Great Song of the '70s!”

In 1973, the Doobie Brothers were on tour, busing their way through Texas, when original lead singer Tom Johnston saw a road sign for “China Grove.” He promptly forgot about it—until a while later when he came up with a guitar riff that he and drummer John Hartman developed into a jam with a chord structure. At that point, pianist Billy Payne started ad libbing some wacky lyrics about a fictional small town, and that's when Johnston remembered the road sign.

Of course, the lyrics had nothing to do with the REAL China Grove--especially the part about the samauri swords. But the song was hit, so apparently nobody minded. :-)

Chartwise, it did pretty well: #9 in Canada and #15 in the US. No word on how it was received in the San Antonio metropolitan area...which includes China Grove. :-)

Overall, it's such a rockin', catchy tune, I consider it to be a “Great Song of 1973!”