So… You should know by now that the charts don’t follow the rules. That they don’t play fair. That they don’t bend for tastes and trends. That they only respond to cold, hard sales (or, nowadays, streams). So it is that the longest-running #1 of the ‘00s so far, and the 4th highest-seller of the entire decade, is a re-released #18 hit from 1971.
(Is This the Way To) Amarillo, by Tony Christie (his 1st and only #1) ft. Peter Kay (his 1st of two #1s)
7 weeks, from 20th March – 8th May 2005
Back in 2005, I don’t think I’d ever heard ‘(Is This the Way To) Amarillo’, but it felt familiar. In that sense, it was probably a good choice for this project. Known enough to evoke nostalgia in the middle-aged, and insistently silly enough for us young ‘uns who were fresh to it. I’m not sure that this reason alone should add up to colossal sales, and seven weeks at the top, but perhaps that can be explained by the charity factor, and the involvement of the immensely popular Peter Kay. He had used the song in a 2002 episode of his sitcom ‘Phoenix Nights’, and the feel of it fits in perfectly with his old-school, working men’s club schtick.
I was never quite taken with the song, though. And I’m not just saying that retrospectively; it annoyed me with all its sha-la-la-las and perky horns. (This is me speaking as someone who is not usually put off by sha-la-la-las and perky horns.) Plus, it seriously did overstay its welcome. Maybe it’s because I was an avid chart-watcher at the time – and despite modern chart-runs making this one look positively brief – but I felt every moment of its forty-nine days at number one. Or maybe I was just annoyed that it kicked McFly prematurely off top.
Tony Christie was a crooner in the Tony Orlando, Tom Jones sort of mould, and had scored a #2 in the early ‘70s with ‘I Did What I Did for Maria’, about a condemned man who had blah blah blah you can guess the rest. He hadn’t been near the singles charts for thirty years, except for a bizarre cameo on electronic-indie act The All Seeing I’s 1999, Jarvis Cocker-penned #10 hit ‘Walk Like a Panther’. Despite the ‘ft.’ credit, this was not a remix, or a re-recording. How or why Peter Kay got a credit, when Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake have sung actual verses and choruses on recent chart-toppers without mention, I do not know.
The video was all Kay’s work, though, in which he marches to the song’s oompah beat alongside some particularly British celebrities. Parky, Ronnie Corbett, Tracy and Ken Barlow, Keith Harris and Orville, Sooty and Sweep, and more. Plus some slightly more dubious appearances from a football team with dwarfism, a Mahatma Ghandi lookalike who may or not have really been Indian, and a cigar-toting, shiny tracksuit wearing DJ and TV presenter who has been erased from more recent edits… It may only be twenty-one years old, but watching the video reminds you that the past really is a foreign country.
(If we follow the rule that says Peter Kay can get his name on a #1 single for mugging his way through the video, we should also be awarding a second chart-topper to Mr Blobby, a fifth to Shakin’ Stevens, and a seventh to Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor. And a first but by no means last number one of the year for Shaun Ryder.)
Peter Kay is the king of the strange credit on number one singles. He doesn’t sing on his one other official chart-topper (another charity effort coming up in 2009) but contributes vocals to a 2007 #1 in character, though he’s not credited as Peter Kay. All very complicated. Suffice to say, of the three number ones he’s been involved in, ‘Amarillo’ is the best. Make of that what you will.
This also gave Christie a brief chart renaissance, with a rerelease of his 1972 hit ‘Avenues and Alleyways’ making #26, eleven places higher than it had originally charted. He also returned to the Top 10 the following summer with ‘(Is This the Way To) The World Cup’, a classic example of why other parts of the UK take such pleasure in England not winning things…
A final thing to note is that one of the biggest ever changes to chart rules occurred right in the middle of this record’s run at the top: the incorporation of download sales. Not that it made a huge impact, as only songs with a current physical release had their downloads counted, and ‘Amarillo’s run at the top continued unabated. Nor did it mean a huge improvement in sales in general, with chart-topping singles still regularly struggling to sell more than 30,000 in a week for the next several years.
*Just a note to say that I’ll be slowing down the number of posts over the next month, as I will be travelling. I may take a while replying to comments as well. We should be back up to speed by mid September*
A shorter, sex-offender free version of the video:
The 2005 original video, if you don’t mind you-know-who…
The UK Number Ones Blog 
On the one hand, it was nostalgic to see this become a monster hit bizarrely with a bit of fun, and great to see Tony get that big UK hit with it – it had been bigger in some other countries at the time than the UK, but OTOH I was never that fussed by it, though I enjoyed the singalong aspect of it from the start – it peaked at 20 in my charts when I only did a top 20! I was more into T. Rex, Slade, The Four Tops, Diana Ross, Middle Of The Road, New Seekers, Jonathan King tracks at the time. And I much preferred I Did What I Did For Maria and Las Vegas to Amarillo.
It was, unbeknownst to anyone in 1971, though, the first comeback success for then-UK-based Neil Sedaka as a songwriter, which makes sense considering it’s karaoke anthemic qualities that are inevitable if you are in a holiday karaoke pub long enough. So I’m still quite fond of it even though I’m sick of hearing it. By the end of 1972 Neil had another 2 old hit songs in the UK charts and from 1973 onwards loads of new ones in the UK and USA.
Have a fab holiday!
Ahhhhh – a 21st century No 1 I can remember, and remember with fondness. Back in the days when I still listened daily regularly to Radio 2, the late Johnnie Walker was playing this regularly on his drive time show, I suspect slightly tongue-in-cheek. I also remember enjoying Tony’s other early 70s hits, but this one stood out for me as the best of the lot. For once it’s a charity chart-topper that deserved it some 33 years later, even if the video is tainted by the presence of certain dodgy and since-disgraced individuals, and even if the name of a rather naff comedian who has nothing to do with the sound you hear on the record has tied his name its apron strings. Try and banish all that from your mind, and as pure commercial pop records go, it’s a good’un.
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