1950s pop

Today’s Top 10 – 17th July, 1957

/ UK #1s blog / 7 Comments

After all the celebrations as we reached the 1000th #1 – a re-release of the 80th #1 ‘One Night’, which gave Elvis his 20th UK #1 – I thought an interesting way to wrap the festivities would be to go back to where it all started.

For Elvis, that is. I’ve done several ‘Today’s Top 10’ posts, but have never delved as far back as the fifties. Here then, is the UK Top 10 as it stood on this day sixty-nine years ago, which just so happens to have been the very first of Elvis’s eighty weeks on top of the charts…

10. ‘Butterfingers’, by Tommy Steele & The Steelemen – up 2 / 10 weeks on chart

First up Tommy Steele, one of the British rockers who were trying their best to emulate their pearly-teethed, slick-haired American idols. Steele had scored his sole #1 a few months earlier, with a cover of Guy Mitchell’s ‘Singing the Blues’ (which had knocked Mitchell’s original off the top). From the title I expected a novelty rocker, but this is an over-sung ballad about letting a girl slip away. Oops, butterfingers. Listen to Steele’s yelping, and then the Elvis record on top of this chart, and tell me who did it better.

9. ‘Around the World’, by Bing Crosby – up 1 / 8 weeks on chart

The crooners’ crooner, and a fixture of the pre-rock charts. This is what I remember much of the 1950s sounding like as we worked through the earliest number ones. From the soundtrack to an adaptation of ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’, this could have been a hit in the 1930s, and proves just how badly Elvis and co. were needed.

8. ‘A White Sport Coat (And a Pink Carnation)’, by The King Brothers – up 1 / 7 weeks on chart

This is a bit more like it. Still far from rocking, but at least it swings. A natty young man – I’m just picturing that white coat/pink pocket combo – is dressed up for the dance, but has to go stag. Such were the problems face by youngsters in the fifties. In the US, the song’s writer Marty Robbins had a hit with ‘A White Sports Coat…’, but in the UK vocal group the King Brothers took it into the Top 10 for their only such success.

Fun fact, Paul McCartney wore a white sports coat to a village fete on July 6th 1957, apparently inspired by this song. That was, of course, the day he met John Lennon. Whether or not he wore a pink carnation has been lost to history.

‘When I Fall in Love’, by Nat ‘King’ Cole – down 1 / 13 weeks on chart

Another crooner. I don’t know why, but Nat ‘King’ Cole’s crooning is far more palatable than Bing Crosby’s. He just had a bit more pizzazz about him. (I mean, the man had ‘King’ for a middle name.) I did a post on how Cole is one of the unluckiest chart stars, in terms of never managing a number one. ‘When I Fall in Love’ is one of his hits that peaked at #2. It also made #4 on rerelease in 1987, on the back of Rick Astley’s cover version.

‘Yes Tonight Josephine’, by Johnnie Ray – down 3 / 10 weeks on chart

On its way down from #1, pre-rock star Johnnie Ray’s final UK chart-topper (read my original post here). Ray was one of my favourite discoveries from the early months of doing this blog, as one of the few artists before Elvis to trade on sex and charisma. ‘Yes Tonight Josephine’ is a little throwaway compared to some of his other hits, but it is catchy and perky and, most importantly, not one of the many saccharine ballads that filled the charts in the early to mid 1950s. Speaking of which…

‘We Will Make Love’, by Russ Hamilton – up 3 / 8 weeks on chart

The worst of the 1950s. Elvis was doing a public service by consigning tripe like this to the history books. The song’s title promises something raunchy, or potentially problematic (We will make love, and there’s nothing you can do about it…) But you have to remember that ‘making love’ in 1957 probably meant nothing more than what those old swimming pool ‘Dos and Don’ts’ posters referred to as ‘heavy petting’.

‘Around the World’, by Ronnie Hilton – non-mover / 8 weeks on chart

Another annoying idiosyncrasy of ’50s charts was the fact that people were rarely satisfied with one version of a popular song. On a couple of occasions we even had two versions of the same tune replacing one another at number one. And so it is in this week’s chart, not content with Bing Crosby’s ‘Around the World’, we had to have some homegrown crooning, from Hull’s very own Ronnie Hilton. For what it’s worth, I do think Hilton’s cover has a little more oomph about it, and it did chart higher than Crosby’s.

‘Little Darlin”, by The Diamonds – up 2 / 7 weeks on chart

So far so bland. But luckily for us, searching for a whiff of rock and roll, the Top 3 on this week’s chart seems to have been beamed down from a different planet to the easy listening schmaltz that we’ve just waded through. Not that ‘Little Darlin” is strictly rock ‘n’ roll, but doo-wop had the tempo and the sexiness to allow it to go toe-to-toe with rock on the jukebox. I love the castanets and the harp flourishes, two silly touches that make this record pop in comparison to Ronnie Hilton. It was written, amazingly, by a sixteen-year-old Maurice Williams, who would later go on to form the Zodiacs. Incidentally, I always assumed the Diamonds were black, but no. They were a Canadian vocal quartet, who still exist today minus any original members, and with a past members list that hits thirty.

‘Gamblin’ Man’ / ‘Puttin’ on the Style’, by Lonnie Donegan – down 1 / 6 weeks on chart

People always cite Cliff, or Marty Wilde, or even Tommy Steele, as Britain’s first homegrown rock ‘n’ roll star. But for my money, this week’s #2 record was true British rock ‘n’ roll. Skiffle pioneer Lonnie Donegan’s second #1 of the year might have fallen one place on this chart, but ‘Gamblin’ Man’ rocks harder than most chart-toppers, of any era. Listen to this next to one of the strained ballads further back in this Top 10, and it’s not hard to appreciate how seismic a change rock and roll was in 1957. And why many older people thought it was the devil incarnate.

‘Putting on the Style’ is a little more traditional, with a music-hall singalong chorus, but it’s still fairly raucous. When a young Paul McCartney, in his white sports coat, met a young John Lennon, Lonnie Donegan tunes were among the first songs they performed together. Read my original post on this #1 here.

‘All Shook Up’, by Elvis Presley – up 1 / 4 weeks on chart

And so here it is. Elvis Presley’s first week on top of the British charts. It wasn’t his first hit – ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ had made #2 a year before and his star had grown consistently from there – and ‘All Shook Up’ doesn’t have the raw power of a ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, or a ‘Hound Dog’. It’s an understated groove of a record, with a runtime of less than two minutes. But Elvis spends those two minutes purring, murmuring, growling… in short seducing the listener. The way his voice slips up an octave for the It scares-a me to death… line is great. And the little uh before the final chorus is sex itself.

‘All Shook Up’ would spend seven weeks at number one, and within eight years Elvis would score fifteen chart-toppers. The British chart’s most successful act was up and running. As was, belatedly, the rock ‘n’ roll era. In the months following this, both Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis would join Elvis in topping the charts.

Advertisements

1000. ‘One Night’ / ‘I Got Stung’, by Elvis Presley

/ UK #1s blog / 19 Comments

(Drumroll please…) So, after fifty-three chart years, and eight and a half blog years, we arrive at the one thousandth UK number one single…

One Night / I Got Stung, by Elvis Presley (his 20th of twenty-one #1s)

1 week, from 16th – 23rd January 2005

And it’s a forty-six year old song, by a long-dead singer, setting a new record for the lowest sales of all time… 

At least, that’s one way to look at it. You could also spin it as a rocking classic, by the biggest star the world has ever seen, taking advantage of a time of year when sales are traditionally at their lowest to make history. Either way, it’s clear that many interesting plot points converge here. And that’s before we get to Elvis extending his all-time record of chart-toppers to twenty, three ahead of the Beatles.

As with ‘Jailhouse Rock’, perhaps the least relevant plot point is how this record sounds, because this record wasn’t sitting at the top of the charts for musical reasons. This was bought by collectors, not by new fans discovering Elvis’s music for the first time. You do wonder how the OCC felt about this. On the one hand, it was a newsworthy story: Elvis back on top for this big anniversary, which probably garnered more attention than if it had been, say, Steve Brookstein who claimed number 1000. On the other, they may have been embarrassed that the casual chart-follower, interest piqued by this landmark moment, would find Elvis on top in 2005, and wonder how the charts could still claim to have any relevance.

For what it’s worth, I’ve always liked ‘One Night’, one of Elvis’s last rockers before joining the army. Without checking what I wrote in my original post, I like its bawdy slowness, its very bluesy riff, and the fact that Elvis is on tip-top vocal form. ‘I Got Stung’ is more throwaway, though it barrels along at a hundred miles an hour, and opens with Elvis yelping the line Holy smokes and snakes alive! Great stuff, all in all.

So, fairly or unfairly, appropriately or not, Elvis scored Britain’s 1000th number one. It’s taken me eight and a half years to get this far, and I’d like to thank each and every one of this blog’s followers, readers and commentors for making the journey a pleasure. Whether this is the first post of mine that you’re reading, or whether you’ve been around since the Tennessee Ernie Ford days, you make this worthwhile. And while I do try to keep things strictly musical, I’d like to mention how keeping this blog since 2018 has seen me through various ups and downs, in my personal life and in the world as a whole, and has genuinely helped to keep me sane. Listening to a number one single, be it good, bad, or indifferent, on a loop and trying to craft a five-hundred word post about it is as close as I can get to mindfulness.

The most recent new UK #1 (Taylor Swift’s ‘I Knew It, I Knew You’) was the 1456th chart-topper, and if I keep my current pace up I should reach that song in late 2030. I hope you’ll all still be around then, if only because I have strong feelings about Tay Tay that the world definitely needs to hear…

999. ‘Jailhouse Rock’, by Elvis Presley

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

From one of the most forgotten male chart-toppers in Steve Brookstein, to the ultimate male chart-topper… Elvis Aaron Presley.

Jailhouse Rock, by Elvis Presley (his 19th of twenty-one #1s)

1 week, from 9th – 16th January 2005

For what would have been Elvis’s seventieth birthday, on January 8th 2005, an ambitious (and money-spinning) project was announced by the holders of his back-catalogue, BMG Records. They would re-release each of the King’s eighteen UK number ones, week by week, for what would ultimately set collectors back around eighty quid. ‘All Shook Up’, his first chart-topper in 1957, came first, but was chart ineligible due to costing a tenner and coming with a commemorative, limited edition box in which to store all the other singles.

So it fell to ‘Jailhouse Rock’, Elvis’s second number one back in January 1958 (the first single to ever enter the UK charts at #1) to chart first… with the lowest sales ever recorded for a number one single to date: 21,262 copies.

Needless to say, this record was lucky to make number one. And lucky with the fortuitous fact that Elvis’s birthday fell in January, when sales are historically at their lowest anyway. Yet, can you imagine any other artist managing this? Re-releasing eighteen ancient singles and having them all chart in the Top 5, three of them returning to number one? After dominating the charts like nobody ever has, before or after, in the late fifties and early sixties; The King was back to dominate them again.

What of the actual music? Well, of course, ‘Jailhouse Rock’ is a classic. But there seems to be no point analysing it musically in the context of 2005. It was a forty-five year old rock and roll record re-emerging in an age of reality TV pop, tacky dance, and US hip-hop&B. I’ll refer you instead to my original post. I’m sure I was complimentary, but can’t really remember as I wrote it in 2018 (!) How time flies…

Next up, I’m going to bring the usual recap forward by one. And after that’s done, we can properly start the 1000 Number Ones festivities. Watch this space!

Advertisements

Random Runners-Up: ‘Cloud Lucky Seven’, by Guy Mitchell

/ UK #1s blog / 6 Comments

My third randomly selected #2 for the week brings us all the way back to the early weeks of 1954. Before Elvis, before the Beatles, before colour TV and motorways, there was Guy Mitchell…

‘Cloud Lucky Seven’, by Guy Mitchell

#2 for 1 week – 12th – 19th February 1954, behind ‘Oh Mein Papa’

I have a huge soft-spot for Guy Mitchell. Not only did he have a hunky, all-American boy next door vibe going on – see the pic above! – but during the early months of this blog, as I trawled through many overwrought and overblown, and often quite dull, pre-rock #1s, Mr. Mitchell would regularly pop up with something a bit more sprightly.

‘Cloud Lucky Seven’ came right in the middle of Mitchell’s four chart-topping singles, and is a pre-rock hit by-numbers. It’s almost unbearably jaunty, the backing singers sound like drunken relatives at a wedding, and there are horns. Boy, are there horns… It’s a bit jazz, a bit swing, very music-hall, and with no hint at the rock ‘n’ roll revolution that’s just around the corner.

What saves it from sounding ridiculous to modern ears is Guy himself. He isn’t, to be honest, the best technical singer. He’s no Al Martino, or Eddie Fisher, but his voice has a throaty, homely charm. He sounds like he’s having fun, as if he’s well-aware that he’s singing a load of tosh (see also ‘She Wears Red Feathers’) and being paid handsomely to do so.

Lyrically, the song is about love as clouds (that’s another pre-rock trick: love as birds chirping, fluffy clouds, twinkly stars…) Cloud one is where you land when you meet that special someone, while cloud lucky seven is the cloud nearest heaven… Which means… This is actually a song about getting laid?? Those pre-rockers were just as horny as those that came later, they just had to hide it behind bizarre metaphors involving clouds. Which means, as he belts out that there’s one more cloud to go…! it’s not only the best bit of the song; but you can almost hear the knowing wink. Guy, you sly dog, you!

Two more #2s to come…

Remembering The Everly Brothers

/ UK #1s blog / 20 Comments

I wasn’t going to mark the sad death of Don Everly on Saturday… because I was under the mistaken impression that his brother Phil was still with us. When I realised that Phil had died in 2014 it became clear that they needed a ‘Remembering’.

When you can count The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel among the many acts you’ve influenced, then you must have had something special going on. (Keith Richards called Don one of the finest ever rhythm guitarists, while John Lennon and Paul McCartney used to pull girls as teenagers by claiming that they were the ‘British Everly Brothers’.) Their country-ish harmonies were a huge part of the rock ‘n’ roll years – go on, listen to them combine on ‘Cathy’s Clown’ below! Being brothers was a blessing – those harmonies – and a curse – they spend decades not recording, or touring, or even talking to one another…

The duo scored four UK number ones between 1958-’61, and I won’t repeat myself by talking about them again. You can read the original posts here:

‘All I Have to Do Is Dream’

‘Cathy’s Clown’

‘Walk Right Back’ / ‘Ebony Eyes’

‘Temptation’

Here are some great, non-chart toppers from the brothers… (Because I’m hastily throwing this together, I won’t follow my usual rules of the songs having to have charted in the UK. Let’s be crazy for an evening!)

‘Bye Bye Love’, 1957

Chosen for self-indulgent reasons… This was one of the very first – and very few – songs I mastered on the keyboard as a child. A simple tune (that’s probably why it was book one, song one of ‘Keyboards for Dummies’) beautifully rendered.

‘Bird Dog’, 1958

The tale of Johnny: who is the funniest, cheekiest, coolest dude in school – making him a bird – but who is also hitting on the singer’s girl – thus a dog. I picked this over the pair’s other, more-famous tale of high school woe, ‘Wake Up Little Susie’ (which is also great) because this one rocks just that bit more.

‘When Will I Be Loved’, 1960

Some good ol’ fashioned rockabilly. I love the heavy, deliberate guitars, and the insistent, almost tribal drums. They re-recorded it when they moved labels, to RCA, but the original was the one released. The newer version is bluesier – here’s a link.

‘Don’t Blame Me’, 1961

The Everlys loved a ballad… ‘Love Hurts’, ‘Let It Be Me’, ‘Crying in the Rain’… But I picked this cover of a ’30s standard for some of their greatest harmonies, the guitar work (not actually from Don or Phil, but Hank Garland), and the bridge where Don really lets loose…

‘I’m Not Angry’, 1962

Not a hit, I don’t think, coming at the end of their glory days. But how filthy and scratchy is the guitar here, in this tale of pettiness? The boys hope that the girl who just dumped them doesn’t get letters, or phone-calls, that her dress rips and her car won’t start, but they’re not angry… just sad. Whatever…

Remembering Rosemary Clooney

/ UK #1s blog / 17 Comments

Another short trip back to the earliest days of the charts, when big-lunged men such as Al Martino, David Whitfield and Frankie Laine were dominating the #1 position with earnest declarations of love and faith. Elvis hadn’t arrived yet, Sinatra wasn’t the teen heart-throb of a decade before… The charts needed some sexiness, some fun…

Thank God for the girls, then. Girls like Rosemary Clooney. I’ve already posted on Kay Starr and Winifred Atwell, two contemporaries of Clooney, who brought a jazzy playfulness to their chart-topping records. But Miss Clooney, who scored Britain’s 25th and 28th #1 singles, went a step further, and brought mad-cap craziness to the pop charts.

First up came ‘This Ole House’, in November ’54. A raucous, honky tonk piano-led tale of a rundown house whose elderly inhabitant is waiting to meet the saints… There can have been very few hit songs to reference oiling hinges and fixing shingle… Here she is performing it live, and with slightly more restraint, in the ’80s.

Then just weeks later, she was back with an even better hit. Clooney was of Irish/German extraction, but that didn’t stop her hamming up an invented Italian side. The lyrics are basically nonsense, with nods to Italian, Spanish, Mexican and Neapolitan. (Sample lyric: Hey mambo, no more a-Mozzarella…) Again the energy and playfulness really stood out next to its dully earnest contemporaries. (See also her earlier hit ‘Botch a Me’ if you like the cod-Italian vibes.) ‘Mambo Italiano’ lives on in a way that few pre-rock hits do. It was remixed back into the charts in the early ’00s, and sampled more recently by Lady Gaga and Iggy Azalea.

Rosemary Clooney’s career trajectory was pretty standard for a post-war pop star. From singing with big bands, to a record label, to big hits and on to TV and films – her most famous one probably being ‘White Christmas’ alongside Bing Crosby. What wasn’t so standard was Clooney’s sleeping pill and tranquilliser dependency that developed through the sixties, that ended with her in psychoanalytic therapy for eight years.

She survived, though, came back and continued to record throughout the remainder of her life. Her final performance came just six months before she died of lung cancer in 2002. One of the pall bearers at her funeral was her nephew, George.

Rosemary Clooney, May 23rd 1928 – June 29th 2002

Remembering Winifred Atwell

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

In my ‘Remembering’ bits, I like to draw people’s attention back to artists from the dawn of the charts, from posts published long before anyone was actually reading this blog. Back we go, then, to 1954…

Winifred Atwell is a significant figure in the British charts as, when she scored her first #1 in late ’54 (a Christmas #1 before that was something worth noticing), she became the first black artist to do so. ‘Let’s Have Another Party’ – a medley of old music hall tunes – stayed at the top for five weeks. It is very of its time, but still a fun listen. You can read my original post here.

Some of the melodies in that record date from the the 1920s, so we are really looking a century back in time from our modern-day vantage point. Anyway, Winifred Atwell had arrived in the UK in 1946, from Trinidad via the USA, and had been accepted into the Royal Academy for Music, where she achieved the highest grades possible. She supported herself by playing boogie-woogie tunes in clubs around London, where she was spotted and signed.

Between 1952 and ’59, she scored fourteen Top 20 hits in the UK, many with wonderful titles such as ‘Flirtation Waltz’ and ‘Let’s Have a Ding-Dong!’ (You could say she was a suggestive performer, in that she released no less than five singles beginning with the word ‘Let’s…’) She did the Royal Variety, where she was invited to play privately for the Queen, who requested ‘Roll Out the Barrel’. (Ma’am does love a good knees-up!) On stage she would often start off by playing classical pieces on a grand piano, before switching to a battered old piano bought in a market for fifty shillings – her ‘other’ piano, which was credited on her records and which travelled the world with her – to bash out some ragtime tunes.

Her 2nd number one, ‘The Poor People of Paris’ is interesting – not because it sounds much different from her first – but because it featured as sound engineer a young Joe Meek, who would go on to produce three seminal sixties #1s (and who I did a post on a year or so back.) In the background, hovering above Winny’s piano, is a high-pitched whine which I thought, and pondered in my original post, might have been a Theramin, but which I have since read was probably a musical saw. Either way, you can hear the embryonic beginnings of ‘Telstar’ here, in the video below:

And this live performance, from a couple of years later, has Atwell banging away on her famous ‘other’ piano (I love her winks at the camera…)

By 1958, when this was filmed, her hit-scoring days were almost over – killed stone-dead, as so many artists’ careers were, by rock ‘n’ roll and then the swinging sixties. Still, Atwell remained a popular figure on TV variety shows and in concert. She moved to Australia, where she was a huge star, and where she lived until her death on this day in 1983. Her final performances, quite sweetly, were on the organ in her parish church.

Despite her music now sounding incredibly quaint, and her dressing like your aunt at a wedding, Winifred Atwell’s legacy lives on. Keith Emerson spoke of her influence on his music, while David Bowie also reminisced about hearing her rags on the radio as a boy. But the biggest example has to be Sir Elton John, who cites Atwell as one of the main reasons behind him wanting to learn piano.

Winifred Atwell, 27th February 1914 – 28th February 1983

Remembering Alma Cogan

/ UK #1s blog / 6 Comments

I’ve covered 342 #1 singles since starting this blog. Some have been classics, some have been terrible, some have been by the most famous acts in pop music history, some have been by acts unknown to me until that moment… One of the singers I have been happiest to discover on my journey, is the singer of the 35th UK #1 single, Alma Cogan.

Born in East London in 1932, she went from singer-in-residence at a hotel, to the biggest British female star of the fifties. ‘The Girl with the Giggle in Her Voice’ – a nickname she earned after bursting into laughter during an early recording session – with huge frocks and a healthy pair of lungs – to listen to her early hits is to lose yourself in unpretentious pop perfection. Of which ‘Dreamboat’, her one and only chart-topper, is perhaps the perfect example.

(You can read my original post on it here.) Voted Outstanding British Female Singer by NME readers four times between 1956-1960, she scored hits throughout the decade by covering standards such as ‘Mambo Italiano’ and ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love?’, ‘Little Things Mean a Lot’ and ‘Hernando’s Hideaway’. Being a popular singer in the fifties and early sixties meant that she also recorded her fair share of novelties – ‘Never Do a Tango with an Eskimo‘ – and showtunes. But she sings them with such a twinkle in her eyes that you forgive even her cheesiest moments. Here she is, belting out ‘As Long as He Needs Me’ from ‘Oliver!’ (Apparently the part of Nancy was written with Cogan in mind, and she does have a fantastic cockney rasp in her voice, compared to other more stage-school actresses who have played the role.)

The swinging sixties killed off her chart-topping days, as they did to many stars of the fifties. But there is a fascinating coda to Alma Cogan’s career – her friendship with The Beatles…

Cogan’s star was waning and the Fab Four’s was on the rise, but they would still meet at the same TV recordings. She was the first person that Paul played ‘Yesterday’ to, and she allegedly had an affair with John. She also tried to relaunch herself back into the charts by covering some of the bands hits – her ‘Eight Days a Week’ is a particular moment of overblown brilliance.

For whatever reason, she couldn’t seem to reignite her singles career – in the UK at least – and died tragically young from cancer in 1966. She was just thirty-four. Which terrifies me, as I am thirty-four and I have neither enjoyed a decade-long singing career nor had an affair with a Beatle… Just what have I done with my life?

Here’s one of Alma Cogan’s later TV performances – a cover of ‘The Tennessee Waltz’ – as introduced by her (supposed) lover John Lennon. They do flirt quite heavily in this clip, I must say…

And if that doesn’t leave with a smile on your face, then I don’t know what medication to recommend…

Alma Cogan, 19th May 1932 – 26th October 1966

Never Had a #1 Hit… Ricky Nelson

/ UK #1s blog / 4 Comments

I’m taking a quick break from the usual rundown to give a mention to the bands and artists that we will never meet at the top of the UK singles chart. If you were following along, wondering when (*insert name of your favourite act*) were going to finally appear in this countdown, then I got some bad news for you…

(I’ll do this in chronological order, with acts whom we would have met by now – i.e. in the fifties, sixties and early seventies.)

I wanted to include an early rock ‘n’ roller in this feature, and the obvious one would have been Little Richard. But, as legendary a figure as Richard was, a lot has been written about him since his death a fortnight ago. And, in terms of chart hits without reaching top-spot, one star of the late fifties and early sixties stands out even more…

6cdec6fc32669f6646e455bf6b4b9732

Look at those eyes! Nelson was quite ridiculously good-looking. The son of two well-known celebrities of the 1930s and 40s, he made his way in typical teen-idol fashion, first through radio sitcoms as a child, then TV shows and films as a teenager, and then, in 1957, he released his first single, aged seventeen. He scored tons of Billboard Top 10 hits, as well as two #1s, and while he wasn’t as successful in the UK, here are his five biggest:

‘Travellin’ Man’ / ‘Hello Mary Lou’, #2 in 1961

A pretty standard, Neil Sedaka-ish early sixties pop song for the first half of this double-‘A’, in which Nelson sings about the girls he has around the world. He’s got a little Eskimo girl in Alaska, and a China-doll in ol’ Hong Kong. Simpler times, simpler times…

A much better song on the flip side: a rolling country beat and a simple tale of falling in love with a pretty young gal called Mary-Lou.

‘It’s Late’, #3 in 1959

Great, light rock ‘n’ roll song, and a common theme for the time: a young couple stay out past their curfew, and dad’s gonna be mad. Ricky hopes this won’t be their last date…

‘Poor Little Fool’, #4 in 1958

Another fifties standard. His first US #1, and the new chart-topper on the first-ever Billboard Hot 100. Not his greatest song, though. A little dull. Nice enough. Next.

‘Someday’, #9 in 1958

Suspiciously similar in theme and sound to Connie Francis’s ‘Who’s Sorry Now’… The follow-up to ‘Poor Little Fool’ was an older country song given a light rock ‘n’ roll makeover, which is how around fifty percent of the chart-toppers in 1958 came about.

To be honest, Ricky Nelson’s biggest hits aren’t his best. I love his version of ‘Fools Rush In’, and his sarcastic seventies comeback ‘Garden Party’. And then there is the majestic ‘Lonesome Town’ – one of the 1950’s sparsest, most haunting hit records. As the sixties progressed, he dropped the ‘y’ from his name as the hit singles and big movie roles dried up. He struggled through a very messy divorce, and drug problems, before dying in a plane crash in 1985.

Hope you enjoyed this short interlude. I’ll do another three artistes-sans-#1s in the autumn…

 

Top 10s – The 1950s

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

Time for a Top 10… Usually I rank the ten best singles from a particular artist (last time it was The Kinks) but I thought I’d fiddle with my criteria a little, and rank my favourite #1 singles from an entire decade.

Starting with the singles chart’s very first decade. Back where it all began, when rock ‘n’ roll was but a twinkle in Elvis’s eye. The list is in chronological order – not ranked in order of preference – and to choose the songs I went back and read through my recaps to see which ones I dug at the time, live, as it were…

So, without further ado, the ten best #1 singles of the 1950s, according to me:

1. ‘Look at That Girl’, by Guy Mitchell – #1 for 6 weeks in Sept/Oct 1953

Only the 12th-ever number one single, from one of the decade’s biggest chart stars, and a runner-up in my first recap. This was the very first whiff of rock ‘n’ roll at the top of the UK charts (a very faint whiff, but still) and I think it appealed more than it probably should have because I’d waded through so much Eddie Fisher and Mantovani to get to it. Still, a catchy, upbeat tune. As I wrote in my original post:

“It sounds to me as if a battle is taking place here, between traditional easy-listening and the burgeoning rock ‘n’ roll movement. On the one hand you’ve got the usual twee backing singers and floaty trumpets, parping away at the end of each line; on the other you have the hand claps and the guitar solo.”

3dfa9028eb05e4f4072a50a1d556666a--american-artists-classic-rock

 

2. ‘Such a Night’, by Johnnie Ray – #1 for 1 week in April/May 1954

Johnnie Ray was known for his emoting, which lent him two spectacular nicknames: ‘The Prince of Wails’ and ‘The Nabob of Sob’. But for his 1st of three #1s he was overcome with a slightly more enjoyable emotion… lust! By far the sauciest number one of the pre-rock era, I awarded it ‘Best Chart-Topper’ in my 1st recap. I’d go as far as saying it was the best #1 single ever… Until 1957 came along. My original post is here:

“…what makes it, and elevates it to a classic, are Ray’s vocals. Like Doris Day before him there’s an effortlessness to his voice that draws you in and yanks you along. But his voice is nothing like the clean-cut, honeyed tones of Miss Day. ‘Such a Night’ isn’t being sung here – it’s being ridden, it’s being humped… it’s being performed!”

cb7c74a231dcd2dd49842e43981cd00f--josephine-musicians

 

3. ‘Mambo Italiano’, by Rosemary Clooney & The Mellomen – #1 for 3 weeks in Jan/Feb 1955

I remember noting, back in the early days of the charts, that it felt like the girls were having all the fun. Guys were being boringly earnest – Al Martino, Eddie Fisher, David Whitfield all proclaiming overwrought, undying love over heavy orchestration. Meanwhile Rosemary Clooney, in her 2nd #1, was singing in cod-Italian about fish bacalao (which is Portuguese, but whatever.) It’s a song that resonates to this day, with a 00s remix and a 2011 pastiche by Lady Gaga. I named it a runner-up in my first recap:

“…while this is a mambo record, sung by an easy-listening singer-slash-actress, this is rock ‘n’ roll. It may be fun and funky, but it just about manages to retain an air of cool around all the silliness. While we were waiting for Bill Haley to come along and kick-off things off, the ideals and attitudes, if not the actual sounds, of rock ‘n’ roll were being sneaked in right under our noses.”

clooney-94b833378517905808a9405ad88dff3bcfe05e4b-s900-c85

 

4. ‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’, by Perez ‘Prez’ Prado & His Orchestra – #1 for 2 weeks in April/May 1955

Another saucy slice of Latin pop, which I named the very best song in my 2nd recap! Again, my opinion of it was probably exaggerated because of all the pre-rock easy-listening mulch surrounding it. It is catchy, though. Just you try not swaying along. Can’t be done! I tried summing up the record’s appeal in my original post…

“…it allows Janet and John from Southend to draw close and to feel one another’s bodies, taught and trembling from two and a half minutes of intense mambo.”

R-582429-1341876426-2330.jpeg

 

5. ‘Dreamboat’, by Alma Cogan – #1 for 2 weeks in July 1955

The 3rd #1 from 1955, making it officially the best year of the decade… (Hmm…) ‘Dreamboat’ is just a spectacularly fun pop song, sung with a giggle and a wink by perhaps the biggest British female star of the pre-rock age. As I wrote at the time:

“…there isn’t much else to ‘Dreamboat’ -it’s a fun little ditty. Cogan sings it well, with the perfect pronunciation we’ve come to expect but also with a light, playful touch that’s been missing from many of the number ones so far.”

de565d5d80ca47f8aae75ff675d21485--vinyl-records-singers

 

6. ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love’, by The Teenagers ft. Frankie Lymon – #1 for 3 weeks in July/Aug 1956

Regrets, I have a few… One of them being that I named this classic as a runner-up to Perez Prado in my 2nd recap. What was I thinking? ‘Cherry Pink…’ is great and all, but this is timeless. The first number one by kids, for kids – the Teenagers were all, you guessed it, teenagers – is one of the catchiest, golden pop moments of all time, let alone the decade. As I wrote…

“… it’s just a great song. A summer smash. It oozes New York city: steam, water spraying from a sidewalk valve, the sun blasting down, the Jets and the Sharks… (I dunno. I grew up in small town Scotland.)”

Frankie_Lymon_and_the_Teenagers

 

7. ‘That’ll Be the Day’, by The Crickets – #1 for 3 weeks in November 1957

Perhaps the most obvious choice of the ten… What else needs to be said. Press play, gasp at the spectacular intro, and enjoy two and a half minutes of rock ‘n’ roll perfection…

“…Buddy Holly’s voice dances and flirts – toys, almost – with the listener. He coos, he pauses, he growls… The Crickets play tightly, but also very loosely. There’s a great, rough-around-the-edges feel to this record that contrasts with the polished cheese of Paul Anka’s ‘Diana’, whose bumper run at the top this track ended.”

13b76502b2e66b8af543e51889003212

 

8. ‘Great Balls of Fire’, by Jerry Lee Lewis – #1 for 2 weeks in January 1958

But… I didn’t name ‘That’ll Be the Day’ as one of the very best chart-toppers. Oh no. In my 3rd recap, that honour was reserved for The Killer. On any given day, I could wake up and prefer ‘Great Balls…’ to ‘That’ll Be the Day’, or vice-versa. What’s the point in debating?  These two records were nailed-on to make my 50’s Top 10. Pure rock ‘n’ roll greatness…

“…It’s just an absolute blitz, an assault on the senses, a two-minute blast which takes rock ‘n’ roll up another notch.”

jerryleelewis22

 

9. ‘Who’s Sorry Now’, by Connie Francis – #1 for 6 weeks in May/June 1958

A spot of schadenfreude in the decade’s sassiest #1 single. Connie got dumped, and is now taking great pleasure that the tables have turned on her ex in his new relationship. You had your way, Now you must pay, I’m glad that you’re sorry now… Who says girls in the 50’s were all sweetness and apple pie? The twang in her voice when she launches into the final verse is something to behold. As I wrote at the time…

“A lot of the female artists we’ve met previously on this countdown have been cute, and flirty, and fun to listen to – Kitty Kallen, Kay Starr, Winifred Atwell… But no girl has brought this level of spunk to the table.”

Connie_Francis_1961

 

10. ‘Dream Lover’, by Bobby Darin – #1 for 4 weeks in July 1959

Last up –  a record that encapsulates everything great about the 1950s, mixing rock ‘n’ roll with swing, doo-wop and a touch of pre-rock crooning, to create pop perfection. Another runner-up to Jerry Lee in my 3rd recap, but there’s no shame in that. In my original post, I wrote:

“…I don’t want to really write any more about this record. I want to leave it there. Minimalist. This is where easy-listening and pop collide to create a seriously classy song.”

MI0002749454

And there we have it! The ten best #1 singles of the 1950s!