1968 pop hits

245. ‘Cinderella Rockefella’, by Esther & Abi Ofarim

/ UK #1s blog / 7 Comments

Why, isn’t 1968 just turning into the most eclectic year? Ballads about infamous crime duos, folk-pop about Eskimos… and now this.

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Cinderella Rockefella, by Esther & Abi Ofarim (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 28th February – 20th March 1968

We start off with a trad-jazz vibe – woozy pianos, banjos and illicit cocktails – and I’m enjoying it because I’m genetically programmed to like this kind of music hall silliness. But then the yodelling starts. Yodelladayodalladay… Pure Alpine throat-bending, which turns out to actually be saying You’re the lady, You’re the lady that I love… I’m the lady, The lady whooooo…

But before the Frank Ifield flashbacks really hit, thankfully they start singing more normally. A man and a woman. Woman: I love your touch… Man: Thank you so much… The lyrics aren’t up to a great deal (Man: I love your chin… Woman: Say it again…), but at least they aren’t being yodelled.

The man, Abi, and the woman, Esther are wooing one another, in a speakeasy. Musically, this could be from the soundtrack to ‘Chicago’ – minus the yodelling – and it means that half of this year’s #1 singles so far have had a retro-jazz vibe to them. Though, for my money ‘The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde’ was far superior to this. It’s a song that doesn’t really go anywhere, and one that raises plenty of questions… What? Who? Why?

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That ‘What?’ first. Rockefeller is the New York magnate responsible for The Rockefeller Centre. Cinderella is, well, Cinderella. Cinderella is beautiful and JD Rockefeller was rich ergo = the perfect couple. ‘Cinderella Rockefeller’, I know, is a school musical staple – though one I’ve neither been involved in nor seen. Any song list from the musical that I can find online does not list ‘Cinderella Rockefella’ as one of its songs. And the Wiki page for the song doesn’t mention the musical…

On to the ‘Who?’ Esther and Abi Ofarim were an Israeli husband and wife duo – the one and only Israeli act to top the British charts. Abi sings low; Esther sings high. She’s very shrill. The song had been performed on various US variety shows before they picked it up.

And the ‘Why?’ I really don’t know. Novelty hits are novelty hits and often come out of nowhere. Maybe you had to have been there, in the spring of ’68. Maybe people were getting sick of all the high-brow, forward facing, boundary pushing pop of the recent years and were ready to embrace some cheesy tosh.

I can’t say I hate it. It’s kind of fun, and I do love the musical arrangement. But… the yodelling. If, before starting this blog, someone had asked me how many #1 hits would feature yodelling I would have answered with a flat zero. But no. Slim Whitman, old Frank and now this. It’s a record that’s 20% intriguing, and 80% irritating. One things for sure, in my next recap it’s going to be difficult to choose the weirdest chart-topper from this most recent bunch…

Listen to every #1 hit so far:

244. ‘Mighty Quinn’, by Manfred Mann

/ UK #1s blog / 7 Comments

Our next #1 single starts with what sound suspiciously like pan-pipes. I leave that there as a word of warning. (It’s not actually pan-pipes, it’s a flute, but the tone has been set….)

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Mighty Quinn, by Manfred Mann (their 3rd and final #1)

2 weeks, from 14th – 28th February 1968

Come on without, Come on within, You’ll not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn… It’s a swaying chorus that greets us as the song proper gets underway. A chorus that I knew, without ever really having listened to the song in full. A chorus that begs a question – just who is the Mighty Quinn?

He is, naturally, an Eskimo. What else? To give the song its’ full title – ‘Quinn the Eskimo.’ And when Quinn the Eskimo gets here, Everybody’s gonna jump with joy… And why will Quinn’s arrival be greeted with such jubilation? To be honest, I’m now on listen number three and I’m still not sure.

The verses have a verve and swagger to them, that really really reminds of something else that I just can’t quite put my finger on. It’s very frustrating. Anyway… Everybody’s building ships and boats, Some are building monuments, Others are jotting down notes… It seems like a comment on modernity, and the fact that something is missing from modern life. Nobody can get no sleep, There’s someone on everyone’s toes, But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here, Everybody’s gonna want a dose… Or is it ‘a doze’, as in a nap? Either way, this is pretty abstract stuff.

Boiled down, it seems like Quinn is some kind of Messiah figure, who’s going to calm everyone down and chill everyone out (as well as gathering all the pigeons around him…) Bob Dylan – for yes, ‘tis he who wrote this – has claimed that the song is nothing more than a nursery rhyme. But that’s what the writers of strange and obscure lyrics always say, isn’t it? His version is much more folky and laid-back, and wouldn’t be released until several years after Manfred Mann’s.

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I’m not sure what to make of this one. On the one hand it is interesting. There can’t have been many #1 singles about Eskimos. On the other it just doesn’t quite work for me. It’s Dylan’s 2nd chart-topper as a songwriter and it is certainly not anywhere near the level of his previous one, ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’.

And what of Manfred Mann? They sign off on their chart-topping account, having hit the top spot with three very different records. The Beat-pop swing of ‘Do Wah Diddy Diddy’, the sweet ‘Pretty Flamingo’ and now this. A #1 in ’64, ’66 and now ’68. A band for even-numbered years. A 2nd-tier, perhaps slightly underrated sixties band? They were soon to become Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, and to go pretty heavy on the prog-rock. They’ve kept ‘The Mighty Quinn’ as part of their concerts, and apparently live versions can go on for a good ten minutes… I’m not sure if that sounds brilliant, or terrifying…

To be honest, my first exposure to this record was probably miles away from Manfred Mann and the 1960s pop charts. Irish football fans used to sing a version of this song for their big striker, Niall Quinn. The nickname stuck to such an extent that he even named his autobiography – you guessed it – ‘The Mighty Quinn.’

243. ‘Everlasting Love’, by The Love Affair

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

As the new year chimes ring, the musicologists of Britain gather to ponder what the ‘sound of’ the coming year will be. The BBC even runs a ‘Sound Of’ poll every January – recent winners including Adele, Sam Smith and, um, 50 Cent. Anyway… the point being that if you were to wonder what the ‘sound of’ 1968 might be, you could do worse than checking out this next #1.

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Everlasting Love, by The Love Affair (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 31st January – 14th February 1968

Because ‘Everlasting Love’ sounds very sixties – you could place it straight away – but it also sounds fresh and new, an update on what’s gone before. It’s soulful, with heavy hints of Motown, and a loveable garage feel to it. And it’s a record that blasts in at full speed…

We soar on drums, and horns, and then a very funky bass riff. Hearts go astray, Leaving hurt when they go… The singer has ended things too early with his love, and now he’s begging to be taken back. Open up your eyes, Then you’ll realise, Here I stand with my, Everlasting love… It’s the hit single equivalent of someone standing drunk under your window at 2am… Need you by my side, Girl to be my bride…

But whereas someone singing drunkenly under your window at 2am is rarely a pleasant experience, ‘Everlasting Love’ is a lot of fun. It’s a relentless disc, one that grabs you and brings you along with it, never once letting up. You could accuse it of being cheesy, and a little saccharine, but you can’t get a word in. So you give up and just enjoy the ride. It’s that kind of song. It’s basically one big chorus from start to finish.

The most interesting bits of the song are musical – the little fills in-between lines. The blasts of horn, the bass and the drum rolls, and the snatch of what sounds like a flute and a triangle (I’m probably very wrong about that) before the glorious fade-out. ‘Everlasting Love’ was originally recorded in a Motown style by Robert Knight, in the US. Listen to his version here – it’s good, but doesn’t have anywhere near as much Ooomph as the Love Affair version.

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The Love Affair were yet another British soul group, following in the steps of Georgie Fame, The Foundations and The Small Faces. I listed the Small Faces last there as Love Affair’s lead singer, Steve Ellis, sounds a lot like Steve Marriot. The band later admitted that Ellis was the only member to actually feature on this recording – all the instruments were played by session musicians. Controversy! But, we are not here to judge how ‘real’ a record is. We are here to enjoy, and this is a very enjoyable record regardless of who played on it.

Love Affair had a few more Top 10s – this was their first big hit – before fading from view as the decade ended. Ellis left in 1969 and the rest split up in the early seventies. ‘Everlasting Love’ has made more of a lasting impression – it’s been a Top 40 hit, in a variety of versions, in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s and ‘00s. Sadly, it seems that it couldn’t be revived in the 2010s…

So, after a bit of a false start from Georgie Fame and two infamous serial killers, 1968 is a go-go. I can’t quite explain it, but there’s something very forward-facing and modern sounding about this disc, something that says ‘Welcome to the late-sixties!’ And I’m here for it!

242. ‘The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde’, by Georgie Fame

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

Happy New Year! We step into 20… I mean 1968, but if you were expecting the penultimate year of the sixties to bring daring news sounds to the top of the UK charts… then keep waiting. The first #1 of the year is a step back in time. To the saloon bars of 1920s America…

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The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde, by Georgie Fame (his 3rd and final #1)

1 week, from 24th – 31st January 1968

We’ve got banjos, trombones, honky-tonk pianos, an intro with very strong hints of Fats Domino… To be honest, I love it from the get-go. It’s fun, it’s kinda dumb… It’s a history lessons at number one!

Bonnie and Clyde, Were pretty lookin’ people, But I can tell you people, They were the devil’s children… Georgie Fame’s back for one final moment of glory, but he’s traded the blue-eyed soul for some trad-jazz. He lists the famous duo’s crimes – robbing stores, stealing cars, before they made the graduation into the banking business – and sounds like he’s having a load of fun in doing so.

It’s a chart-topping record with a hefty body count – the bloodiest #1 since ‘Mack the Knife’. Sample line: They left him lyin’ in a pool of blood, And laughed about it all the way home… And it’s a chart-topping record with sound-effects! Getaway cars, sirens and, best of all, a round of carbines as the heroes of the tale meet their end. Yep, Fame sticks to the facts – no riding off into the sunset for Bonnie and Clyde here. And very few #1 singles will ever feature lines like: Actin’ upon, Reliable information, A federal deputation laid a deadly ambush…

It’s odd, isn’t it? A chart-topping single that so glorifies two serial killers. There’s a glamour to Bonnie and Clyde, though, isn’t there? The romance, the fast cars, the cigars… You can’t imagine ‘The Ballad of Harold Shipman’ being such a smash… The famous movie starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway had been a hit the previous year. ‘The Ballad…’ hadn’t featured in the film, but Fame had been inspired to write the song after seeing it.

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The record, fittingly, ends on a melodramatic note. A long drawn out coda, in which the duo draw their last breath. And finally together, They died… A few years back, any mention of death in a hit single seemed guaranteed to cause controversy. The Everly Brothers, Ricky Valance and co. all got airplay bans for their ‘death-discs’. Society has clearly moved on during the sixties, in more ways than one. (Though this was apparently censored in the US thanks to the machine-gun sound effects.)

I like it. A completely random interlude to the swinging sixties, the sort of bizarre post-Christmas number one that the charts can sometimes throw up as they wait for the first big hits of the year. Though perhaps we should class Georgie Fame as a ‘big’ artist. This is, after all, his third #1. The same total as The Kinks, The Searchers, Sandie Shaw and other sixties royalty. Two more than Dusty! Three more than The Who and Dylan! Somehow, though, he’s kind of slipped under the radar, with his soulful, bluesy, Latin-tinged hits. I do love the fact that he never had a top ten hit that didn’t make #1. All or nothing for Mr. Fame. He’s now seventy-six, and still performs from time to time. The pop charts of the 1960s were a better place for his sporadic appearances at the top.

1968 is off with a bang, then. Literally, what with the mass shooting that ends this record. I made a point in the last post about 1967 having no one-week chart-toppers, and now the first one of this year has lasted only seven days. Here’s to what’s looking like an eclectic year! Onwards…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3yu94Fz1kw

Listen to the first fourteen (and a bit) years’ of #1 singles with my handy playlist: