Next up, a beloved nineties classic…

The One and Only, by Chesney Hawkes (his 1^st and only #1)

5 weeks, from 24^th March – 28^th April 1991

…which I’ve never understood the love for. It does have a fun intro, I will admit, with what sounds like guitars fed through a motorbike engine. And at the time, the first appearance of the soaring title line: I am the one and only… must certainly have caught the ears.

But beyond that, and with the benefit of hindsight and over-saturation, this is a very middling effort. As Chesney Hawkes moves into the first verse, things settle down into run of the mill power balladry. It’s not helped by the fact that the lyrics read like a self-help book: No one can be myself like I can, For this job I’m the best man… And while this may be true, You are the one and only you… It’s all pretty lame: ‘rock’ music for people who don’t quite know what rock music is.

And yet, it is rock. Ok, pop rock. Guitars feature prominently, though, and there’s a solo – one that fades in comparison to those we’ve heard recently from Queen and Iron Maiden, but still. It’s another tick in the ‘rock is making a comeback’ box as we move deeper into the 1990s. My problem is that this was played to death in nightclubs when I was a student, and the chorus is up there with ‘Sweet Caroline’, or ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’, for punchable ubiquity. No amount of alcohol can make me enjoy it these days, and I’m not sure I ever did. (God, with this and ‘The Stonk’, I’m sounding quite the curmudgeon recently…)

Chesney Hawkes was just nineteen when this, his debut single, made number one. His boy-next-door charms are undeniable – outrageously floppy hair and cute mole on the upper lip – but no self-respecting rock star pronounces ‘rather’ like he does. He came from chart-topping stock, though: his father was Len ‘Chip’ Hawkes of The Tremeloes, who played on their 1967 number one ‘Silence Is Golden’. (Nowadays Chesney acts as lead-singer when the Tremeloes go on tour.) And that’s not the only sixties link we can make here, as ‘The One and Only’ came from the soundtrack to ‘Buddy’s Song’, a film starring Hawkes as a wannabe rock star and none other than Roger Daltrey as his dad. In fact, this is possibly as close as a member of The Who ever came to featuring on a number one single… (though to be fair did Pete Townshend play bass on ‘Something in the Air’)

Chesney failed to repeat the success of his debut single, and has never charted higher than #27 with any of his subsequent releases. He’s still active in the public eye, appearing on various reality TV shows and, of course, the nineties nostalgia circuit. He’s only fifty one, despite his biggest hit coming thirty two years ago, which is suddenly making me feel very old as well…