How well a single performs in the charts can be influenced by various things… promotion, star power, tastes and trends, time of year… pure luck. And that most fickle, unpredictable of factors: the general public. Do enough of them like your song to make it a smash? Or will they ignore it, and let it fall by the wayside?
I’m taking a short break from the regular countdown to feature five discs that really should have topped the charts. Be it for their long-reaching influence, their enduring popularity or for the simple fact that, had they peaked a week earlier or later, they might have made it. (I’ll only be covering songs released before 1964, as that’s where I’m up to on the usual countdown.)
And first up… A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-lop-bom-bom!
Tutti Frutti, by Little Richard
Recorded in September 1955, peaked at #29 in February 1957
‘Tutti Frutti’ came nowhere near the top of the charts. One week at #29, a year and a half after it was originally recorded. That’s all. But this is the sound of the rock ‘n’ roll starters whistle. This is rock ‘n’ roll: the tempo, the frenzied piano, the orgasmic ‘ooooh’s, the wonderful nonsense of the lyrics… Imagine, for a second, a parallel universe in which this was a chart-topping hit.
In real life, rock ‘n’ roll was announced at the top of the UK charts by ‘Rock Around the Clock’ – which is fine. A classic. A seminal record. We all know it. But if this had been the disc to kick it all off in the autumn of ’55… A flamboyant black pianist, pounding out a song (allegedly) originally written with references to gay sex (Tutti Frutti, Good booty, If it don’t fit, Don’t force it…) All that had been eliminated by the time it came to be recorded properly, but the sanitised version was still saucy enough: Got a girl, Named Sue, She knows just what to do… Imagine that knocking Jimmy Young’s plodding ‘The Man From Laramie’ unceremoniously off the top!
Of the big four rock ‘n’ rollers – Elvis, Chuck, Buddy, and Little Richard – the latter is the only one never to have topped the UK charts. He is the only one still alive so… who knows – there might still be time! The closest he came was with his cover of ‘Baby Face’, which reached #2 in early 1959.
And so we launch head-first into 1964. Suddenly we are in the mid-sixties! Doesn’t time fly! And kicking off the new year are some newbies at the top of the UK singles charts: The Dave Clark Five.
Glad All Over, by The Dave Clark Five (their 1st and only #1)
2 weeks, from 16th – 30th January 1964
Interestingly, none of the acts that topped the charts in 1963 were one-offs. Every single one of them had hit #1 previously, or would go on to hit #1 again. But the very first chart-topping act of 1964 are… drum roll… one #1 wonders!
Anyway, this a barnstorming way to start off. We get a thumping, grinding drum-beat designed to blow away any lingering new year hangovers, which is quickly joined by a bass and a stabbing saxophone. Then the singer (Mike Smith, not Dave Clark) jumps in: You say that you love me, All of the time, You say that you need me, You’ll always be mine…
The beat then morphs into an insistent, irresistible galloping-horse rhythm that will last for the whole song. And then comes a chorus that pretty much everyone knows: And I’m feelin’… Glad all over…Yes, I’m a-… Glad all over…!
It’s an non-stop sledgehammer of a song, with large swathes of call-and-response and a key-change that is pointless trying to resist. Other girls may try to take me away… (you can just pictures the girl’s eyes rolling at this point)… But you know, It’s by your side, I will stay… It’s a fun disc. File it under ‘unsophisticated’. This and The Tremeloes’ ‘Do You Love Me’ from a few posts ago would make a great drunken-1am-singalong double-header.
Like ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, this is also a huge football, and rugby, crowd song – the call and response bits work perfectly – and is usually played after a home-team scores (Crystal Palace started it when ‘Glad All Over’ was still in the charts and lots of other teams followed suit). It was last seen in the UK charts a couple of years ago when Glasgow Rangers fans did a mass-download campaign. In fact, I’d have to say that this is just the latest in a run of chart-toppers that have entered the public consciousness like few previous #1s have. From ‘Sweets For My Sweet’ through ‘Do You Love Me’, plus the recent Beatles chart-toppers… I’ll bet most people on the streets could sing a line or two from all of these songs, even today. Just goes to show how much the music from this era lingers on.
Since we’ll never hear from them again on this countdown – just who were The Dave Clark Five? Well, you’ll be shocked to discover that there were five of them, and that they were ‘led’ by one Dave Clark, who also drummed on all their hits. They were from Tottenham, in North London, and were at the vanguard of the ‘Tottenham Sound’ -which I’m not sure sounded any different to the Mersey-sound, or any other variety of Beat-band sound, but hey – they were representing. As I mentioned, this was their one and only #1; but they scored Top 10s throughout the sixties before splitting up in 1970.
There you have it then. 1964 is off and running with a boisterous pop number. I don’t go in for previews very often in these posts, but I have to mention here that ’64 is going to be a stellar year for chart-topping singles. One of the very best… if not the best… years in terms of #1 quality. Over the course of the next twenty-two hits we’ll hear some classics, meet some legends, and have a generally pretty ‘groovy’ time (that’s how people talked back in the sixties…)
Oh hey, Elvis. You still here? You want one more go at the top, before your glory days are well and truly over? Go on then…
(You’re the) Devil in Disguise, by Elvis Presley (his 14th of twenty-one #1s)
1 week, from 1st – 8th August 1963
I know this song, I love this song, I’ve been playing air guitar to it since I was a nipper. I know it’s a rocker, and I can’t wait to write a blog post about it. But, to hear it coming after Elvis has bored us into submission with his recent #1s: (‘Good Luck Charm’), (‘She’s Not You’), or scared us off completely: (‘Rock-A-Hula Baby). Well, it’s like a real shot of adrenalin.
It starts off sedately: You look like an angel, Walk like an angel, Talk like an angel… But I got wise… I love the filthy, twangy guitar that sounds like a motorbike revving. And then boom! You’re the devil in disguise, Oh yes you are, Devil in disguise…
It’s a song about a girl that just can’t be trusted… You fooled me with your kisses, You cheated and you schemed, Heaven knows how you lied to me, You’re not the way you seemed…
His band are tight, and Elvis really lets loose. It’s good, nay great, to hear him really go for it after his half-arsed recent efforts. I think the fact that this disc wasn’t from a bloated film soundtrack helped here. And, if this is the end of Elvis as a chart-humping global icon (he will only have 2 (two!) further UK #1s in his lifetime!) then what a way to go!
But, the piece de resistance in this record has nothing to do with Elvis himself. Step forward Grady Martin with his swooping, twanging solo, possibly the rocking-est solo to appear at the top of the charts thus far. Back when I was a lad, and harboured (very) short-lived dreams about playing the guitar, this was the first solo that I wanted to learn. Now I know that there are better, more accomplished guitar solos out there but still… There’s something about the rawness and looseness of this one, especially coming from way back in 1963.
Then it’s a pause – You’re the devil in disguise – Ba dum dum dum – and in comes the low-voiced man, Ray Walker, who Elvis saves only for his very best songs, to echo his Oh yes you are… And there we have it. The King’s 10th chart-topper in just over two and a half years. Off the top of my head, I wouldn’t have guessed that Elvis and The Beatles crossed paths at the top of the charts, but they did. Here. Just the once. (Actually twice, but that’s a story for another day…) I like to think he had heard those young upstarts, and that’s what’s pushed him to really give it his all on this disc. It’s not perfect – it’s a bit Vegasy and Elvis’s voice is still in crooner-mode – but I love it. And, at the end of the day, that’s all that matters…
Just because – he is Elvis F’ing Presley after – let’s go all Buzzfeed and rank his post-army #1s. In ascending order then, with double ‘A’-sides split apart:
There you have it. Let me know in the comments if you agree or think I’ve lost my faculties. For The King, this is over-and-out for a while. Elvis has not quite left the building, but he’s gone for a long walk. It’ll probably do him some good…
Here’s a record I’d never heard before; and a rockin’ little record it is too. A hidden ‘gem’ (gettit?) of a record. Not to rag on the previous #1, ‘Dance On!’, too much, but this is how you do instrumental rock ‘n’ roll!
Diamonds, by Jet Harris & Tony Meehan (their 1st and only #1s)
3 weeks, from 31st January – 21st February 1963
We start with a cool drum intro, and then a riff straight from the spaghetti-est of spaghetti westerns. Imagine the villain of the piece striding over a sun-baked hill, heat-haze rising around him. He stops and fixes the camera with a thousand-yard stare, spitting his tobacco over the dusty ground…
Then we get horns – Ba! Babababa-Ba! – and it feels as if the sixties, the ‘Swinging Sixties’ ™ are born. It goes from menacing to groovy in 0.5 seconds. First ‘Lovesick Blues’, and now this, have had what I would call a quintessentially ‘sixties’ sound – the sound that will define the next three or four years. And it’s great, the call and response from the brass section, but it’s not the best thing about this record. Because next we get…
A. Drum. Solo. In a number one hit single. I kid you not. What I thought the reserve of eighties hair metal bands and Phil Collins were around as early as 1963! I wish I could somehow describe it; but how on earth can you describe a drum solo? It lasts a good twenty seconds – one-tenth of the whole record! – and is great. That’s my official line on it. ‘Great.’
This whole song sounds familiar. But not. Like The Shadows… But not. It almost sounds as if it’s been recorded by The Shadows alter-egos, as if Hank, Bruce and the boys were moonlighting as darker, less clean-cut, slightly more evil versions of themselves…
Which may be a fitting description, as the two men playing on this record – Jet Harris and Tony Meehan – were (dun dun dun!) ex-Shadows. Harris, who we’ve heard playing bass on all but one Shadows chart-topper, had left the group in 1962 because of his drinking habits. Meehan, he of drum solo fame, had left a few months before that to go into producing. Thus, in the space of a few weeks we’ve had The Shadows supporting Cliff at #1 with ‘The Next Time / Bachelor Boy’, then going it alone with ‘Dance On!’, and now two former band members taking their turn at the top. Utter Shadows domination of the UK charts!
I’m not sure if Harris and Meehan were on good terms with the other band members after their departures, but I do like the image of the pair celebrating their revenge in knocking their former band off the top of the charts. Interestingly (perhaps…) is the fact that Meehan left in October 1961, when ‘Kon-Tiki’ was at #1, and Harris left in April ’62, when ‘Wonderful Land’ was in the middle of its run at the top. Going out on a high, I suppose. The pair never re-joined The Shadows; but did occasionally collaborate during the eighties and nineties. Meehan died in 2005, Harris in 2011.
If we were to make this into a contest – Shadows Vs Ex-Shadows – then the latter win, hands down. ‘Diamonds’ is a clearly superior record to ‘Dance On!’. But… Harris and Meehan’s solo careers were short lived; almost at a one-hit-wonder level. While The Shadows are one of the most successful British groups of all time. ‘Diamonds’, though, stays with you: that riff and those horns running through your head long after the record has stopped.
Two interesting tit-bits before I finish. In 1962, Tony Meehan had the chance to sign The Beatles for Decca Records. He turned them down… And, the rhythm guitar on ‘Diamonds’ was played by one Jimmy Page, in one of his first session musician, pre-Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin gigs. Which is as close as one of the most famous guitarists in the history of rock ‘n’ roll will ever get to a #1 single!
I might have suggested in my last post that Cliff and The Shadows utterly dominating the early months of 1963 would be a bad thing. I feel I spoke in haste; and would like to take it back. Especially when I see that The Shadows only have a handful of #1s left to come. We’ll be missing them soon enough.
Dance On!, by The Shadows (their 10th of twelve #1s)
1 week, from 24th – 31st January 1963
Besides – this is a significant moment in British chart history. Fresh from accompanying Cliff on ‘The Next Time’ and ‘Bachelor Boy’, The Shadows now grab a week at the summit for themselves. Not content with being the first act to replace themselves at #1 – back when ‘Apache’ took over from ‘Please Don’t Tease’ – they’ve only gone and done it again!
And unlike their most recent releases, there’s neither a piano nor any strings in sight. It’s just the guitars, the bass and the drums – four boys having a tight little boogie. It’s unmistakably a Shadows record – you’d know as much when Hank Marvin’s lead guitar comes in on ten seconds. I like the bass here, and the way the main riff is drenched in echo. Plus the false endings, where the guitar crunches back to life like a motorbike revving, are cool.
These things aside, though, it is a bit of a throwaway disc. Nice enough, but you’ve pretty much forgotten how it went five seconds after it ends. It’s The Shadows at their most Russ Conway-ish: a decent melody in search of a purpose. Even the name of the record – ‘Dance On!’ – is pretty basic compared to the ‘Boy’s Own’ adventures conjured up by their earlier #1s: ‘Apache’ and ‘Kon-Tiki’… They sounded as if they wanted to tell a story; this just wants you to shake your hips.
Which, I suppose, is a fundamental aspect of pop music. That’s what it all boils down to at the end of the day: shaking your hips. And you never get the feeling that this record is trying to be anything more than something you can dance (on!) to. Which makes it kind of hard to write about…
There you have it, then. The Shadows follow Elvis in hitting a double-figured amount of chart-topping discs. Hurrah! And, if you thought them replacing themselves at the top for the second time was an impressive act of chart dominance, you’ll never believe who is about to cut short the reign of ‘Dance On!’ at the top …
Now this is how you make an instrumental rock ‘n’ roll record! At the risk of sounding like a complete pleb, this latest chart-topper is ten-times better than its highly-regarded (but pretty dull) predecessor, The Shadows’ ‘Wonderful Land’.
Nut Rocker, by B. Bumble & The Stingers (their 1st and only #1)
1 week, from 17th – 24th May 1962
Imagine a Buzzfeed listicle entitled ‘23 Things You Never Knew You Needed in Your Life, But Totally Do’. Top-spot on that list would surely go to “the march from TheNutcracker done in a rollicking, boogie-woogie-slash-rock ‘n’ roll style”. And as it so happens – that is exactly what ‘Nut Rocker’, by B. Bumble & The Stingers, is!
This is a bizarre, wacky, completely unexpected record. Coming as it does after pretty sedate efforts from Cliff, The Shadows and Elvis, it sounds like a drunken uncle bundling his way onto the dance-floor at a wedding. And I mean that as a good thing. This is a superb record. I might even go as far as saying that it’s life-affirming. This is why humans were put on the planet – to make songs such as this. This needs to swap places with ‘Wonderful Land’ as the record that spent eight weeks atop the charts.
I don’t actually have much to write about the song itself – I tried to take notes, but ended up just smiling and tapping my feet. Plus, it races to an end in under two minutes. But those two minutes include the following: a stupidly dramatic intro, piano riffs, superb drum fills, and a natty little guitar solo. It is undeniably the march from ‘The Nutcracker’, but it’s so much more than just the march from ‘The Nutcracker’. Listen to that here, then listen to ‘Nut Rocker’ through the link below. It’s pretty special, actually, how they’ve stayed true to the original piece of classical music but added everything you need for a rock ‘n’ roll song. It is a novelty, it is silly; but I wouldn’t call it a piss-take. It’s clearly done with love.
For perhaps the first time in this countdown, I can remember exactly where I was when I first heard this song. I was in the passenger seat of my mum’s car, aged fourteen or so, on a Saturday afternoon in May. We were listening to ‘Pick of the Pops’, a radio show that replays the charts from any given year. That week it was the chart from 1962, and we had been guessing who might have been at the top of the charts – Cliff? Elvis? Roy Orbison? It was a bit too early for The Beatles… When B. Bumble & The Stingers were announced as the #1 we… well, we burst out laughing. In a good way. It’s that kind of record.
The Stingers were very much a flash-in-the-pan kind of act. They had had success with a version of ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ before ‘Nut Rocker’, and they followed their sole chart-topper up with a version of the William Tell Overture ,‘Apple Knocker’, and ‘Dawn Cracker’ – based on Greig’s ‘Morning Mood’ (they had clearly found their niche). All were done in the same boogie-woogie style, but having had a listen I can confirm that none come close to the genius of this track. ‘Nut Rocker’ really was a case of capturing lightning.
Just in case you somehow remain unconvinced about how good, yet slightly mental, this record is, here are a couple of things to chew on before we finish. One – this song was almost banned by the BBC, as they had a policy of not playing records which parodied classical music. How dare these teddy boy upstarts lampoon proper music! (In the end they let it pass, as even the stuffed-suits in Broadcasting House saw ‘Nut Rocker’ for the heartfelt homage that it clearly was.) Two – and if this doesn’t convince then you are beyond redemption – it means that Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky has a writing-credit on one of the silliest chart-topping records in history. Roll over Beethoven, indeed…
This week marks the 1st anniversary of The UK Number 1s Blog (** Trumpet Fanfare**)! In the past year we’ve covered the period from Nov. ’52 to Nov’ 61, with 129 chart-topping songs featured. We’ve survived pre-rock, rode the rock ‘n’ roll revolution, and are now well on our way towards the swinging sixties… Thanks to everyone who has read, followed, commented and enjoyed.
To celebrate this milestone, I’m going to take a short break from the usual countdown to repost seven songs that I have really enjoyed discovering over the past year. These aren’t necessarily the best songs to have topped the charts – there’ll be no Buddy Holly, Johnnie Ray, Connie Francis, Elvis or The Everly Brothers (follow the links if you want to read about them) – as I’ve been listening to, and loving, those artists for years. This week will be all about the forgotten gems, the hits I’d never heard before, the songs that have slipped through the cracks…
My penultimate choice is one that pays homage to my homeland – Bonnie Escocia. It’s a song that, at the time of writing, I suggested should become our new national anthem. With the advantage of hindsight… I still think that’s a great idea. This is a record that sounds like it was recorded on a cocktail of Irn-Bru, soor-plooms, the Best Of ‘Oor Wullie’ and just a splash of Buckfast Tonic Wine. It’s a wild and zany chart-topper, that makes no sense and yet complete sense. One more time then… Och Aye!
And so on we roll towards the United Kingdom’s seventy-seventh chart topping single. And it’s a song that I’ve never… No, wait… Ah! I know this… We all know this…
Hoots Mon, by Lord Rockingham’s XI (their 1st and only #1)
3 weeks, from 28th November – 19th December 1958
Dooooo-doo-doo-do-do… Dooooo-doo-doo-do-do… It’s an intro that smacks of slightly misplaced grandeur, like an aged diva swishing onto the stage before slipping on a banana. We know what follows is going to be absurd. And, oh boy, it is…
Na-nana-na-nana, Na-nana-na-nana, Nana-nanananana… Na-nana-na-nana, Na-nana-na-nana, Nananananananana… Apologies for my woeful attempts to render this riff using the medium of ‘na’s. The minute this starts playing you will know it.
It’s an instrumental, and it’s been a while since we featured an instrumental. I make Winny Atwell’s ‘The Poor People of Paris’ our most recent lyric-less number one, and that was two and a half years back. And it is undeniably catchy. It bores its way in on the first listen and will, I’m sorry, remain for days. And days. And days. There are key-changes, oh yes! And the bass! One of my main complaints about the rock ‘n’ roll numbers we’ve heard so far is that, while there have been some undeniable classics – your ‘Great Balls of Fire’s, your ‘That’ll Be the Day’s and your ‘Rock Around the Clock’s – they’ve all sounded a bit light to modern ears. Listen to this, though, especially through headphones. It fills your ears, in a way that makes it sound like a modern record. Every instrument – the throbbing bass, the slapdash drums, the natty organs – are, if you’ll forgive the cliché, turned up to eleven. And a half.
Actually, I called this an instrumental; but it’s not quite. There are a few words, shouted out above the clatter, foremost among them being: There’s a moose loose aboot this hoose… and It’s a braw, bricht, moonlicht nicht… Then there are the Och Ayes! thrown in towards the end and the big Hoots Mon! upon which the record ends. Yes, this is, as they say in theatre circles, The Scottish Number One. All we’re missing is a ‘Help ma Boab!’
The ringleader of Lord Rockingham’s XI was a man named Harry Robinson, a Scot if ever there was one. But, being from Scotland myself, I’m not sure how I feel about this record, and the manner in which it reduces the culture, language and heritage of my homeland to a handful of trite, drunken catchphrases…
Actually, screw it. It’s as catchy as crabs and a hell of a lot more fun than some of the more ‘official’ Scottish songs – ‘500 miles’ (Jings!), ‘Scotland The Brave’ (Crivvens!), ‘Caledonia’ (Shudder… and boak!) In fact, I think that this song I hadn’t ever properly listened to until twenty minutes ago should become our new national anthem, in place of the dirge that is ‘Flower of Scotland’. And when I fulfil my manifest destiny in replacing wee Nicky Sturgeon as First Minister, that’ll be the first act I sign into law.
Anyway, file this record under ‘complete and utter novelty’. It’s no coincidence that it hit the top spot in the weeks leading up to Christmas and New Year. Lord Rockingham’s XI wouldn’t go on to much more success and so for the first time, I think, we have two (semi) one-hit wonders replacing one another at the top of the charts. File this also under ‘British Rock ‘n’ Roll’. It’s something that I’ve long been noting – the gradual handing over of the rock ‘n’ roll baton from the US to the UK – and with this anarchic British track following soppy efforts from The Everly Brothers and The Kalin Twins the transition may be complete.
I’ll finish by reminiscing on how this song stirred in me a long-discarded, foggy memory of a commercial for something or other, way back in the late eighties or early nineties… I knew I knew this song, but I didn’t know how I knew it – if you catch my drift. I suppose whatever it was will be forever lost in the mists of time… Actually, no it won’t. The advert was for Maynard’s Wine Gums, back in 1993. Thanks, internet.
Just when you were thinking that we hadn’t heard from him in a while, along comes Elvis with his 4th (fourth!) number one single of the year. I’m not sure when he was first christened ‘The King’, but this is definitely the period in which his reputation as the biggest-star-that-ever-was-and-ever-will-be was confirmed. I recently stuck him up as the header image on this blog’s homepage because, well, he was the UK singles chart between 1960-62.
Little Sister / (Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame, by Elvis Presley (his 9th of twenty-one #1s)
4 weeks, from 9th November – 7th December 1961
And while a large contributor towards the making of said reputation is the fact that he could release any old shit and watch it soar to the top of the charts (*cough* ‘Wooden Heart’ *cough cough*), this is not such an occasion. Elvis’s 9th #1 is a record worthy of note.
First, though, some housekeeping. To me, ‘His Latest Flame’ is the more famous of these two songs – the ‘main’ side of this particular double ‘A’. It featured on my first ever Elvis Greatest Hits whereas ‘Little Sister’ didn’t. But the Official Charts company lists the latter first, and on the record sleeves of the time ‘Little Sister’ is presented as the main event. Let’s tackle that one first, then, shall we…
It’s not a song that I know at all well, and the first thing that strikes me after pressing play is that they’ve nicked the riff from ‘Shakin’ All Over’. Lil’ sister don’t you… (Diddle-iddle-iddle-iddle-din…) Lil’ sister don’t you… (Diddle-iddle-iddle-iddle-din…) Fair enough, really – it is a peach of a riff. The scuzzy bass is really cool here too. And appropriate, cos this is a scuzzy little song. Elvis, it seems, is chasing two sisters…
Lil’ sister don’t you kiss me once or twice, Then say it’s very nice, And then you run… It’s a ‘dangerous woman’ type of song – the same kind of lyrics we’ve seen crop up recently in ‘Please Don’t Tease’ and ‘Temptation’. But the plot thickens. Lil’ sister don’t you do what your big sister done… Oh Elvis, you dirty, dirty dog.
Big sister, it turns out, ran off with one Jim Dandy while El was buying candy (seriously) at the county show. She’s mean and she’s evil, Like that lil’ ol’ Bo Weevil, Guess I’ll try my luck with you… I mean, yeah. It is 1961, after all. It’s tongue -in-cheek, it’s forgivable.
At least, it’s forgivable until the final verse. That’s where things get creepy, and we begin to wonder at the age-gap between the sisters… Well I used to pull your pig-tails, And pinch your turned up nose, But you’ve been a-growin’, And baby it’s been showin’, From your head down to your toes… And you can tell by the way Elvis lingers over that last line he ain’t just talking about her height.
Still, dubious verses aside, it’s nice to hear Elvis rocking again after all the ballads and the operatics and the lederhosen that have plagued him since his post-army comeback. And – heavens be praised – he keeps it up on the flip side of the disc with a riff that’s even more recognisable.
Dun-da-dun-da-dun…dun-dun, Dun-da-dun-da-dun…dun-dun… The Bo Diddley riff. Used most famously by Bo Diddley, obviously, but also on rock ‘n’ roll standard ‘Not Fade Away’, and now this. The riff follows us, steady and unchanging, as Elvis unfurls his tale of heartache. A very old friend, Came by today, Cause he was tellin’ everyone in town, Of the love that he’d just found, And Marie’s the name, Of his latest flame… His friend talks and talks of his new found love, of her beautiful eyes and long dark hair – Elvis has to just suck it up and smile. It’s a familiar theme given a nice twist. In hearing of his betrayal second-hand, from ‘a very old friend,’ the sense of heartbreak is heightened.
It peaks in the bridge – the only part of the song that breaks from the Bo Diddley riff: Though I smiled the tears inside were a-burnin’, I wished him luck and then he said goodbye, He was gone but still his words kept returnin’, What else was there for me to do but cry…? You can hear the suppressed heartache in Elvis’s voice. It’s not a song that requires much effort, not his most technically challenging vocal performance; but he sells it. The King sells whatever he’s singing. He could sing the phonebook and sell it.
This is my favourite post-army Elvis #1 so far, on a par with his fifties chart-toppers ‘One Night’ and ‘All Shook Up’. I’m in good company on this, too – ‘(Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame’ is a favourite of punk and alternative bands who want to ‘do Elvis’. Even The Smiths (not a band I’ve ever been able to love, but still) covered it in the eighties, with Morrissey claiming it to be his favourite Elvis song, period.
I started this post by mentioning that fact that this was Presley’s fourth chart-topper of 1961. Take a moment to appreciate this, because it’s is an extremely rare feat – four #1s in a calendar year. Cliff never managed it, The Beatles never managed it. The only other act to ever manage it are… (***spoiler alert***)… Westlife. Yep. In 1999. If you extend the idea of a ‘calendar year’ to being any twelve-month period, rather than insisting on January-December, then you can include The Spice Girls in 1996-97 and B*Witched in 1998-99. But… if you do that then you have to mention the fact that Westlife actually managed FIVE chart-toppers between April 1999 and April 2000.
But, without wanting to go all snobby and belittling of the achievements of these nineties popsters, the charts of the late-nineties were a completely different landscape to those of the early sixties: much faster moving, with a much higher turnover of #1s. Westlife’s five chart-toppers spent a total of nine weeks in the top spot. Elvis’s 1961 chart-toppers amounted to a grand total of eighteen weeks.
Plus… If we’re applying the Westlife-rule to Elvis we have to take into account the fact that ‘It’s Now or Never’ hit #1 in November 1960, exactly one year before ‘Little Sister’ / ‘His Latest Flame’. So, five number ones and a whopping twenty-six weeks at the top… Elvis wins! Hurrah! And just to prove he’s The King, the GOAT in the UK Singles Charts – like Lio Messi bending yet another free-kick into the top corner or Roger Federer lifting his umpteenth Wimbledon title – he’ll do it all over again in 1962.
As we continue our slow meander along the highways and bye-ways of 1961 –it does feel that this year is taking a little longer to get through than previous ones – it’s time for a little interlude.
Kon-Tiki, by The Shadows (their 6th of twelve #1s)
1 week, from 5th – 12th October 1961
Picture, if you possibly can, the year 1961 as a TV variety show. On the bill are some huge, established stars – Elvis, the Everlys, Shirley Bassey – along with some new up and coming teen sensations – Johnny Tillotson, Helen Shapiro – and some quirky little gems – Floyd Cramer and The Temperance Seven. Maybe Cliff – who won’t actually be hitting #1 this year – can be the MC. OK? Well, to this weird mental image you can add the house band, the ones that pop up and play as the curtains drop and the scenery gets shifted. They are, of course, The Shadows.
‘Kon-Tiki’ is another instrumental. A lilting little slice of surf-rock. It’s got cool drum-fills, a nice crunchy, tinny edge to the guitars and a hint of reverb around the main riff. There’s a couple of call and response bits between the lead and the bass, and the ending has some gnarly (did they say ‘gnarly’ in the early sixties?) echo. It’s a decent enough record – I’m not sure that the Shadows made many poor ‘solo’ records – but when it ends less than two minutes in you’re left wondering… Is that it?
It’s far from being one of their bigger hits (I wasn’t particularly familiar with it before starting this post) and it kind of feels like filler. Something thrown together as the guys were jamming. A ‘B’-side, maybe? But hey, what do I know. It was a UK number one single; only the band’s second solo chart-topper.
The Kon-Tiki was actually a raft used in a 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean by the Norwegian explorer, Thor Heyerdahl. ‘Kon-Tiki’ was chosen as it was an old name for the Incan sun-god. What all this had to do in inspiring the writing of this perky guitar instrumental is, to be honest, unknown. My best guess is that it sounds kinda tropical, kinda surfy, and could work well as the soundtrack to a sunset luau on the beaches of Hawaii. Compared to ‘Apache’, which really did conjure up images of Indian braves galloping across the plains, ‘Kon-Tiki’ is a little more abstract.
Maybe that’s fine, though. It’s a nice enough tune, a pleasant one-week interlude on our journey through 1961. It reminds us that The Shadows are still around, are still the biggest British band of the time. Maybe it needs no further meaning than that.
As I mentioned at the start of this post, it does feel like we’ve been lingering in 1961 for quite a while now. In actual fact, with twenty-one number one singles, 1961 has by far the most chart-toppers of any year yet covered. But that’s OK. It’s proving a nice place to be. Jazz, rock, showtunes, instrumentals… all genres are welcome here. And, if you thought it’s been eclectic recently; just wait till you hear what’s up next!
We kick of the next thirty chart-toppers – and a whole New Year! – with the duo that claimed Best Disc from the previous thirty. Since ‘Cathy’s Clown’ the Everly Brothers have really hit their stride in moving away from their country roots, creating a signature sound that blends their gorgeous melodies with meaty drums and beefy, rock ‘n’ roll guitars. ‘Temptation’ is the latest glorious manifestation of this…
Temptation, by The Everly Brothers (their 4th and final #1)
2 weeks, from 20th July – 3rd August 1961
We start with perhaps one of the most instant intros we’ve heard yet. Frantic drums, guitar licks, yelps from the brothers, and a dirty little bass riff. Yeah Yeah Yeah Ah! You’re hooked from the off. You came, I was alo-one, I should have known, You were temptation… Cast your mind back to the cutesy mooning of ‘All I Have to Do Is Dream’ and then listen to this. Don and Phil have truly grown-up!
Then the best bit of the whole song. They pull the same trick as on ‘Cathy’s Clown’ – after a calm, measured first verse they whip it up a notch or five… It would be… Thrilling! If you were willing…But if it can never be, Then pi-i-i-ty me… They way those lines are sung. That is temptation. It makes me want to kiss my fingers like a chef who has just tasted the perfect Béchamel sauce.
This is a song that was hidden away in the middle of the brothers’ Greatest Hits that I bought in my teens. A song that I’ve always liked but kind of allowed to pass me by whenever it popped up in a playlist. Getting the chance to properly listen to ‘Temptation’ – their fourth and (shock, horror!) final UK #1 – has allowed me to realise just how good it is. Just how good they were. This a full-on rock song: a heavy riff, banging drums and fevered lyrics about a siren leading Don and Phil astray, with the brothers going fairly willingly to their doom.
By the end, they are leaving the singing to their backing vocalists, who are possibly the most old-fashioned aspect of this record. I’m yours, Here is my heart, Take it and say, ‘We’ll never part…’ Shrill voices that we last heard on Eddie Fisher’s prehistoric early number ones. Then we end with the brothers singing about being slaves, before fading out with more frenzied, delirious Yeah Yeah Yeah Ah!s It really does sound like they are being driven mad with temptation. It really is a brilliant disc.
I was shocked – shocked I say – to discover just two minutes ago that this is yet another #1 to have been written decades earlier. ‘Temptation’ sounds so modern, so daring, that I can’t imagine it having been written in 1933 and first recorded by Bing Crosby. But it was. You can listen to the original here – it’s very Arabian Nights, and not without its charms – but it’s a wonderful illustration of how much popular music has changed since the arrival of rock ‘n’ roll.
With that, then, the Everly Brothers take their leave. It seems criminal that they didn’t have at least another couple of chart-toppers… ‘Wake Up Little Susie’? ‘(Till) I Kissed You’? ‘When Will I Be Loved’? All worthy of a shot at the top. In a way, ‘Temptation’ may have hastened their descent from the top. Their manager was opposed to the song’s release, as he didn’t stand to make any money from such an old song’s publishing rights. When the brothers forced the single’s release through, he barred them from working with the songwriters who had helped to create pretty much every one of their hits thus far. So despite, or perhaps because of, the brilliance of ‘Temptation’, the Everly Brothers will only have a couple more British Top 10s following this, and will be a spent-force by the time Merseybeat rolls around. Except. Pretty much every star with a guitar from the sixties and beyond – The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, The Bee Gees, The Hollies and many, many more – will owe Don and Phil a huge debt.
We’ll leave them here, then. Picture them with their guitars slung over their shoulders, harmonising as they stroll into the sunset… (until they have a huge argument and refuse to work together for most of the 1970s… but hey, let’s not spoil the nice image.)
