Charts

487. Dave Stewart With Barbara Gaskin – It’s My Party (1981)

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The Intro

Look for this song anywhere online and the first thing you’ll read is ‘No, not that Dave Stewart’. Nonetheless this Dave Stewart, with Barbara Haskin’s version of the 60s teen classic It’s My Party by Lesley Gore is an interesting curio in the history of number 1s.

Before

It’s My Party had been written in 1962. The original was penned by John Gluck, Wally Gold and Herb Weiner, who were staff writers at Aaron Schroeder Music. However, the lyrics actually came from Seymour Gottlieb, a freelance songwriter, who had worked with Weiner (oo-er). He had been inspired by his daughter Judy’s tears over her grandparents being invited to her 16th birthday party.

The writers took the song to Barbara Jean English, the receptionist at their firm, who cut the demo version. However, Musicor, the label owned by Schroeder, wasn’t interested.

It could have, potentially, become Helen Shapiro’s third number 1 single. The young British star, who had scored two chart-toppers with You Don’t Know and Walkin’ Back to Happiness in 1961, recorded a version for her Helen in Nashville LP in 1963. Unfortunately for her, she was beaten to the punch by 16-year-old US singer Gore. Her version, produced by the legendary Quincy Jones, was huge and is rightly remembered as a pop great from the early 60s, becoming number 1 in many countries – but, surprisingly, not in the UK, where it peaked at nine.

Stewart, who was born in Waterloo, London on 30 December 1950, would have been 12 at the time. He was still at school when he joined his first band. The Outsiders were a local covers band. From there, he joined Uriel as their organist at the age of 17, a group that also featured future progressive rock icon Steve Hillage. When university called for Hillage, Uriel continued as a trio, renamed as Egg. They recorded two albums for Decca, and stayed on good terms with Hillage, who briefly rejoined them in 1969 to record together under the name Arzachel.

Egg broke up (hahaha) in 1973, and Stewart joined upcoming Canterbury progressive rock band Hatfield and the North. When they split two years later, Stewart briefly joined Hillage’s Gong before forming National Health, which largely consisted of former Hatfield and the North bandmates. When National Health disbanded in 1980, Stewart quickly formed Rapid Eye Movement (not to be confused with the far better known and longer-lasting REM in the US).

In 1981, Stewart moved in a different direction, becoming interested in new, electronically led versions of classic pop tunes. The first of these was a cover of Jimmy Ruffin’s Motown classic What Becomes of the Brokenhearted, featuring vocals by former member of The Zombies, Colin Blunstone. Stewart had clearly hit upon a good idea, but I’d bet even he didn’t think his next single would make it all the way to number 1. This time around, he enlisted Gaskin, who had provided backing vocals in Hatfield and the North.

Gaskin, born 5 June 1950, was actually born in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. In 1969 she moved to Canterbury to study at university, but quickly fell into the Canterbury scene, becoming the singer in folk-rock group Spirogyra. She met Hillage, who was also a Kent University student, as well as the band Caravan and Stewart. Through this friendship she sang backing vocals occasionally for Hatfield and the North, but when Spirogyra split up, Gaskin left England to travel around Asia.

Upon her return almost three years later, Gaskin was invited to join the all-female group Red Roll On. Soon, she became reacquainted with Stewart and after working together on an album by Bill Bruford, they collaborated on It’s My Party.

Review

Stewart and Gaskin’s prog background is very much apparent on this single, in spite of it sounding like a New Romantic track due to the use of then-futuristic early 80s synths. It’s like a mini-symphony, in which Stewart initially makes his bank of keyboards mirror Gaskin’s trauma over her missing Johnny (stop sniggering), with lots of seemingly random drum machines sounding out.

Gaskin’s vocal is, to be honest, pretty irritating, particularly the way she wines ‘you!’ at the end of each line. She reminds me a little of Toyah, here, which might explain why this single did so well – Toyah was huge at this point, thanks to singles such as It’s a Mystery. Her stuff sounded great to me as a boy, and so did this record. Not so much as a middle-aged music snob… There’s an element of high-camp irony to It’s My Party, sure, but the spoken-word section is annoyingly over-the-top, and I don’t really understand how it then switches to a finale that sounds the most like the Gore version, all bubblegum pop and kitsch jollity.

It’s certainly not your average cover, but perhaps the end section appealed to parents and grandparents who loved the original, whereas the kids liked the modern sounds and incredibly of-its-time video? An interesting chart-topper, certainly – and for four weeks, to boot. But a bit of an annoying mess, too. I’d imagine the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart would have come up with a more commercial-sounding version, and Annie Lennox could have done a very good job with the vocal.

I have more time for the video than the song itself, I know that. But I’ve no idea why there are two kendo fighters battling, other than the Japanese martial art was popular at the time. And why is Stewart wearing – what is it, a face protector used by boxers? And I definitely don’t know why his face is replaced by neon light at the end, but it reminds me of the spooky kids with lights shining from where their eyes should be in the video to Bonnie Tyler’s 1983 chart-topper Total Eclipse of the Heart – and I like it. There’s lots of very 80s angular-faced mannequins scattered around the party, and yes, that’s Thomas Dolby playing Johnny.

The sleeve of the single used to mesmerise me as a child, I recall, with Gaskin wearing stupendously long nails and Stewart brandishing a sword.

After

Further Dave Stewart With Barbara Gaskin singles followed this UK and Germany number 1. They recorded an album’s worth of material but chose to release two tracks a year for the next three years. But nothing, including covers of Busy Doing Nothing in 1983 and The Locomotion three years later, managed to chart, let alone get in the top 10.

Stewart reformed National Health in 1981, and used his hippy days as inspiration for Neil’s Heavy Concept Album in 1984. The ‘Neil’ in question was Nigel Planer’s character in The Young Ones, and the LP featured his brilliant cover of Traffic’s Hole in My Shoe, which missed out on number 1 by one place. He had also composed the theme tune to BBC Two’s revamped Whistle Test in 1983. In the 1990s, he worked with cult TV critic Victor Lewis-Smith, creating the music for his two series Inside Victor Lewis-Smith (1995) and Ads Infinitum (1999).

The Outro

Gaskin continued to work with Stewart on albums and gigs sporadically through the years and in 2021, 40 years after It’s My Party, they married.

The Info

Written by

Herb Wiener, John Gluck Jr & Wally Gold

Producer

Dave Stewart

Weeks at number 1

4 (17 October-13 November)

Trivia

Births

25 October: Footballer Shaun Wright-Phillips
31 October: Physician Kate Granger
7 November: Footballer George Pilkington
13 November: Racing driver Tom Ferrier

Deaths

19 October: Footballer Johnny Doyle
22 October: Conservative MP David Cecil, 6th Marquess of Exeter
24 October: Archer Inger K Frith
27 October: Army major-general Sir Randle Feilden
30 October: Writer Denys Rhodes
5 November: Cricketer Sir Harold Vincent
6 November: Physician Douglas Vernon Hubble/First World War nurse Beryl Hutchinson
8 November: Jockey Tim Brookshaw/Conservative MP Lionel Heald

Meanwhile…

19 October: British Telecom announces the discontinuation of the telegram in 1982, after 139 years in use.
Also on this day, Scottish Celtic footballer Johnny Doyle is accidentally electrocuted while building his new home.

22 October: The case of Dudgeon vs United Kingdom is decided by the European Court of Human Rights, which rules that laws in Northern Ireland that criminalise consensual gay sex are in contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights. Ooo, those pesky woke Europeans.

23 October: A MORI poll puts the Liberal-SDP Alliance on 40%, ahead of Labour on 31% and the Conservatives on 27%.

24 October: A CND anti-nuclear march in London brings together more than 250,000 people.

29 October: A patient dies of pneumocystis pneumonia in London, making him the first patient to die in of an AIDS-related illness in the UK. In 2021, ITN identified patient zero as John Eaddie of Bournemouth.

30 November: Nicholas Reed, the chief of euthanasia charity Exit, is jailed for two-and-a-half years for aiding and abetting suicides.

1 November: The island Antigua and Barbuda becomes independent of the UK.
Also on this day, British Leyland’s workers begin a strike over pay.

13 November: Queen Elizabeth II opens the final phase of the Telford Shopping Centre.

486. Adam and the Ants – Prince Charming (1981)

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The Intro

1981 was the year of Adam and the Ants. No sooner had Ant and co. hit the top spot with Stand and Deliver! than they were at number 1 again with another early 80s classic.

Before

Following the success of Stand and Deliver!, Adam and the Ants spent most of the summer in continental Europe on tour. Upon their return they headed to London’s Air studios to record what became their last album.

Prince Charming, which became the title track, was an unusual sound for a number 1. Gone were the Burundi beat stylings of previous LP Kings of the Wild Frontier, and even the pop of Stand and Deliver!. Although Prince Charming is imperial Antmusic, it’s fair to say that, had this song been released by a total unknown, it wouldn’t have had the impact it did. Weirdly, it kind of already had been.

In 2010, Rolf Harris, still a national treasure at that point, claimed on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Danny Baker Show that a musicologist had found Prince Charming to sound identical to War Canoe, a 1965 release by Harris. You only have to hear 10 seconds of this (which is 10 seconds more than Harris deserves) to hear that they are indeed exactly the same.

However, Ant never denied it, and in fact showed Harris to be the devious bastard that he proved to be, when he noted that he owned a large collection of ethnic recordings, and War Canoe was in fact an old Maori folk song. Harris subsequently withdrew his complaint ‘with a bit of a giggle’. The prick.

Review

At least Ant and co-writer/guitarist Marco Pirroni made it interesting, adding the trademark Ant wailing alongside the guitar. Ant’s lyrics covered similar ground to Stand and Deliver!. That song concerned a dandy highwayman, whereas Prince Charming was lyrically inspired by Beau Brummel, the 18th-century dandy fashion leader, as well as the extravagance of men during the French Revolution. This tied in perfectly with the emerging New Romantic scene that Ant found himself in.

Much like David Bowie and Marc Bolan had encouraged men to not be afraid to wear make-up and experiment nearly 10 years previous, Ant made himself the voice of his generation, extolling the virtues of being flamboyant in 1981 – ‘Don’t you ever, don’t you ever, stop being dandy, showing me you’re handsome’ and the classic line ‘Ridicule is nothing to be scared of’.

Musically, yes, Prince Charming is far less adventurous than previous material, never changing from that War Canoe strum. But it is a true earworm that buries its way into the consciousness, and with Adam and the Ants, it’s more a case of taking note of the whole multimedia package, which means factoring in the video.

This Cinderella spoof is the strongest element of Prince Charming. Ant portrays the male version of Cinders, left at home while his drag queen evil stepsisters get to go to the ball and ‘dance the Prince Charming’. In one of her final roles, Diana Dors (Ant had personally appealed to her to take part) appears as Ant’s Fairy Godmother and dances iconically with five topless men. Ant becomes a Regency era dandy, goes to the ball and gets to do the dance himself, which went down in history as an essential element of this song. You simply cannot hear Prince Charming without picturing the dance, which is barely even a dance. The video ends with Ant in various guises, including Clint Eastwood, Alice Cooper and Marlon Brando, which he pulls off surprisingly well.

Prince Charming is perhaps Ant’s definitive statement on being a pop star, a love letter to his fans and the high watermark of his band’s popularity, and still sounds great today. But if I’ve spoiled it for anyone by linking it to Harris, I apologise.

After

In November, a few weeks after the single had began to slip down the charts, came the parent album, which surprisingly failed to hit number 1. Despite that, Adam and the Ants were one of the UK’s biggest-selling acts of 1981. In early 1982, Ant Rap peaked at number three. It was to be their final new release, as in March 1982, Ant disbanded his group. Pirroni, who was tired of touring, continued to work with Ant in a songwriting capacity. Bassist Gary Tibbs and drummer Chris ‘Merrick’ Hughes formed a short-lived duo.

The Outro

When Ant shot to number 1 as a solo star with the excellent Goody Two Shoes, it seemed to be a wise move. He was, after all, the star. However, his popularity began to wane soon after.

The Info

Written by

Adam Ant & Marco Pirroni

Producer

Chris Hughes

Weeks at number 1

4 (19 September-17 October)

Trivia

Births

21 September: Singer-songwriter Sarah Whatmore
23 September: Field hockey defender Helen Richardson
29 September: Hear’Say singer Suzanne Shaw
1 October: Journalist Deborah James
9 October: Actor Rupert Friend/Labour MP Jess Phillips
10 October: Journalist Stinson Hunter
13 October: Footballer Ryan Ashford/Bloc Party singer Kele Okereke

Deaths

19 September: Writer Ruth Tongue
21 September: Actor Nigel Patrick
23 September: Disc jockey Sam Costa 
24 September: Actor John Ruddock
27 September: Physician Sir Stanley Davidson
28 September: Conservative MP Edward Boyle, Baron Boyle of Handsworth
29 September: Historian Frances Yates/Football manager Bill Shankly (see ‘Meanwhile…‘)
30 September: Welsh rugby union player Roy John/Conductor Boyd Neel
1 October: Conservative MP Sir Graham Page
8 October: Labour MP Arthur Allen
12 October: Political analyst Robert McKenzie

Meanwhile…

21 September: Belize was granted independence.  

25 September: Ford announced it was to discontinue the Cortina model, which would be replaced by the Sierra.

29 September: Liverpool mourned former football manager Bill Shankly after he died of a heart attack, aged 68.

1 October: 24-year-old Bryan Robson became Britain’s most expensive footballer when he moved from West Bromwich Albion to Manchester United for £1.5 million.

3 October: The hunger strikes at Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison came to an end after six months.

10 October: The Provisional IRA bombed the Chelsea Barracks, killing two people.

12 October: Granada Television’s Brideshead Revisited began transmission on ITV.

13 October: Opinion polls revealed Margaret Thatcher was still unpopular as Prime Minster, largely due to her anti-inflationary economic measures.

15 October: Norman Tebbit’s famous speech in which he told fellow Conservative MPs, how his father didn’t riot when he was unemployed during the 30s. ‘He got on his bike and looked for work’ etc. Whoop-de-do, Norman.

Every UK Number 1: The 50s – Out Now on Kindle!

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Today sees the release of my first book! Every UK Number 1: The 50s is available on Amazon’s Kindle Store at £3.99 here. Members of Kindle Unlimited are able to read for free via their monthly subscriptions. If you’re into vintage music, pop culture and social history, it would make for great lockdown reading. Hope you enjoy!

The UK singles chart is the soundtrack to our lives and a barometer of the nation’s mood and tastes. And ever since 1952, the battle for the number one spot has had us all talking as well as dancing. 

In this fascinating spin-off from everyuknumber1.com, as seen in the Daily Mirror, music journalist Rob Barker comprehensively reviews all the best-sellers of the Fifties, delving into the wild lives of the artists and the real stories and secrets behind the hits. He also counts down the influential events that shaped them, as we moved from rations to never having it so good.

Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Cliff Richard were among those who transformed the lives of young people throughout Britain, and taught a country battered by war how to have fun again. 

Find out which chart topper was written by an illiterate rapist who formed his own prison band. Learn about the strange early days of the charts, which led to the number one spot being held by two acts at the same time, with different versions of the same banned song. Who was the first woman to top the charts? And which hitmaker lives on as Cockney rhyming slang? 

Every UK Number 1: The 50s has all the answers on the decade in which pop took its first steps, before rock’n’roll shouldered in and left the baby boomers all shook up. 

292. Matthews Southern Comfort – Woodstock (1970)

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The Intro

Matthews Southern Comfort, led by former Fairport Convention singer Ian Matthews, had a surprise number 1 with this beautiful cover of Joni Mitchell’s epitaph to the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival 1969, which also seemed to mourn the end of the optimism of the hippy movement, and touched a nerve following the recent death of the festival’s headliner Jimi Hendrix. Of the three famous versions out there, this is the best.

Before

Mitchell hadn’t actually attended or performed at the Woodstock festival as her manager had told her to appear on The Dick Cavett Show instead. She was in a relationship with Graham Nash at the time, though and he was there performing as part of his new supergroup with David Crosby and Stephen Stills. Watching the events unfold on TV from her hotel room had a profound effect on the singer-songwriter, and she put pen to paper.

Woodstock turned Max Yasgur’s farm that hosted the festival into the garden of Eden, and the journey to the site became a spiritual journey that would lead to enlightenment. Mitchell imagines meeting a child of God on their way to the site, starts to feel like she can be a part of a movement, and before you know it there are half a million likeminded souls.

She began performing her new song only a month after Woodstock, at the Big Sur Music Festival. Her recorded version found its way on to her third album Ladies of the Canyon in March 1970. It’s a sparse, low-key arrangement, performed on an electric piano. Sadly, it’s somewhat spoilt by her annoying double-tracked backing vocals.

Around the same time, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (for Neil Young had joined the fray) released their version on the album Déjà Vu. They had recorded a version with Jimi Hendrix while working on the song, released on the outtakes album Both Sides of the Sky (2018). I’m a huge fan of CSNY, but find their version of Woodstock somewhat of a misfire. They ditch the haunting melancholy of the original and turn it into a rather bog-standard rock anthem. An alternate take was used to close Michael Wadleigh’s Woodstock documentary (1970). Which brings us to Matthews Southern Comfort. But who were they?

Ian Matthews MacDonald was born 16 June 1946 in Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire. When he was 12 the MacDonalds moved to Scunthorpe, close to where I live. He left school at 16 and worked as an apprentice signwriter, and by the mid-60s he was performing in local bands. MacDonald moved to London in 1965 and formed surf music trio The Pyramid.

In the winter of 1967 he was recruited to sing for the then-new rock band Fairport Convention, and was among the line-up to record their eponymous debut (1968) and follow-up What We Did On Our Holidays in 1969. Sometime between the two, MacDonald changed his name to Ian Matthews (his mother’s maiden name), to avoid confusion with Ian MacDonald of King Crimson.

However, the second LP by the band saw them moving toward the traditional folk for which they would become so influential, and Matthews departed during the making of Halfbricking in 1969.

He quickly began work on his debut solo album, Matthews’ Southern Comfort, featuring more of the US country sound he performed. The line-up featured former Fairport colleagues like Richard Thompson, and included his own material as well as covers. Matthews put together a touring band, called Matthews Southern Comfort (minus the apostrophe), featuring lead guitarist Mark Griffiths and Gordon Huntley on pedal steel guitar from the album, plus new members Carl Barnwell on guitar, bassist Andy Leigh and Ray Duffy on drums.

Matthews Southern Comfort released their debut LP Second Spring in July 1970, and the world shrugged. However, a month prior to that they had recorded a set for BBC Radio 1’s Live in Concert. They needed one final song, and Matthews had recently bought Mitchell’s Ladies of the Canyon. The band kept their version of Woodstock faithful to the original, and it went down so well, the BBC contacted their label about it. Uni Records suggested it was recorded and added to their next album, Later That Same Year. Matthews refused, but said it could become a single. However, while recording the new version, the arrangement was radically altered, in part to suit Matthews’ voice.

Review

Apparently Mitchell later told Matthews this was her favourite version of Woodstock, and I agree completely. This recording is sublime. Matthews Southern Comfort perfectly capture the sadness of the end of an era, the feeling that the counterculture didn’t pull it off. That we never did get ‘back to the garden’. Of special note is Huntley’s steel guitar, giving the song a sense of yearning for what could have been, the circular guitar sounds (mixed down in the single version) and Matthews’ tender voice and the lovely harmonies. This version is what Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s should have sounded like.

MCA Records, the parent company of Matthews Southern Comfort’s record label, only agreed to release Woodstock if CSNY’s version tanked, which it did. But they refused to spend money on promotion upon its release in July. Luckily for Matthews and co, they had a fan in BBC DJ Tony Blackburn, who made it Record of the Week on his Radio 1 breakfast show. Here’s a great example of how long it could take a single to climb the charts back in the day. Three months to make it to number 1!

Top of the Pops would show a lovely promo film during Woodstock‘s weeks at number 1, with a beautiful hippy girl wandering around the streets and looking at posters of the Woodstock film. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s pretty fitting.

Were the band pleased to be chart-toppers? Not really, it turned out. Matthews didn’t like the extra demands on his time being a pop star entailed, and he walked out in December, making Woodstock their final single. He went solo, and the rest of the line-up continued as Southern Comfort, releasing three albums between 1971 and 1973.

Matthews recorded two albums in 1971 (If You Saw Thro’ My Eyes and Tigers Will Survive), before forming a new group called Plainsong, which included Andy Roberts. When they collapsed Matthews continued to record while living in Los Angeles, working with Michael Nesmith of The Monkees at times during the 80s and 90s. He has gone by the name Iain Matthews ever since 1989.

In 2000 he moved to Amsterdam and continues to record and perform, sometimes reviving Matthews Southern Comfort or Plainsong. Matthews co-wrote Thro’ My Eyes: A Memoir with Ian Clayton, released in 2018.

The Outro

There are similarities shared between Woodstock and Scott McKenzie’s 1967 number 1 San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair). Both are folk songs written to commemorate counterculture festivals and give them mystical meaning. Yet by the time we get to Woodstock, it’s over. Hendrix’s death in September and this track are a full stop on the 60s. And yet, the festival scene certainly wasn’t over, with the very first Glastonbury Festival taking place the day after Hendrix’s death and celebrating its 50th anniversary this June, bigger than ever. And the next number 1 would be a very fitting postscript.

The Info

Written by

Joni Mitchell

Producer

Ian Matthews

Weeks at number 1

3 (31 October-20 November)

Trivia

Births

7 November: The Divine Comedy singer-songwriter Neil Hannon
12 November: Actor Harvey Spencer Stephens
13 November: Race walker Verity Snook-Larby

Deaths

8 November: Liberal MP Alasdair Mackenzie
13 November: Labour MP Bessie Braddock

Meanwhile…

17 November: The Sun newspaper featured a Page Three girl for the first time. This tradition made stars of Samantha Fox and Maria Whittaker among others, but divided public opinion. However it continued for 44 years, until 2015.

20 November: The 10 shilling note ceased to be legal tender.

291. Freda Payne – Band of Gold (1970)

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The Intro

Multi-talented American singer Freda Payne enjoyed an impressive six weeks at number 1 with this soul track, featuring noteworthy lyrics that have been much misunderstood over the years due to cuts made before its release.

Before

Freda Charcillia Payne was born in Detroit, Michigan on 19 September 1942. Her younger sister was Scherrie, who became the final lead singer of The Supremes in time. Growing up, the elder Payne enjoyed female jazz singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, which would later have an impact on her singing style. She attended the Detroit Institute of Musical Arts as a teenager, and also recorded jingles for the radio, as well as taking part and winning various talent shows.

In the early 60s Payne toured as a jazz singer with big names such as Quincy Jones and Bill Cosby, leading to her debut album in 1963, After the Lights Go Down Low and Much More!!! for Impulse! Clearly, exclamation marks were popular back then. Three years later came the follow-up How Do You Say I Don’t Love You Anymore for MGM Records, and TV appearances on various chat shows.

Payne spent the next few years dipping her toes into acting, until 1969 when she was contacted by old friends and hitmakers Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland Jr. Holland-Dozier-Holland had left Motown in 1968 and formed their own label, Invictus, also home to Chairmen of the Board and the first Parliament album, Osmium. Her first single for Invictus was the long-forgotten Unhooked Generation. Holland-Dozier-Holland then offered her Band of Gold, which they’d written with Ron Dunbar, but due to their dispute with Motown, they were forced to use the pseudonym Edyth Wayne in the credits.

Band of Gold touched on an unusually adult theme for its time. It’s about a recently wed woman, already separated from her husband, due to their honeymoon going awry. They ended up sleeping in separate rooms, with her hoping he would return and try to make love to her once more.

So, what went wrong? The ambiguous lyrics have been open to interpretation – her husband must surely be impotent, or gay? Over the years, Band of Gold became popular in the gay community thanks to the latter theory, one that was borne out by an interview Lamont Dozier did for Songfacts (songfacts.com), where he confirmed the husband loved his new wife, but was unable to get it up as he was a secret homosexual.

But according to Dunbar, the original version of Band of Gold explains exactly what the issue was. The first verse originally ended with ‘And the memories of our wedding day, and the night I turned you away.’ The original bridge also said ‘Each night, I lie awake and I tell myself, the vows we made gave you the right, to have a love each night’. Apparently, Payne has also said she didn’t want to record Band of Gold because she felt too old to come across like a naive, virginal teenager. So there we have it – the poor guy, believed to have been unable to get it up for all these years, was given the cold shoulder from his new wife, and walked out. A messy start for the poor newlyweds, and we’ll never know if they ironed out their differences.

Review

I was surprised upon first listen to hear this was number 1 for so long. Not because it isn’t decent – it is, but it took a few listens to make an impact on me. It helps if you pay attention to the lyrics, which I didn’t at first, and I assumed it was about a guy cheating on his bride, or something along those lines. Payne performs it well, sounding indignant (which also helped create the confusion – she sounds like she’s been let down between the sheets) and hurt at the same time. The stomping rhythm is very Motown, and the tune gets under the skin eventually.

I also like the electric sitar, played by session guitarist Dennis Coffey, who also played on Edwin Starr’s War, among others. Lead guitar comes from Ray Parker Jr, that’s right, the man behind the theme to Ghostbusters in 1984. The backing vocals were performed by Scherrie, Pamela Vincent, Joyce Vincent Wilson and Telma Hopkins. Wilson and Hopkins would soon be members of Dawn, number 1 artists with Tony Orlando in 1971 and 1973.

After

Band of Gold had a formidable run, and reached number three in the US, but Payne couldn’t get anywhere near repeating the feat. Deeper and Deeper, released at the end of the year, reached number 33 in the UK, but none of her singles reached the top 40 after that. However, Bring the Boys Home, her anti-Vietnam War single, did well in her home country in 1971

Payne left Invictus in 1973, and signed with Capitol Records in 1977, releasing three disco albums between then and 1979. Hot was her final LP for 16 years.

Sensing her music career was stalling, Payne concentrated on acting in the 80s. She also briefly hosted her own talk show in 1981, Today’s Black Woman. Only one single was spawned in this decade – In Motion, in 1982.

In 1995 Payne recorded a comedy album, called, bizarrely Freda Payne Sings the (Unauthorized) I Hate Barney Songbook: A Parody. Was she not a fan of the purple dinosaur? The following year came the festive  Christmas With Freda and Friends, featuring a duet with her sister.

The new millennium began with the soul singer appearing on the big screen alongside comedian Eddie Murphy in Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000). She’s been releasing music sporadically ever since, and recorded Saving a Life, a duet with Cliff Richard, in 2011, which led to her supporting him on a UK tour. Her last album to date is Come Back To Me Love in 2014 – was this a message for Darlene?

The Outro

Band of Gold is a curious number 1, sounding rather like a forerunner to disco and yet very much old-school Motown at the same time. Rather a bridge between what had passed and what was to come. It’s been covered several times since, by stars including Belinda Carlisle, but nobody has matched Payne’s original.

The Info

Written by

Edyth Wayne & Ron Dunbar

Producers

Brian Holland & Lamont Dozier

Weeks at number 1

6 (19 September-30 October)

Trivia

Births

29 September: Actress Emily Lloyd

4 October: Footballer Richard Hancox/Footballer Jason Cousins

5 October: SNP MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh

10 October: Olympic rower Sir Matthew Pinsent

11 October: Footballer Andy Marriott

Meanwhile…

19 September: The first Glastonbury Festival was held. Then known as the Worthy Farm Pop Festival, farmer Michael Eavis had been inspired after attending a blues festival at the Bath & West Showground. 1500 watched Tyrannosaurus Rex headline after The Kinks pulled out.

3 October: Tony Densham, driving the ‘Commuter’ dragster, set a British land speed record at Elvington, Yorkshire, averaging 207.6 mph over the flying kilometre course.

5 October: BBC Radio 4 first broadcast the consumer affairs magazine programme You and Yours, a mainstay to this day.

15 October: The new Conservative government created the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of the Environment.
Also this day, Thames sailing barge Cambria, the last vessel trading under sail alone in British waters, loaded her last freight, at Tilbury.

19 October: British Petroleum announced it had found a large oil field in the North Sea.

23 October: The Mark III Ford Cortina went on sale.

288. Mungo Jerry – In the Summertime (1970)

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The Intro

For a while, weirdly, it looked like Mungo Jerry may be the heirs to The Beatles’ throne. This rock/pop/skiffle/jug band scored 1970’s biggest-selling number 1, and one of the most memorable songs about summer of all time with their debut single In the Summertime. ‘Mungomania’ was a very real thing.

Before

Mungo Jerry formed from the ashes of 60s rock’n’roll and blues band The Good Earth, featuring, among others, singer-songwriter and guitarist Ray Dorset and keyboardist Colin Earl. The other half of the band were gone by the end of 1968, and with one remaining commitment – the Oxford University Christmas Ball of 1968 – left to go, Dorset hired Joe Rush to play double bass. The Good Earth played again when the night was over, performing folk, skiffle and jug band originals and covers.

This more low-key, acoustic version of the band went down well, and they built a following thanks to regular gigs. Banjoist, guitarist, and blues harp player Paul King made them a quartet. Rush left, to be replaced by Mike Cole, and they changed their name to Mungo Jerry, taking the name from TS Elliot’s poem ‘Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer’, as featured in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

Mungo Jerry signed with Pye Records, who placed them on their progressive imprint Dawn Records. They set to work recording their eponymous debut album, and the tracks that would make up their first single. This was to be one of, if not the first maxi-single in the UK. Vinyl maxi-singles were played at 33⅓rpm, rather than 45, and featured more than two tracks.

Dorset was still working his day job in a lab for watchmakers Timex when he came up with lead track In the Summertime, which he knocked off in 10 minutes. Clearly he could tell this ditty could make for a great debut for Mungo Jerry, but it’s unlikely he knew the impact this tale of youthful freewheeling would have for the next half a century.

Review

Much like Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky, In the Summertime will be the one track associated with Mungo Jerry (despite a second, long-since-forgotten, number 1), has been used countless times in the media, and is a tune neither I or millions more will ever tire of. It’s all about that loveable, rickety old backing track, really, with a distinctive rhythm created by Dorset stomping and playing an African percussive instrument called the cabasa. I assume it’s also him doing the breathy interjections. Dorset’s an interesting character. His voice has an unusual bleating quality, like a friendly sheep. Footage of him from back in the day though, such as in the video they filmed for the single, above, used to scare me when I was younger. I used to think, with all the teeth and sideburns, he was some kind of hairy villain. Special mention must go to Earl’s piano riff, too.

50 years on, its the lyrics that prove problematic. In the Summertime is a song about being young, about the generational divide of 1970. You could even call it a somewhat passive-aggressive statement of intent:
‘We’re no threat, people,
We’re not dirty, we’re not mean,
We love everybody but we do as we please’

Dorset and his gang are happy-go-lucky, but in the end, they’ll do what they want, so don’t stop them. And that involves womanising and driving recklessly, possibly while under the influence. The lyric ‘If her daddy’s rich take her out for a meal/If her daddy’s poor just do what you feel’ may have just sounded cheeky back then, but it’s unpleasant to hear these days.

And of course, thanks to a memorable public information film from 1992, it’s ‘Have a drink, have a drive/Go out and see what you can find’ that stands out the most. Anyone that saw this at the time will likely never get the graphic image of the drink-driving accident out of their head whenever they hear this song. But because my mind has unlimited storage for 80s adverts, I also can’t hear it without picturing the curly-haired juggler of oranges in the rewritten version for Outspan. Pretty sure that’s Dorset himself singing ‘Grab an Outspan, the small ones are more juicy naturally’.

After

Despite the bad vibes of some of Dorset’s lyrics in the 21st century, it’s such an addictive song, it seems it’s never going to go away, and I’m glad about that. In the Summertime stayed at number 1 for seven weeks that summer – the lengthiest run of the 70s until Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody managed nine weeks in 1975/76. The UK’s brief flirtation with Mungomania had begun.

The Outro

Jamaican-American rapper Shaggy released a version of In the Summertime in 1995, which reached number five that summer. Featuring his mate Rayvon, it eschewed the drink-drive references, but kept the rest of the dodgy bits intact.

The Info

Written by

Ray Dorset

Producer

Barry Murray

Weeks at number 1

7 (13 June-31 July) *BEST-SELLING SINGLE OF THE YEAR*

Trivia

Births

19 June: Singer-songwriter MJ Hibbett
20 June: Field hockey player Russell Garcia
22 June: Field hockey player Christine Cook
24 June: Footballer David May
25 June: Actress Lucy Benjamin
2 July: Footballer Steve Morrow
6 July: Singer-songwriter Martin Smith
7 July: Boxer Wayne McCullough
10 July: Take That singer Jason Orange/Actor John Simm
11 July: Conservative MP Saj Karim
29 July: Children’s TV presenter Andi Peters
30 July: Director Christopher Nolan
31 July: Actor Ben Chaplin

Deaths:

15 June: Scottish sociologist Robert Morrison MacIver
27 June: Artist Edwin La Dell
30 June: Dramatist Githa Sowerby
7 July: Publisher Allen Lane
20 July: Conservative MP Iain Macleod

Meanwhile…

13 June: Actor Laurence Olivier was made a life peer in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. Olivier was the first actor to be made a lord.

14 June: England’s defence of the FIFA World Cup came to an end when they lost 3-2 to West Germany at the quarter final in Mexico (see here).

17 June: The bodies of two children were discovered in shallow graves in woodland at Waltham Abbey, Essex. The bodies were believed to be those of Susan Blatchford (11) and Gary Hanlon (12). The tow children had last been seen alive near their homes in North London on 31 March. This became known as the “Babes in the wood” case.
Also on this day, British Leyland launched its luxury Range Rover.

18 June: The first general election in which 18-year-olds were entitled to vote. Opinion polls pointed towards a record third consecutive victory for the Labour government, led by Harold Wilson.

19 June: Edward Heath’s Conservative Party defied expectations, to win the election with a majority of 30 seats. Notable new MPs included future Labour leaders Neil Kinnock and John Smith for Labour, and Kenneth Clarke, Kenneth Baker, Norman Fowler and Geoffrey Howe, who would all serve in Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Cabinet in the 80s.

21 June: British golfer Tony Jacklin won the U.S. Open.

22 June: The Methodist Church allowed women to become full ministers for the first time.

26 June: Riots broke out in Derry over the arrest of Mid-Ulster MP Bernadette Devlin.

29 June: 32-year-old Caroline Thorpe, wife of Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, died in a car crash.

3 July: British Army soldiers battled with IRA troops in Belfast, leading to the deaths of three civilians.
Also on that day, 112 were killed when Dan-Air Flight 1903 from Manchester to Barcelona crashed in the mountains of Northern Spain. There were no survivors.

8 July: Roy Jenkins became Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.

14 July: 5 speedway riders were killed in Lokeren, Belgium when a minibus carrying members of the West Ham speedway team crashed into a petrol tanker after a brief tour. One of the casualties was Phil Bishop, a founding member of the West Ham speedway team from before World War Two.

15 July: Dockers voted to strike, leading to a state of emergency the following day.

16–25 July: The British Commonwealth Games were held in Edinburgh. Australia came first, England second, Scotland fourth and Northern Ireland were 10th on the medal table.

17 July: Lord Pearson proposed a settlement of dockers’ strike.

30 July: The dockers’ strike was settled.

31 July – The last issue of grog in the Royal Navy was distributed.

287. Christie – Yellow River (1970)

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The Intro

Here’s a number 1 with an unusual story. Yellow River, Christie’s sole chart-topper, could in a sense also be classed as The Tremeloes’ third number 1, if they hadn’t thrown it away.

Before

Leeds-born singer-songwriter Jeff Christie, born Jeffrey Christie on 12 July 1946, had been a member of rock band The Outer Limits, who had released singles in the late 60s. He had been inspired to write Yellow River after imagining a soldier looking forward to returning home to Yellow River (probably a mythical place) after the American Civil War, and probably thought it would work well with the anti-Vietnam War sentiment of the time. As far as I know, it’s got nothing to do with the Yellow River in China, one of the longest rivers in the world.

Christie offered the song to The Tremeloes, who liked it, and recorded it ready to release as a single, but then they went to number two with, ironically, Call Me Number One, and they decided to steer away from pop towards a more progressive sound.

Tremeloes guitarist Alan Blakley’s brother Mike was in a struggling band called The Epics, which also included guitarist Vic Elmes. The story gets muddy here, but someone, possibly Alan, to help Mike, and maybe feeling guilty about ditching Yellow River, suggested its songwriter travel to London to record a new vocal over the track himself, and he did so, forming a new band for its release, called Christie and featuring Elmes and Mike. Their debut single was released on 23 April.

Review

The chorus to Yellow River has existed in my subconscious for years, after I heard a snatch of it on some advert for a compilation album, but also due to the jingle being used in adverts for phone book Yellow Pages when I was a child, before the days of JR Hartley. Bad move by The Tremeloes – it’s a good tune, and way better than their previous number 1s Do You Love Me? and Silence Is Golden.

After

Apparently, Christie were keen to be considered the British answer to US country rock trio Creedence Clearwater Revival, and they do a great job of living up to that here, except of course, it’s not them behind that speedy finger-picked guitar, effervescent rhythm and top drumming – it’s The Tremeloes. Okay, there’s a fair few number 1s better than this in 1970, but that chorus in particular is a real ear worm. It’s easy to see why it topped the charts, even if it was for only a week. Steer clear of the later remake as it’s leaden by comparison.

Follow-up single San Bernadino, also from their eponymous debut album, was released in October, and reached number seven in the UK, and number 1 in Germany. But the success proved short-lived, and Blakely left before the release of 1971 album For All Mankind. Elmes’s departure in 1973 left Christie as the only remaining original member. No amount of line-up changes (and there were more) could capture that initial momentum though, and in 1976, after Navajo reached number 1 in Mexico, they split up.

The Outro

Jeff Christie went solo in 1980 for a couple of singles, and then probably did quite well out of the Yellow Pages campaign. He reformed Christie in 1990 with backing from members of the band Tubeless Hearts, and they bid to represent the UK in the 1991 Eurovision Song Contest with Safe in Your Arms, but failed. They have toured and recorded intermittently ever since.

The Info

Written by

Jeff Christie

Producer

Mike Smith

Weeks at number 1

1 (6-12 June)

Trivia

Deaths

7 June: Novelist EM Forster

Meanwhile…

10 June: Earlier in 1970 the Tories were enjoying a few months after the Conservatives had enjoyed opinion poll leads of more than 20 points, and looked likely to form the next government, but the tide had turned. Labour were now several points ahead of the Conservatives, with eight days to go before the general election. Labour’s win would be a record third-in-a-row, if it happened.

281. Edison Lighthouse – Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) (1970)

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The Intro

It’s time to delve into the 70s. A fascinating decade, if not always an enjoyable one, when it comes to number 1 singles, but rarely dull.

In 1970, The Beatles were (nearly) gone, and pop scratched its head in search of its next move. There was a year to go until glam rock reared its beautiful glittery sparkly head, and the hippy dream was turning somewhat sour.

The bubblegum pop of the last two years was still going strong as the decade dawned, however, and finally the undercover paedophile Rolf Harris relinquished his grip on the top spot to Edison Lighthouse.

Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) had been written by Tony Macauley and Barry Mason, who between them had plenty of experience at writing number 1s. Macauley had co-written Baby Now That I’ve Found You and Let the Heartaches Begin, and Mason co-wrote The Last Waltz and I Pretend. This first new number 1 of the 70s certainly has Macauley’s joyous pop stamp all over it, Mason’s perhaps less so as he was more used to MOR ballad material.

Before

Originally they gave the song to Jefferson, former guitarist with The Rockin’ Berries. That demo remained unreleased however, and instead they offered it to a session singer called Tony Burrows.

Born Anthony Burrows in Exeter, Devon on 14 April 1942, he had been a member of The Kestrels in the early 60s, and subsequently vocal trio The Ivy League, before they became The Flower Pot Men, who became one-hit wonders with Let’s Go to San Francisco in 1967. Despite their short-lived success, at one point they featured future Deep Purple members Jon Lord and Nick Simper.

In effect, Edison Lighthouse was originally Macauley, Mason, Burrows and session musicians. The writers chose the name as a play on the Eddystone Lighthouse off the coast of Devon. Upon its release in November 1969, the single rapidly gained attention, allegedly becoming the fastest-climbing number 1 up to that point. This meant finding Burrows a backing band for Top of the Pops appearances. They picked Greenfield Hammer for the job following an audition a week before their debut on the show, making the initial line-up of Edison Lighthouse Burrows on vocals, Stuart Edwards on lead guitar, Ray Dorey on guitar, David Taylor on bass and George Weyman on drums.

Review

I’ve been watching lots of off-air recordings of Top of the Pops of late from 1970, so I’ve heard plenty of this track, and that’s no bad thing. Okay, it’s pretty much just a chorus and the verses are afterthoughts, but a chorus so uplifting and catchy is not to be sniffed at. The lyrics are your typical 60s flower power fare, about a dreamlike girl who’s captured the singer’s heart. However, some people believe there’s a filthy meaning behind these words:

‘There’s something about her hand holding mine
It’s a feeling that’s fine
And I just gotta say
She’s really got a magical spell
And it’s working so well
That I can’t get away’

Yes, they think it might be about getting a handjob. I don’t agree, personally, and I tend to look out for stuff like that. Of course, there’s a chance the writers deliberately left it up to interpretation as a sly joke, who knows? Whatever the meaning, Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) is reminiscent of Love Affair’s Everlasting Love, and a decent start to the 70s number 1s.

After

Burrows was an incredibly busy bunny during those first few months of 1970. He found himself on Top of the Pops appearing as the singer in Edison Lighthouse, as part of White Plains (performing My Baby Loves Lovin’) and as lead singer in an early incarnation of Brotherhood of Man, performing United We Stand. At the same time, he also had a hit as one half of The Pipkins with Gimme Dat Ding. No wonder he soon quit Edison Lighthouse – he must have thought success was guaranteed no matter who he recorded with.

Macauley owned the name Edison Lighthouse, and replaced Burrows with actor and singer Paul Vigrass. He was the first in a long list of line-up changes over the next few years. Nothing was able to match their debut single’s success. The closest they came was when It’s Up to You, Petula reached number 49 in 1971. Edison Lighthouse called it a day in 1972 after the single Find Mr Zebedee. As is so often the case with bands of this era, the name Edison Lighthouse now belongs to different groups – Brian Huggins in the UK, and Les Fradkin in the US. Original guitarist Edwards died of cancer in 2016.

The Outro

As for Burrows, he only had one ‘hit’ under his own name – a cover of Melanie Makes Me Smile in the US in 1970. He did however continue as a session singer, helping out both Elton John and Cliff Richard over the years, to name just two.

The Info

Written by

Tony Macauley & Barry Mason

Producer

Tony Macauley

Weeks at number 1

5 (31 January-6 March)

Trivia

Births

31 January: Actress Minnie Driver
10 February: TV and radio scriptwriter Rob Shearman
14 February: Actor Simon Pegg
25 February: Sailboat racer Ian Walker
1 March: Field hockey player Tina Cullen

Deaths

2 February: Philosopher Bertrand Russell
14 February: Cricketer Herbert Strudwick
15 February: RAF fighter commander Hugh Dowding
28 February: Painter Arthur Henry Knighton-Hammond

Meanwhile…

13 February: A demonstration at the Garden House Hotel by Cambridge University students against the Greek military junta led to police intervention with eight students receiving custodial sentences for their part.
Plus, Brummie rockers Black Sabbath released their self titled landmark debut album in the UK – the first major heavy metal album.

19 February: The Prince of Wales joined the Royal Navy.

23 February: Rolls-Royce asked the government for £50,000,000 towards developing the RB 211-50 Airbus jet engine.

27 February-1 March: The first National Women’s Liberation Conference was held, at Ruskin College in Oxford.

2 March: Four years after independence was declared, Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith declared Rhodesia a republic, breaking all ties with the British Crown. The government refused to recognise the new state for as long as the Rhodesian Government opposed majority rule.

6 March: An outbreak of rabies in Newmarket, Suffolk caused the importation of pets to be banned.

154. Elvis Presley with The Jordanaires – (You’re the) Devil in Disguise (1963)

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Elvis’s chart fortunes had been falling in the US for a while, but now the same thing was happening in the UK. In 1960 and 1961 he’d scored four number 1s per year alone, but following his 1962 Christmas number 1, Return to Sender, he’d been unusually absent from the pole position. This may have been in part due to a rare lack of released singles, granted, but he was clearly not the force he had been. Some of his top songwriters had left his camp due to money issues, which was also having a knock-on effect.

(You’re the) Devil in Disguise had been written by one of his most prolific remaining teams, Bill Giant, Bernie Baum and Florence Kaye, who were behind many of the songs in his musicals. It was due to appear on a new album, but RCA chose to issue the material as singles and bonus tracks instead. The usual backing band were in place, as were The Jordanaires, plus Millie Kirkham joining them on backing vocals. Jordanaire bass singer Ray Walker was the man behind the deep ‘oh yes you are’ as the song fades out.

As patchy as Elvis’s songs had become, there’s a lot to like about this one. The switch between sweet and soulful and uptempo rock’n’roll may be an obvious trick, but it works, and of course Elvis has the vocal skills to pull both directions off. The clean, classy production also makes a nice change from the earthy Merseybeat number 1s of late, which is ironic considering how I’ve been longing for Elvis to make way for exactly that. (You’re the) Devil in Disguise is a fine song, and like Return to Sender, one of his better early 60s tunes.

However, Elvis’s 14th UK number 1 spent a mere week at the top – the shortest stint he’d ever had. Not only that, it was his last number 1 for nearly two years, and his 15th, Crying in the Chapel, was an old recording, meaning his next ‘new’ number 1 wouldn’t happen until 1970.

In a true ‘changing of the guard’ moment, when (You’re the) Devil in Disguise featured on Juke Box Jury, John Lennon was one of the guest reviewers. He voted it a ‘miss’ and compared Elvis to Bing Crosby. One of Lennon’s heroes was now nothing more than a corny old has-been to him.

Written by: Bill Giant, Bernie Baum & Florence Kaye

Producer: Steve Sholes

Weeks at number 1: 1 (1-7 August)

Births:

Reform Judaism rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner – 1 August 
Singer Tasmin Archer – 3 August
Disc jockey Gary King – 4 August

94. Emile Ford and The Checkmates – What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For? (1959)

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emileford3.jpg

The Intro

Here we are, then. The final number 1 single of the 1950s, and it shows how far the decade had progressed musically since that first number 1 by Al Martino in 1952. More so than I would have guessed before starting this blog, in fact. When I wrote about this song for Every Christmas Number 1 I saw it as ‘clever and cocky’ and a sign of rock’n’roll’s cultural impact after Elvis’s arrival. At the time, I didn’t know the song in question dates back much further than Here in My Heart.

Before

What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For? (is this still the UK number 1 with the longest title?) was written back in 1916 by Joseph McCarthy, Howard Johnson and James V Monaco. McCarthy and Monaco were responsible for You Made Me Love You, and Johnson had come up with the words for I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream. Their new composition became a hit duet for two of the most popular singers of the early 20th century, Ada Jones and Billy Murray, during World War One. It took a man who was fascinated with sound to make What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For? feel so contemporary.

Emile Ford was born Michael Emile Telford Miller on 16 October 1937 in Castries, Saint Lucia in the West Indies. His father was a politician and mother a singer and musical theatre director. He moved to London in 1954 to pursue his interest in sound reproduction technology, and studied at Paddington Technical College in London, learning to play guitar, piano, violin, bass guitar and drums, among other instruments.

He grew interested in rock’n’roll and became a performer at the age of 20, shortening his name to Emile Ford, and garnered appearances on music TV shows Six-Five Special and Oh Boy!. In 1959 he formed Emile Ford and The Checkmates with guitarist Ken Street and half-brothers George Sweetnam-Ford on bass and Dave Sweetnam-Ford on saxophone.

The band took the unusual move of turning down EMI because they refused to let them self-produce, unlike Pye Records, who they signed with. Their first single was to be a cover of the country song Don’t Tell Me Your Troubles, with a doo-wop version of What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For? quickly knocked off in half an hour at the end of a recording session. Airplay was so in favour of the latter that it was promoted to the A-side.

Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvt63ucglj4

For a man with a reputation for his obsession with sound engineering, it’s ironic that his only number 1 was made almost as an afterthought, with little manipulation. It only adds to its charm though, and the swaggering doo-wop arrangement makes it one of the catchier number 1s of the decade, let alone year. Ford’s vocal is suitably raw and powerful too.

After

What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For? rocketed up the charts, and initially shared the top spot with Adam Faith’s bizarrely-similarly-titled What Do You Want? for a week, before taking over and becoming the 1959 Christmas number 1. It remained there for six weeks, ruling the charts for most of the first month of the 60s.

Ford became the first Black British artist to sell a million copies of one single. The band made the top 20 several times more, and they were voted Best New Act of 1960 by the New Musical Express. They became augmented by female backing singers known as The Fordettes for a while, before they left to work with Joe Brown.

In 1960, Ford used his success as a way to continue an idea he had been working on. The band became the first group to use a backing track system at times for their hugely popular stage show, so you could argue that Ford invented karaoke, in a sense. Whether he did or not, this invention certainly changed live music forever, eventually. Their live sets were also known for their punchy sound, thanks to the band insisting on using their own PA system. It’s interesting to note that Ford, like Jimi Hendrix, had synaesthesia, a condition where a person can see certain colours in relation to the sound they are hearing. He believed this condition was a huge factor in his obsession with sound.

The band split in 1963 as The Beatles became huge (at one point the Fab Four had supported them), and Ford set up a recording studio with his father in Barbados in 1969, before moving to Sweden.

In the 70s he worked on his open-air playback system for live shows, which he dubbed the Liveoteque Sound Frequency Feedback Injection System. This equipment was later used by artists as huge as Pink Floyd and Michael Jackson.

Ford died on 11 April 2016, aged 78. The song that made his name would see further chart action in 1987, when 50s-throwback Shakin’ Stevens recorded his version. Take a look at the video and try not to smile at a now-bygone age. You just don’t get videos as cheesy and cheery as this anymore. Keep an eye out for a pre-fame Vic Reeves, too.

The Outro

So that’s the 50s number 1s all wrapped up. I hope you’ve enjoyed a read and a listen. Before I move on to one of the most fascinating decades in music though, I’m going to have to decide on my best and worst number 1s of the 50s. Watch this space…

The Info

Written by

Joseph McCarthy, Howard Johnson & James V Monaco

Producer

Michael Barclay

Weeks at number 1

6 (18 December 1959-28 January 1960)

Trivia

Births

30 December 1959: Comedian Tracey Ullman
6 January 1960: Chef Nigella Lawson
13 January: Choreographer Matthew Bourne
18 January: Actor Mark Rylance
23 January: Racewalker Paul Blagg

Deaths

7 January: Tennis player Dorothea Douglass Lambert Chambers
9 January: Children’s author Elsie J Oxenham
12 January: Author Nevil Shute

Meanwhile…

28 December 1959: Associated Rediffusion airs children’s television series Ivor the Engine for the first time.