Doctor Who

349. The Rubettes (Arranged by Gerry Shury) – Sugar Baby Love (1974)

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The Intro

The Rubettes’ retro 50s and 60s vibe fitted right in with the tail end of the glam years, yet the best element of their sole number 1, Sugar Baby Love – that soaring, Frankie Valli-style falsetto, wasn’t from a member of the band. Somehow, a demo became a number 1 single for a month.

Before

The idea of the band originated in 1973 from the head of A&R at Polydor Records, Wayne Bickerton and Tony Waddington. Together, they had been in The Pete Best Four and went on to write songs, including soul favourite Nothing but a Heartache in 1969. Bickerton and Waddington were considering writing a rock’n’roll musical and had come up with four retro bubblegum pop songs – Sugar Baby Love, Tonight, Juke Box Jive and Sugar Candy Kisses (which became a hit for Mac and Katie Kissoon). In October 1973 they arranged for demos of the tracks to be recorded, with the possibility of putting the first in the running for a shot at the Eurovision Song Contest. They assembled, among others singer Paul Da Vinci for the lead, backed by keyboardist Pete Arnesen and drummer John Richardson, among others.

With the song demos finished, they offered the material to Leicester-based rock’n’roll revivalists Showaddywaddy (which would have been highly appropriate) who turned them down, as did former vocalist with The Move, Carl Wayne. Bickerton and Waddington decided to clean up Sugar Baby Love but in essence release the original demo, under a random 50s-sounding name, hence The Rubettes. What they didn’t expect was to then have to quickly assemble a real group to promote the song when it started to gain momentum. And it posed a problem, as Da Vinci wasn’t able to join them as he was under a solo contract elsewhere. Richardson and Arnsesen returned, and joining them were Alan Williams as singer, Tony Thorpe on guitar, Mick Clarke on bass and Bill Hurd on keyboards. The Rubettes were bedecked in white suits and cloth caps to help them stand out in these days of frequently outlandish outfits.

Review

But it’s Da Vinci’s stunning falsetto that stands out on Sugar Baby Love, both uplifting and sad at the same time and conjuring up the hits of The Four Seasons. Unfortunately, as good as it is, that’s really all the song has going for it. It could be that I’m not a fan of doo-wop and Valli in general, but I’ve never enjoyed Sugar Baby Love. Perhaps because it was only ever meant as a demo, it strikes me as being an empty, soulless pastiche, and a warning that glam was running out of ideas, if you can even really call it glam.

The idea of the song is better than the reality. Da Vinci is urging the listener not to make the same mistake as him. He clearly regrets hurting his love, and implores them to ‘Love her anyway, love her everyday’, which is a good lyric, to be fair.

After

Nobody was any the wiser as Williams mimed along to the demo on Top of the Pops, which they only lucked their way on to after Sparks had problems with work permits. This must have been pretty annoying for the Mael Brothers, as Sugar Baby Love kept This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us from the top spot. I wonder how Da Vinci felt, too?

The next two singles, Tonight and Juke Box Jive, came from the original demos too, and the latter in particular did well, reaching number three at the end of the year. I Can Do It reached number seven in 1975, but then they started to lose their ground, and they ditched the doo-wop. Arnsesen left later that year, followed by Hurd in 1976. They reached number 10 with the country-styled Baby I Know, sang by Thorpe, and never had another top 40 entry. He departed the band in 1979 following arguments.

The Rubettes dissolved in 1980. Since then, they have followed the well-trodden path of reforming, splitting into several different versions, and going to court over the use of the band’s original name, which lets face it, is what gets the punters flocking to see these bands of yesteryear. Currently, there’s The Rubettes featuring Alan Williams, The Rubettes featuring John, Mick, & Steve (February 2019) and The Rubettes featuring Bill Hurd.

As for Da Vinci, he reached number 19 with solo hit Your Baby Ain’t Your Baby Anymore in 1974. Further failed attempts followed, so in 1977 he went back to session work. He wrote Any Way You Do It, the first single by disco group Liquid Gold in 1978, and in 1981 he sang on Tight Fit’s Back to the 60’s Part II medley.

The Outro

Luke Haines’s indie rock band The Auteurs released a song called The Rubettes in 1999, which referenced their number 1.

The Info

Written by

Wayne Bickerton & Tony Waddington

Producer

Wayne Bickerton

Weeks at number 1

4 (18 May-14 June)

Trivia

Births

27 May: Presenter Denise van Outen
5 June: Ventriloquist Nina Conti

Deaths

10 June: Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester

Meanwhile…

20 May: The first meeting was held by The Centre for Policy Studies, a Conservative social market think tank established by Keith Joseph, Margaret Thatcher and Alfred Sherman.

28 May: Following a strike by unionists, power-sharing in the Northern Ireland Assembly collapses.

1 June: An explosion at Flixborough chemical plant kills 28 people and seriously injures 36. Had it happened on a weekday the numbers would have been much higher.

5 June: Snow Knight, ridden by Brian Taylor, was victorious in the Epsom Derby. The odds were 50/1.

8 June: Jon Pertwee became the third actor to relinquish the role of The Doctor in Doctor Who, citing the death of his friend and TV enemy Roger Delgado in 1973. The final episode of ‘Planet of the Spiders’ saw Pertwee regenerate into Tom Baker.

10 June: The Queen’s last surviving royal uncle, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, dies at his home in Northamptonshire, seven years after his last public appearance. His funeral is held at Windsor Castle on 14 June.

73. The Everly Brothers with Orchestra conducted by Archie Bleyer – All I Have to Do is Dream/Claudette (1958)

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everly-brothers-bw.jpg

The Intro

The first of four number 1s for the country-influenced rock’n’roll duo in this country, and the best-selling single of 1958. All I Have to Do is Dream/Claudette enjoyed a seven-week run at the top of the charts and established The Everly Brothers as one of the biggest and most influential acts of the next few years.

Before

Isaac Donald ‘Don’ Everly was born in Brownie, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky on 1 February 1937, and Phillip Jason ‘Phil’ Everly arrived on 19 January 1939 in Chicago, Illinois.

Born into a musical family, their father Ike was a guitarist and mother Margaret a singer. They sang as the Everly Family on the radio in the mid-1940s, with the boys known as ‘Little Donny’ and ‘Baby Boy Phil’. In 1955 the brothers moved to Nashville, Tennessee. By this point, their musical prowess already had an important fan – family friend Chet Atkins, a record producer and songwriter.

Atkins used his contacts to get Don and Phil a record deal, and their first single, Bye Bye Love (covered by Simon & Garfunkel as the last track on Bridge Over Troubled Water in 1970) was a smash-hit, selling over a million and reaching number six over here.

They continued to work with its songwriters, Felice and Boudleaux Bryant (Bryant’s solo work, Hey Joe, performed by Frankie Laine, had been a UK number 1 in 1953), releasing Wake Up Little Susie, which reached number 2, before working on All I Have to Do is Dream, which was by Boudleaux alone, and allegedly written in only 15 minutes.

Review

Opening with the lush jangle of Chet Atkins on guitar, All I Have to Do is Dream begins straight away with that memorable chorus, a trick later used by ABBA and Stock, Aitken & Waterman to pull the listener in. If that jangle doesn’t grab you (and if it doesn’t, what’s wrong with you?), the vocals will. Don and Phil’s unique harmonies still sound sublime today. The only misfire is the dated, corny lyric:

‘Only trouble is, gee whiz,
I’m dreamin’ my life away’

Fortunately before you have time to dwell on that too much you’re back into the chorus. This is the sound of the Everly Brothers and Boudleaux Bryant at their best. According to Phil, the acetate featuring Boudleaux on vocals would have been a hit anyway, such was the beauty of the song. Maybe so, but it’s his and brother Don’s voices, and Atkins’ guitar work, that make All I Have to Do is Dream a classic.

https://youtu.be/7izXABdoDPA

The other song, Claudette, hasn’t aged as well, but it’s a decent enough uptempo acoustic track, written by Roy Orbison and named after his first wife. As a B-side, however, it would certainly have been better than average, and as it helped propel ‘The Big O’ to success and helped buy him a cadillac, then it’s alright by me.

After

The Everly Brothers tied at number 1 for their first week with Vic Damone’s On the Street Where You Live, but went on to spend most of the summer at the top.

The Info

Written by

All I Have to Do is Dream: Boudleaux Bryant/Claudette: Roy Orbison 

Producer

Archie Bleyer

Weeks at number 1

7 (4 July-21 August)*BEST-SELLING SINGLE OF THE YEAR*

Trivia

Births

6 July: Comedian Jennifer Saunders
9 July: Actor Robin Kermode
11 July: Actor Mark Lester
15 July: Scientist Mark Lester
17 July: Journalist Suzanne Moore
24 July: Actor Joe McGann
30 July: Singer-songwriter Kate Bush/Athlete Daley Thompson
7 August: Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson
10 August: Labour MP Rosie Winterton
13 August: Singer Feargal Sharkey
14 August: Conservative MP Philip Dunne

Deaths

20 July: Campaigner Margaret Haig Thomas, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda

Meanwhile…

10 July: The first parking meters were installed.

18-26 July: The British Empire and Commonwealth Games were held in Cardiff.

26 July: The Queen gave her eldest son Charles the customary title of Prince of Wales, and the presentation of débutantes to the royal court were abolished.

1 August: Carry On Sergeant, the first of the Carry On films, premiered. Different in tone from the bawdy humour that was to come, it featured Bob Monkhouse and the first star of Doctor Who, William Hartnell.

69. Perry Como with Mitchell Ayres' Orchestra and the Ray Charles Singers – Magic Moments (1958)

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The Intro

Michael Holliday’s The Story of My Life, a wistful easy listening ditty written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David in which a man looks back at his life with his loved one, was replaced at the top of the charts by – another wistful easy listening ditty written by Bacharach and David in which a man looks back at his life with his loved one. They both even contained whistling.

Before

Magic Moments, sung by mega-crooner Perry Como, is regarded as a classic of the genre, shot Bacharach and David into the big time as songwriters and reigned at number 1 for a full two months.
Perry Como had already had a number 1 here back in 1953 with the largely forgettable Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes.

Since then he had charted highly in the UK with Wanted and Idle Gossip in 1954 and Hot Dog (Dog Ziggity Boom) in 1956, and by then he had begun donning his trademark cardigans for The Perry Como Show in the US. In 1956, a poll in Life magazine revealed he was considered to be the ideal husband material among young women. The ideal choice to perform a song as sweet and cosy as Magic Moments, then.

Review

It’s hard to review Magic Moments seriously, and it’s an easy target for spoofing and poking fun at now, but at the time it must have come as a blessed relief to older record buyers and conservative types who may have been put off by all the rock’n’roll that had invaded the charts.

Serene Dominic said this in his 2003 book, Burt Bacharach, Song by Song:
‘Combined with the quizzical bassoon, the whistling and the ghastly white shadings of the Ray Charles Singers, these distant recollections must seem like occurrences on another planet to later generations.’
It seems a tad harsh to me but I take the point. However, as far as this type of song goes, and compared to some of the others I’ve put myself through for this blog, I can’t help but like it. A bit. I take exception to this lyric, though:

‘I’ll never forget the moment we kissed the night of the hay ride
The way that we hugged to try to keep warm while takin’ a sleigh ride’

You can’t rhyme ‘ride’ with ‘ride’! And this is from two of the greatest songwriters of all time!

After

To me, Magic Moments means former Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah band hero Neil Innes in the 1980s adverts for Quality Street, lampooning Como, or brings to mind Terry Gilliam’s screen version of Hunter S Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, when Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) arrives at a Vegas hotel full of police with a large arsenal of drugs in his possession. But in 1958, it boosted Como’s image and success even further.

Whether it was music, film, radio or TV, he won many plaudits, including several Emmys and Grammys. Like most singers of his ilk, his career suffered in the 60s, but he enjoyed a revival of sorts in the 70s, with It’s Impossible in 1970 and And I Love You So and For the Good Times in 1973 all reaching the top 10 in the UK.

Como continued to perform for years after. The world mourned when he died in his sleep on 12 May 2001, just six days short of his 89th birthday.

The Info

Written by

Burt Bacharach & Hal David

Producer

Joe Weisman

Weeks at number 1

8 (28 February-24 April)

Trivia

Births

1 March: Singer Nik Kershaw
3 March: Actress Miranda Richardson
5 March: Singer Andy Gibb
8 March: Singer Gary Numan
18 March: Writer and composer Neil Brand
21 March: Actor Gary Oldman
12 April: Echo & the Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant
14 April: Actor Peter Capaldi
15 April: Musician Benjamin Zephaniah

Deaths

26 March: Cricketer Phil Mead
19 April: Footballer Billy Meredith

Meanwhile…

2 March: A British team led by Sir Vivian Fuchs completed the first ever crossing of the Antarctic, using caterpillar tractors and dogsled teams over 99 days.
19 March: Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh officially opened the London Planetarium, the first of its kind in Britain.
23 March: Work began on the M1, the first full-length motorway in the country.
1 April: The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, later responsible for such magic as the Doctor Who theme tune in 1963, was first created.
4 April: The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, better known now as CND, began its first protest march, from Hyde Park, London, to Aldermarston in Berkshire.