Jimmy Young - Every UK Number 1

The Intro

As well as the mambo craze of 1955, Britain was also in love with cowboys and country and western music. Slim Whitman’s Rose Marie held the top spot for 11 weeks, and the first ‘official’ country song to hit number 1 happened earlier that year – Tennessee Ernie Ford’s Give Me your Word (although, as I said here, it’s not really a country song, and you could argue that Frankie Laine’s Hey Joe should earn that honour).

Before

That summer had seen the release of Western movie The Man from Laramie, starring James Stewart in the title role, as a stranger who causes ructions by working for the rival of a cattle baron. Lester Lee and Ned Washington had written the theme, and Al Martino performed the US version. He only just scraped into the top 20 in the US, but Jimmy Young, riding high off his previous number 1 with Unchained Melody, became the first homegrown artist to have two consecutive number 1s in the UK.

Review

Young makes a better job of The Man from Laramie, than he did Unchained Melody. It’s a jolly, rickety old number, and I suppose it’s kind of catchy, but having said all this, I have no desire to ever hear it again.

Basically, it’s Young telling us all the ways in which the Man from Laramie is brilliant. His voice is better suited to this than his previous chart-topper, but he’s still bellowing, and the worst bit is the cringeworthy way he changes his voice to sing smarmily:

‘He had a flair for ladies
Now the ladies loved his air of mystery’

After

The fact Young is so fondly remembered for his career as a DJ rather than his music suggests he was right to switch careers. He became a disc jockey that year on Housewive’s Choice, but sensing the music climate was changing following Elvis’s success, he decided to go full-time, working for Radio Luxembourg and the BBC.

The Outro

In 1967 he was one of the original band of DJs on the fledgling Radio 1. Considered too ‘square’ by some of the station’s bosses, he proved them wrong and his morning show proved very popular. He switched to Radio 2 for the lunchtime show in 1973, and stayed with the station, becoming a national institution, loved for his charm and relaxed style. He was just as nice in person as on the air, by all accounts, and was mourned by millions when he died peacefully in his sleep on 7 November 2016, aged 95.

The Intro

Summer 1955 brought a heatwave to many parts of the country, particularly Yorkshire, and the UK enjoyed a modern record of low unemployment (barely 1% of the workforce). It was also the summer of Unchained Melody.

Before

Written for a little-known prison movie called Unchained, also released that year, the music came from Alex North, and lyrics were by Hy Zaret. The film centred on a prisoner deciding whether to go on the run or finish his sentence and live in peace with his family. Zaret only agreed to write the lyrics if he could leave out the film’s name, which might have helped with its longevity, ultimately. Todd Duncan sang the original vocals in the movie.

The song is now a standard, and one of the most covered in history, with well over a thousand recorded versions in various languages. In the summer of 1955 alone, four versions existed in the chart at one time – by Al Hibbler, Les Baxter, Liberace and future Radio 2 DJ, Sir Jimmy Young.

Leslie Ronald Young was born 21 September 1921 in Cinderford, Gloucestershire. He suffered greatly with illness as a child, nearly dying from bronchitis, double pneumonia and pleurisy. But he would later excel at sport, and turned down a place with Wigan’s rugby league team.

Young worked as an electrician and physical training instructor for the RAF before becoming a singer in 1950. His cover of Nat ‘King’ Cole’s Too Young was a big sheet music seller in 1951, and he signed with Decca Records a year later. But it was 1955 that proved his most successful year in music, with two number 1s to his name.

Review

By all accounts Young was a radio legend and a thoroughly nice person to boot. However, his version of Unchained Melody is a strange mess. It makes Robson and Jerome sound like the Righteous Brothers.
Whilst I admit I’m not much of a personal fan of crooners and opera-style singers like Al Martino and David Whitfield, I can appreciate the slickness of the production of their hits and their ability to sing. Young’s Unchained Melody sounds amateurish by comparison, with strings and guitar backing that seems ill-matched and uneven, and poor Young is either putting no effort in or bellowing, as if the producer is prodding him every now and then to display some passion.

After

In spite of all this, record buyers loved it for some reason, and he enjoyed three weeks at the top. Unchained Melody would return to number one three more times, courtesy of The Righteous Brothers in 1990, Robson & Jerome in 1995 and Gareth Gates in 2002.

The Info

Written by

Alex North & Hy Zaret

Producer

Dick Rowe

Weeks at number 1

3 (24 June-14 July)

Trivia

Births

26 June: The Clash guitarist Mick Jones

Deaths

13 July: Criminal Ruth Ellis

Meanwhile…

30 June: Gloster Meteor jet fighter crashed on takeoff in Kent, killing all crew members and two fruit-pickers. Later that day, two Hawker Sea Hawk jets crash into the North Sea in two separate incidents, leaving one pilot dead.
13 July: Ruth Ellis became the last woman to be hanged in the UK before the death penalty was abolished. She had shot dead her lover, racing driver David Blakely on Easter Sunday (10 April).