Russ Conway

86. Russ Conway – Roulette (1959)

/ robbarker1979

Trevor071-2.jpg

The Intro

So here I am, still trying to get my head around a pop culture that is at times completely alien to me, wondering how pianist Russ Conway’s instrumental Side Saddle got to number 1 when surrounded by the likes of songs by Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley, and now I have to review his second number 1, which actually knocked Elvis from the top. As I said in my blog for A Fool Such As I/I Need Your Love Tonight, these tracks were poor by Elvis’s standards, but still…

Review

Roulette sounds like a throwaway from Conway, who, probably astounded by Side Saddle‘s success, probably thought he could just repeat the formula. And it worked. Actually, Roulette is better than his best-selling number 1, as the tune is a little catchier – after all, it was made to order, whereas Side Saddle was only ever meant to be incidental music. I could imagine it sounding appropriate in an old-fashioned London pub or strolling along Blackpool’s beach. I’m struggling to find any other use for it though.

After

I shouldn’t be so hard on Russ Conway. He clearly was very good at what he did, with further hits and TV shows. There were three more top 10 hits in 1959 alone, and plenty more top 40 entries until 1962. In his lifetime he sold over 30 million records, which gave him a lifestyle of mansions, Bentleys and Rolls-Royces.

However, he suffered for his art. He became blighted by ill health, although smoking 80 cigarettes a day and drinking a lot won’t have helped.

In 1963 he suffered a nervous breakdown, and then fell and fractured his hip, which left him paralysed for three days. Two years later he suffered his first stroke, aged only 38. For several years he was unable to play, and was prescribed anti-depressants to help him cope with these issues and his own self-doubt in his abilities. Many believe his hidden homosexuality was also a considerable factor in his depression.

The Outro

Conway was diagnosed with stomach cancer in the late-80s and founded the Russ Conway Cancer Fund in 1990. Despite this he battled on, and even lost part of a second finger after getting it stuck in the door of his Rolls-Royce. It still didn’t stop him playing though, and it wasn’t until 16 November 2000 that he finally succumbed to cancer, aged 75.

The Info

Written by

Trevor Stanford

Producer

Norman Newell

Weeks at number 1

2 (19 June-2 July)

Trivia

Births

19 June: Chef Sophie Grigson
I27 June: Inspiral Carpets keyboardist Clint Boon

84. Buddy Holly – It Doesn’t Matter Anymore (1959)

/ robbarker1979

Investigators-May-Reopen-Buddy-Holly-Plane-Crash-FDRMX.jpg

The Intro

Ah. Now, unlike Russ Conway’s Side Saddle, here is a number 1 that I can clearly understand. Buddy Holly’s It Doesn’t Matter Anymore is the first posthumous UK chart-topper. The infamous plane crash that tragically cut short the lives of Holly and fellow stars Ritchie Valens and JP Richardson, aka The Big Bopper, occurred on 3 February.

Before

Holly had already been well on the way to becoming a musical legend. Since The Crickets had their sole number 1 with That’ll Be the Day in late-1957, Holly had achieved success with the group and under his own name, thanks to Peggy Sue, backed with Everyday, and Rave On.

In early 1958, he joined the rest of The Crickets to tour the UK and Australia. Later that year he met and fell in love with María Elena Santiago. The romance was swift – he asked her out when they first met, and proposed on their first date. Producer and manager Normal Petty didn’t approve, and asked Holly to keep their wedding quiet to avoid upsetting his fans. She pretended to merely be his secretary, but the damage was done – there was dissension in the ranks, not helped by the other Crickets also having their doubts in trusting Petty with all the money they were earning.

Despite money troubles, Holly had various interesting ideas about the direction his career would go, including making an album with Ray Charles and Mahalia Jackson. This suggests the 60s could have been a very different decade for pop had Holly not died.

He and Santiago settled in Greenwich Village, where he recorded acoustic songs including Crying, Waiting, Hoping. That October saw Holly’s final recording session take place. Four songs were recorded with an 18-piece orchestra, including It Doesn’t Matter Anymore and the B-side Raining in My Heart.

Review

It Doesn’t Matter Anymore had been written by Paul Anka, whose Diana had been number 1 directly before That’ll Be the Day. Still a teenager, Anka was, like Holly, prodigiously talented. Obviously the song’s title became eerily prescient, but it actually concerned the end of a romance. Chirpy pizzicato strings belie the singer’s bitterness at the break-up, as do Holly’s occasional trademark vocal stutters (which can be irritating to modern ears, it has to be said), but its lush production hinted at the future direction of pop, and displays Holly’s desire to experiment with his sound. Also, is it just me, or does this sound very similar to John Kongos’s He’s Gonna Step On You Again – later known as Step On by Happy Mondays?

After

As 1958 drew to a close, Holly parted ways with Petty. Despite the rest of The Crickets’ concerns, they decided to stay with their manager, so Holly left the band.

Due to Petty withholding his royalties, Holly was forced to immediately form a new band (featuring Waylon Jennings) and get out on the road. They began their ‘Winter Dance Party’ tour’, joined by Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, but the tour was beset with problems, with buses breaking down and performers suffering from flu and even frostbite. Tired of being on the road, Holly decided to charter a plane to Fargo, North Dakota.

The story goes that The Big Bopper was suffering with flu, and asked Jennings if he would consider giving up his seat for him. When Holly found out his bassist wasn’t travelling with him, he quipped ‘Well, I hope your ol’ bus freezes up’. In a response that was to haunt Jennings for the rest of his life, he replied ‘Well, I hope your ol’ plane crashes’. Valens used to be terrified of flying, but asked Holly’s guitarist to toss a coin to decide who got to fly, and Valens won. The plane took off safely in light snow, but five minutes later, contact was lost. The plane had somehow cartwheeled across a frozen field, and Holly, Valens and Richardson had been thrown from the craft, with the pilot caught in the wreckage. All four had died instantly.

The incident shocked the music world, and was later immortalised by Don McLean as ‘The Day the Music Died’ in American Pie. Anka kindly gave the royalties of his song to Holly’s widow, who suffered a miscarriage when she was told of her husband’s death.

The Outro

It Doesn’t Matter Anymore proved posthumous singles offered music fans a way to mourn the heroes they had lost. It also showed record company bosses that it was a great way of making money out of dead artists.

The Info

Written by

Paul Anka

Producer

Norman Petty

Weeks at number 1

3 (24 April-14 May)

Trivia

Births

27 April: Singer Sheena Easton
3 May: Comedian Ben Elton
5 May: Echo & the Bunnymen singer Ian McCulloch
12 May: Director Deborah Warner

83. Russ Conway – Side Saddle (1959)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

By the spring of 1959 it had been three years since Winifred Atwell had last topped the charts, with The Poor People of Paris. Despite the changes in musical tastes since then, there was still a market for jolly old honky tonk instrumentals that you could have a knees-up to. Who could fill that gap? Step forward, Russ Conway.

Before

Born Trevor Stanford (the name his self-penned songs would be credited to) on 2 September 1925 in Bristol, his mother had been a pianist but died when he was only 14. His two brothers had formal musical education, but no real talent to speak of, whereas Conway was the opposite.

He served in the Navy during World War Two, where he was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal for ‘gallantry and devotion to duty’. During the war his many health problems began, which saw him discharged due to a stomach ulcer. He had lost one of the tips of a finger in an accident with a bread-slicer, but that didn’t stop him taking his friend’s advice, and upon his return, Conway agreed to stand in for a holidaying club pianist. He then began performing in pubs and clubs, before being spotted by the choreographer Irving Davies. He signed to EMI’s Colombia label, where he would play piano for stars including Gracie Fields.

Eventually Conway made it on to The Billy Cotton Band Show, and it was Cotton who was instrumental in persuading Conway to loosen up and develop the style that made him a solo star. His first solo single, Party Pops, was released in 1957, and was a medley in the vein of Atwell’s 1954 Christmas number 1, Let’s Have Another Party. However, it was by composing that he made his breakthrough. When writing a score for a TV musical version of Beauty and the Beast, Conway was asked at the last minute to write a tune for a ballroom scene. He hastily came up with one and called it Side Saddle.

Review

This has to be one of the strangest number 1 singles so far. I’m really struggling to grasp how it happened. At least with Atwell, her number 1s were covers of familiar tunes played at a manic pace. I’ve now listened to Side Saddle several times and I can’t remember the tune, let alone work out how it spent a month at the top. It has a certain quaint charm I guess and will have reminded the oldies of the time of their youth, perhaps. That’s the best I can manage, I’m afraid.

The Info

Written by

Trevor Stanford 

Producer

Norman Newell

Weeks at number 1

4 (27 March-23 April)

Trivia

Births

15 April: Actress Emma Thompson
17 April: Painter Peter Doig
21 April: The Cure singer Robert Smith

Meanwhile…

30 March: An early CND rally took place in Trafalgar Square that saw 20,000 demonstrators attend.

2 April: United Dairies merged with Cow & Gate to become Unigate. You might say, ‘So what?’, and it’s before my time too, but Unigate are fondly remembered for their ‘Watch out there’s a Humphrey about’ adverts in the 70s… My mind is wandering… can we have a number 1 I can understand next, please?