US reggae singer-songwriter Johnny Nash is best known for the uplifting and inspirational I Can See Clearly Now, but he only scored one number one, and it’s this lesser-known track, which isn’t the Tears on My Pillow that immediately springs to mind.
Before
John Lester Nash Jr was born 19 August 1940 in Houston, Texas. This shy boy sang in the choir at Progressive New Hope Baptist Church in South Central Houston. Aged 13 he was working as a golf caddy, and he impressed retired businessman Frank Stockton with his singing so much, he arranged an audition for a local TV show. Nash went down so well, he made regular appearances for three years, and was earning more than his father.
In 1956, aged 16, Nash was signed with ABC-Paramount and released his first single, the self-explanatory A Teenager Sings the Blues. It made little impact but he did chart in the US with a cover of Doris Day’s A Very Special Love. His eponymous LP was released in 1958 and a year later he made his film debut in the adaptation of Take a Giant Step.
In these early years, his label marketed him as a rival to Johnny Mathis. He mostly ignored rock’n’roll, and crooned ballads on several labels, to little success. By the 60s, he was looking decidedly old-fashioned.
Nash’s career picked up when he and manager and business partner Danny Sims moved to Jamaica in 1965. Sims opened a new music publishing business, Cayman Music. A year or so later, Nash went to a Rastafarian party where a little-known group called Bob Marley & The Wailing Wailers were performing. Nash was awestruck and got to know Marley, his wife Rita, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, and got them signed to Cayman Music.
Jamaica transformed and rejuvenated Nash’s career. He, Sims and Arthur Jenkins formed JAD Records and released rocksteady single Hold Me Tight in 1968, and it was a big hit, reaching five in the US and UK. Follow-up You Got Soul reached six, and so did Cupid in 1969.
By the time I Can See Clearly Now came along in 1972, JAD Records was no more and Nash was signed with Epic. It was a number 1 in the US but somehow stalled at five on these shores, which is surprising, such is its enduring appeal. When Nash died a few weeks ago, this classic had top billing in his obituaries. The album it came from, with the same name, had four songs by Marley, one of which, Stir It Up, had also been a hit and is better known in its version by The Wailers. Third single There Are More Questions Than Answers climbed to number nine, and was later used on a regular round of A Question of Sport in the 80s when I would watch it with my dad, despite having next to no interest in sport.
But I digress. As Marley came into his own and superstardom beckoned, Nash was doing the opposite. In 1974 he decided to move back to Houston to live a quiet life on a ranch with his new, third wife, Carlie Collins. Which makes the success of Tears on My Pillow (I Can’t Take It) all the more surprising. It was a cover of reggae artist Ernie Smith’s I Can’t Take It, and the renaming caused Smith to miss out on initial royalties. Was it renamed to lead people into thinking it was a cover of the Little Anthony and the Imperials classic from 1958? Perhaps. It doesn’t help that the chorus contains the lines ‘Tears on my pillow/And pain in my heart”.
Review
It’s baffling to me how this overtook I’m Not in Loveas number 1 – though there’s some continuity considering that contained the famous ‘Be quiet, big boys don’t cry’ line. It’s a nice enough dose of light reggae, but there’s nothing to make it stand out really. Also, it’s a bit too upbeat to make you believe Nash is hurting. I like the initial move from the intro into the reggae rhythm, but then it doesn’t do enough to keep me interested. The spoken word section is poor, but Nash is in fine voice otherwise. I Can See Clearly Now is a much better track, so why did this do so well at the time? It’s a strange one. Nash hadn’t had a hit in three years, so there was no momentum there, other than there was a market for reggae-pop tunes, as the superior Everything I Own had been number 1 a year previous.
After
In 1976 Nash had a number 25 hit with a cover of Sam Cooke’s (What a) Wonderful World and then seemed to decide on planned obsolescence, releasing a couple more singles before dropping off the radar. He concentrated on family life and helping local causes. There was a brief resurgence in 1986 with the album Here Again, but then he vanished again. In 1993 he set up the Johnny Nash Indoor Arena in Houston and helped poor youngsters to have riding lessons they couldn’t afford otherwise. Nash died of natural causes on 6 October 2020, aged 80.
With a thud resembling a human heartbeat it begins, and then the ethereal, icy voices float in around a warm, liquid electric piano line, enveloping the listener in a never-before-heard aural ecstasy. I’m Not in Love is not only 10 cc’s best number 1, it is their masterpiece, and one of the greatest chart-toppers of the 70s.
Before
Following the success of Rubber Bullets in 1973, the Mancunian quartet proved they weren’t a flash in the pan when The Dean and I reached 10 in the hit parade. Joined by second drummer Paul Burgess, they embarked on a UK tour before returning to Strawberry Studios to work on second album Sheet Music. Released in 1974, it featured the singles The Wall Street Shuffle (another number 10 hit) and Silly Love (24). Sheet Music helped the band make inroads in the US.
However, 10 cc were struggling financially. They were still signed to Jonathan King’s UK Records and haemorrhaging money due to a meagre royalty rate, so they needed a bigger label. Fortunately, they had a song that would blow the minds of record company executives.
I’m Not in Love was written in 1974 and stemmed from Eric Stewart’s wife Gloria complaining that he didn’t say ‘I love you’ to her enough. So he went away and tried to think of a clever way of saying it without making it explicit. A very 10 cc thing to do. The lyric about the picture on the wall hiding a ‘nasty stain’ refers to a photo of Gloria that he had used in his bedroom at his parents’ house
He wrote most of the melody and lyrics on the guitar, and asked Graham Gouldman to help him finish it in the studio. Gouldman suggested some different chords for the melody and came up with an intro and bridge. After two or three days they had a bossa nova guitar-led version to present to the other band members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. All four worked on recording the first version, with Creme on guitar, Gouldman on bass and Godley on drums. Stewart later recalled Godley and Creme didn’t like it, particularly Godley, who said ‘It’s crap.’ Stewart was taken aback and asked for something constructive to work with, and Godley told him to ‘chuck it’. So the original demo was wiped, which is a shame as it wold be fascinating to hear how the song developed.
Stewart and Gouldman instead helped Godley and Creme with Une Nuit a Paris, but Stewart noticed staff at Strawberry Studios were singing the melody to I’m Not in Love, and suggested they try again. Godley remained sceptical. He and Creme were considered the more ‘arty’ of the band, while Stewart and Gouldman came from a more ‘pop’ angle. Godley relented on the condition they ‘totally fuck it up’ and not use instruments, relying on voices instead. I’m Not in Love was back on.
Am acoustic guitar guide track was recorded first in order to help with the melody, but they then concentrated on creating a wall of vocal sound. Stewart spent three weeks recording Gouldman, Godley and Creme singing ‘ahhhh’ 16 times for each note of the chromatic scale, creating a ‘choir’ of 48 voices for each note. To keep the voices running through the track, Creme suggested tape loops, having become obsessed with them since Revolution 9 from The Beatles. Stewart created 12 , each 12 inches long, to play through separate channels of the mixing desk.
Godley backed down on the ‘no instrument’ rule, but they were kept minimal. Stewart played the electric piano, Gouldman used an electric guitar for the rhythm melody and Godley borrowed Creme’s Moog synthesiser for the heartbeat drum sound. For the bridge and middle eight, Creme played the piano and replicated some lyrics that were rightly omitted: ‘Don’t feel let down. Don’t get hung up. We do what we can – do what we must.’ Gouldman added a nice touch of bass, and a toy box was double-tracked out of phase for the middle eight and fade-out.
It’s interesting to note that after spending so much time on the production, they decided Stewart’s guide vocal couldn’t be improved on. It was so heartfelt they kept it in. Godley and Creme recorded the backing vocals. That haunting keyboard that comes in when Stewart sings ‘It’s just a silly phase I’m going through’? It’s not, apparently a keyboard, but a chorus of treated kazoos.
The recording was just about finished, but Godley felt it was lacking something. Creme remembered when testing the grand piano mics that he, apropos of nothing, said ‘Be quiet, big boys don’t cry’. Stewart soloed the line, and they felt they had something, but not the right voice. While considering this, their secretary Kathy Redfern entered the studio and whispered ‘Eric, sorry to bother you. There’s a telephone call for you.’. Creme jumped up and said she had the perfect voice. It took some coaxing but Redfern put down the famous whisper, and I’m Not in Love was complete.
Review
A common criticism of 10 cc is that, while they were clearly uncommonly stuffed with talent and brimming with ideas, their songs lacked heart and soul. You can’t say that here. I’m Not in Love was one of the most beautifully intelligent songs yet to top the charts, and a fascinating glimpse into the male psyche. Here, Stewart is steadfastly refusing to acknowledge his feelings, but he can’t stop the tide of emotion he feels. He may claim it’s a ‘silly phase’ but he doth protest too much, to the extent of being arrogant and cold. ‘Don’t think you’ve got it made’ is a pretty cocky way of making his point and telling the muse not to tell her friends suggests he’s ashamed of loving her.
Try as he might though, he can’t stem the tide of emotion, represented by the gorgeous sound of the celestial choir, a million voices telling him ‘don’t fight it, feel it’. Just at the point it sounds like it will completely overcome him, he comes up with another comeback, but the voices remain, and will always return. The ‘Be quiet, big boys don’t cry’ section is inspired, and it seems too good to be true that it was a happy accident. Or maybe Creme subconsciously said it because that is the very essence of the song? This man is unable to reveal his true feelings, be they love or hurt, because he was told as a child to ‘man up’. And a lifetime of thinking like that is doing him harm. When he sings ‘You’ll wait a long time for me’, it’s through gritted teeth.
Production-wise, I’m Not in Love is light years ahead of most if not all other number 1s from 1975. A lush mix of prog-rock and pop with far-out effects, but yet very commercial at the same time. Godley and Creme did a great job of fucking it up, and the use of the choir is so good it sends shivers down my spine, but at the heart of I’m Not in Love is a great pop song, with a beautiful performance from Stewart.
After
10 cc’s manager Ric Dixon invited Nigel Grainge, head of A&R at Mercury Records to Strawberry to hear the track and he was blown away. With the rest of the album The Original Soundtrack in the can, they signed with the label for a million dollars. This infuriated Creme – as far as he was concerned, 10 cc were about to join Richard Branson’s fledgling Virgin label, but he and brother-in-law Stewart were on holiday with their wives.
10 cc released Life Is a Minestone as a preview of their forthcoming LP The Original Soundtrack and it reached seven. 10 cc knew they had a great song to follow it, but at six minutes-plus, how was I’m Not in Love going to fare as a single? Stewart refused to edit it at first, but backed down and they made a four-minute version for the radio. I’d advise not bothering with the edit. It’s pretty clumsy. Fortunately, it began selling well, so well in fact, public demand meant the full version began to be played instead.
The Outro
Not only were the band vindicated when it spent a fortnight at number 1 in the UK, it also went to two in the US. A year later Godley was telling the NME that I’m Not in Love was his favourite 10 cc song, a far cry from the ‘crap’ judgement he originally had. By the time 10 cc had their third and final number 1, he and Creme were no longer members of the group.
The Info
Written by
Eric Stewart & Graham Gouldman
Producers
10 cc
Weeks at number 1
2 (28 June-11 July)
Trivia
Deaths
2 July:Actor James Robertson Justice
Meanwhile…
30 June: UEFA reduces Leeds United’s ban from European competitions to one season on appeal.
5 July: 36-year-old Ann Rogulskyj from Keighley, West Yorkshire is badly injured in a hammer attack in an alleyway.
Yes, your eyes don’t deceive you, that’s two characters from a BBC sitcom, up there, at number 1. For three whole weeks in the long, hot summer of 1975, Windsor Davies and Don Estelle, stars of, ironically, the Jimmy Perry and David Croft comedy It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, ruled the hit parade with a trad-pop ballad from 1940.
Before
Thanks to their Second World War sitcom Dad’s Army, Perry and Croft were one of the most successful comedy writing duos of the 70s. Their second series set in the period, It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum had begun in 1974. Set in the fictional village of Tin Min in Burma during the last months of the conflict, and chronicling the exploits of a Royal Artillery concert party, Perry and Croft were recalling their own experiences in the war. It was another huge success, running until 1981, but you’ll probably never see it repeated ever again. There’s a fair bit of homophobia directed at camp character Gunner ‘Gloria’ Beaumont (Melvyn Hayes) and one actor, Michael Bates, blacked-up to portray Indian Bearer Rangi Ram.
The most enduring character was Windsor Davies’ Battery Sergeant Major Tudor Bryn ‘Shut Up’ Williams, an imposing, ferocious officer, who hated how his troop were stage performers. So much so, he would often call them a ‘bunch of poofs’. Among his victims was Don Estelle’s diminutive Gunner ‘Lofty’ Harold Horace Herbert Willy Sugden, but even Sergeant Major Williams could not help but enjoy Lofty’s lovely tenor voice.
Davies was born in Canning Town, London on 28 August 1930, but the family returned to their roots in the Welsh village of Nant-y-Moel in 1940. After he left school he worked as a coal miner before undergoing National Service in Libya and Egypt between 1950 and 1952. He then moved into teaching but also got the acting bug, performing amateur dramatics before turning professional in 1961. He had his first film role in 1962 in The Pot Carriers, and television roles followed, often as figures of authority, and was a paid heavy in the Doctor Who story “The Evil of the Daleks” in 1967, and was a sailor in The Onedin Line in 1971.
When Davies got the job on It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, he based Sergeant Major Williams on his superiors during National Service. With his catchphrases of ‘Shut up!’, ‘Hello lovely boy’ and ‘Oh dear, how sad, never mind’, Davies somehow made a complete bastard rather lovable. When a cast spin-off album was made, putting Davies and Estelle together was a natural decision as they spent four years touring the clubs as a duo before they became famous.
Estelle was born Ronald Edwards on 22 May 1933 in Crumpsall, Manchester. At the age of eight he was evacuated to Darwen, Lancashire to escape the German bombing of the city. In Darwen he found his voice and became a boy soprano at his new local church, and continued to sing at his old one when he returned home. He joined local charity group the Manchester Minstrels and took part in a BBC Radio talent show in 1954. It was while working as a warehouse manager by day and performing in clubs by night that he first met Davies.
On days off he worked as an extra for Granada Television and made his TV debut throwing darts on Coronation Street. Arthur Lowe, then a regular on the soap, suggested to Estelle that he should contact Perry and Croft, and as a result he landed a bit part in Dad’s Army in 1969, returning a year later for several episodes. Measuring only 4ft 9, Estelle was the perfect man to cast for the ironically nicknamed Lofty, and next to the towering Davies, they made for a great mismatched pair.
Whispering Grass was a near-faithful cover of The Ink Spots version from 1940, but it was originally recorded by Erskine Hawkins & His Orchestra. Fred Fisher, a Tin Pan Alley songwriter, wrote it with his daughter Doris.
Review
This is understandably considered a novelty number 1, and is certainly a weird idea, especially for anyone not around at the time. However, once I got past Davies’ in-character recital of some of the lyrics, I was pleasantly surprised. Estelle really does have a lovely voice, and other than Davies popping up again in the middle briefly (and is he helping with the backing vocals?), it’s played completely straight and is very similar to The Ink Spots version. It’s a sweet, endearing tune, and it took me back to the early days of this blog when most of the songs I covered were of this ilk. Lovely, boys.
After
Such was the popularity of their Whispering Grass, the duo followed it up with a cover of The Mills Brothers’ Paper Doll, which just missed out on a chart placing. They also recorded a full album together, Sing Lofty, in 1976.
While It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum was at the peak of its popularity, drawing in audiences of 17 million, Davies also starred in Carry On Behind (1975) and Carry On England (1976), where he played… yes, another comically angry Sergeant Major. He also had a role in the 1978 Welsh rugby film Grand Slam.
Such was the unmistakably rich quality of Davies’ voice, he had no shortage of voiceover work when It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum ended in 1981. I will have likely first heard his dulcet tones on the children’s sci-fi series Terrahawks (1983), where he played… a sergeant major. He also provided voices in Paul McCartney’s Rupert and the Frog Song (1984) and an advert for Cadbury’s Wispa. From 1981 to 1991 he starred alongside Donald Sinden in the ITV sitcom Never the Twain, and in 1997 appeared in an episode of another Perry and Croft sitcom, Oh Doctor Beeching!. Davies retired in 2014 and moved to the south of France with his wife. He died on 17 January 2019, aged 88.
Estelle fared less well. After It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum was axed, he starred in a BBC adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and had small roles in the films A Private Function (1984) and Santa Claus: The Movie (1985). He formed Don Estelle Music Publishing and released cassettes of his recordings on his Lofty label for years to come, but disappeared into obscurity.
He cut a rather tragic figure towards the end of his life, performing in his Lofty outfit in shopping centres beside his tapes, and was understandably bitter, but perhaps unreasonable, that his most famous role would never be shown on TV again in repeats. There was a return to the small screen for him though, thanks to his appearance as Little Don in early episodes of The League of Gentlemen in 1999. In 2001 he played a dirty old man in Page 3 girl Jo Hicks’s cover of The Benny Hill Show theme Yakety Sax.
The Outro
Estelle spent the last few years of his life living in New Zealand, but he returned to the UK weeks before his death. He needed a liver transplant but was too ill to undergo it, and he died in Rochdale Infirmary on 2 August 2003. He was buried with the oversized pith helmet he wore as Lofty.
The Info
Written by
Fred & Doris Fisher
Producer
Walter J Ridley
Weeks at number 1
3 (7-27 June)
Trivia
Births
19 June:Rower Ed Coode
Deaths
27 June:Conservative MP Arthur Salter, 1st Baron Salter
Meanwhile…
8 June: Peter Samuel Cook, aka The Cambridge Rapist, was arrested after stabbing a young woman at a nurses’ hostel.
9 June: Parliament proceedings are broadcast on radio for the first time.
13 June: UEFA places a three-year ban on Leeds United from European competitions following the behaviour of their fans at last month’s European Cup final.
14 June: West Midlands Ambulance crews stage a ban on non-emergency calls in a dispute over pay and hours.
17 June: Leeds United lodge an appeal against their ban from European competitions.
19 June – A coroner’s court jury returns a verdict of wilful murder and names Lord Lucan as the murderer in the inquest on Sandra Rivett, the nanny who was found dead at his wife’s home in London seven months previously.
One of America’s biggest-selling singers, Tammy Wynette was known as the ‘First Lady of Country Music’. However, her most famous hit, Stand by Your Man, has long been derided by feminists for its slavish devotion to men, and it takes on new meaning when her stormy marriage to singer-songwriter George Jones is considered.
Before
Virginia Wynette Pugh was born near Tremont, Mississippi on 5 May 1942. Her father, a local musician, died of a brain tumour when she was only nine months old. Her mother left her in the care of her grandparents and moved away. Pugh taught herself music with the instruments her father had left behind.
A month before graduating, Pugh married Euple Byrd. They moved around and Pugh took on a number of jobs to make ends meet, including working in a shoe factory and as a barmaid. She began performing at night, but Byrd didn’t support her ambitions in country music. When she left him, she claimed he said ‘Dream on, baby’ as she drove away. Years later at one of her concerts he asked her for her autograph and she signed it ‘Dream on, baby’.
In 1966 Pugh and her three daughters moved to Nashville, Tennessee in the hope of a record deal. She was turned down repeatedly, but her luck changed when she met Epic Records producer Billy Sherrill. He got her signed and it was he that suggested the name change to Tammy Wynette when he noted she reminded him of Debbie Reynolds in the film Tammy and the Bachelor (1957).
Wynette’s first single Apartment No. 9 failed to chart but Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad went to three on the Billboard country chart, and several hits followed. In 1967 her duet with David Houston, My Elusive Dreams, was a country number 1, and she won a Grammy for I Don’t Wanna Play House. Further country number 1s followed, notably D-I-V-O-R-C-E (a number 1 for Billy Connolly later this year) in 1968. For a time, Wynette and Sherrill thought this would become her signature song, but it was followed by the original release of Stand by Your Man.
The song that elevated Wynette to superstar status came very quickly, written in 15 minutes at Columbia Recording Studios in Nashville. It was the first time Wynette had written with Sherrill, and she had little faith in her ability. She wasn’t keen this song and felt it stretched her voice too far. When she went home and played it to Jones, who she married a year later. He wasn’t a fan either and that could well be due to perhaps feeling it was a comment on their rocky relationship.
Review
Stand by Your Man may have made Wynette a legend in country music, but in a way it haunted her for the rest of her life. To its critics it made Wynette seem weak, that no matter her man’s flaws, she would stay by their side and thinks others should too, because you need a companion ‘When nights are cold and lonely’. And she had more than her fair share of troubled times with men, which makes the song seem even more autobiographical. She had already been married twice by the time she was with Jones, and after their divorce she claimed that he would beat her and even threaten her with a shotgun.
This information can’t help but cloud your opinion of the meaning behind this song, yet Wynette always maintained that the message she was trying to send to women is that if they truly love a man they should forgive him his shortcomings, ‘Cos after all he’s just a man’. Sorry Tammy, but considering what you went through, I’m going to side on the feminists on this one.
Another problem I have with Stand by Your Man is – and I know to some this may be sacrilege – but I really do not enjoy Wynette’s voice here. That faux-emotional way of wringing out every word gets my back up, as does the way she sings the title. I prefer Dan Akroyd and John Belushi’s rendition in The Blues Brothers (1980). And yet she won a Grammy in 1969 for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for it, so what do I know? Worth noting that it’s Elvis Presley’s favourite backing singers, The Jordanaires, on this single and many of Wynette’s others.
After
Stand by Your Man was her highest-charting single in the US, reaching 19 in the Billboard Hot 100. It was also used in the drama Five Easy Pieces in 1970. The 70s saw Wynette and Loretta Lynn rule over the country charts. Between 1970 and 1975 she scored eight country number 1s.
It is unclear why Stand by Your Man went to number 1 in the UK in 1975, but the most likely reason was the high-profile divorce of Wynette and Jones, which was finalised that March. The split inspired Til I Can Make It On My Own, one of her biggest hits, in 1976. Despite the divorce, they continued to work together until 1980, and her final country number 1 was a duet with him, Near You, in 1977.
She rounded up the decade with her 1979 autobiography Stand by Your Man, by which point she was on her fifth and final marriage, to singer-songwriter George Richey. A year previous she had claimed she was kidnapped and assaulted by a masked man, resulting in a broken cheekbone and bruising. One of her children, Jackie Daly, claimed in her 2000 memoir that the claim was in fact made to cover up domestic violence from Richey, which he denied.
Like so many stars of the 60s and 70s, the 80s were difficult for Wynette. Her iconic status slipped along with her sales. Plagued by illness since the 70s, with a chronic bile duct problem, she became addicted to painkillers, resulting in a stay at the Betty Ford Center in 1986, the same year she joined the cast of CBS soap opera Capitol. She enjoyed a minor comeback with 1987 album Higher Ground and collaborated with Emmylou Harris, but in 1988 she filed for bankruptcy.
In 1991 Wynette suddenly found she was a pop star once again thanks to The KLF. Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty asked her to record vocals for a new version of Justified and Ancient (Stand by the JAMs). Wynette didn’t have a clue where or what Mu Mu Land was and must have found the video particularly baffling, but did it anyway and the single went to number 1 in 18 countries, though not in the UK sadly, where it stayed at two.
She then found herself involved in a very public argument with future First Lady Hillary Clinton, when she said in a 60 Minutes TV interview ‘I’m not sitting here as some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette’. The singer was furious and penned a letter to her, saying ‘With all that is in me, I resent your caustic remark. I believe you have offended every true country-music fan and every person who has made it on their own with no one to take them to the White House’. Clinton later apologised when she saw the negative press she was getting.
Her 1993 and 1994 albums, Honky Tonk Angels and Without Walls respectively, featured duets with big names including Dolly Parton, Elton John, Smokey Robinson and Sting. A duets album with Jones also followed in 1995, called One. There was one more UK number 1, sort of, when she was among the stars on the Children in Need version of Lou Reed’s Perfect Day in 1997.
The Outro
Wynette was only 55 when she died on 6 April 1998 of a blood clot in her lung, but so bad had her health been over the years, it’s a wonder she lived as long as she did. Much like her most famous song, her life divides opinion. You may see her as a strong role model for women or a domestic violence victim who couldn’t help being attracted to horrible men. The truth is likely somewhere inbetween, and whatever her private life, she was a much-loved entertainer.
The Info
Written by
Billy Sherrill & Tammy Wynette
Produced by
Billy Sherrill
Weeks at number 1
3 (17 May-6 June)
Trivia
Births
18 May:Scottish snooker player John Higgins 22 May: Badminton player Kelly Morgan 27 May: Chef Jamie Oliver 29 May: Spice Girl Melanie Brown/Comedian Sarah Millican 4 June: Comedian Russell Brand
Deaths
20 May: Sculptor Barbara Hepworth 21 May:Historian AH Dodd 3 June:Admiral Sir Christopher Bonham-Carter 5 June:Actor Lester Matthews
Meanwhile…
27 May: The Dibbles Bridge coach crash becomes the worst accident ever on UK roads when a coach runs away following brake failure and falls off a bridge near Hebden in North Yorkshire, killing the driver and 31 female pensioners.
28 May: Bayern Munich defeat Leeds United 2-0 in the European Cup final in Paris, France. When Leeds player Peter Lorimer has a goal disallowed, angry supporters invade the pitch and tear seats away from the stands.
31 May: The European Space Agency is established, with the UK being one of the 10 founding members. Also on this day, vile depraved Jimmy Savile began his long-running family show Jim’ll Fix It on BBC One.
2 June: Freak snow showers occur across the country, even as far south as London, which hadn’t happened since 1761.
5 June: In the EEC referendum, 67% of voters support continuing membership. There weren’t buses travelling round with lies emblazoned on them back then, you see.
Mud were always too in thrall with the 50s, and clowning around far too much, to go down in history as glam rock lynchpins, which is a shame as Tiger Feet is one of my favourite number 1s of the 70s, and Lonely This Christmas is one of the more memorable festive number 1s. But this third and final number 1 shows how stale they, and the movement that made them famous, was becoming.
Before
Fresh from the success of their Christmas number 1, Mud tried to gain a Valentine’s Day chart-topper with The Secrets That You Keep. They nearly managed it too, reaching three. Their next single was a cover of Oh Boy! by The Crickets, which had reached three in 1958 and came from their debut album The ‘Chirping’ Crickets. Meaning Chinnichap were only involved with production this time around, and soon, their partnership with the band was over.
Review
I can’t work out why Chapman and Chinn, who had proven time and time again how to get the best out of pop for several years by this point, chose to suck this rock’n’roll classic of all its energy and turn it into a stately stadium rock-style stompalong. It does the song and Mud a disservice, and although smothering the production with harmonies perhaps masks its weakness to an extent, it also means there’s barely any sign of singer Les Gray. In the original, Buddy Holly puts across brilliantly the excitement of waiting to meet a lover that night. You get none of that feeling here.
There’s also a strange section where a mystery woman sings too, which is even weirder when you watch it being performed in the video above. If you don’t, Mud briefly pretend to hang a cleaner who mimes this part…
After
Further Mud releases came thick and fast throughout 1975, but the band parted ways with Chinnichap and they left RAK. Moonshine Sally, L-L-Lucy and Show Me You’re a Woman all went top 10, and they were briefly joined by keyboardist Andy Ball. They also appeared in a bizarre musical comedy called Never Too Young to Rock. In 1976 they moved away from glam, and the number 12 hit Shake It Down was a decent stab at disco. A cover of Bill Withers’ classic Lean on Me was their final hit, reaching seven that December. That year, Gray was part of the Green Cross Code public information campaign Children’s Heroes.
By 1978 they were signed to RCA Records, and Brian Tatum had joined as keyboardist, but Gray decided to try a solo career and quit. Mud tried to carry on, and hired Margo Buchanan as their new singer, but they couldn’t recapture the spark, and they split in 1979. The original incarnation of the band performed one final time, at drummer Dave Mount’s wedding, in 1990.
In 1980 Gray began a new incarnation, dubbed Les Gray’s Mud, that he toured with in various incarnations for the rest of his life. While fighting throat cancer, he died in the Algarve, Portugal in 2004. Les Gray’s Mud continued as Mud II with the rest of the original band’s blessing. Mount died in 2006. Bassist Ray Stiles joined The Hollies in 1986 and is still with them now. Guitarist Rob Davis, known for dressing up as a woman on stage, had the most prominent career post-Mud. Following a chance meeting with dance producer Paul Oakenfold in the late-80s, he began writing lyrics to club tunes. In 2000 he had two number 1 smashes – Toca’s Miracle by Fragma and then Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) by Spiller. Most famously, he co-wrote Kylie Minogue’s classic Can’t Get You Out of My Head with Cathy Dennis in 2001.
The Outro
Oh Boy was, I think, Chinnichap’s last number 1, after several years of chart domination.
The Info
Written by
Sonny West, Bill Tighman & Norman Petty
Producers
Mike Chapman & Nicky Chinn
Weeks at number 1
2 (3-16 May)
Meanwhile…
3 May: West Ham United won the FA Cup for the second time, by beating Fulham 2-0 in the final at Wembley Stadium. Alan Taylor scored both goals.
It’s an obvious fact that I’ve mentioned many times before, but what a weird barometer of taste the singles number 1s are. Just when I’m applauding record buyers for sending Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) to the top, it gets replaced by… this. A slushy spoken word cover of a Bread song (the second by David Gates, after Everything I Own), recited by Hollywood actor Telly Savalas, best known at the time for his iconic role in Kojak. Strange times.
Before
Aristotelis Savalas was born in Garden City, New York on 21 January 1922, the second of five children to ethnic Greek parents. As children, he and his brother Gus would sell newspapers and polish shoes to support their struggling family. Savalas could only initially speak Greek when he started school. After graduating from high school he worked as a beach lifeguard. Despite being an excellent swimmer he was unable to resuscitate a father who had drowned. His children watched on as their father died, and it affected Savalas so profoundly he spent the rest of his life promoting water safety.
Savalas was drafted into the United States Army in 1941 and served for two years before he was discharged following a car accident in which he was seriously injured. He spent more than a year in hospital with a broken pelvis, sprained ankle and concussion.
After the Second World War, Savalas moved into media, but not as an actor. He hosted radio shows and then became a director at ABC on news and sports programmes during the 50s. His move into acting was an accident. He was asked to recommend an actor capable of doing a European accent (a pretty vague question) and when the friend he suggested failed to turn up, Savalas covered for him, and made his debut on Armstrong Circle Theatre in 1958. He became in demand for the next few years as a guest star for programmes including Naked City.
Savalas made his film debut in Mad Dog Coll (1961), and received much acclaim for Birdman of Alcatraz a year later, getting nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. He was rapidly losing his hair, and chose to shave his head for his role in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), remaining bald for the rest of his life. Some of his best-known work in the 60s included The Dirty Dozen (1967) and as Blofeld in the James Bond movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in 1969. That year he also had his first role as the lead in Crooks and Coronets.
He was already recording music before the role he became best known for, with his debut LP, This Is Telly Savalas… released in 1972. He leant his distinctive husky voice to easy listening covers of tracks including Johnny Cash’s I Walk the Line.
Savalas first played Lt. Theodopolus “Theo” Kojak in the TV movie The Marcus–Nelson Murders on CBS in 1973. Based on true crime, Savalas went down a storm as Kojak, and five series were made between 1973 and 1978. A lot of the character’s eccentricities came from Savalas, including sucking on lollipops. The character’s catchphrase ‘Who loves ya baby?’ became one of the best remembered of the 70s, and Savalas won an Emmy and two Golden Globes for Best Actor in a Drama Series.
In 1974 Savalas recorded his second album, Telly. It was more of the same, this time produced by Snuff Garrett, a big name in the 60s. Among the covers this time around was a spoken word version of If, which had been a big hit for soft rockers Bread in the US in 1971, reaching number four. Bread were always more popular in the US than the UK, where it failed to chart.
Review
Savalas’s version is very similar… well, apart from the one glaring difference. Whether it was because he was never going to reach the high notes of Gates, or a stylistic choice, he chose to use his deepest, most sincere and meaningful voice and recite the lyrics instead over a melodramatic production. It’s… well, it’s not actually as awful as it sounds. There have been worse number 1s. It is laughably dated and terribly over-the-top though, and even taking into account how popular Kojak was at the time, this one is a mystery. Gates’s lyrics are reminiscent of Charles Aznavour’s She, which put its muse on a pedestal, making her an enigma and wonder. A certain type of record buyer clearly loved this Hallmark card style of tacky romance.
The video of Savalas performing If above makes for hilarious viewing. He’s stood, fag in hand, gazing at a giant face of a blonde woman, who looks scared and confused by him. I urge you to watch. They really don’t make them like this anymore. If shares the top spot for shortest number 1 title ever with 19 by Paul Hardcastle from 1985, fact fans.
After
Savalas released two more LPs in the 70s – Telly Savalas (1975) and Who Loves Ya Baby in 1976. Two years later he starred in Capricorn One, and Kojak was cancelled after five seasons. If wasn’t Savalas’s only amusing spoken word contribution to British culture. In recent years footage has resurfaced from three short films made for cinemas – Telly Savalas Looks at Portsmouth, Telly Savalas Looks at Aberdeen, and Telly Savalas Looks at Birmingham. All are unintentional comedy gold.
With Kojak no more, the late-70s and 80s were leaner times for its lead. He featured among all-star casts in The Poseidon Adventure in 1979 and Cannonball Run II in 1984 and had cameos in Tales of the Unexpected (1981) and The Equalizer (1987). From 1985 onwards there were TV movies that gave him the chance to reprise his most famous role, but they didn’t have the same impact as before.
The Outro
As the 80s became the 90s he found more time to indulge his many hobbies, including poker (he finished 21st in the 1992 World Series), golfing and collecting luxury cars. Savalas was also a philanthropist, and took a special interest in Greek causes. Back in the 70s, he had been the sponsor for bringing electricity to his ancestral home in Ierakas. Remembered fondly for his compassion and generosity, Savalas died on 22 January 1994, one day after he had turned 72. His final film, Backfire! was released posthumously a year later.
The Info
Written by
David Gates
Producer
Snuff Garrett
Weeks at number 1
2 (8-22 March)
Births
12 March:Co-chairman of the Conservative Party Amanda Milling 21 March: Snooker player Mark Williams
Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) is one of the best examples of a song where the original intention of the writer is largely ignored by the masses. Like REM’s The One I Love, a spiteful song that has, because of its title, become popular at weddings, for example, with little attention paid to the lyrics. Steve Harley’s number 1 is to most a song about positivity, about enjoying yourself, about seeing the ones you love and soaking up the good vibes. For Harley, it was a giant ‘fuck you’ to the original Cockney Rebel, who dared to question his authority. He showed them who was right, and how, with this glam rock classic.
Before
Harley was born, ironically, Stephen Malcolm Ronald Nice on 27 February 1951 in Deptford, London. His father was a milkman and his mother a semi-professional jazz singer. He contracted polio aged two, and between the ages of three and 16 he spent a total of four years in hospital. Aged nine, Nice began classical viola lessons, and guitar a year later. While recovering from major surgery in 1963, aged 12, he fell in love with literature, enjoying the poetry and prose of giants including DH Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, and the lyrics of Bob Dylan, all of which would influence his music as he grew older. At 15 he wrote an autobiographical poem called ‘The Cockney Rebel’.
At 17 Nice left school and became a trainee accountant at the Daily Express before making the move into reporting, working for a variety of regional newspapers in Essex before settling with the East London Advertiser. Becoming disillusioned, Nice moved into the folk club scene in 1971, performing on line-ups featuring John Martyn and Ralph McTell, and busking on the underground He grew his hair and refused to wear a tie in his day job, and got the sack in 1972. His replacement was Richard Madeley.
Before the year was out, Nice’s stage name became Steve Harley, and he decided to form a glam rock band. The original Cockney Rebel consisted of Harley as singer, his friend from the folk scene Jean-Paul Crocker on electric violin, Stuart Elliott as drummer, Paul Jeffreys on bass and Nick Jones on guitar. Jones was quickly replaced by Pete Newnham but Harley decided Cockney Rebel were not going to be your average glam rock outfit. They ditched guitars and Milton Reame-James became their keyboardist. Labels were soon showing an interest in their demos, and they signed with EMI Records.
The first Cockney Rebel LP, The Human Menagerie, was released in 1973. Debut single Sebastian was a number two hit in Belgium and the Netherlands but never troubled the UK charts. Harley set to work writing a hit single, and proved he could when Judy Teen soared to five in 1974. With Alan Parsons, he co-produced follow-up album The Psychomodo, which featured number eight hit and inspiration for a classic 80s advert, Mr Soft.
By the time that single had reached the top 10, Cockney Rebel effectively didn’t exist. Harley has always maintained the understanding within the group was that he was the songwriter, but Crocker, Reame-James and Jeffreys chose to quit after demanding they be allowed to contribute. While Harley searched for a new band he released his debut solo single Big Big Deal, which proved to be anything but. Shortly afterwards, with Elliott back on drums, he hired guitarist Jim Cregan, who had played bass for Family, keyboardist Duncan Mackay and bassist George Ford. To ensure everyone knew where they stood this time around, the group was renamed Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, and they recorded their first album together, The Best Years of Our Lives.
Harley penned Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) within days of the original Cockney Rebel split. Harley was distraught and very bitter, and had the idea to write a dark blues song in order to get his feelings off his chest. One day in November as the new group were recording, Harley performed Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) as a slow dirge. Parsons saw something in it but suggested they speed it up and rephrase the chorus and Harley agreed. One of the masterstrokes was the addition of tacets before the verses, which is the deliberate use of silence. As Talk Talk singer Mark Hollis wisely noted, the space between the sounds can be as important and effective as the music. It added drama to the song, and although it’s been played to death so it’s impossible to imagine hearing it for the first time, it will have left the listener wondering what was on Harley’s mind next.
The instrumental break was originally to be a saxophone, but Cregan had the idea to play it on his guitar and give it a flamenco feel. Harley has noted since how difficult it’s been over the years for band members to perform live, as it was in fact three composite takes. The addition of female backing singers was another masterstroke. As well as Yvonne Keeley, Linda Lewis and Liza Strike there was Tina Charles, who would be number 1 a year later with I Love to Love. After having them sing the chorus, Harley liked the idea of having them add some ‘oooh la la la’ as a nod to Rubber Soul-era Beatles. The excitement grew throughout recording. Harley’s revenge was going to be very sweet. When the finished product was played to EMI’s head of A&R, Bob Mercer, he was blown away and uttered only two words. ‘Number one.’
Review
It might be considered a ‘glam’ tune, but to me Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) is pure pop brilliance from that memorable intro to the fade. Parsons deserves more credit for wrapping Harley’s barbed lyrics inside a shiny chart-friendly package. Not that Harley doesn’t deserve all the credit he has received over the years, once Parsons set him on the right path. I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I am among those who has misunderstood part of this song over the years – it’s only now that I discover it isn’t ‘I’ll do what you want, running wild’, but ‘Or do what you want, running wild’. Which is a key part of Harley’s message to Cockney Rebel Mk1 really. By all means, come and watch me now, see how well I’m doing without you, it’ll put a smile on my face… or just do what you want, because I don’t care really what you do anymore.
Perhaps Harley and Parsons’ success in making a pop classic did too good a job in masking the real message, as the backing vocals, as great as they are, distract from the lyrics. I’ve also only just discovered he makes it explicit who his ire is directed at, the second line being ‘And pulled the rebel to the floor’ – an obvious reference to Cockney Rebel. Of course, you could argue that Harley is being precious and needs to get over himself, but even then you’d be hard pushed to argue what a great, slick tune this is, and that it never gets old.
In 2015 it was reported the single had sold around 1.5 million copies, and the Performing Rights Society have confirmed it as one of the most played songs in British Broadcasting history, and over 120 covers, and counting, have been recorded.
After
Fresh off the back of their number 1, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel released The Best Days of Our Lives, which reached five in the album chart, and Mr. Raffles (Man, It Was Mean) was a top 13 singles hit. However, Harley produced the next album Timeless Flight alone, and it was a failure. More experimental than their previous LP, the critics slated it and its singles tanked. The final album by the band, Love’s a Prima Donna, fared better thanks to a faithful and timely cover of The Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun. Released in the long, hot summer of 1976, it was their final hit, reaching 10.
Harley featured on The Alan Parsons Project’s album I, Robot in 1977, and that July he announced Cockney Rebel were no more. He moved to America to work on his debut solo album, but Hobo with a Grin, released in 1978, fared badly. It featured his friend Marc Bolan’s final studio performances before his shock death. When his next album The Candidate also tanked a year later, he was dropped by EMI.
The 80s were, in Harley’s own words, his wilderness years. When The Best of Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel was released in 1980, along with a reissue of Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me), he formed a new Cockney Rebel. Over the next few years they had failure after failure, despite working with big-name producers like Midge Ure and Mike Batt. However, Andrew Lloyd Webber was planning a single to promote The Phantom of the Opera, and Batt suggested Harley audition to be the male voice on the title track. Harley succeeded and together with Sarah Brightman they had a number seven hit on their hands in 1986. He starred as The Phantom in the video, and won the audition to play him on stage, but the role was given to Michael Crawford instead.
1986 also saw the debut of an advert that fascinated and terrified my six-year-old self in equal measure, which Harley was inadvertently responsible for. Trebor had rewritten Mr Soft as the soundtrack to an advert for their Softmints, and asked Harley to record it, but he declined and an effective soundalike was used. The quirky, catchy song was perfect for this bizarre ad, as you can see here. So successful was the long-running campaign, Mr Soft was re-released in 1988. Years later when Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) was used to advertise Viagra, Harley wittily remarked that Mr Soft would have been more appropriate.
In 1989 another Cockney Rebel incarnation was created and Harley would flit between solo and band work for years to come. Upon its fourth reissue, Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) was back in the top 40, thanks to its use in a Carlsberg advert. It reached 33. Only two years later it was in the public eye again thanks to it being featured in The Full Monty. Harley branched out into radio work in 1999 when he became the presenter of Radio 2’s nostalgic The Sounds of the Seventies. It was so popular he would end up presenting it all year round until it ended in 2008.
Harley became involved with the charity Mines Advisory Group in 2002, later becoming an ambassador. The first album released under the Cockney Rebel name in 29 years, The Quality of Mercy, saw the light of day in 2005. A 30th anniversary remix of Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) was also released that year, and the original garnered attention yet again in 2015 when Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May began a campaign to download the song to help Harley pay for a speeding fine. He reunited with the most successful incarnation of Cockney Rebel for a tour performing The Best Days of Our Lives in full, also in 2015.
The Outro
The Cockney Rebel leader unveiled his sixth solo album, Uncovered in 2020. Consisting of some of his favourite material by other artists, he released The Beatles’ I’ve Just Seen a Face as a single, but the intended tour was postponed due to COVID-19.
And what became of the original Cockney Rebel? Elliott remained as Harley’s drummer throughout his career, and Jeffreys and Reame-James had some success in the prog rock band Be-Bop Deluxe, while Crocker performed with his brother in obscurity. Jeffreys was among those who died in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. He was with his bride returning from their honeymoon.
Of MKII, Cregan became a session musician, working mostly with Rod Stewart. Mackay appeared on Kate Bush’s first three albums and George Ford went off the radar. He died in 2007.
The Info
Written by
Steve Harley
Producers
Steve Harley & Alan Parsons
Weeks at number 1
2 (22 February-7 March)
Trivia
Deaths
22 February:Violist Lionel Tertis 26 February:Police officer Stephen Tribble (see ‘Meanwhile…’, below) 28 February:Writer Neville Cardus 3 March:Theatre organist Sandy MacPherson/Poet TH Parry-Williams
Meanwhile…
26 February: 22-year-old Metropolitan Police officer Stephen Tibble is shot and killed after giving chase to a fleeing Provisional IRA member.
28 February: The Moorgate tube crash kills 43 people and injures 74 when a London Underground train failed to stop at the Northern city Line’s southern terminus and smashed into its end wall. It is considered the worst peacetime accident on the London Underground.
1 March: Aston Villa, chasing promotion from the Football League’s Second Division, win the Football League Cup with a 1-0 victory against Norwich City at Wembley Stadium.
4 March: Comedy acting legend Charlie Chaplin, 85, is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
7 March: The body of teenage heiress Lesley Whittle, who disappeared from her home in Shropshire in January, is discovered in Staffordshire. She had been strangled on a ledge in drains below Bathpool Park near Kidsgrove.
Here’s an unexpected number 1 for a soul group who had a US chart-topper in 1963 and had struggled to get near that level of fame again. The Tymes kept on trying though, and were rewarded 12 years later with their one and only stint at pole position in the UK.
Before
The Tymes, hailing from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had nearly 20 years under their belts when M/s Grace was released, having formed in 1956 as The Latineers. The line-up featured Donald Banks as bass, Albert Barry as first tenor, Norman Burnett as baritone and George Hilliard as second tenor. Learning the ropes on the local circuit, they became a quintet when George Williams became their lead vocalist in 1960.
They were signed to Cameo-Parkway in 1963 and were an instant US success, when debut single So Much in Love, written by Williams, topped the Billboard chart. It also reached 21 in the UK. Their debut LP, named after the single, also featured a popular cover of Wonderful! Wonderful!, previously a hit for Johnny Mathis. But after the title track of the follow-up, Somewhere, The Tymes couldn’t maintain their popularity. They tried releasing records on their own Winchester label, but it folded after two singles. Then they were dropped by MGM after another two releases. There was a brief comeback on Colombia in 1968 with a cover of People from the musical Funny Girl, which only scraped into the US chart but reached 16 in the UK. They were soon dropped again.
Longtime producer Billy Jackson bought them time at Gamble & Huff’s Sigma Sound studio in an attempt to get them signed, but to no avail. However, RCA decided to sign them. Meanwhile, John Hall of the band Orleans and his wife Johnanna had written a doo wop-style love song about a sophisticated lady called Miss Grace that wasn’t really suitable for his band, so they asked their publisher to pitch it elsewhere. She went to The Tymes, who were happy to oblige, though they did cleverly suggest making ‘Miss’ a ‘Ms’, a term growing in popularity in the mid-70s, which suggested a rather hip, progressive woman. It was the second single released from the album Trustmaker, and fingers crossed it would do well after You Little Trustmaker was a top 20 hit.
Review
M/s Grace has an elaborate opening, bringing to mind Gamble and Huff’s slick work. But it then turns into a more old-school, upbeat soul number, which is difficult to dislike. But I’m not sure there’s enough there to really love. It’s one of the more minor number 1s of the decade, but nonetheless, it would have been a welcome blast of sunny optimism, always needed in the post-Christmas malaise of January. There’s bags of energy, and it’s nice to hear of veterans who’ve struggled for years coming good. This nation does love the underdog.
The Outro
Weirdly, M/s Grace had the opposite effect to So Much in Love. While it was a number 1 in the UK, it tanked in the US. The UK revival of their fortunes didn’t last long either, as they never had another top 40 entry. After decades of the same line-up, by 1976 Berry and Hilliard had been replaced by Terri Gonzales and Melanie Moore. The former later recorded a solo album with Chic’s Nile Rodgers, and the latter worked with Chaka Khan. Williams died in 2004, aged 69, Banks in 2011, aged 72, and Hilliard in 2014, aged 73. Berry and Burnett remain, and still tour with a new line-up.
The Info
Written by
John & Johanna Hall
Producers
Billy Jackson & Mike Chapman
Weeks at number 1
1 (25-31 January)
Trivia
Deaths
16th Duke of Norfolk, Bernard Fitzalan-Howard – 31 January
Breaking off from the 70s briefly, I noticed over Christmas 2020 that my blog on Every Christmas Number 2 was getting a lot of attention, and in the year that my first book, Every UK Number 1: The 50s was released, I decided to combine the two and give a (very) brief review of every chart runner-up from the first chart of November 1952 through to the end of the decade. Did some of these songs and artists deserve to be in my book, and are some as baffling as the singles that outsold them? As usual, I’ll pick a best and worst for each year, and then an overall pick for each to cover the 50s as a whole. Please note the songs here are singles for which number 2 was their highest position, so future and previous number 1s don’t get a look-in.
1952/53
The first years of the chart were a mix of trad pop, novelty songs and instrumentals. It gets off to a very strange start with Guy Mitchell’s Feet Up (Pat Him on the Po-Po), a typically chipper novelty hit that couldn’t be more different to the original number 1, Here in My Heart. Mitchell is paying tribute to his newborn son, saying he’s going to buy him ‘a horn, a baseball, and drum’… strange mix of gifts. I can’t pinpoint exactly where Mitchell is patting him – what is a Po-Po? I can only assume it’s his head or his arse. Mitchell, an early-50s chart mainstay, replaced himself at number 2 with the similarly upbeat Pretty Little Black Eyed Susie, in which he exclaims he loves his biscuits ‘soaked in gravy’. Truly, a different era. There’s a couple of forgettable instrumentals here – Terry’s Theme from ‘Limelight’, by Frank Chacksfield and His Orchestra, was written by Charlie Chaplin for his 1952 comedy drama, and Mantovani and His Orchestra’s Swedish Rhapsody sounds French more than anything. Frankie Laine was almost permanently in the top spot in 1953, and he’s here too, with quite a spooky-sounding country track, Where the Winds Blow.
The Best
Nat ‘King’ Cole – Pretend
I was familiar with this song due to Alvin Stardust’s 1981 cover, which was in my parents’ vinyl collection as I grew up. A classy orchestral ballad from a great singer, it’s much better than any other 1952/53 number 2, and would have been a better number 1 than Frankie Laine’s I Believe.
The Worst
Diana Decker – Poppa Piccolino
Yuck. Twee, cheesy nonsense. An Italian song, originally a satire on the divide between the rich and poor, rewritten to become cheesy fare about a wandering minstrel. Sung by a popular British/American actress of the era who starred in The Barefoot Contessa a year later.
1954
More of the same really, though a few classics start to crop up. Winifred Atwell kicks things off with one of her trademark ragtime medleys. Let’s Have a Party was so successful, it spawned a sequel, and Let’s Have Another Party became 1954’s Christmas number 1. Laine nudged her from the top spot with more western melodrama. Blowing Wild (The Ballad of Black Gold) is grandiose but not as memorable as Where the Winds Blow. More bright and breezy fare from Mitchell followed with Cloud Lucky Seven, which is rather similar to Kay Starr’s 1953 number 1 Comes-A-Long-A-Love. And then we have – of all things, Oberkirchen Children’s Choir’s The Happy Wanderer. This is a live 1953 recording by the BBC of the choir’s winning performance at the Llangollen International Musical. It’s charming to see such a song could be such a success, only nine years after the end of the Second World War. This amateur choir’s original members were war orphans, and the scene in Schindler’s List featuring this song is incorrect – The Happy Wanderer came after the war ended. Cole is back with another pop standard, and it’s the second time Chaplin gets a mention. This version of Smile was the first to feature lyrics and the song’s title, despite the tune being featured in the silent comedy legend’s 1936 film Modern Times. As always, Cole sings beautifully, and it’s perhaps the quintessential version.
The Best
Dean Martin with Dick Stabile and His Orchestra – That’s Amore
Yes, it’s cliched and dated, but it’s also one of Dean Martin’s most enduring signature songs. As always, Martin’s performance is key, and he pulls it off with bucketloads of charm. Originally written for him to perform in the comedy The Caddy from 1953, in which he sang it with comic partner Jerry Lewis. It was nominated for the Oscar for Best Original Song of that year, but lost out to Doris Day’s number 1 Secret Love.
The Worst
David Whitfield with Stanley Black and His Orchestra – Santo Natale
The only festive song on the list. David Whitfield’s operatic ballad is as painful as a real-life Christmas number 2 can be. There’s a reason you won’t find it on any Christmas compilations, it’s overwrought and sets my teeth on edge. Nice bells at the end, though. I also picked poor Whitfield as the man behind the worst Christmas number 2 with Answer Me.
1955
By this point, I was more than ready for some rock’n’roll. But although Rock Around the Clock appeared this year, all the number 2s are more of the same. Al Hibbler, a baritone with Duke Ellington’s orchestra, made a good stab at Unchained Melody – it’s certainly better than Jimmy Young’s awful rendition, a number 1 later that year. Laine is back yet again, with another western track. Cool Water is forgettable, despite being considered a standard of the genre. Mitch Miller, one of the most successful producers of the period, occasionally recorded with his orchestra, and his version of 1850s folk classic The Yellow Rose of Texas was his biggest UK hit in his own name. Unlike lots of his productions, this one is played straight. Four Aces Featuring Al Alberts had the most popular version of Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, but Bill Haley and His Comets prevented it from being the 1955 festive chart-topper. It did win the Oscar for Best Original Song though.
The Best
Frank Sinatra with Nelson Riddle and His Orchestra – Learnin’ the Blues
This isn’t up there with the best of Ol’ Blue Eyes, but it’s a pretty slick big band number in which Sinatra runs through how you know you’ve got the blues. However, it’s a pretty upbeat tune. In a poor year though, I guess this is the pick of the bunch.
The Worst
TheCyril Stapleton Orchestra with Julie Dawn – Blue Star (The ‘Medic’ Theme)
This appears to be an instrumental theme from a US medical drama called Medic, which was the first to feature actual medical procedures. But then, more than halfway in, Julie Dawn starts singing a very slushy love song. It’s very average 50s trad pop.
1956
An interesting, bumper year, with the sea change in pop becoming apparent. But not straight away. As we’ve seen, westerns were all the rage in the US and therefore the UK. The Ballad of Davy Crockett was a very successful attempt to promote the Walt Disney film Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. There were several versions, and actor Bill Hayes did the best out of the folky theme tune. Frank Sinatra returns with (Love Is) The Tender Trap, taken from the film The Tender Trap. It was nominated for an Oscar but it’s pretty average, really. Then Zambezi by Lou Busch and His Orchestra livens things up somewhat. It’s a nice jazzy instrumental, that I’m sure I’ve heard before as background music on a comedy series. A Tear Fell by US singer Teresa Brewer slows things down massively. And then, Elvis Presley, at last! Heartbreak Hotel, his first single for RCA injects some much-needed cool to proceedings. It’s a landmark release, but there was better to come. And then, skiffle! A double A-side of traditional folk tunes, Lost John/Stewball, get The Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group treatment. They’re much more gentle than the number 1 singles from Donegan in this decade, but still decent. Across the nation, future rock greats were taking note. Next up is a weird one. The All Star Hit Parade was a charity EP for The National Playing Fields Association, in which Dickie Valentine, Joan Regan, Winifred Atwell, Dave King, Lita Roza and David Whitfield contributed very short tracks, I’m assuming to make them all fit on one piece of vinyl. It’s mainly trad pop, and dull, but thankfully over pretty quick. Rounding things up nicely is one of number 1 crooner Frankie Vaughan’s most famous tunes. Green Door, later a number 1 for Shakin’ Stevens was, according to one urban legend, about the UK’s first lesbian club, Gateways, which had a green door.
The Best
Elvis Presley – Hound Dog
A classic that’s aged better than Heartbreak Hotel and many of his future number 1s, where the rot had already set in. Rocky and raunchy, with great drum breaks. Shame The Jordanaires spoil it with their old-fashioned backing vocals.
The Worst
Tony Martin With Hugo Winterhalter’s Orchestra and Chorus – Walk Hand in Hand
The second this dull trad pop from a veteran US actor and singer ended, I’d completely forgotten what it sounded like.
1957
Rock’n’roll is now established, and there’s plenty in the upper reaches of the charts among the ballads. It’s no coincidence that this is the best selection of tracks so far. One of the best ballads of the 50s is Nat ‘King’ Cole’s When I Fall in Love. It’s another masterful performance from Cole, and it’s a shame he never made it to number 1. Elvis wannabe Pat Boone beat ‘The King’ to the top spot, but why not just listen to the real thing? Love Letters in the Sand is better than his number 1, I’ll Be Home, at least. Last Train to San Fernando, by Johnny Duncan and the Blue Grass Boys, is a very interesting mix of bluegrass, calypso and skiffle, featuring Donegan’s former guitarist Denny Wright. Elvis Presley’s Party, which I’ve never heard before, is a nice blast of the early Presley rock’n’roll sound. Another Oscar nomination, Tammy, is typical cheesy 50s teen fare, used in Debbie Reynolds’ romantic comedy Tammy and the Bachelor. I know it from the sample found in The Avalanches’ A Different Feeling and Terry Gilliam’s adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998). It’s always made me feel queasy. Did you know Jim Dale from the Carry On films was a pop star before becoming an actor? Me neither, and he makes a decent fist of copying Presley on Be My Girl, produced by George Martin. Wake Up Little Susie is perhaps the most famous song by The Everly Brothers, yet it isn’t among their number 1s. It’s aged very well thanks to those sublime harmonies from Don and Phil and quite risque lyrics. Last up is a live recording of Ma He’s Making Eyes at Me by Johnny Otis and His Orchestra with Marie Adams. Otis is considered a seminal influence on rock’roll and it’s a great performance, particularly that raucous vocal from Adams.
The Best
Harry Belafonte, Tony Scott’s Orchestra and Chorus with Millard Thomas, Guitar – The Banana Boat Song
The pick of a great bunch (sorry) of singles is that calypso classic, originally a Jamaican folk tune, sung to perfection by the future civil rights activist and 1957 Christmas number 1 artist. I will have first heard this on Beetlejuice (1988) and have loved it ever since.
The Worst
Russ Hamilton – We Will Make Love
Easy listening dross sung by one of the first Scouse stars to make a name for themselves. That’s literally the only noteworthy thing to say about this.
1958
A smaller selection, and not much rock’n’roll. It’s a strange batch, but in a good way. Tom Hark by South Africans Elias and His Zig-Zag Jive Flutes is an instrumental kwela, that’s very familiar, probably via TV. The Mudlarks version of novelty bestseller Lollipop is catchy in an irritating sort of way – nice use of echo at the start though. US popsters The Four Preps contribute Big Man, a decent track with a memorable chorus and great harmonies. Interesting premise too, as the singer has dumped his girlfriend in a moment of madness and is now full of regret.
The Best
Elvis Presley with The Jordanaires – Hard-Headed Woman
Lifted from The King’s film King Creole. This was the first rock’n’roll record to go Gold. There’s some great guitar work on this 12-bar blues, and a reliably strong vocal from Elvis.
The Worst
Dean Martin with Orchestra and Chorus Conducted by Gus Levine – Return to Me
A surprisingly dull track from the normally reliable Dean Martin, who sings the last verse in Italian. It’s not bad, but in a year of weird number 2s that at least stand out, it gets lost in the mix.
1959
By now the raw danger of rock’n’roll had been mostly dampened by the teen pop sound. But there are a couple of good examples of that genre to be found. I love Little Richard. What fantastic energy, and what a voice! He can even make the 1920s song Baby Face sound hip. But there are much better tracks out there by the flamboyant personality that should have been more popular in the charts. Kim Wilde’s dad Marty was a star in the 50s, and A Teenager in Love, originally a hit for Dion, is rightly well-remembered. If Battle of New Orleans is anything to go by, Lonnie Donegan’s output had already began to deteriorate. It’s considered a country classic but it’s nothing special to my ears, and the cheesy opening is a sign of things to come from the skiffle trailblazer.
The Best
The Teddy Bears – To Know Him, is to Love Him
Before the late Phil Spector became a mad production genius, and ultimately a murderer, he was a member of this pop trio. To Know Him, is to Love Him, inspired by the words on Spector’s father’s tombstone, was a sign of the songwriting excellence to come. I particularly like the performance of the ‘Why can’t he see’ section by lead singer Annette Kleinbard. She later changed her name to Carol Connors, and co-wrote Gonna Fly Now the brilliantly uplifting theme from Rocky (1976).
The Worst
The Everly Brothers – (‘Til) I Kissed You Somewhat disappointing, plodding pop from Don and Phil. Written by the former.
The Best 50s Number 2 Ever is…
Elvis Presley – Hound Dog
Had to be, really. Elvis Presley’s 50s number 1s, bar Jailhouse Rock, don’t really do the King justice. This however, is rightly considered by many the point at which rock’n’roll truly became a revolution. This Lieber and Stoller 12-bar blues was originally recorded by Big Mama Thornton in 1952. Thornton’s version is better, but Presley also knocks it out of the park.
The Worst 50s Number 2 Ever is…
Tony Martin With Hugo Winterhalter’s Orchestra and Chorus – Walk Hand in Hand
So I listened to this again, and it made as much impression as last time. None. All I can say about it is that it’s very, very dull and we should never forget what rock’n’roll did for us to largely sweep this sort of thing away.
The Outro
I have to confess, this has proved a rather disappointing exercise on the whole! I was hoping for more rock’n’roll classics that I’d also expected to have been number 1s when i began covering them, but the runners-up largely mirror the chart-toppers – trad pop and novelties, a surge of rockn’roll and skiffle, and then teen pop. There’s no soul in there at all. Little Richard is there, but he had to cover a 1920s showtune to get a look-in. But it did at least remind me what a force of nature early Elvis was, and that Nat ‘King’ Cole was one of the greatest crooners. I know that when it comes to covering the 60s number 2s, there will be a larger volume of gems.
Christmas 1974, and anyone refuting the claim glam had become too in thrall of the past would have been hard pushed to defend Mud’s second number 1 of the year. Rushing together an Elvis Presley spoof for the festive market, they took Slade’s Christmas crown with Lonely This Christmas.
Before
To say the preceding 12 months had been good for Mud would be an understatement. They started the year with 1974’s biggest seller, and one of my favourite chart-toppers, Tiger Feet, then a number two with the inferior soundalike The Cat Crept In, and a respectable number six with Rocket. They also released a cover of In the Mood under the name ‘Dum’, which failed to chart.
The well was perhaps starting to run dry for Chinnichap’s songwriting, but they’d had a very impressive run over the last few years, and seeing the excitement the chart battle between Slade and Wizzard caused in 1973, they no doubt thought one of their acts could be in with a shout. If they could pull it off, it would be their third number 1 of the year.
There was some strong competition though. Mike Batt’s Wombles had enjoyed a good year and Wombling Merry Christmas was bound to do well, plus there was Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet close to the top spot. Elvis too.
Speaking of which, how can you talk about Lonely This Christmas without comparing it to the work of ‘the King’? Although you could point out it’s more akin to his early-60s work than 50s material – Are You Lonesome Tonight?is the obvious song to note – there’s also his cover of Blue Christmas to consider, which he recorded in 1957. And of course, singer Les Gray’s voice was similar to Presley’s in general and it gave him an excuse to be the country’s best-selling Elvis impersonator over the holidays.
Review
Now Lonely This Christmas is no Tiger Feet, nor is it of the same class as Merry Xmaƨ Everybody, but I’ve always been fond of it, and the sheer nerve of releasing it amuses me. The clip below, from Top of the Pops, of Gray miming sincerely to a sinister-looking (aren’t they all?) ventriloquist puppet is a classic, bizarre TV moment. Mud have always struck me as charming chancers who somehow lucked into being in the right place and the right time, and the sight of them struggling to keep a straight face when performing this proves it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAZjiLeDWlc
It’s not for everyone. It certainly doesn’t have the universal appeal of Slade or Wizzard’s festive classics, and the only way you could get emotionally attached to it would be if you really were unlucky enough to be going through a break-up with someone, and even then, you can’t, because the whole song is a joke, and you’d feel like you were being laughed at. But come on, it’s Christmas, a time for taste to go out the window. Embrace the tackiness, like a nation exhausted from elections and terrorism did at the time. It’s also quite a funny way for Chinnichap’s chart dominance and number 1s together to come to an end, although there was Mud’s final number 1, produced by them, to come.
The Outro
So that’s 1974. An eclectic mix of pop, late glam, with a welcome return of some reggae and soul into the mix. Things were about to steadily slide downhill as the 70s progressed further. It seems the more the country slid into the economic doldrums, the worse the singles chart became.
The Info
Written & produced by
Nicky Chinn & Mike Chapman
Weeks at number 1
4 (21 December 1974-17 January 1975)
Trivia
Births
6 January 1975:Radio DJ Jason King
Deaths
21 December 1974:Artist James Henry Govier
Meanwhile…
22 December 1974: A rotten year for Conservative Party leader Edward Heath ends with his London home bombed by the Provisional IRA. Fortunately he wasn’t in but only cheated death by 10 minutes.
24 December: Former Labour government minister John Stonehouse is discovered living in Australia after having faked his own death. He is quickly arrested by Australian police, who initially believe that he is Lord Lucan.
6 January 1975: Brian Clough, the recently sacked former manager of Leeds United, is appointed manager of Second Division strugglers Nottingham Forest.
14 January: 17-year-old heiress Lesley Whittle is kidnapped from her home near Bridgnorth in Shropshire.
