Social History

72. Vic Damone – On the Street Where You Live (1958)

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The Intro

The old-school swingers may have been on the wane, but they didn’t go down without a fight. Vic Damone’s On the Street Where You Live dates back to 1956. Written by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner for the musical My Fair Lady, the show had enjoyed two years of huge stateside success and had recently opened in London, causing the single to surge up the charts. Ironic really, considering Loewe wasn’t happy with the tune and had wanted it removing before the musical was released.

Before

It was the last number 1 produced by Mitch Miller, who had been responsible for many chart-toppers – Guy Mitchell’s She Wears Red Feathers, Look at That Girl and Singing the Blues, Johnnie Ray’s Such a Night, Just Walkin’ in the Rain and Yes Tonight Josephine, and Rosemary Clooney with the Mellomen’s  Mambo Italiano. Mitchell hated rock’n’roll, probably because he knew his demand as a producer would drop.

He remains a divisive figure, for relying on novelty songs and adding gimmicks to records, and artists including Frank Sinatra resented some of his methods. There’s no denying his hit rate though, and his influence would remain. Miller helped conceive the idea of sound effects and soundscapes. Without Miller, there may not have been a George Martin, and without George Martin, there may not have been a Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Despite numerous versions of On the Street Where You Live, Damone’s remains the most popular. He was born Vito Rocco Farinola in Brooklyn, New York on 12 June 1928 to Italian emigrants.

Like so many others, he was inspired by Sinatra to become a singer. He dropped out of high school when his father was injured at work, and worked as an usher elevator operator at the Paramount Theatre in Manhattan. One day he met Perry Como, and seizing his opportunity, he stopped the elevator between floors and sang for him. Como was impressed and referred him to a local bandleader. From there, he went on to appear on and win an edition of Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts in 1947, which was later used as a springboard for stardom by Marvin Rainwater and Connie Francis, who had also had number 1s in 1958.

Damone had a number of hits, and also began appearing in films, before going into the army, where he served with Johnny Cash.

Review

Despite being written in 1956, Damone’s On the Street Where You Live sounds even older, and harks back to the first number 1, Al Martino’s Here in My Heart. Damone bellows out the vocals over a grand backing. Not much of a fan of musicals, the only part of this song I actually recognised was the famous opening couplet

‘I have often walked down this street before
But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before’

I think my dad liked to sing it when I was growing up, although I may be confusing this with any number of songs my dad likes to occasionally burst into.

I have to confess though that this song leaves me cold. Like many love songs in musicals, it lays on the sentiment way too thick, and after so many progressive number 1s this felt like a big, unnecessary step back. On the Street Where You Live enjoyed a fortnight at the top, but shared its second week with The Everly Brothers’ double A-side All I Have to Do Is Dream/Claudette.

After

Damone’s music, film and television careers continued into the 70s, when bankruptcy caused him to take up residency in Las Vegas. He was offered the role of Johnny Fontane in The Godfather (1972) but turned it down, and Al Martino accepted it instead.

Damone retired after suffering a stroke in 2002, the same year he released his final album.

He had some dodgy connections in his time. In his autobiography he revealed he was once dangled out of a hotel window by a Mafia member after breaking off his relationship with the thug’s daughter for insulting Damone’s mother. His life was allegedly spared when New York mob boss Frank Costello ruled in his favour. Damone’s daughter also once recalled that a bookie showed up insisting that Damone owed him a lot of money. The singer phoned Sinatra and asked him to intervene, but when ‘Ol’ Blue Eyes’ arrived on the scene, the bookie showed him a secret sign, which meant Sinatra had to keep out of it. Damone had to pay it all back.

By far Damone’s dodgiest connection, however, was President Trump, who counted him as a close friend. In May 2016, Trump offered to be a character witness for the singer during a legal battle with his stepdaughters.

The Outro

Damone died of complications from a respiratory illness on 11 Feb 2018. He was 89.

The Info

Written by

Frederick Loewe & Alan Jay Lerner

Producer

Mitch Miller

Weeks at number 1

2 (27 June-10 July)

Trivia

Births

1 July: Racewalker Les Morton

Deaths

28 June: Poet Alfred Noyes

70. Marvin Rainwater – Whole Lotta Woman (1958)

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The Info

Enjoying a three-week stint at number 1, Marvin Rainwater’s Whole Lotta Woman was a self-penned primitive rockabilly tune.

Before

Born in Wichita, Kansas on 2 July 1925, Marvin Karlton Rainwater had studied classical piano as a child, but he lost part of his right thumb in an accident as a teenager. He trained to be a vet, but after his stint in the Navy during World War Two, he decided to try the guitar.

Claiming to be 25 percent Cherokee, he cut a unique figure when he began wearing his trademark buckskin jacket and headband on stage, and writing his own songs. He won the TV talent show Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts in 1955, and from there a recording contract with MGM swiftly followed.

Combining country and western with the emerging rockabilly sound, and with an imposing physique and unique, craggy good looks, Rainwater had natural star quality, and scored a hit with Gonna Find Me a Bluebird in the US in 1957, the same year he released The Majesty of Love, a duet with future number 1 artist Connie Francis.

Review

Whole Lotta Woman is a simple rocker with sexually-charged lyrics that only just made it past censorship (the BBC let it go, but some of the US broadcasters wouldn’t touch it). The most interesting aspect of the recording is probably Rainwater’s raucous, double-tracked vocals, and the duelling electric guitar and piano instrumental break. Not bad, but it suffers coming after a run of interesting, more famous chart-toppers.

After

Rainwater’s follow-up, I Dig You Baby, made the top 20, but he failed to repeat his early flourish of success. He began recording material with his younger sister, Patty, but around this time he developed ongoing throat problems. His voice suffered, and MGM let him go. He went into semi-retirement to rest his voice, recording sporadically for other labels. Changing tastes and lack of momentum caused his career to stall, and eventually he was diagnosed with throat cancer. He recovered from this, but his career didn’t.

Sadly, his final recording sessions remain unissued due to the dire state of his voice, and by then he was living in a caravan with his family on wasteland in Minnesota. He died of heart failure on 17 September 2013, aged 88.

The Outro

His guitar-playing had inspired many however – back in Rainwater’s glory days, a teenage guitarist called Brian Rankin was waiting in the shadows to make his mark on rock’n’roll, and he was quite the fan. He even changed his name in tribute, to Hank Marvin.

The Info

Written by

Marvin Rainwater

Producer

Jim Vinneau

Weeks at number 1

3 (25 April-15 May)

Trivia

Births

25 April: Marillion Singer Fish
3 May  Presenter Sandi Toksvig

Deaths

3 May: Cricketer Frank Foster

Meanwhile…

30 April: The Life Peerages Act allowed the creation of life peers who could sit in the House of Lords. As women could become life peers, the act made it possible for women to sit in the House of Lords for the first time. On the same day, the musical My Fair Lady opened at Drury Lane Theatre in London, starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews.

3 May: Bolton Wanderers won the FA Cup for the fourth time with a 2-0 victory over Manchester United, a club still reeling from the Munich Air Disaster.

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.

68. Michael Holliday – The Story of My Life (1958)

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The Intro

Jailhouse Rock ran out of steam after three weeks at the top, and after two barnstormers, the number 1 spot was taken by this pleasant easy listening ditty – the first bestseller from the legendary partnership of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, whose prolific work-rate saw them create many pop classics of the 1950s and particularly the 60s.

Before

Bacharach had spent his teenage years enthralled with jazz, and went on to study music. After a tour of duty he became Vic Damone’s (who had a number 1 later in 1958 with On the Street Where You Live) pianist and conductor. Bacharach later worked with Marlene Dietrich, before meeting lyricist and former journalist Hal David at the Brill Building. US country star Marty Robbins initially recorded The Story of My Life in 1957, but it was Michael Holliday’s cover that became famous on these shores.

Holliday was born Norman Alexander Milne in Liverpool on 26 November 1924. His music career began when he won a local talent contest. He joined the navy and won another contest, this time in New York, inspiring him to turn professional. Before leaving the navy, however, he found time to smuggle obscure jazz records back home, where they were sold by Elvis Costello’s mother.

Holliday made his TV debut in the summer of 1955, and he soon found himself with a record deal, and with his screen idol looks and voice comparable to Bing Crosby, he enjoyed moderate success. In 1956 he reached the top 20 for the first time with his third single Nothin’ To Do. He didn’t chart with any singles in 1957, but then came this, his first of two number 1s.

Review

I’ve always admired Bacharach and David’s work, and even though a lot of easy listening music leaves me cold, there’s usually enough in their songs to keep me interested. The Story of My Life is slushy and somewhat of a throwback to earlier number 1s, but I can’t help but enjoy the whistling and sentimental lyrics. And Holliday performs it well. A pretty good start for the duo, with another chart-topper to follow straight after.

After

As for Holliday, his second number 1, Starry Eyed, was the first chart-topper of the 60s.

The Info

Written by

Burt Bacharach & Hal David

Producer

Norrie Paramor

Weeks at number 1

2 (14-27 February)

Trivia

Births

20 February: Actor James Wilby  

Deaths

21 February: Footballer Duncan Edwards

Meanwhile…

21 February: Another of Busby’s Babes died as a result of the Munich Air Disaster. Manchester United’s Duncan Edwards was only 21, and was considered by many to be the finest footballer in England. Six days later, the 23rd and final victim was claimed when co-pilot Kenneth Rayment died in hospital.

67. Elvis Presley – Jailhouse Rock (1958)

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The Intro

Elvis Presley’s second chart-topper, Jailhouse Rock made history as the first single to go straight in at number 1 (and did so again when it was re-released in 2005 – making it the first single to repeat the feat). It deserved to. Unlike All Shook Up, which I was rather lukewarm about, Jailhouse Rock is certainly a classic, and one of Presley’s best songs.

Before

The title track of Elvis’s latest film, it had been written by one of the most famous songwriting partnerships of all time – Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller. They had worked with him before, but it was on this film that they developed a close working relationship. The singer came to regard them as his ‘good-luck charm’, and Lieber and Stoller were impressed by his knowledge of black music after initial reservations about his authenticity.

Review

Like Jerry Lee Lewis’s Great Balls of Fire, Jailhouse Rock has an excellent intro that grabs from the get-go. Unlike that song, which rocks immediately, the tension builds, with Elvis starting the story behind that famous beat, before kicking into gear with the chorus.

As catchy as the song is, and the band put in a great performance, the key here is Elvis’s delivery. It’s possibly his finest vocal performance, and it’s a damn shame he never let rip quite like this again, at least, not in his multitude of number 1 singles. Lyrically, it’s a bit of a novelty song – the kind Lieber and Stoller enjoyed writing for The Coasters. But Elvis plays it completely straight, and you’re too busy enjoying the performance to take too much notice of the silly lyrics. Notably, it’s the first song to contain homosexual references at number 1:

‘Number forty-seven said to number three
“You’re the cutest jailbird I ever did see
I sure would be delighted with your company
Come on and do the Jailhouse Rock with me”‘

In a decade in which previous number 1 Answer Me got into trouble purely for using God’s name, this seems somewhat surprising. You could look at it as progress, but it’s perhaps more likely to have either been considered a joke or was missed by everyone enjoying the song too much at the time. There’s also a reference to real-life mobsters The Purple Gang in there, too.

The Outro

Jailhouse Rock is the sound of a legendary artist at the top of his game, and I ‘get’ Elvis completely when I hear this. It’s such a shame he became stuck doing so many saccharine ballads for films as the years went by. It’s his best number 1.

The Info

Written by

Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller

Producer

Steve Sholes

Weeks at number 1

3 (24 January-13 February)

Trivia

Births

24 January: Musician Jools Holland
29 January: Comedian Linda Smith
11 February: British broadcasting executive Michael Jackson
12 February: Scientist Steve Grand

Deaths

6 February: Manchester United players and associates in the Munich air disaster  – Roger Byrne (team captain), Geoff Bent, Eddie Colman, Mark Jones, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor, Billy Whelan, Frank Swift (journalist and former Manchester City and England goalkeeper)
13 February: Suffragette Christabel Pankhurst 

Meanwhile…

6 February: British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on its third attempt to take off from Munich-Riem Airport in West Germany. Slush on the runway caused the plane to smash through a fence, and it then hit a house, tearing the left wing off. On board the craft were the Manchester United football team, then known as ‘Busby’s Babes’ after their manager, Matt Busby, along with supporters and journalists. The team hadn’t been beaten for 11 matches and were one of the best in the country. 20 people died at the scene of the Munich Air Disaster that day, and one on the way to hospital. Among them were seven of Busby’s Babes. Bobby Charlton and Busby were among the survivors, but the manager and several other players were seriously injured. 

66. Jerry Lee Lewis – Great Balls of Fire (1958)

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The Intro

1958’s charts began with a bang. The simplicity and energy that rock’n’roll brought to popular music is perhaps never better showcased than in this song – one of the best number 1s of the decade, if not, the best. The only number 1 with an intro to rival it to date had been Rock Around the Clock, but Great Balls of Fire has aged better. Not only did conflicted wildman Jerry Lee Lewis bring the piano to the forefront for the first time, attacking it with the same reckless abandon that Jimi Hendrix later did with the guitar, he also made the subject of sex overt. Yes, there had been hints creeping in, but Great Balls of Fire is pure lust – a subject matter that Lewis wrestled with, that proved to be his downfall.

Before

Lewis was born into a poor family living in Ferriday, Concordia Parish, Louisiana on 29 September 1935. He loved playing the piano from an early age, so much so that his parents mortgaged their farm to buy him one. He became influenced by fellow musical family members, The Great American Songbook and Hank Williams. In an early sign of Lewis’s waywardness, his mother enrolled him in Southwest Bible Institute, where she hoped he would begin performing evangelical numbers. Lewis was expelled for playing boogie-woogie versions.

Rock’n’roll was growing in popularity, and was the perfect home for Lewis, who travelled to Memphis Tennessee to audition for Sun Records in November 1956. He passed and began recording his own material as well as assisting greats such as Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. Recordings exist of the three of them jamming with Elvis from that December. Two months later, Lewis recorded his classic version of Whole Lot of Shakin’ Going On, which rightly shot him to fame.

His raucous live performances were also making him a force to be reckoned with. He had originally knocked his piano bench over by mistake, but the audience loved it, so it set Lewis free to run riot on his instrument, pounding the keys, climbing on top of it and changing the image of pianists forever.

Great Balls of Fire had originally been written by singer-songwriter Jack Hammer. He had submitted it to Paul Case, who was working on the music film Jamboree (1957). Case didn’t like the song, but loved the title. He went to Otis Blackwell, an established hitmaker who had written Elvis’s All Shook Up, and struck a deal whereby he and Hammer would split the royalties.

Despite Lewis’s burgeoning reputation as a hellraiser, he was a devout Christian, and he struggled with the premise of this next single, which was as racy as music got back then. Initially, he refused to perform it, asking Sun Records boss Sam Phillips, ‘How can the devil save souls?’ However, as the recording session went on, alcohol, and subsequently the devil, won out. Not only did he loosen up enough to take control of the number, leering away at the vocals and treating his piano like a whore, he is heard on bootleg tapes saying ‘I would like to eat a little pussy if I had some’. Quite the turnaround…

Review

Nobody, not even Elvis, would have been able to make Great Balls of Fire the way Lewis did. It fitted his wild image like a glove. It’s a spontaneous, breathless performance that wipes the floor with so much of what came before. He’s a wrecking ball, a force of nature. Unfortunately, Lewis’s reckless ways may have helped make him, but they also broke him.

After

Four months after Lewis hit number 1 in the UK, he toured the country. Three concerts in, a reporter discovered that Lewis’s third wife (he was only 22) was Myra Gale Brown – his first cousin, once removed. This was newsworthy enough, but Myra was only 13. Shocking stuff, obviously, and Lewis’s career never recovered. Breathless and High School Confidential also entered the top 20 that year, but it was three years before he had a UK hit again – a cover of Ray Charles’ What’d I Say. It would be his last.

Three years later, Lewis recorded the acclaimed live album Live at the Star Club, Hamburg, with Surrey band The Nashville Teens. It proved that he was still very much firing on all cylinders.

In 1968, ‘The Killer’ made the switch to country music, and it proved a shrewd move, as he enjoyed considerable success, if not quite the impact of his rock’n’roll days. In 1973 he played the Grand Ole Opry for the only time to date.

A year later, and only eight months before Elvis’s death, Lewis was arrested outside Graceland after drunkenly driving to visit him while in possession of a loaded gun. He maintains he had no intention to hurt him.

1986 saw Lewis become one of the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was back in the public eye in 1989 thanks to the biopic Great Balls of Fire!, with Dennis Quaid starring as the wildman. Surfing a wave of nostalgia, he had a new song in the film Dick Tracy, the following year.

I have to admit to being puzzled by Lewis’s marriage scandal. The 50s are always remembered as a time of conservatism, yet, and I may be betraying some ignorance of the law back then, how come he wasn’t imprisoned? How come Sun Records kept him on? In today’s climate, post-Weinstein and Savile, Jerry Lee Lewis would have been completely finished, and deservedly so. He’s still recording, and trades on his bad-boy image (his 2010 album was called Mean Old Man).

The Outro

I’d always liked Great Balls of Fire, but listening to it for this blog, in the context of other 1950s number 1s, made me respect it even more. It’s truly pioneering. And yet, it also raised (and not for the last time) the decidedly dodgy subject of enjoying art by morally questionable artists. Gary Glitter also had number 1s, and is reviled, as well he should be, yet other musicians with a dubious sexual history are still considered heroes. Where should we draw the line? I’m not sure I have the answer.

The Info

Written by

Otis Blackwell & Jack Hammer

Producer

Sam Phillips

Weeks at number 1

2 (10-23 January)

65. Harry Belafonte – Mary’s Boy Child (1957)

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The Intro

Each year before 1957 had brought hints of the progression in music and popular culture that rock’n’roll brought about, but these were often few and far between, with the charts still dominated by fluffy, overwrought, orchestrated love songs, often performed by a revolving door of crooners.

Before

1957 had changed all that. By and large, rock’n’roll ruled, with Guy Mitchell and Frankie Vaughan the only crooners to hit the top spot, and even then, Mitchell was aping the new sound. It was also entirely male-dominated. Female singers didn’t get a look in. As winter and Christmas loomed though, record buyers once more turned to something cosier.

Mary’s Boy Child had been written by Jester Hairston a US songwriter, actor and leading expert on Negro spirituals. Originally called He Pone and Chocolate Tea (pone was a type of corn bread), in this form it had nothing to do with Christmas and was a calypso song for a friend’s birthday party. Later, famous film composer Walter Schumann asked Hairston to write a Christmas tune for his choir. Remembering the birthday song, he simply rewrote the lyrics and made them festive-themed, similar to how Slade rewrote a psychedelic song and transformed it into Merry Xmas Everybody. (Incidentally, Mary’s Boy Child was the last explicitly festive Christmas number 1 until Slade in 1973). Harry Belafonte had heard the choir performing the new version and asked if he could cover it.

Belafonte, born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr, was born on 1 March 1927 in Harlem, New York, to parents of Jamaican and Dutch descent. He served in the navy during World War Two, and returned to New York afterwards to work as a janitor’s assistant. A tenant gave him two tickets to the American Negro Theatre, where he instantly fell in love with the stage, and also befriended Sidney Poitier. They were both so poor, they would buy a single ticket for local plays, then trade places between acts, so one could inform the other of what had taken place.

To help pay for his acting classes, Belafonte became a singer. At his very first show, he was backed by the Charlie Parker Band, which included Miles Davis as well as Parker. He began recording in 1949, and his breakthrough came in 1956 with the album Calypso, the first LP in the world to sell over a million copies in a year, and the first to sell that many ever in the UK. Introducing the wider world to calypso music, it featured the hits Banana Boat Song (‘Day-O’) and and Jump in the Line (both of which are great and I got to know them thanks to the 1988 film Beetlejuice).

Review

https://youtu.be/dHY7tRfASVg

This is the first Christmas number 1 to get to the same chart position later when covered by another act, namely Boney M in 1978. How does it compare? Well I don’t get the love for Boney M at all, and I particularly don’t like their cover of Mary’s Boy Child, so it’s no competition really.

Belafonte is in fine voice as always, though it’s a shame he didn’t opt for a livelier approach to the song. He’s singing in a calypso rhythm but the music doesn’t really match. Despite this, I’d easily take it over a naff disco-lite version with an extra bit tacked on the end for no reason.

After

Record-buyers in 1957 loved the religious imagery and cosy string backing, keeping it at number 1 for seven weeks from November, well into January 1958.

In 1959 Belafonte became the first African American to win an Emmy. A young Bob Dylan played harmonica on his 1962 album Midnight Special. As the 60s progressed he became dissatisfied with his film work and the music hits were drying up. By that point he was known as a prominent civil rights activist, and provided great financial help to Martin Luther King. He helped organise marches and bailed King and several other protestors out of jail. Much more personally rewarding than his other careers, I should guess.

The Outro

Later, Belafonte organised the 1985 charity single and number 1 We Are the World, became a UNICEF ambassador, and a staunch critic of apartheid and US foreign policy. He died of congestive heart failure on 25 April 2023, aged 96.

The Info

Written by

Jester Hairston

Producer

Rene Farron

Weeks at number 1

7 (22 November 1957-9 January 1958)

Trivia

Births

20 December: Singer Billy Bragg 

Deaths

13 December: Writer Michael Sadleir
17 December: Writer Dorothy L. Sayers
21 December: Composer Eric Coates

Meanwhile..

4 December: At the Lewisham by-pass, in dense fog, an electric train stopped at a signal under a bridge. A steam train crashed into it, causing the bridge to collapse onto the latter. The rail crash left 90 dead.

Christmas Day: Queen Elizabeth II marked the 25th anniversary of the first Christmas broadcast on the radio with the start of a new tradition. For the first time, the speech also featured on television. The Queen made reference to this change, and put older viewers minds at ease by remarking that the age of change was sometimes bewildering, but everyone would be okay if we hung on to ageless ideals and values. However, during the speech some viewers experienced confusion when they overheard an American voice say ‘Joe, I’m gonna grab a quick coffee…’ Apparently, at this time, sunspots often caused freak radio conditions, resulting in US police radio transmissions interfering in UK television broadcasts. I’d imagine that was very bewildering.

64. The Crickets – That’ll Be the Day (1957)

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The Intro

By the autumn, 1957 had proved to be an important year in the music charts, but there was more to come. Future My Way songwriter Paul Anka’s Diana was prevented from a 10th week at the top by a new group known as The Crickets, led by the unassuming bespectacled figure Buddy Holly.

Before

Born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock, Texas on 7 September 1936, he was born into a musical family and learned to sing at a young age, drawing from diverse influences including gospel and country. The youngest of the Holleys was known by the nickname ‘Buddy’ from childhood.

When his brother Larry returned from service in World War Two he brought a guitar for his brother, and eventually he switched from piano lessons to learn his new instrument. It soon became apparent he was very talented, and Holly appeared on local television in 1952.

Three years later he was opening for rock’n’roll figureheads Elvis Presley and Bill Haley & His Comets. The following year he recorded an album of rockabilly with his new band, Buddy and The Two Tones, for Decca Records. Upon signing with them, his surname was misspelled, and Buddy Holly was born. The album was unsuccessful and Holly wasn’t happy with the sound he achieved with producer Owen Bradley, so he decided to head to New Mexico to record demos with Norman Petty. To avoid legal problems, a new name was needed for the group. They considered calling themselves The Beetles, but settled on The Crickets.

With Buddy Holly on vocals and lead guitar, rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan, Joe B. Mauldin as bassist and Jerry Allison on drums, their resulting popularity helped define the classic four-piece band line-up.

Much happier with the results under Petty, they decided to release the new version of That’ll Be the Day as a single. Although written by Holly and Allison, Petty insisted on a writing credit too.

Review

It’s perhaps hard now to understand the impact That’ll Be the Day had in 1957. Much like Elvis and skiffle, it proved so influential, but unlike, say, Lonnie Donegan’s Cumberland Gap, it has aged, and is perhaps more comparable to Elvis’s All Shook Up – a little mannered and safe (the stuttering vocals can irritate), but a sign of great promise to come. The final line, ‘That’ll be the day when I die’ is still eerily prescient.

After

For an all-too-brief time though, the only way was up for Buddy Holly. He began churning out hits, and his name soon got top billing over the rest of The Crickets. His horn-rimmed glasses became hugely popular with teenagers, and future music legends John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, and Mick Jagger, to name but a few, were listening intently. Holly had one more number 1 to come, as a solo artist, but sadly he wasn’t around to enjoy it.

The Info

Written by

Jerry Allison, Buddy Holly & Norman Petty

Producer

Norman Petty

Weeks at number 1

3 (1-21 November)

Trivia

Deaths

4 November: Architect William Haywood

Meanwhile…

15 November: Flying boat City of Sydney crashed into a disused chalk pit on the Isle of Wight. The Aquila Airways Solent crash was at the time the worst ever air disaster to happen on English soil, killing 45 people.

63. Paul Anka – Diana (1957)

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The Intro

All Shook Up ruled the charts for an impressive seven weeks, but its successor went beyond that, enjoying the longest run of 1957 with nine weeks at number 1. What makes this all the more impressive is that the singer wrote his own songs, which was unusual back then, and even more unusual was the singer’s age. A prodigious talent, young Canadian Paul Anka was only 16 when Diana made him a household name and started off a long, very successful career.

Before

Born in Ottawa, Ontario on 30 July 1941, Paul Albert Anka sang in a church choir as a child, also studying the piano and music theory. At high school he sang in a vocal trio called the Bobby Soxers. He recorded his debut single, I Confess at the tender age of 14. In 1957 he went to New York City with $100 from his uncle and recorded Diana. At the time, Anka’s precocious love song was believed to be about his love for his one-time babysitter, but in 2005 he admitted it was about a girl in church.

Review

Diana is a song I can admire rather than enjoy. It gets off to a bad start, with the lyric ‘I’m so young and you’re so old’. I’m not sure that’s going to win Diana over, Paul. It’s hard to take Anka’s earnest begging and pleading seriously because of his age, and I don’t think most 16-year-olds would have the voice to pull this song off. Anka certainly doesn’t manage it. Lovesick teenagers of the 50s could identify with it though, and in its defence, it’s a good stab at the rock’n’roll sound and a signifier that Anka was going to grow to be a name in the music business.

After

This proved to be true, and Anka matured into a formidable talent. He wrote Buddy Holly’s posthumous number 1, It Doesn’t Matter Anymore, and came up with the theme for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. In 1967, while on holiday in France, he heard Comme d’habitude (As Usual), sang by Claude François. He later described it as ‘a shitty record, but there was something in it’. He flew to Paris and negotiated the rights to adapt it. Some time later, Anka was having dinner with Frank Sinatra and members of the Mob, when Sinatra stated he was sick of the business and wanted out. From this, Anka sat at his piano in the early hours one morning and came up with ‘And now, the end is near…’, and before long, he had written My Way specifically for Frank Sinatra. Of course, Sinatra didn’t retire and this became his signature tune.

In 1968, David Bowie had once been offered the chance to come up with some English lyrics for Comme d’habitude. He wrote Even a Fool Learns to Love, which was rejected, and rightly so, Bowie reasoned later. In 1971 Bowie reworked his version and Life on Mars? was born.

Anka came up with another classic when Tom Jones released his storming version of She’s a Lady in 1971. In 1974 his duet with Odia Coates, (You’re) Having My Baby, became his first UK hit single in 12 years. Although it’s his last to date, he has continued to record and star in television and films.

The Outro

After a quiet decade during the 80s, his comeback album A Body of Work in 1998 featured artists including Celine Dion. 2009 saw him involved in a dispute over the writing of Michael Jackson’s song This Is It. Anka’s most recent work is Duets, an album released in 2013.

The Info

Written by

Paul Anka

Producer

Don Costa

Weeks at number 1

9 (30 August-31 October) *BEST-SELLING SINGLE OF THE YEAR*

Trivia

Births

31 August: Squeeze singer Glenn Tilbrook
10 September: High jumper Mark Naylor
7 October: Ice skater Jayne Torvill
11 October: Comedian Dawn French
15 October: Director Michael Caton-Jones

Deaths

1 September: Horn player Dennis Brain
14 October: Ventriloquist Fred Russell

Meanwhile…

4 September: The Wolfenden report was published, and recommended that ‘homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence’. The report was issued after a succession of well-known figures including Lord Montagu were arrested for such ‘offences’.

1 October:  Britain introduced a vaccine against Asian Flu, which had killed thousands worldwide.

2 October: The release of David Lean’s Academy Award-winning movie The Bridge on the River Kwai.

11 October: Jodrell Bank Observatory become operational.

28 October: Topical news show Today was first broadcast on the BBC Home Service.

30 October: The government unveiled plans to stop being so ridiculously sexist and allow women to join the House of Lords. In some ways we’ve moved on so much, in others, we’ve barely moved.

62. Elvis Presley with The Jordanaires – All Shook Up (1957)

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The Intro

Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has entered the building. One of the biggest cultural icons of all time. 21 UK number 1s – more than any other act. Despite his star perhaps dimming in recent years, Elvis still leaves behind a hell of a legacy. Whether you’re a fan or not, you’d be a fool to argue that without him, pop music would not have become the phenomenon it did in the 50s.

Before

Elvis Aaron Presley entered the world on 8 January 1935. Born and raised in a two-room shotgun house built by his father in Tupelo, Mississippi, his identical twin brother was delivered stillborn 35 minutes before him. He was close to his parents, but especially his mother.

This shy, unassuming boy made his first public performance at the age of 10, performing Old Shep at a singing contest. He came fifth. A few months later he was given a guitar for his birthday. Presley wasn’t that excited, but he took up lessons with two uncles anyway. It was another year before he worked up the courage to perform in public, and he would play and sing at school. He even managed a radio performance after being too frightened at the first opportunity.

In November 1948 the Presleys moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Despite ridicule from students for being a shy ‘mama’s boy’, and being told by his music teacher that he was no good, Presley grew in confidence, and by 1950 he had adopted his trademark sideburns and quiff. Three years later he wowed the audience at another talent show. And then he visited Sun Records. He paid to record My Happiness/That’s When Your Heartaches Begin, a two-sided acetate, as a gift for his mother.

Presley recorded another acetate, but failed auditions to join several bands and so he became a truck driver. However, Sun owner Sam Phillips was on the lookout for a white singer to capture the sound of black music, astutely recognising that doing so would be lightning in a bottle.

Phillips invited Presley back to Sun in July 1954 to record a ballad called Without You. It didn’t work out, but at the end of the session, Presley picked up his guitar and belted out a rendition of That’s All Right. A single was quickly pressed and the phenomenon began.

Supporting Slim Whitman on tour, Presley’s legendary leg-shaking became part of the legend, partly due to nervousness and partly through sheer energy from the music and excitement of the moment.

By the summer of 1955 Presley had acquired a new advisor called Colonel Tom Parker, and he had support slots with Bill Haley & His Comets. Rapidly gaining momentum, his first single to chart in the UK was I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone at number 21.

The following year he had signed with RCA Victor and recorded his eponymous debut LP – one of rock’n’roll’s milestones. The hits came thick and fast in the UK, yet despite Hound Dog, Blue Suede Shoes, Heartbreak Hotel and Love Me Tender being among his finest material, and all very popular, it took All Shook Up to finally earn him his first UK number 1.

Why? In the past I’ve reasoned that perhaps the more conservative record-buyers found him too dangerous to begin with, and considering how safe All Shook Up sounds compared to some of his earlier material, I might have had a point, but there’s also a more practical reason. To try and capitalise on his immense fame, all his previous singles were released very close to each other, and they ‘split the vote’, to steal a phrase. All Shook Up bucked this trend.

The origins of the song vary depending on which story you believe.  It was credited to Otis Blackwell and Elvis though, and was the last time ‘the King’ received a songwriting credit. Allegedly, Blackwell was in Shalimar Music’s offices when Al Stanton, one of the owners, shook a bottle of Pepsi and suggested Blackwell write a song about being all shook up. However, Elvis claimed in an October 1957 interview that he once had a weird dream and woke up ‘all shook up’, and told Blackwell. But then actor David Hess, who used to go by the stage name David Hill, released his first version of the song just before Presley, and he claims he invented the title, Blackwell wrote it, and Elvis demanded a credit from Blackwell in order to get Presley to sing it. So, who knows?

Review

What I do know is that All Shook Up is a pretty unassuming number. Maybe it’s that I’ve never been a huge Elvis fan (despite this song being the earliest number 1 I had in my collection before starting this blog). I get his cultural significance, I can see the charisma and influence, I just don’t always enjoy his songs. Having said that, I’d be an idiot to not appreciate some of his classic material. I guess this serves as an effective introduction to Presley. All the vocal mannerisms are there, and it’s a good showcase for his voice. I find the backing vocals from The Jordanaires a little wet though, and the piano backing is very bland. But it has left me wanting to know what a ‘fuzzy tree’ is.

After

All Shook Up spent most of the summer on top of the charts and began Elvis’s record run of number 1s. The best was yet to come.

The Info

Written by

Otis Blackwell & Elvis Presley

Producer

Steve Sholes

Weeks at number 1

7 (12 July-29 August)

Trivia

Births

17 July: Television presenter Fern Britton
17 August: Figure skater Robin Cousins
22 August: Snooker player Steve Davis
24 August: Comedian Stephen Fry

Deaths

19 August: Painter David Bomberg

Meanwhile…

20 July: Prime Minister Harold Macmillan coined a phrase that made history. Still less than a year into his new role, he made an optimistic speech to Conservative Party members in Bedford stating that ‘most of our people have never had it so good’.
In further good news for the country, and on the same day, Stirling Moss finished the British Grand Prix at Aintree in first position, driving a Vanwall VW5, the first British Car to win a World Championship race.

5 August: The much-loved cheeky Northern cartoon character Andy Capp appeared in The Daily Mirror for the first time.