One of the earliest, finest power ballads, reaching number 1 in the 70s and 90s, Without You is a tune surrounded by tragedy. This version, by maverick singer-songwriter Nilsson, is the best.
Before
Harry Edward Nilsson III, born in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn on 15 June 1941, came from a family of circus performers on his father’s side, who were known for their aerial ballet. His father walked out on the family when he was only three – which had a profound effect on Nilsson, becoming the subject matter of his songs 1941 and Daddy’s Song.
He grew up with his mother and younger half-sister. They were so poor, he took on a number of jobs from a young age, including a job at the Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles. Nilsson grew more and more interested in music, and it was his mechanic uncle that helped him on the way to becoming such a great singer. He formed an Everly Brothers-style duo with a friend. When the Paramount closed in 1960, he lied his way into a job working for a bank on their new computer system.
In 1962, Nilsson also got a job singing the demos of budding songwriter Scott Turner. He’d also started writing tunes himself, and in 1963 he co-wrote for Little Richard. Reportedly, upon hearing Nilsson sing, he exclaimed ‘My! You sing good for a white boy!’ the following year, he wrote three songs with Phil Spector.
Thanks to publisher Perry Botkin Jr, who invested his life savings into getting Nilsson the means to record four songs for Tower Records (a subsidiary of Capitol). This material was compiled into his debut album, Spotlight on Nilsson, released in 1966. That same year, he signed with RCA Victor and recorded Pandemonium Shadow Show (1967). This LP really showcased the potential of his voice and ability to cover other artists as well as his own material. His cover of The Beatles’ You Can’t Do That, in which he quoted 17 other songs by the Fab Four, caught the attention of their press officer Derek Taylor. Thanks to a major label behind him, and his songwriting duties for hot acts like The Monkees, Nilsson finally quit the bank.
Nilsson’s career went from strength to strength over the next few years critically and then commercially. His cover of Fred Neil’s Everybody’s Talkin’ first featured on 1968 album Aerial Ballet, before becoming a deserved hit a year later thanks to its inclusion in the film Midnight Cowboy. At the press conference in which The Beatles announced the formation of Apple Corp, John Lennon was asked the name of his favourite American singer, and Paul McCartney was asked his favourite American group. Both replied ‘Harry Nilsson’. Aerial Ballet also contained his original version of the melancholy One, later covered by Three Dog Night.
In 1970, Nilsson had become aware of a then-little-known songwriter called Randy Newman. He was so impressed, he made a whole album of his material, Nilsson Sings Newman, which helped get Newman recognised despite selling poorly. The following year Nilsson travelled to the UK to record Nilsson Schmilsson, his most famous work, which featured Without You by Badfinger.
The sad story of Badfinger is a cautionary tale of the pitfalls of the mercenary music business. One of the first signings to Apple Records, with the help of The Beatles they scored several hits. Without You, written by band members Pete Ham and Tom Evans. Their version had featured on 1970 album No Dice. It’s a decent stab, but a little unsure of itself, like a demo when compared to the covers that were to come, but then, Ham and Evans hadn’t realised the potential it had.
It had originally been two separate songs. Ham had written one called If It’s Love. He thought one of the verses had potential.
‘Well I can’t forget tomorrow When I think of all my sorrow I had you there but then I let you go And now it’s only fair that I should let you know… if it’s love’
Meanwhile, Evans had a chorus for a song called I Can’t Live, which fitted well with Ham’s song. Combined, they finished Without You.
Recorded in London’s Trident Studios, Nilsson was backed by Apple alumni and Beatles collaborators. The man behind the haunting, plaintive piano was Gary Wright, who had appeared on George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord, Klaus Voorman of Plastic Ono Band took up bass, leading session drummer Jim Keltner was on drums and John Uribe played acoustic guitar. Strings and horns were arranged by Paul Buckmaster.
Review
Although this sounds timeless now, nobody was producing power ballads quite like this in 1972, and although as a genre I’m more likely to laugh at them than truly appreciate them, Without You is a classic. You could argue these days that Nilsson is in effect using emotional blackmail to get his love to stay, but to argue that, you’d be ignoring such an impressively bleak, tortured performance. He sounds so tender at the start, his voice almost feminine as he remembers how she left him. It’s still an awe-inspiring performance, the way his voice shifts halfway through that first chorus. He’s a broken man, and by the final chorus… you just know that Nilsson knows how it feels to be so bereft. This is the difference between his version and Mariah Carey’s number 1 in 1994. Yes, she hits all the notes and it’s technically great, but hard to believe in. It’s also a great production by Perry, classy, and not too overblown. Unlike many power ballads, it’s succinct. It doesn’t outstay its welcome.
After
Nilsson quickly followed up his hit album with Son of Schmilsson, but he had begun to ignore Perry’s advice and lost fans with the use of swearing in his songs. He did however write another UK number 1 – David Cassidy topped the charts with his cover of The Puppy Song in 1973.
Nilsson was going through a divorce at the time, which made him the perfect drinking companion for Lennon, separated from Yoko Ono and in the midst of his ‘lost weekend’ with May Pang. They became close friends, raising hell and gaining the wrong kind of press for incidents like being thrown out of a Smothers Brothers show. They managed to get it together enough to make an uneven album together, Pussy Cats in 1974, featuring a killer cover of Many Rivers to Cross.
Three years later, Nilsson readied what he considered his best work Knnillssonn. RCA agreed and promised a big promo campaign, but the death of Elvis Presley threw a spanner in the works. However they did release a greatest hits without his permission, so he left the label.
In 1978, Nilsson, along with the world, was shocked to discover The Who’s Keith Moon was found dead in the London flat he rented out. This in itself was terrible news, but the fact that Cass Elliott of The Mamas & the Papas had died in the very same room in 1974, was too much to take. He sold the flat to Pete Townshend and spent all his time in LA from then on.
Nilsson’s output grew more sporadic as the 80s began. His soundtrack for Robert Altman’s Popeye (1980) did as well as the disappointing film, and he was left reeling from the murder of his friend Lennon in December. Nilsson never toured or performed at big concerts, but the death caused him to make more public appearances to give his opinions on gun control in the US. In the mid-80s he returned to the studio, becoming mainly involved in writing music for film and TV through his new production company Hawkeye. Sadly, the project floundered and it was discovered his financial adviser had embezzled Nilsson of all his earnings. He was left close to bankruptcy, while she served less than two years in prison.
Nilsson was born with congenital heart problems, and when he suffered a heart attack in 1993, he knew the writing was on the wall. Years of heavy boozing and smoking will also have taken its toll. He pressed RCA to release a box set of his work, and tried to make one last album, but had only recorded vocal tracks when he died of heart failure on 15 January 1994, aged only 52. The album was finally released in November 2019 as Losst and Founnd. A gifted singer and songwriter, who did things the way he wanted (and one could argue he created the first remix album with 1971’s Aerial Pandemonium Ballet) Nilsson is remembered fondly.
The Outro
One of the most famous stories attached to Without You is of course the horrible fate of both its songwriters. Following Nilsson’s cover, the future looked bright for Ham and Evans, who were awarded the 1972 Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. However, it was to be their last hit. When Apple folded in 1973, the group became mired in legal disputes thanks to manager Stan Polley. They were left in limbo and without money coming in, and Ham was showing signs of mental illness. On 23 April 1975, Ham’s body was found hanging in his garage studio, with a suicide note that ended ‘P.S. Stan Polley is a soulless bastard’.
After this tragedy, Evans and guitarist Joey Molland spent years trying in vain to recapture Badfinger’s magic, often amid blazing rows. The money issues only got worse, and Evans then became caught up in royalty rows with Molland, drummer Mike Gibbins and their first manager Bill Collins. Following a particularly nasty argument between Molland and Evans, the songwriter’s body was found at his home on 19 November 1983. He too had hung himself.
If you like your cover versions twisted and harrowing, and if any song deserves that, it’s this one, I’d suggest cult singer-songwriter Bobby Conn’s from 2000, which you can enjoy here.
The Info
Written by
Pete Ham & Tom Evans
Producer
Richard Perry
Weeks at number 1
5 (11 March-14 April)
Trivia
Births
20 March:Franz Ferdinand singer Alexander Kapranos 28 March: Actor Nick Frost
Deaths
13 March: Photographer Tony Ray-Jones 21 March:Violinist David McCallum Sr 29 March: Film producer J Arthur Rank
Meanwhile…
21 March: Chancellor Anthony Barber announced a £1,200,000,000 tax reduction in the Budget.
26 March: The UK’s last trolleybus system, in Bradford, was closed.
30 March: The Parliament of Northern Ireland was suspended.
31 March: A large CND demonstration was held protesting against the nuclear base at Aldermaston.
1 April : William Whitelaw was appointed as the first Northern Ireland Secretary.
6 April: Motoring giant Ford launched new flagship saloon model, the Granada, which replaced the Zephyr, to be produced in Dagenham.
11 April: BBC Radio 4 launched long-running parodic panel show I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. The ‘antidote to panel games’ still entertains to this day.
Sir Roderick David Stewart, aka ‘Rod the Mod’, was one of the biggest-selling artists of the 70s and 80s, with over 120 million records sold worldwide, and six number 1 singles. And yet his first chart-topper, Maggie May, was tucked away as a B-side. Were it not for its appeal shining through, Stewart may not have become as big a superstar as he did.
Before
Stewart was born at home in Highgate, London on 10 January 1945. He was the youngest of five children, the other four having been born in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland, where his father Robert, a builder, came from. After he retired, Robert bought a newsagent’s shop, which the Stewart family lived above. His youngest’s main hobby, which he still loves, was railway modelling.
Stewart’s other big obsession was football, and he became captain of his school’s team. His first musical hero was Al Jolson, but he soon got into rock’n’roll, and he saw Bill Haley & His Comets in concert. In 1960 he joined a skiffle group called The Kool Kats, and would play Lonnie Donegan covers.
Stewart left school at 15 and had various jobs working in the family shop, as a silk screen printer and at a cemetery, but he longed to be a professional footballer. In 1961 he decided to try his hand at singing, and along with The Raiders he auditioned for eccentric producer Joe Meek, but he wasn’t impressed.
Soon after, Stewart turned into a left-wing beatnik, listening to the folk music of Bob Dylan, Ewan MacColl and Woody Guthrie and attending protest marches, getting arrested three times between 1961 and 1963. He later confessed he often used the marches as a way of bedding girls. In 1962 he took to playing the harmonica and would busk at Leicester Square with folk singer Wizz Jones. They took their act to Europe, and Stewart found himself deported from Spain for vagrancy in 1963. Around this time, he was considered as a singer for The Kinks, then known as The Ray Davies Quartet.
Later that year he became a full-on Mod, adopting his trademark spiky hairstyle and becoming enthralled with soul and R’n’B music. He found his first professional job as a musician in The Dimensions. This was his introduction to London’s R’n’B scene, where he would take harmonica tips from Mick Jagger.
In January 1964 the 19-year-old had been to a Long John Baldry gig and was playing harmonica at Twickenham Station when Baldry himself heard him and invited him to join his group. Over time, Stewart overcame shyness and would dress up more, and would sometimes be billed as Rod ‘the Mod’ Stewart. He made his recording debut with Baldry and the Hoochie Coochie Men that June, uncredited. Two months later, after a performance at the Marquee Club, he was signed as a solo act to Decca Records. His debut single was the blues standard, with a terribly dodgy title, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, which featured John Paul Jones among the session musicians.
Baldry’s group broke up, but he and Stewart patched up their differences and in 1965 became part of the line-up of new group Steampacket alongside Brian Auger. Steampacket were conceived as a white soul revue, and while supporting The Rolling Stones he had his first taste of crowd hysteria. Due to all being signed to different labels, Stewart’s group were unable to record any material. His solo career continued, but without making much impact. In 1966 he jumped ship from Steampacket to Shotgun Express, whose line-up included future Fleetwood Mac members Peter Green and Mick Fleetwood.
It was The Jeff Beck Group that finally gave Stewart his break when he joined their ranks in February 1967. He formed a long-lasting friendship with guitarist Ronnie Wood, began writing material, and his vocal technique developed into the rough rasp that made him stand out. However, he and Beck didn’t get on, and when Wood was announced as Steve Marriott’s replacement in Small Faces in June 1969, Stewart joined him a few months after as their new singer, and they became Faces.
At the same time, Stewart was making inroads with his solo career. Now with Mercury Records, he released his first album, An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down, a mix of well-received original material and rock, folk and blues covers.
1970 saw the release of both Faces’ debut LP First Step and his solo follow-up Gasoline Alley, which introduced the mandolin to his sound. Faces quickly amassed a dedicated following at their gigs, and Stewart was one single release away from becoming a household name. The plan was for (Find a) Reason to Believe to be the first single from his forthcoming album, Every Picture Tells a Story, with Maggie May as the B-side.
Reviews
Reason to Believe (the bracketed bit dropped upon its single release) was the final track on the accompanying album. It’s a cover of a Tim Hardin track, which the folk singer had released on his debut album in 1965, and The Carpenters covered it in 1970.
Stewart plays the wounded lover, whose girl has lied to him. His gravelly voice suits the song well, and there’s some nice Hammond organ and piano work courtesy of Faces’ Ian McLagan. It’s a good album track, but it was never going to light up the charts the way its flip side did. So much so, the single became a double A-side as word spread.
Stewart has rather pissed away his potential over the years, and growing up in the 80s, I saw him as a ridiculous figure. However, Maggie May is a classic, and it’s the best number 1 he’s had. There’s no chorus, but it’s a compelling story, with a memorable mandolin intro courtesy of Lindisfarne’s Ray Jackson.
Rod the Mod had been inspired to write the song while working out some chords with guitarist Martin Quittenton of Steamhammer. He recalled his experience of losing his virginity in 1961 to an older woman at the Beaulieu Jazz Festival. The song isn’t named after her though. Stewart took it from the old Liverpool folk song about a prostitute (as briefly heard on The Beatles album Let It Be). Amazingly, you can see him taking part in the event here. The festival, not the self-confessed very brief sex… Also on the recording, which was only added to the album at the last minute, are Wood on bass and 12-string, McLagan and drummer Micky Waller, who played a drumkit with no cymbals, which were added later.
The original version of Stewart’s song opened side two of Every Picture Tells a Story with a 30-second guitar intro from Quittenton, named Delilah. In full, it’s over five minutes long, but the single edit cuts off some of the detail.
However, Stewart’s tale of love for an older woman remains fascinating. He gets you interested right from the start with those famous opening lines, revealing he was in fact a schoolboy when he was sleeping with Maggie. More mature than your average love song, Stewart finds time to insult Maggie only to remind her how deep he feels about her before she has chance to slap him:
‘The morning sun, when it’s in your face really shows your age But that don’t worry me none in my eyes, you’re everything’
Stewart resolves to get over May by, among other things, joining a ‘rock’n’roll band’ (mission accomplished), and although he claims he wishes he’d never seen her face, you don’t believe him, and as that beautiful mandolin rings out over the fade, you’re left wondering what happened to the singer that wrote such a great song.
After
A song that’s taken on new meaning to me of late, as my in-laws fell in love when this was in the charts (Maggie was my father-in-law’s name for his future wife) and it was played at his funeral, 48 years later. It’s difficult to listen to anymore without welling up.
The Outro
Maggie May established Stewart both here and in the US, reaching number 1 in both while he also held the number 1 album spots – a rare feat. Above you can see the famous Top of the Pops appearance of the song, in which he’s backed by his Faces bandmates and Radio 1 DJ John Peel miming the mandolin.
The Info
Written by:
Reason to Believe: Tim Hardin/Maggie May: Rod Stewart & Martin Quittenton
Producer
Rod Stewart
Weeks at number 1
5 (9 October-12 November)
Births
9 October:Fashion photographer Simon Atlee 13 October:Comedian Sasha Baron Cohen 16 October:Big Brother winner Craig Phillips 30 October:Actor John Alford 3 November:Archer Alison Williamson 8 November:Footballer Michael Jeffrey
Deaths
11 November:Independent MP AP Herbert
Meanwhile…
13 October: The British Army began destroying roads between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as a security measure.
21 October: 20 people were killed in a gas explosion in the town centre of Clarkston, East Renfrewshire in Scotland.
23 October: When a car failed to stop at a Belfast checkpoint, Mary Ellen Meehan, 30, and her sister Dorothy Maguire, 19 were shot dead by soldiers.
28 October: Prime Minister Edward Heath scored a big victory when the House of Commons voted in favour of joining the EEC by a vote of 356-244. Also on this day, the Immigration Act 1971 restricted immigration, particularly primary immigration into the U.K. and introduced the status of right of abode into law. Plus, the UK became the sixth nation to launch a satellite into orbit using its own launch vehicle, the Prospero (X-3) experimental communications satellite.
30 October: The Democratic Unionist Party was founded by the formidable Reverend Ian Paisley in Northern Ireland.
31 October: A bomb, likely planted by the Angry Brigade, exploded at the top of London’s Post Office Tower.
10 November: The 10-route Spaghetti Junction motorway interchange was opened north of Birmingham’s city centre. The interchange would have a total of 12 routes when the final stretch of the M6 was opened in 1972.
In March 1971, singer-songwriter Marc Bolan appeared on Top of the Pops to promote T. Rex’s second single Hot Love, as shown below. His stylist, Chelita Secunda, had suggested he wear glitter under his eyes, and it was this appearance that spearheaded the glam rock movement and gave Bolan the stardom he had strived for. Forget ‘Mungo-mania’ – ‘T. Rextasy’ was the first true pop phenomenon in the UK since ‘Beatlemania’. Pop was rejuvenated.
Before
Bolan was born Mark Feld on 30 September 1947. He was raised in Stoke Newington, East London until the Felds moved to Wimbledon in southwest London when he was a young boy. Around this time he, like so many of his contemporaries, fell in love with rock’n’roll, particularly stars like Chuck Berry and Eddie Cochran. He was only nine when he was given his first guitar and he formed a skiffle band, and soon after he was playing guitar for Susie and the Hula Hoops, whose singer was 12-year-old Helen Shapiro, who would have two number 1s in 1961 with You Don’t Know and Walkin’ Back to Happiness.
Feld was expelled from school at 15 and around this time became known as ‘The Face’ due to his good looks. He joined a modelling agency and appeared in catalogues for Littlewoods and John Temple wearing Mod getup just as The Beatles were first making waves.
In 1964 Feld made his first known recording, All at Once, in which he aped Cliff Richard. Next, he changed his name to Toby Tyler when he became interested in the music of Bob Dylan, and he began to dress like him too. His first acetate was a cover of Blowin’ in the Wind.
The following year, he signed with Decca Records and changed his name to Marc Bowland, before his label suggested Marc Bolan. First single, The Wizard, featured Jimmy Page and backing vocalists The Ladybirds, who later collaborated with Benny Hill. None of his solo singles, in which he adopted a US folk sound, made any impact.
Simon Napier-Bell, manager of The Yardbirds and John’s Children, a struggling psychedelic rock act, first met Bolan in 1966 when he showed up at his house with a guitar, proclaiming that he was going to be a big star and wanted Napier-Bell to work with him. Bolan was nearly placed in The Yardbirds but was placed in John’s Children as guitarist and songwriter in March 1967 instead. The group were outrageous, and Bolan proved to be a good fit, writing the single Desdemona, which was banned by the BBC for the lyric ‘lift up your skirt and fly’. Only a month later, they toured as support for The Who but were soon given their marching orders for upstaging the headliners (Bolan would whip his guitar with a chain). John’s Children also performed at The 14-Hour Technicolour Dream at Alexander Palace that month. Yet by June Bolan had left the group after falling out with his manager over their unreleased single A Midsummer Night’s Scene.
Bolan formed his own group, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and after one rushed, disastrous gig, he pared the band down to just himself and their drummer, Steve Peregrin Took, who would play percussion and occasional bass alongside Bolan and his acoustic guitar. For the next few years, Tyrannosaurus Rex amassed a cult following, with Radio 1 DJ John Peel among their biggest fans. Bolan’s fey, whimsical warbling could get a bit much at times, and I speak as a lover of 60s psychedelia, but the signs of a very talented singer-songwriter are there right from their debut single Debora and first album, the brilliantly titled My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair… But Now They’re Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows (1968), produced by Tony Visconti. Peel even read short stories by Bolan on their albums.
This was the last album to feature Took, who had been growing apart from Bolan, who was working on a book of poetry called The Warlock of Love. Bolan’s ego didn’t take kindly to the thought of Took contributing to songwriting, so he replaced him with Mickey Finn for fourth album Beard of Stars, released in March 1970. David Bowie’s follow-up to Space Oddity, The Prettiest Star also came out that month, with Bolan on guitar. The single tanked.
As the new decade dawned, Bolan was outgrowing Tyrannosaurus Rex, and was simplifying his songwriting while reintroducing an electric band setup to the mix. Visconti had been abbreviating the band’s name to T. Rex for a while on recording tapes, and while Bolan didn’t appreciate it at first, he decided to adopt the name to represent the next stage of development.
While preparing to release their first material in their new incarnation, Bolan replaced The Kinks as headlining act at the Pilton Festival at Worthy Farm, the day after Jimi Hendrix died on 19 September. 50 years on, it’s known as Glastonbury Festival, the king of the UK festival scene.
T. Rex released their first single, Ride a White Swan in October. This, simple, catchy layered guitar track caught on, and finally Bolan had a hit on his hands, narrowly missing out on the number 1 spot due to Clive Dunn’s Grandad in January 1971. T. Rex’s eponymous debut also went top 10 in the album charts. Bolan was now famous, but he needed to capitalise and go one better to avoid being a one-hit wonder.
Hot Love was recorded on 21 and 22 January at Trident Studios – the week Ride a White Swan peaked at number two. Seizing the moment, Bolan decided to flesh out T. Rex’s sound and adopt a classic four-piece line-up. With new bassist Steve Currie making his recording debut, Bolan and Visconti hired Bill Fifield as drummer, leaving Finn relegated to just handclaps. After helping out on T. Rex, this single saw the return of Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman on backing vocals. The duo had been founding members of The Turtles, and as Flo & Eddie had recently been part of Frank Zappa’s group The Mothers of Invention. Kaylan and Volman’s slightly unhinged harmonies became an integral part of the classic T. Rex sound.
Review
Although Ride a White Swan served notice that Bolan was moving on from his old self-limited sonic boundaries, the lyrics were still very much the Tolkien whimsy of your average Tyrannosaurus Rex track. Hot Love featured a more simplistic, direct lyrical approach. Bolan is merely telling you about his lover.
Taken as read, much of T. Rex’s lyrical output can seem childish, sometimes even ridiculous, yet most of the time Bolan pulls it off, and he does so here. I’ve always admired the chutzpah of the lines ‘Well she ain’t no witch and I love the way she twitch – a ha ha’ and the charming camp of ‘I don’t mean to be bold, a-but a-may I hold your hand?’ but I’d never noticed the ludicrous ‘I’m a labourer of love in my persian gloves – a ha ha’ before. My favourite lyric of recent memory, right there.
There’s no point spending too much time dissecting Bolan’s words though, it’s more about the feel they add to his songs, and Hot Love feels sexy, which isn’t a label you could ever give his Tyrannosaurus Rex material. It’s fascinating to me how a voice that’s so fey, singing such daft words, can at the same time be so sensual.
The tune displays a key ingredient of glam rock – 50s rock’n’roll. Bolan has updated a simple bluesy riff and, thanks to the input of Visconti’s glossy studio sheen and string arrangement, updated it for 70s audiences. Kaylan and Volman’s backing vocals keep a certain strangeness in place and stop things getting too smooth, but this is a high definition Bolan that hadn’t been heard before, and Hot Love is just one reason why Visconti is rightly one of the most famous producers of all time.
The second half of Hot Love shifts into a ‘La-la-la-la-la-la-la’ Bolan, Kaylan and Volman singalong, akin to Hey Jude, but faster and weirder. It’s a real earworm, and no doubt helped it to number 1, but I find it goes on a bit too long, and I prefer the first half personally. Having said that, it really does show up the previous number 1, Baby Jump, as lumpen and turgid by comparison. A much-needed breath of fresh air in the charts, to put it mildly.
After
Released on 12 February on Fly Records, Hot Love rocketed up the charts, in part thanks to those famous Top of the Pops appearances. Bolan displayed star material in spades, and was perhaps the first musician since Elvis Presley to prove that image could be a vital ingredient in pop. Looking every inch the rock star with his glitter and guitar, he made glam rock about appearance as well as the sound, and other acts like Slade and friend/rival Bowie were watching and taking notes.
The Outro
The 70s were often a drab, moribund decade. Glam rock may have been a peculiarly British phenomenon that didn’t catch on elsewhere in the way Beatlemania did, but in the UK it was sorely needed, and brought about some of the best number 1s of the next four years. Bolan was integral in this.
T. Rex would prove to have a formula that Bolan couldn’t advance much from, and his star burnt out quick, but in the early 70s he gave pop the kick up the arse it needed. There are better T. Rex songs. However, Hot Love is one of the most important number 1s of the decade.
The Info
Written by
Marc Bolan
Producer
Tony Visconti
Weeks at number 1
6 (20 March-30 April)
Trivia
Births
23 March:Scottish actress Kate Dickie/TV presenter Gail Porter 27 March:Scottish racing driver David Coulthard 31 March:Cricketer Paul Grayson/Scottish actor Ewan McGregor 2 April:Cricketer Jason Lewry 3 April:Conservative MP Douglas Carswell 11 April:Liberal Democrat MP John Leech 16 April:Actress Belinda Stewart-Wilson 18 April:Scottish actor David Tennant
Deaths
20 April:Actor Cecil Parker
Meanwhile…
1 April: All restrictions on gold ownership were lifted in the UK. Since 1966 Britons had been banned from holding more than four gold coins or from buying any new ones, unless they held a licence.
11 April: 10 British Army soldiers were injured in rioting in Derry, Northern Ireland.
15 April: The planned Barbican Centre in London was given the go-ahead.
18 April: A serious fire at Kentish Town West railway station meant that the station remained closed until 5 October 1981.
19 April: Unemployment reached a post-World War Two high of nearly 815,000.
27 April: Eight members of the Welsh Language Society went on trial for destroying English language road signs in Wales. Also on this day, British Leyland launched the Morris Marina, which succeeded the Minor.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney were the greatest pop songwriting partnership of all time, together or separately writing 17 number 1 singles for The Beatles. But George Harrison has always been my favourite member of the Fab Four. Sardonic, mystical and more level-headed than the others, ‘the Quiet One’ blossomed at the end of his time in The Beatles. He had matured into a great songwriter, and I’ve always liked an underdog. Something was the first dance on my wedding day, and my youngest daughter was born to Here Comes the Sun. I even have the latter tattooed on my right arm.
Despite his new-found confidence and prolificness, it must still have come as a shock to the other three members of The Beatles that it would be Harrison who would score the first solo number 1 and biggest seller of 1971 with My Sweet Lord.
Before
Born 25 February 1943 in Wavertree, Liverpool, Harrison was the youngest of four children. His father Harold was a ship’s steward and his mother, Louise, a music-loving shop assistant. Fascinatingly, when Louise was pregnant with George, she would listen to a show called Radio India every Sunday, hoping that the sounds of the sitar and tabla would make her baby peaceful.
As a child, Harrison liked artists including George Formby and Cab Calloway, until in 1956 he had an epiphany while on his bike. He heard Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel blaring from a house, and was hooked. At first his dad was apprehensive, but relented and bought him an acoustic guitar. He formed a skiffle group called The Rebels, and one day on the bus to school, he befriended an older boy called Paul McCartney.
Two years later, Harrison was accepted into McCartney’s group The Quarrymen following initial skepticism from founder John Lennon. By the time the group had become The Beatles and settled on the legendary line-up, Harrison was their lead guitarist.
In their early recording years, Harrison would usually get a song or two to sing on each album, either a Lennon-McCartney original like Do You Want to Know a Secret? (from first LP Please Please Me) or a classic rock’n’roll track such as Roll Over Beethoven from the follow-up With the Beatles. It was on this album that he made his songwriting debut, with the typically sulky, downbeat but interesting Don’t Bother Me.
His influence would start to really be felt on the band when recording 1965’s Rubber Soul. By this point he was a fan of folk rock from the US, but had also become interested in Indian music through the filming of that year’s film Help!. His track If I Needed Someone, a Byrds soundalike, was one of that album’s highlights (he later said this was his favourite Beatles album).
Harrison became ever more fascinated with Indian culture and music, and Love You To on Revolver and Within You, Without You on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band helped turn their fans on to both – and many other bands too. And me – it may sound hard to believe, but it was The Beatles’ Indian-influenced songs that really got me into the Fab Four. I can remember the exact moment, in fact – I tranced out to Harrison’s Blue Jay Way at a friend’s house (completely without the aid of drink or drugs, I should add) and became obsessed. His first ever B-side, 1968’s The Inner Light, also marked the end of his overtly Indian material within the band.
The Beatles began splintering while recording their self-titled double album that year, and Harrison quit at one point, but two of his four tracks that made the final cut, While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Long, Long, Long, were among the album’s best.
His songwriting went from strength to strength from here on in. Something was his first A-side, and famously Frank Sinatra called it the finest love song of the past 50 years. After Abbey Road had been released, they had discussed continuing, and Lennon suggested Harrison should be allowed an equal share of songs on their next album – something McCartney disagreed with.
Harrison had already released two solo albums before The Beatles split – the 1968 film soundtrack Wonderwall Music and the experimental Electronic Music the following year. He was stockpiling songs all the time, recording a beautiful demo of All Things Must Pass during Beatles’ sessions. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise when he decided his first post-Beatles album, produced with Phil Spector and named after said track, would be triple-length.
Among those songs was his first solo single, My Sweet Lord. First written in December 1969, it was influenced by his production duties on Radha Krishna Temple’s Hare Krishna Mantra. Harrison was a guest, along with friends Eric Clapton and Billy Preston on Delaney & Bonnie’s European tour. He ducked out of a press conference and began vamping on an acoustic guitar, alternating between singing ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘Hare Krishna’. Whether he was aware he was doing it to the tune of He’s So Fine, a 1963 hit for The Chiffons, we’ll never know, but he was also deliberately influenced by the Edwin Hawkins Singers’ rendition of Oh Happy Day.
At the time of writing My Sweet Lord, Harrison wasn’t intending on going solo, so he offered it to Preston, whose second album, Encouraging Words, he was producing. With the Edwin Hawkins Singers providing some great backing vocals, Preston’s version is more overtly gospel, with the backing chant being mostly ‘Hallelujah’.
Letting someone else record it was one thing, but Harrison was nervous about doing it himself later in 1970. He wanted to sing about needing a direct relationship with God, and for others to be able to do so too, whatever their religion, and so he reintroduced the Hare Krishna mantra to the song, as well as the third verse of the Guru Stotram an ancient hymn in praise of Hindu spiritual teachers:
‘I offer homage to my guru, who is as great as the creator Brahma, the maintainer Vishnu, the destroyer Shiva, and who is the very energy of God.’
Opening with a low-key strum (in general, this is a pretty lo-fi recording by Spector’s usual standards) that’s much more ‘Harrison’, his version comes to life with some nice slide guitar work that’s also unmistakably him, before he begins singing. Harrison is earnest, pleading almost, for God, in whichever form, to come into his life. As cleverly noted elsewhere, it’s almost like Harrison is on his way for a first date, nervous but keen to find romance. I prefer the choice to build the song up, keeping the backing vocals until later – it helps create the ‘epic’ atmosphere such a song deserves. Critics of My Sweet Lord complain that the backing vocals smother it, but I can’t agree with that. They make it such a joyful song of love and devotion, and I’m speaking as an atheist.
My Sweet Lord had an all-star role call of collaborators. Among those making an appearance at Abbey Road Studios were Preston on piano, Clapton on acoustic guitar, his Derek and the Dominoes colleagues Bobby Whitlock on harmonium and Jim Gordon on drums and percussion, Ringo Starr on the same, Pete Ham, Tom Evans and Joey Molland from Badfinger on acoustic guitars, their drummer Mike Gibbins on tambourine, Klaus Voorman from Plastic Ono Band on bass, future Dream Weaver hitmaker Gary Wright on electric piano and Ravi Shankar collaborator John Barham providing the beautiful string arrangement. It is unknown, however, who played on the selected takes. I could always make out Harrison’s voice among the backing singers – what I didn’t know until now is that it’s purely him, multi-tracked and credited to ‘the George O’Hara-Smith Singers’.
Harrison announced in October 1970 that there would be no single before the release of All Things Must Pass, but Spector and bosses at Apple disagreed and thought My Sweet Lord had real potential. Harrison backed down, and the single was released in November in the US, then in January 1971 in the UK. It only took a fortnight to climb to number 1.
After
My Sweet Lord went on to sell millions, and All Things Must Pass was a huge-selling album. While Lennon and McCartney were busy sending each other coded insults via respective albums Imagine and Ram, Harrison, for a time looked like he would be the most successful solo Beatle of all. It didn’t work out that way, but he wouldn’t have wanted it to anyway. It may not be his greatest song, but it’s certainly up there, and if anyone deserved some time in the limelight, it’s the Dark Horse.
The Outro
In 2002, Harrison’s debut single was re-released posthumously and went to number 1 once more. A very fitting tribute. I’ll look at the rest of Harrison’s life and career, and the controversy regarding this song, when we get to that point.
The Info
Written by
George Harrison
Producers
George Harrison & Phil Spector
Weeks at number 1
5 (30 January-5 March) *BEST-SELLING SINGLE OF THE YEAR*
Trivia
Births
30 January:Actor Darren Boyd 31 January:Northern Irish TV presenter Patrick Kielty 2 February:Singer Michelle Gayle 3 February:Playwright Sarah Kane 13 February:Singer Sonia 16 February:Actress Amanda Holden/Actor Steven Houghton 23 February:TV presenter Melinda Messenger 24 February:TV presenter Nicky Hambleton-Jones 1 March:Classical composer Thomas Adès 3 March: Satirist Charlie Brooker
Meanwhile…
3 February: Gritty British crime thriller Get Carter, starring Michael Caine, premiered in Los Angeles.
4 February: Car manufacturer Rolls-Royce went bankrupt.
11 February: The UK, along with the USA, the USSR and others, signed the Seabed Treaty, which outlawed nuclear weapons on the ocean floor.
15 February: Decimal Day! People all across the UK and Republic of Ireland were left confused when currency went decimal, despite public information films like this explaining beforehand.
24 February: Home Secretary Reginald Maudling announced the Immigration Bill, which would strip Commonwealth immigrants of their right to remain in the UK. The bill was of course supported by Enoch Powell, but the controversial former shadow cabinet minister continued to demand a massive voluntary repatriation scheme for the immigrants.
1 March: An estimated 120,000 to 250,000 “kill the bill” protesters went on strike against the 1971 Industrial Relations Act in London.
As 1970 drew to a close, November’s number 1s seemed to symbolically bid farewell to the 60s. So, what next? Glam was around the corner, but in the meantime, the Christmas number 1 looked back to pop’s past, as Welsh singer-songwriter spent six weeks at the top with a cover of a 50s R’n’B tune.
Before
David William Edwards was born in Cardiff on 15 April 1944. Musically gifted as a child on the piano, at the age of 10 he formed The Edmund Bros Duo with his elder brother Geoff. They both formed The Stompers around 1957, with Dave on lead guitar and Geoff on rhythm. From there the younger Edmunds had brief stints in several groups before becoming lead singer of rockabilly trio The Raiders, who formed in 1961.
In 1966 Edmunds, following a brief spell in The Image, shifted to a blues-rock sound and formed a short-lived outfit called Human Beans, who mutated into the trio Love Sculpture. Their second single, a novelty high-speed reworking of Sabre Dance, which climbed to number five after getting the attention of DJ John Peel. After two albums Love Sculpture split in 1970.
Edmunds returned to Wales and learned how to recreate the sounds of the R’n’B and blues songs of the 50s by himself, and made plans to record a cover of blues classic Let’s Work Together by Wilbert Harrison, until he heard Canned Heat’s version. Around this time he worked with Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets, helping the 80s hitmaker score his first recording contract.
Fortunately, Edmunds heard Smiley Lewis’s I Hear You Knocking while driving, and noted he could use the backing track he’d already recorded for Let’s Work Together and make a cover of Lewis’s song. It was also a track he knew from Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets’ repertoire.
The original, written by New Orleans bandleader Dave Bartholomew (who had co-written the 1959 Elvis Presley number 1 One Night) and released by Lewis in 1955, is a straightforward slice of piano-driven 50s R’n’B, but Edmunds went full on blues-rock. He played every part on his version, using heavy compression to create an unusual, direct sound.
Review
Edmunds’ I Hear You Knocking is a quirky choice for Christmas number 1, but of course, being at the top of the charts on 25 December wasn’t an ‘event’ back then. The weird production is attention-grabbing to begin with. Most unusual of all is the vocal track, which sounds like it’s being sung down a bad phone line, or is coming out of a damaged transistor radio. I’m not sure if Edmunds was aiming for a dated 50s sound, but if so, it doesn’t quite come out like that. It gets a bit annoying after a while, whatever the intention.
The chorus is memorable, and the slide guitar is effective, and I enjoy Edmunds’ shouting out ‘Smiley Lewis!’ and other rock’n’roll star names from the 50s in the instrumental break. I can see why listeners would have enjoyed a bit of basic blues-rock for a while. Not sure how it stayed at number 1 for six weeks, though.
After
Despite the success of I Hear You Knocking, it took Edmunds two years to release his debut album, Rockpile, which was mostly a collection of more oldies. He had left it too late to capitalise. Or maybe he wasn’t bothered about doing so anyway. He spent the next few years producing rock and blues acts like Brinsley Schwarz, Foghat and The Flamin’ Groovies. However, his two singles Baby I Love You and Born to Be With You reached the top 10 in 1973.
In 1974 Edmunds had a brief role in the David Essex film Stardust, and helped with the soundtrack. A year later came his second solo LP, Subtle as a Flying Mallet. Then his friendship with Nick Lowe from Brinsley Schwarz resulted in their new group Rockpile. Due to being on different labels they were unable to record until 1980 but would guest on each other’s solo material for the next few years.
In 1979 Edmunds scored his last top 10 hit with Girls Talk, written by Elvis Costello. Rockpile only recorded one album, 1980’s Seconds of Pleasure, before splitting up due to arguments between Edmunds and Lowe. Edmunds went back to mainly producing, and worked with big names including Paul McCartney, Status Quo, Stray Cats, The Everly Brothers and kd Lang. He had a US hit with Slipping Away in 1983 though, written and produced by ELO’s Jeff Lynne.
Edmunds went into semi-retirement in the mid-80s, but he did tour with Ringo Starr & His All-Star Band in 1992 and 2000. After a couple of albums released online, he began touring in his own right again in 2007. Edmunds performed I Hear You Knocking on Jools’ Annual Hootenanny in 2008 and then Sabre Dance in 2009. His last album was On Guitar… Dave Edmunds: Rags & Classics in 2015, featuring instrumental covers. After a final show in July 2017, Edmunds retired from music.
The Outro
1970 was an interesting, eclectic year for number 1s, with several well-remembered chart-toppers. Lots were in thrall to the past, though, with the departure of The Beatles leaving the music world wondering what to do. Fortunately, T. Rex were now on the scene, having scored a number two hit with Ride a White Swan. Marc Bolan would soon have his first number 1.
The Info
Written by
Dave Bartholomew
Producer
Dave Edmunds
Weeks at number 1
6 (28 November 1970-8 January 1971) *CHRISTMAS NUMBER 1*
Trivia
Births
29 December1970:Singer Aled Jones 31 December:Welsh rugby union player Louise Rickard 1 January1971: Football referee Andre Marriner/BBC newsreader Suzanne Virdee 5 January: TV presenter Jayne Middlemiss 7 January:TV presenter Joanne Malin
26 December: Olympian athlete Lillian Board, died in Munich, West Germany, after a three-month battle against cancer. She was 22.
31 December 1970: Although Paul McCartney had announced his departure from The Beatles earlier in 1970, it was made official when he filed a lawsuit against the other three on this day to dissolve their partnership.
1 January 1971: The Divorce Reform Act 1969 came into effect, which allowed couples to divorce after a separation of two years (five if only one agrees). This ruling resulted in a sharp rise in divorces over the next two years.
2 January: The new year got off to a shocking start for football fans when a stairway crush at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow during a match between Rangers and Celtic killed 66 and left many more injured.
3 January: BBC Open University broadcasts began.
8 January: Uruguayan left-wing urban guerrilla group Tupamaros kidnapped Geoffrey Jackson, the British ambassador to Uruguay, in Montevideo. He was held captive until September.
30 years on, I can still remember the first time I saw Jimi Hendrix. I can pinpoint the date because it was a clip on Good Morning Britain in which the presenters were talking about the 20th anniversary of his death, so I was 11. I’d never seen anything like this otherworldly flamboyant peacock, tearing away at his guitar with supernatural abandon, on stage in darkness. It was mesmerising, exciting, and even scary.
Jimi Hendrix was the greatest guitarist of his generation, perhaps ever, but he never had a number 1 in his lifetime. Voodoo Chile, from the final album by The Jimi Hendrix Experience Electric Ladyland in 1968, was released posthumously. Not a pop single, but what a riproaring way to call time on Hendrix and the 60s.
Before
He may have seemed like he’d arrived on Earth from outer space, but Johnny Allen Hendrix was born 27 November 1942 in Seattle, Washington, the eldest of five children. Four years later his parents changed his name to James Marshall Hendrix in honour of his father Al and his late brother Leon Marshall. Al was in the army, and absent for much of his eldest’s childhood. His mither Lucille struggled and James would often be sent to female family members and friends of Lucille.
When Al returned from service, he and Lucille would argue violently, and the shy James would hide in a closet. Many years later, he revealed to a girlfriend that he was once abused by a man in uniform. At the age of nine, his parents divorced and Al was granted custody.
In 1957, father and son were clearing an old woman’s home when the young Hendrix found a ukelele with one string left, which she said he could keep. He learnt to play by ear, and would particularly enjoy doing so to Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog.
By mid-1958, a few months after his mother’s early death, he bought his first acoustic guitar. He would play for hours, learning the blues licks of Robert Johnson, BB King and Muddy Waters, but the first tune he learned to play in full was the theme to Peter Gunn.
Soon after his purchase he formed his first group, called The Velvetones. but struggled to be heard above the din, and in 1959, Al bought him one. Hendrix joined The Rocking Kings, and began playing professionally.
Aged 18, Hendrix was caught riding in stolen cars more than once, and police offered him a choice between prison or the army, and he chose the latter and enlisted in 1961. Hendrix struggled and missed his beloved guitar, but when Al sent him it his peers would tease him and hide it from him. Fellow serviceman Billy Cox was impressed with his playing though and they soon joined other servicemen in a band called The Casuals.
After they had both been discharged in 1963 the duo formed new band The King Kasuals. Their second guitarist Alphonso ‘Baby Boo’ Young could play with his teeth, and before long Hendrix could too. As well as The King Kasuals, Hendrix began performing as a backing musician for soul stars including Sam Cooke, Ike & Tina Turner and Jackie Wilson.
In 1964 Hendrix joined The Isley Brothers’ backing band The IB Specials and made his first recording on their two part single Testify. But he got bored of being restricted to the same set every night and left in October to join Little Richard’s touring group The Upsetters. He would make his TV debut appearing alongside the rock’n’roll legend in 1965
There would be further performances with artists including saxophonist King Curtis, but Hendrix couldn’t stand the restrictions of not getting the spotlight to himself, so in 1966 he moved to New York’s happening Greenwich Village and would begin a residency fronting his new band Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, and it is here that he really developed his incredible style.
That May, while performing with Curtis Knight and the Squires he found an important fan in Linda Keith, the girlfriend of Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones. Their producer Andrew Loog Oldham was somehow blind to the potential of this virtuoso axeman, so Keith told Chas Chandler about him. Chandler was about to leave The Animals and was looking to move into managing and producing talent. He saw Hendrix performing Hey Joe in Greenwich Village, and was blown away. Hendrix signed with him and moved to London in September.
Hendrix and Chandler were on the lookout for members of a new band to showcase the former’s talent. They asked guitarist Noel Redding to play bass for him after seeing him at an audition for The New Animals, and drummer Mitch Mitchell had recently been fired from Georgie Fame and The Blue Flames. Chandler suggested Jimmy change the spelling of his name, and The Jimi Hendrix Experience had arrived.
The trio performed for the first time in France, supporting Johnny Holliday, that October. A month later they signed to Track Records, a new label set up by Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, managers of The Who. A performance at the ultra-hip Bag O’Nails in front of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Brian Jones and Pete Townshend set tongues wagging. Debut single Hey Joe shot to number six in December.
If ever there was a case of right time, right place, it was The Jimi Hendrix Experience, in Swinging London, in 1966 and 67. And 1967 was truly their year. Purple Haze and The Wind Cries Mary were top 10 hits in March and May respectively. These first three singles displayed the versatility of these firebrands. They could do soulful covers, write their own psychedelic rock and tender ballads. Debut album Are You Experienced, also released in May, went even further, with the blues of Red House and experimental rock like the title track. It’s rightly considered one of the greatest debut albums of all time, and climbed the charts in the Summer of Love alongside landmark LPs by The Beatles and Pink Floyd.
That summer saw Hendrix blow McCartney’s mind with a live performance of the title track to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and one of the most memorable rock performances of all time at the Monterey Pop Festival. As if Hendrix’s guitar-playing wasn’t impressive enough, he ended their show by setting his instrument on fire. After Monterey they briefly toured as support for The Monkees, quitting after a fortnight due to the audience’s general bafflement.
The trio ended an incredible year with the release of second album Axis: Bold as Love. While the least impressive of their three LPs, it was still sterling work. On 20 December they set to work on the opus that would be the group’s swansong – the double album Electric Ladyland.
Tensions rose during recording, with Hendrix taking more of an interest in the production, which annoyed Chandler, as did his increasing perfectionism. Not only that, the sessions were getting more and more chaotic thanks to fellow musicians dropping by, and also Redding was busy with his new group Fat Mattress, so Hendrix would record his own bass parts. Nonetheless, Electric Ladyland was a masterpiece thanks to songs like Crosstown Traffic and the definitive Bob Dylan cover, All Along the Watchtower. And then there was the album closer.
Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) was a rocked-up, alternative to Voodoo Chile, a 14-minute-plus blues jam featuring Steve Winwood, among others, earlier on the album. The day after that version had been recorded, The Jimi Hendrix Experience returned to the studio to film a documentary, and a session of jamming resulted in Hendrix’s sole number 1 single.
Review
What a track, what a way to pay tribute to one of the greatest musicians ever, and what a full stop on the 60s. Voodoo Chile, as it became confusingly titled upon its posthumous single release (the Slight Return being dropped by Track Records) is no pop single. It’s The Jimi Hendrix Experience at full throttle and saying goodbye. Opening with one of the greatest guitar riffs of all time, the track then explodes.
Hendrix pays tribute to the masters of blues from his youth with some lyrical imagery portraying Hendrix as some kind of superhuman, able to chop down mountains with the edge of his hand. Not that far removed from songs like Bo Diddley’s I’m a Man.
The music is in another dimension to such material, though, a heavy psychedelic onslaught of guitar noodling that, thanks in part to the stereo panning, swirls around your head and never gets boring, unlike perhaps some of Hendrix’s later work. The lyrics don’t last long, but may well be the reason this was picked as a tribute to Hendrix. The second and last verse ends with the guitarist apologising for taking up all the listener’s sweet time (like he has anything to apologise for) and then a promise:
‘If I don’t meet you no more in this world I’ll meet you in the next one And don’t be late Don’t be late!’
Voodoo Chile has probably always been my favourite song by The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and I love the fact that for one week, this was number 1. Storming, magnificent and unforgettable.
After
Electric Ladyland was released in October 1968. 1969 began with the trio caused controversy with their appearance on the BBC’s Happening for Lulu when they abruptly stopped performing Hey Joe to perform Sunshine of Your Love by way of tribute to the recently disbanded Cream. They prevented Lulu performing her closing number, and Hendrix was told they would never work for the BBC again. Around this time, Chandler quit.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s two February gigs at the Royal Albert Hall were their final UK shows, and in June after a performance at the Denver Pop Festival, matters between Hendrix and Redding came to a head, and Redding left.
Hendrix expanded the line-up, adding his old friend Cox on bass, and they headlined the Woodstock Festival as Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, famously blowing the minds of the remaining hippies on the Monday morning with an incendiary version of The Star-Spangled Banner.
To put an end to several years of legal disputes, Hendrix recorded a live album, Band of Gypsys, with Cox and new drummer Buddy Miles. The Band of Gypsys were not to last long as an entity though, and Hendrix’s manager Michael Jeffrey announced in February 1970 that The Jimi Hendrix Experience were to return in their original line-up. This was news to the frontman though, who was reluctant for Redding to return, so he began touring with Mitchell and Cox instead on The Cry of Love Tour.
On 31 August 1970 Hendrix headlined the Isle of Wight Festival, but was beset with technical problems. On 2 September he angered fans in Denmark after three songs announcing ‘I’ve been dead a long time’. After a badly-received set in Germany, Cox was suffering from severe paranoia after a bad LSD trip, and he returned to the US.
Hendrix and Mitchell returned to the UK, and the former spoke to Chandler about being unhappy with Jeffrey’s management. He did an impromptu performance on 16 September with War at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, which was uncharacteristically low-key.
Two days later, his girlfriend Monika Dannemann found him unconscious in bed, and he was pronounced dead soon after. Hendrix had choked on his own vomit on a cocktail of barbiturates and sleeping tablets. He was only 27.
The Outro
Perhaps Jimi Hendrix was never meant to live a long life. His flame only burned for a few years, but it burned brighter and more colourfully than most can only dream about. Following Redding’s departure, Hendrix had struggled to live up to those first three albums, which suggests The Jimi Hendrix Experience had a very special alchemy. Mitchell was a fantastic drummer in particular, and if Hendrix hadn’t been in the spotlight so much, he may have been better remembered. Redding, sardonic and grounded, was perhaps good at stopping Hendrix from getting too carried away in the studio.
Redding was found dead at home in Ireland on 11 March 2003 after a shock haemorrhage, aged 57, and Mitchell died five years later on 12 November in a hotel in Portland, Oregon of natural causes, aged 62.
For a while, weirdly, it looked like Mungo Jerry may be the heirs to The Beatles’ throne. This rock/pop/skiffle/jug band scored 1970’s biggest-selling number 1, and one of the most memorable songs about summer of all time with their debut single In the Summertime. ‘Mungomania’ was a very real thing.
Before
Mungo Jerry formed from the ashes of 60s rock’n’roll and blues band The Good Earth, featuring, among others, singer-songwriter and guitarist Ray Dorset and keyboardist Colin Earl. The other half of the band were gone by the end of 1968, and with one remaining commitment – the Oxford University Christmas Ball of 1968 – left to go, Dorset hired Joe Rush to play double bass. The Good Earth played again when the night was over, performing folk, skiffle and jug band originals and covers.
This more low-key, acoustic version of the band went down well, and they built a following thanks to regular gigs. Banjoist, guitarist, and blues harp player Paul King made them a quartet. Rush left, to be replaced by Mike Cole, and they changed their name to Mungo Jerry, taking the name from TS Elliot’s poem ‘Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer’, as featured in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
Mungo Jerry signed with Pye Records, who placed them on their progressive imprint Dawn Records. They set to work recording their eponymous debut album, and the tracks that would make up their first single. This was to be one of, if not the first maxi-single in the UK. Vinyl maxi-singles were played at 33⅓rpm, rather than 45, and featured more than two tracks.
Dorset was still working his day job in a lab for watchmakers Timex when he came up with lead track In the Summertime, which he knocked off in 10 minutes. Clearly he could tell this ditty could make for a great debut for Mungo Jerry, but it’s unlikely he knew the impact this tale of youthful freewheeling would have for the next half a century.
Review
Much like Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky, In the Summertime will be the one track associated with Mungo Jerry (despite a second, long-since-forgotten, number 1), has been used countless times in the media, and is a tune neither I or millions more will ever tire of. It’s all about that loveable, rickety old backing track, really, with a distinctive rhythm created by Dorset stomping and playing an African percussive instrument called the cabasa. I assume it’s also him doing the breathy interjections. Dorset’s an interesting character. His voice has an unusual bleating quality, like a friendly sheep. Footage of him from back in the day though, such as in the video they filmed for the single, above, used to scare me when I was younger. I used to think, with all the teeth and sideburns, he was some kind of hairy villain. Special mention must go to Earl’s piano riff, too.
50 years on, its the lyrics that prove problematic. In the Summertime is a song about being young, about the generational divide of 1970. You could even call it a somewhat passive-aggressive statement of intent: ‘We’re no threat, people, We’re not dirty, we’re not mean, We love everybody but we do as we please’
Dorset and his gang are happy-go-lucky, but in the end, they’ll do what they want, so don’t stop them. And that involves womanising and driving recklessly, possibly while under the influence. The lyric ‘If her daddy’s rich take her out for a meal/If her daddy’s poor just do what you feel’ may have just sounded cheeky back then, but it’s unpleasant to hear these days.
And of course, thanks to a memorable public information film from 1992, it’s ‘Have a drink, have a drive/Go out and see what you can find’ that stands out the most. Anyone that saw this at the time will likely never get the graphic image of the drink-driving accident out of their head whenever they hear this song. But because my mind has unlimited storage for 80s adverts, I also can’t hear it without picturing the curly-haired juggler of oranges in the rewritten version for Outspan. Pretty sure that’s Dorset himself singing ‘Grab an Outspan, the small ones are more juicy naturally’.
After
Despite the bad vibes of some of Dorset’s lyrics in the 21st century, it’s such an addictive song, it seems it’s never going to go away, and I’m glad about that. In the Summertime stayed at number 1 for seven weeks that summer – the lengthiest run of the 70s until Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody managed nine weeks in 1975/76. The UK’s brief flirtation with Mungomania had begun.
The Outro
Jamaican-American rapper Shaggy released a version of In the Summertime in 1995, which reached number five that summer. Featuring his mate Rayvon, it eschewed the drink-drive references, but kept the rest of the dodgy bits intact.
The Info
Written by
Ray Dorset
Producer
Barry Murray
Weeks at number 1
7 (13 June-31 July) *BEST-SELLING SINGLE OF THE YEAR*
Trivia
Births
19 June: Singer-songwriter MJ Hibbett 20 June:Field hockey player Russell Garcia 22 June: Field hockey playerChristine Cook 24 June: Footballer David May 25 June: Actress Lucy Benjamin 2 July: Footballer Steve Morrow 6 July: Singer-songwriter Martin Smith 7 July: Boxer Wayne McCullough 10 July: Take That singer Jason Orange/Actor John Simm 11 July: Conservative MP Saj Karim 29 July: Children’s TV presenter Andi Peters 30 July: Director Christopher Nolan 31 July: Actor Ben Chaplin
Deaths:
15 June: Scottish sociologist Robert Morrison MacIver 27 June: Artist Edwin La Dell 30 June: Dramatist Githa Sowerby 7 July: Publisher Allen Lane 20 July: Conservative MP Iain Macleod
Meanwhile…
13 June: Actor Laurence Olivier was made a life peer in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. Olivier was the first actor to be made a lord.
14 June: England’s defence of the FIFA World Cup came to an end when they lost 3-2 to West Germany at the quarter final in Mexico (see here).
17 June: The bodies of two children were discovered in shallow graves in woodland at Waltham Abbey, Essex. The bodies were believed to be those of Susan Blatchford (11) and Gary Hanlon (12). The tow children had last been seen alive near their homes in North London on 31 March. This became known as the “Babes in the wood” case. Also on this day, British Leyland launched its luxury Range Rover.
18 June: The first general election in which 18-year-olds were entitled to vote. Opinion polls pointed towards a record third consecutive victory for the Labour government, led by Harold Wilson.
19 June: Edward Heath’s Conservative Party defied expectations, to win the election with a majority of 30 seats. Notable new MPs included future Labour leaders Neil Kinnock and John Smith for Labour, and Kenneth Clarke, Kenneth Baker, Norman Fowler and Geoffrey Howe, who would all serve in Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Cabinet in the 80s.
21 June: British golfer Tony Jacklin won the U.S. Open.
22 June: The Methodist Church allowed women to become full ministers for the first time.
26 June: Riots broke out in Derry over the arrest of Mid-Ulster MP Bernadette Devlin.
29 June: 32-year-old Caroline Thorpe, wife of Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, died in a car crash.
3 July: British Army soldiers battled with IRA troops in Belfast, leading to the deaths of three civilians. Also on that day, 112 were killed when Dan-Air Flight 1903 from Manchester to Barcelona crashed in the mountains of Northern Spain. There were no survivors.
8 July: Roy Jenkins became Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
14 July: 5 speedway riders were killed in Lokeren, Belgium when a minibus carrying members of the West Ham speedway team crashed into a petrol tanker after a brief tour. One of the casualties was Phil Bishop, a founding member of the West Ham speedway team from before World War Two.
15 July: Dockers voted to strike, leading to a state of emergency the following day.
16–25 July: The British Commonwealth Games were held in Edinburgh. Australia came first, England second, Scotland fourth and Northern Ireland were 10th on the medal table.
17 July: Lord Pearson proposed a settlement of dockers’ strike.
30 July: The dockers’ strike was settled.
31 July – The last issue of grog in the Royal Navy was distributed.
The first classic number 1 of the 70s, Bridge over Troubled Water‘s message of the importance of friendship in times of emotional pain made it one of the most famous songs of all time, and yet it did further damage to Simon & Garfunkel’s already strained relationship, and helped quicken their disintegration.
Before
Paul Frederic Simon was born on 13 October 1941 in Newark, New Jersey. Arthur Ira Garfunkel was born 5 November in New York City, also 1941. They grew up three blocks from each other in Queens, New York and attended the same schools and admired The Everly Brothers. They became friends in 1953 when appearing in a sixth grade production of Alice in Wonderland. In addition to forming a street corner doo-wop quintet called The Peptones, Simon and Garfunkel began performing as a duo at school dances. In 1956 they wrote their first song, The Girl for Me and signed with independent label Big Records aged only 15.
As Tom & Jerry (Garfunkel was Tom Graph, Simon was Jerry Landis) the duo had some success with 1957 single Hey Schoolgirl, but were unable to follow it up. While both at university, and still officially a duo, Simon released a single under the name True Taylor. This can be seen as the first crack in their relationship, as it caused some resentment with Garfunkel.
They went their separate ways for some time, recording under a variety of names and working with other acts. Then in 1963, they both graduated from university and began to work together again. By now they had moved on from rock’n’roll and were both enjoying the burgeoning folk scene in Greenwich, and billed themselves as Kane & Garr. One of the songs they would perform was The Sound of Silence. Columbia Records producer Tom Wilson, who later helped Bob Dylan in his transition to electric, was impressed by the duo, and helped get them signed to the label.
In 1964, as Simon & Garfunkel, they recorded their debut LP, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. Featuring compositions by Simon and covers, it bombed, and Simon decided to move to the UK soon after, going solo once more.
Fast forward to 1965, and Simon had released solo album The Paul Simon Songbook, which hadn’t done too well. Garfunkel, who had been to visit his friend in the UK, was at Columbia University. Then everything changed.
The Sound of Silence was gaining in popularity with colleges on the radio, and Wilson decided to make a remix featuring electric instruments and drums, without telling either of them. Simon was horrified when he found out, but then the new folk-rock version hit number 1 in the US in January 1966. He hastily returned to the US, and they reunited to quickly record a new album, Sounds of Silence. Featuring remade versions of tracks from Simon’s solo LP, including I Am a Rock, it was a rush-job, but extremely popular, and they were famous at last.
They decided to take time over their third album, and became more interested in production, while making Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, released that October. With their version of Scarborough Fair/Canticle, and a remade Homeward Bound among the included material, it was one of their best collections.
Simon developed writer’s block while working on the next album, but managed to pen material for Mike Nichols’ smash romantic comedy The Graduate in 1967, including Mrs. Robinson. Fourth album Bookends eventually surfaced in 1968, and included the title track, America and Hazy Shade of Winter.
By now huge recording and touring stars, their partnership began to suffer, thanks in part to Garfunkel’s acting career. Simon was to join him in Nichols’ Catch-22 (1970) but found his part written out. Matters were exacerbated by the filming taking longer than expected. Eventually they began work, with members of The Wrecking Crew and producer Roy Halee on their fifth and final album, turning down an invitation to perform at Woodstock Festival while doing so.
What was to become the title track began originally as a gentle two-verse guitar number that had been inspired in part by a line from 1958 song Mary Don’t You Weep, a gospel track by the Swan Silvertones: ‘I’ll be your bridge over deep water if you trust in me”. Simon later presented singer-songwriter Claude Jetter with a cheque to acknowledge his inspiration. The civil rights unrest and political assassinations in the stormy years leading up to this time also helped Simon come up with a message of hope.
Over the years, the duo have both given different stories over what happened next. Simon claimed he thought it would be perfect as a solo spot for Garfunkel’s angelic voice, but that he didn’t want to do it, and Simon felt hurt. Garfunkel says Simon was gracious when Garfunkel told him politely that he felt Simon should do it as it sounded lovely performed by him. Who knows – but I do know from reading and seeing interviews that both men can be oversensitive and precious.
Simon & Garfunkel, musicians and production crew assembled at CBS studios to work Bridge over Troubled Water out in November 1969. The final track to be recorded for the album, but the first to be completed, it was felt that, as nice as it was, the song should feature an extra verse, and open out to become a real epic in the style of a Phil Spector number. And so Simon wrote the ‘silver girl’ verse at Garfunkel’s suggestion, but wasn’t too keen. While some say it’s a reference to a drug user’s needle, it’s apparently an in-joke – Simon’s wife Peggy Harper had noticed she was turning grey. Simon seems to regret ever adding a third verse, and he’s not alone in that.
Review
Bridge over Troubled Water has been criticised for being calculated and manipulative – a glossy exercise in tugging the heartstrings, and that it’s too epic, too, that it would have been better in its original incarnation. I understand all these points, and it’s certainly been used since in countless covers as the go-to song to make people emotional, but I think it’s simply a beautiful song and that no amount of stories of two stars whose egos were incompatible can spoilt it for me.
Simon is right in that the first verse, in particular, is the most moving. Garfunkel’s always beautiful voice is perfect here, and I admire the technical brilliance of being able to wring every bit of emotion out of each syllable. Garfunkel later claimed this verse took the most amount of takes, whereas the finale was the easiest. Wonderful support on the piano by Larry Knetchel, too. The performance makes me imagine that the person Garfunkel is singing to is so fragile, his almost hushed tones are all they can take.
He/they grow in strength in the second verse, adding meaning to Simon’s already powerful words, and the cymbal crashes from Hal Blaine suggest the message is getting through. Then the strings come in, courtesy of Jimmy Haskell, who had misheard the name of the song and labelled his arrangement Like a Pitcher of Troubled Water. Bass enters the fray, and Blaine gets on the drum kit. Its unclear whether that’s double-tracked singing from Garfunkel or Simon finally getting his voice heard, but I think it’s the former. Yes, the lyrics don’t match what came before, but the music picks up the slack, and then the epic rousing finale, in which Garfunkel gives it his all, leaving the darkness behind, with Blaine creating that unique drum sound by slapping the chains from his snow tyres on to his snare drum (used again on The Boxer). If this track hasn’t at least once made you want to cry when your defences are down (or just very pissed), are you even human?
After
The song was complete, and despite being over five minutes in length, label boss Clive Davis insisted it was too good to be anything but the first single from the album. He was totally correct, of course. It went to number 1 in the US in February, then the UK a month later, and like Wand’rin’ Star before it, it kept The Beatles’ swansong single, Let It Be, from number 1. Clearly, the mood of the time was for gospel-influenced, big message songs. The Beatles may be the greatest band of all time, but Bridge over Troubled Water was the better song here. It rightfully went on to be one of the biggest-selling singles of all time.
And the album named after the song was also huge. It was the bestseller of 1970, 71 and 72, and until Michael Jackson’s Thriller it was the biggest of all time. But Simon & Garfunkel had had enough of each other for the forseeable. In 1971, the same year their final LP won six awards at the Grammys, they split.
Simon would confess to Bridge over Troubled Water causing him to feel jealous – he resented sitting in the wings watching Garfunkel getting adulation for performing his song. You’d be forgiven for thinking he needed to get over himself. But it’s also proof that you can be an incredible songwriting talent and still be as petty as any other human, I suppose.
The duo got back together in 1972 for a benefit concert for Democrat hopeful George McGovern, but it was another three years before they spoke to each other when they visited a recording session by John Lennon and Harry Nilsson. They collaborated in the studio once more, and came up with a new single, My Little Town, which was a hit. For the rest of the 70s they would occasionally make rare TV and live appearances. Garfunkel would have two UK number 1s, most notably the beautiful Bright Eyes from animated movie Watership Down (1978) – it was number 1 on the day I was born, 19 April 1979.
The 80s began with both Simon and Garfunkel’s solo careers in decline, until they were persuaded to perform at a free concert in Central Park, New York City in 1981. An incredible 500,000 attended the show – the largest ever at the time. They tried to capitalise on the renewed interest with a world tour in 1982, but old tensions rose and they barely spoke to each other throughout. Warner Bros. pushed for a tour extension and reunion album, but after early recording attempts, Simon opted for a new solo LP instead, with Garfunkel’s refusal to give up cannabis among the reasons given. Simon would go on to be very popular for the rest of the decade, particularly for his crossover world music album Graceland in 1986.
Simon & Garfunkel were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, and managed to perform three songs together, despite Simon being pretty snide in his speech, and the duo refusing to speak to each other afterwards. A year later Simon did his own Central Park show, pointedly refusing an offer from his former partner to join him there. However in 1993 they were touring once more. Guess what? They fell out again for the rest of the decade.
In 2001 Simon was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a solo artist. He thanked Garfunkel, but ended up saying he wasn’t in a rush to make peace with him, either. Nice. A lifetime achievement Grammy for the old friends/sworn enemies in 2003 resulted in another halt to their Cold War. They toured the US and Europe for a year, and performed at a Hurricane Katrina benefit in 2005. Their final performance as Simon & Garfunkel took place at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2010, with the latter struggling with vocal cord paresis. Further dates were postponed indefinitely, and it would be four years before his voice was back to full strength.
The Outro
Simon announced his retirement from touring in 2018. Does that mean we’ll never see them on stage ever again? Who knows. They’re both approaching 80, and it seems Simon in particular is unlikely to want to do so, but it would be nice to think they could end their days as friends once more. Hopefully it would be for genuine reasons, rather than the money.
If it doesn’t happen, best to take comfort in the fact the duo were able to produce some brilliant songs, had real alchemy together, and that despite the result it had on their relationship, Bridge over Troubled Water has helped so many people for 50 years.
Among the multitude of covers, it’s been number 1 twice since, for great causes – making up part of A Bridge over You, the 2015 Christmas number 1 by Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Choir, and in its own right in 2017, when stars including Robbie Williams, Rita Ora, Roger Daltrey and Stoemzy united under the banner Artists for Grenfell.
The Info
Written by
Paul Simon
Producers
Roy Halee, Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel
Weeks at number 1
3 (28 March-17 April)
Meanwhile…
April Fool’s Day: Everton won the Football League First Division title.
10 April: Paul McCartney announces that he has left The Beatles, marking the end of the Fab Four.
11 April: Chelsea and Leeds United drew 2–2 in the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium, making it the first to require a replay since 1912.
16 April: The controversial Dr. Ian Paisley entered the Parliament of Northern Ireland after winning the Bannside By-election.
I’ve been blogging my reviews of all the UK number 1s in order for four months now, and have reached the end of 1957. Despite not being a fan of 50s music in general (maybe that’s a bit harsh, I should say I’m not too knowledgeable about it), I’ve found it more interesting than expected. Hopefully, some of the readers I’ve gathered are enjoying it too.
Anyway, I decided a nice addition for Christmas would be to work my way through every Christmas number 1 to date. Now, I love music, and I’m also fond of Christmas, so initially it sounds like a no-brainer. However, Christmas number 1s are a complete wild card. No matter the decade, no matter your musical taste, it would be impossible to enjoy them all. Indeed, after a first glance, I realised there are far fewer festive songs than you’d maybe expect. From children’s songs, to rock’n’roll and psychedelic classics, to total, utter dross, the Christmas number 1 offers examples of the mammoth highs and terrible lows of pop music over the last 65 years. And although sadly pop is no longer the cultural force it once was, the Christmas number 1 is still considered important. So much so, they even bring Top of the Pops back especially for it.
So, 69 songs (if a number 1 was a double A-side, I’ve included both), 4 hours and 15 minutes of seasonal chart-toppers, broken down into decisions on the best and worst of each decade, and then one overall winner. With two young children in my house, it would be impossible to take on this task in one sitting. So I decided to do it while working my day job, which today is working on, appropriately enough, the Christmas TV listings for TV Times. I think I already know which song will win out. Let’s see if I’m right…
The 50s
The 50s songs went by in a blur. This could be because I started listening at 7.30 in the morning and didn’t have enough caffeine in me, but it’s also because the charts didn’t start until 1952, and most tracks were pretty concise back then. In fact the first ever Christmas number 1 was the first ever chart-topper – Al Martino’s Here in My Heart. With pop music in its infancy, the yuletide number 1 wasn’t yet an event, and there wasn’t a festive-themed chart-topper until crooner Dickie Valentine’s Christmas Alphabet in 1955, which is a slight but charming enough number. You could perhaps argue Winifred Atwell had kicked things off the year previous, with the piano knees-up Let’s Have Another Party – it contained a snatch of When the Red Red Robin. Harry Belafonte’s Mary’s Boy Child in 1957 was the last explicitly Christmas song to reign until Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody, 16 years later.
Elvis-mania changed pop forever and rock’n’roll ruled the roost in the late 50s. For me, this is where music started to get interesting, so it’s probably no coincidence that one of my favourites of the 50s was the last – Emile Ford and the Checkmates’ clever and cocky What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For? (1959), later covered by Shakin’ Stevens.
The Best:
Johnnie Ray –Just Walkin‘ in the Rain (1956): One of rock’n’roll’s pioneers, the eccentric, troubled ‘Mr Emotion’ sang this melancholic yet strangely cheery song written by two men languishing in prison. It’s not seasonal in the slightest, it’s just a great song by an influential but under-appreciated talent. One listen and you won’t be able to resist whistling the refrain. I can’t whistle, but this is one of the few times I wished I could.
The Worst:
Frankie Laine with Paul Weston & His Orchestra – Answer Me (1953): The hardest part of blogging about many of those early number 1s was wading through the sea of near-identical overwrought ballads. The majority of them leave me cold, and despite Frankie being able to hold a note well, this did nothing for me. Hilariously, the BBC banned it at the time due to the then-shocking mention of God in the lyrics, which only increased its sales. The BBC clearly never learnt its lesson, as this wasn’t the last time this happened to a future number 1.
The 60s
Pop music evolved at a mind-blowing rate and came of age during this decade. Obviously the 60s were dominated by the best group of all time, The Beatles, and they also hold the record for most festive number 1s to date, with four in total – I Want to Hold Your Hand (1963), I Feel Fine (1964), Day Tripper/We Can Work it Out (1965) and Hello Goodbye (1967). Never anything but a pleasure to listen to, John, Paul, George and Ringo played a large part in making this decade’s list pretty darn enjoyable. The classic Moon River, sang by Danny Williams, topped the charts in 1961, and Elvis also got a look-in, with one of his better tracks – Return to Sender, in 1962.
In the latter half of the decade, children’s records grew in popularity, and were obviously going to sell well in December, beginning the trend for novelty Christmas number 1s. The Scaffold’s Lily the Pink (1968) may be irritating but served it’s purpose, and my five-year-old seemed to love it recently. More problematic is Rolf Harris’s Two Little Boys in 1969. Finding out what a pervert Rolf Harris was, under everybody’s radar, for so long was like finding out there’s no such thing as Father Christmas, yet this tune seems somehow still strangely moving, and now sadder than ever, because he’s bloody ruined it for everyone.
The Best:
The Beatles – Hello Goodbye (1967): It was always going to be a Beatles song. I did struggle between Day Tripper and Hello Goodbye, though. Despite the former’s killer riff, I decided to go with the latter, as I’m a sucker for most psychedelic 60s stuff. Although it’s not the Fab Four’s best example of pyschedelia, I love it’s joyous simplicity, and especially the singalong at the end, which is lie-affirming pop at its best. I also think it would make for a hilarious funeral song.
The Worst:
Cliff Richard and The Shadows – I Love You (1960): Look at that title, it’s as generic as it gets, which at least sets the scene for the song itself. Tepid, basic and very forgettable, it’s no wonder it’s been largely forgotten. Cliff of course became a festive staple in the 80s. Whatever you might think of his later yuletide tunes, you’d find it difficult to argue that they’re not better than this.
The 70s
It was in this decade that the idea of the Christmas Number 1 really became an event, beginning with Slade and Wizzard’s battle for best festive anthem in 1973. An honourable mention for fellow glam rockers Mud’s Elvis tribute Lonely This Christmas (1974) – always had a soft spot for that one. Benny Hill’s children’s song Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West) in 1971 was deceptively filthy – I’ve never realised just how smutty the lyrics were until today (although to be fair I probably haven’t heard it in full since I was about seven).
Several ‘classics’ also hit the top, and having long since grown bored of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody (1975), I was impressed by it for the first time in years. It’s complexity and sheer oddness really made it stand out during my mammoth listen, and I didn’t mind hearing it again once I reached the songs of the 90s (it was of course reissued following Freddie Mercury’s death in 1991). Wings’ Mull of Kintyre (the biggest single of the decade) seems to be either loved or hated – I just think it’s alright – but who remembers it was actually a double A-side, along with the long-forgotten rocker Girls School (which fared far better in the US) in 1977? Mary’s Boy’s Boy Child – Oh My Lord (1978) saw Boney M cover Belafonte’s 1957 tune, livening it up but increasing the tackiness tenfold.
I find it hilarious and brilliant that Pink Floyd’s dark disco classic Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) was 1979’s festive bestseller. I don’t know about you, but nothing says Christmas more than a choir of children singing ‘We don’t need no education/We don’t need no thought control’ with an air of menace.
The Best:
Slade – Merry Xmas Everybody (1973): Overfamiliarity hasn’t dimmed my love of Noddy bellowing ‘IT’S CHRRIISSSTTTMMMAAASSS!’, and although I sometimes think I prefer Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday, it was Slade that won out back then, so it was Slade I heard today, finally bringing some yuletide cheer back into my rundown, and doing it with such wit and a tune that still holds up so well. I think the fact the production doesn’t labour the festive theme, unlike some of the songs yet to come, only adds to its brilliance.
The Worst:
Jimmy Osmond – Long Haired Lover from Liverpool (1972): Jesus Christ. That’s the only thing I can say about this that’s remotely festive, but it’s not meant as a compliment. I know the Osmonds were huge back then but I fail to see how anyone ever found this remotely appealing. It’s memorable I guess, but so is a bout of diarrhoea. My ears were genuinely pained when Jimmy hit the high notes, and it seemed to go on forever.
The 80s
I was born in 1979, so it’s this decade that takes me back to Christmas as a child. One of my earliest memories is of clutching my copy of Do They Know It’s Christmas? (1984) in the playground before taking it to a school Christmas disco, aged five. A landmark moment in music, it was of course the start of charity singles gunning for the all-important top spot, and it’s a classic, but it’s controversially not even in my top two 80s number 1s. And the less said about the Stock, Aitken and Waterman-produced Band Aid II version (1989), the better. I wondered why it had been airbrushed from history and I was only 20 seconds in before realising why. It’s total crap.
The quality of the number 1s really jumped about in the 80s, particularly the first half. Special mention must go to The Human League’s electro classic Don’t You Want Me (1981). I really struggled to decide whether this was my 80s favourite, or the one that just pipped it to the post. It may not be seasonal in the slightest, but I’m not purely judging these singles on festive merit, which is why Do They Know It’s Christmas?, the highest-selling festive chart-topper of all time, isn’t the winner.
Warm memories of the reissue of Jackie Wilson’s Reet Petite in 1986, originally from 1956, were rekindled. And although it’s terrible, I found myself amused by Renée and Renato’s Save Your Love (1982), because it’s damn funny and it reminded me of the Kenny Everett spoof. Plus I think my mind might have started unravelling by this point. You can certainly argue that Cliff Richard’s Mistletoe and Wine is tacky shit, but nostalgia can really affect critical judgement, so I won’t be agreeing, sorry.
The Best:
Pet Shop Boys – Always on My Mind (1987): I feel this may be a controversial choice due to it having nothing to do with Christmas, and the fact it kept Fairytale of New York from number 1, but I picked it because it’s bloody brilliant, and for me, this cover of the ballad made famous by Elvis gets better with age. Taking a great song, transforming it and improving upon it is no easy task, but Nick Tennant and Chris Lowe did so without any of their usual irony, simply turning it into a disco juggernaut. There’s no wonder it often finds itself in the upper reaches of lists of best cover versions of all time. Joss Ackland didn’t half used to scare me in the video, though.
The Worst:
St Winifred’s School Choir – There’s No One Quite Like Grandma (1980): Like Pet Shop Boys, this kept a festive classic off the top, namely Jona Lewie’s excellent Stop the Cavalry. However, unlike Pet Shop Boys, it’s wretched. And did a nation coming to terms with the murder of John Lennon really pick this over reissues of his work? A perfect example of Christmas chart insanity, like Long Haired Lover from Liverpool before it, this grates big time. And yet, I’d still take it over some of the ‘serious’ work that’s yet to come…
The 90s
The Christmas number 1s of the late 80s had marked the turning point, in which the standard began to fall, with occasional exceptions. I knew this before beginning my foolhardy task, but failed to appreciate how painful the job was going to become. Cliff had his third and final appearance to date (he was part of Band Aid II) with the execrable Saviour’s Day (1990) (The pan pipes! Not the pan pipes!), in which he came up with his own, duller version of Christmas. No thanks, Cliff, we’re happy with mistletoe and wine. Queen pared up Freddie Mercury’s farewell, These Are the Days of Our Lives, with a reissue of 1975’s Bohemian Rhapsody (1991), and I was tempted to award the best of the decade to the latter, but in the end it seemed unfair to let it have two chances.
By this point in my youth I was starting to develop my own tastes, and my music snobbery had begun. I hated the seemingly eternal reign of Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You back in 1992, and it didn’t do much for me in 2017 either. I did appreciate Houston’s singing more than I used to, though. It’s the production that kills it. Mr Blobby (1993)… this track came up more than any other when I told people what I would be doing, as though this would be the ultimate form of torture. You know what? It wasn’t. I genuinely found myself laughing at it. The people behind it were sick geniuses, throwing every trick in the book to seemingly irritate and infuriate anyone who didn’t watch Noel’s House Party. In fact, after rehearing it, I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if one day it turned out to be yet another prank by twisted geniuses The KLF. Just as insane in it’s own way was Michael Jackson’s Earth Song in 1995. Fair play to the self-proclaimed ‘King of Pop’ for trying to highlight the damage humans have done to the world, but heavily implying he was some kind of Messiah-like figure while doing so was a bit daft.
Who would have thought that East 17 would be one of the decade’s few Christmas highlights with Stay Another Day (1994)? Then and now I found the Walthamstow gang ridiculous, but I have to hand it to songwriter Tony Mortimer, Stay Another Day is a great song, especially when you know it was written about his brother, who committed suicide. Poor old troubled Brian Harvey sings it well, too. He veers out of tune at times, but that fits perfectly in the context of this song. I admire the chutzpah of tacking on bells at the end, but it’s a shame it was then adopted by seemingly every other boy band aiming for a number 1 on 25 December.
The Best:
Spice Girls – 2 Become 1 (1996): I have an inkling this may also be a controversial choice, mainly for people who know me. Back in the day I claimed to hate the Spice Girls. I was a huge Britpop fan and I blamed them for ruining pop music by not being ‘for real’. It didn’t occur to me that many guitar-bands were running out of steam, or becoming so experimental, they were never going to maintain their followings. Now I’m nearly 40, I’m less concerned with whether a song is ‘cool’ or not, and grudgingly admit the early Spice Girls singles were great pop songs. You have to make room for love ballads at Christmas, and 2 Become 1 is a great example of one. I’ve even been known to listen to it outside of Christmas. And you have to admire the fact it gets a cheeky reference to wearing a condom in there. Their next two yuletide number 1s, Too Much (1997) and Goodbye (1998), were tosh, though.
The Worst:
Westlife – I Have a Dream/Seasons in the Sun (1999): This was the easiest choice to make by far. I hated Westlife for being the final number 1 ‘artists’ of the 20th century. Was this really what the last 50 years of pop had been leading up to?! Time has certainly not changed my mind. I’d forgotten this was coming up so soon, and as the Irish boy band’s tepid cover of ABBA’s I Have a Dream began, I wanted to punch my ears. Only problem is, that would have pushed my earphones further down my now long-suffering hearing vessels, and thus increasing the torture. The next two or three minutes were vacuous, contemptible, cynical pap, but at least it would soon be over. Fuck! It’s a double-A-side! And they’ve had a go at a song about dying! I think Seasons in the Sun is actually even worse! This single only deserves to be the final number 1 of the millennium because it signposts the downward trajectory in quality and worth of the charts in the 21st century to date. But I’d rather listen to There’s No One Quite Like Grandma than ever suffer these two songs again.
The 00s
Before Simon Cowell did irreparable damage to December’s charts with the X Factor, there were a few more years of oddities. At 21, I had no time for Bob the Builder’s Can We Fix It? back in 2000, but coming after Westlife in my marathon listen, it was actually easy on the ears. It’s quite funny to think Neil Morrissey has had a number 1 with a dance anthem. Robbie Williams & Nicole Kidman’s Something Stupid (2001) seemed rather pointless, then and now. Girls Aloud had won Popstars: The Rivals in 2002, and Sound of the Underground still sounds like one of the few reality show songs that wasn’t a power ballad put together by a committee. Perhaps if talent show winners were still releasing songs like this, The X Factor wouldn’t finally be dying a slow death.
Michael Andrew and Gary Jules’s haunting cover of Tears For Fears’ Mad World (from the film Donnie Darko) seemed an appropriate choice after the conflict in Iraq in 2003, but strikes me as simply too downbeat now. Easily the most depressing track in the collection. The 20th anniversary of Do They Know It’s Christmas? brought about yet another version, and while Band Aid 20’s cover is better than Band Aid II, it goes on way too long and sounds too earnest. Speaking of earnest…
The second series of The X Factor in 2005 was where the Christmas charts were first hijacked. The next five years were wall-to-wall Cowell. Manufactured MOR with a revolving door of singers, some who have long since been forgotten about. Alexandra Burke’s Hallelujah (2008) was the only remotely memorable one, and that’s undoubtedly due to me loving Jeff Buckley’s version of the Leonard Cohen classic, which was that year’s runner-up.
The Best:
Rage Against the Machine – Killing in the Name (2009): By the close of the 00s, some record buyers had had enough of Cowell’s dominance. Beginning an internet campaign which quickly snowballed, Zack de la Rocha and co’s rap-metal call for revolution from 1992 was the perfect antidote to yet another lightweight pop ballad. After suffering so much tripe beforehand I was on the verge of shouting ‘THANK FUCK’ in the middle of the office. Although it wasn’t the end of X Factor number 1s, Rage Against the Machine had inflicted serious damage to their stranglehold of the charts.
The Worst:
Leon Jackson – When You Believe (2007): Jackson won the fourth series of the X Factor with this cover of a power ballad sung by Whitney Houston & Mariah Carey for the animation The Prince of Egypt in 1998. Dreary and tedious, it’s a throwback to some of the very first number 1s of the early 1950s and the worst X Factor Christmas number 1. I don’t think Jackson has been seen since – another victim of Cowell’s ruthlessness.
The 10s
Rage Against Machine had given the list a much-needed kick up the arse, but I don’t think it was just the potential lethargy my ears were suffering that caused the remaining tracks to be a tough listen. In addition to further X Factor tracks, charity singles became very popular once more, beginning with Wherever You Are by Military Wives with Gareth Malone in 2011. Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir’s A Bridge over You (2015) was along similar lines, combining Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water and Coldplay’s Fix You. I don’t want to belittle charity singles, but the combination of these and yet more talent show winners made for a very musically uninspiring final few tracks.
Some potential hope for the future came with the last song of all. Rockabye (2016), by Clean Bandit featuring Sean-Paul and Anne-Marie, broke the malaise that had set in and was simply a modern pop song by a young group, just like in the old days. It didn’t do much for me personally, but pop should primarily be for the young, not a man who’s nearly 40, so fair play to them. Here’s hoping there’s further life in the charts for years to come.
The Best:
The Justice Collective – He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother (2012): Adopting the Band Aid approach and featuring an all-star cast of musicians and celebrities, The Justice Collective was assembled by Peter Hooton of The Farm, in order to raise money for various charities associated with the Hillsborough disaster. Covering the classic Hollies track was an inspired choice, and it would be difficult to not be moved by this, whatever your thoughts on charity songs.
The Worst:
Matt Cardle – When We Collide (2010): Shock, horror – it’s another X Factor song! Matt Cardle won the seventh series and released a cover of rock band Biffy Clyro’s Many of Horror and renamed it, for some reason. That’s the most interesting thing I can say about this leaden waste of time.
The Best UK Christmas Number 1 Ever is…
Slade – Merry Xmas Everybody (1973): I predicted this would win beforehand, but I didn’t predict just how many non-festive songs it would be up against, so Noddy, Dave, Don and Jim almost won by default. That’s not to take anything away from their win though. If it wasn’t for their chart battle with Wizzard, would the Christmas number 1 be the annual event it still is today? Possibly not. Back in 1973, the UK was going through a rough ride, with strikes and power cuts, and Merry Xmas Everybody brought some light back into (literally) dark times. 44 years later, we need this song more than ever.
The Worst UK Christmas Number 1 Ever is…
Westlife – I Have a Dream/Seasons in the Sun (1999): I think I made my feelings on this clear earlier, but even thinking about the damage it did to my ears is making me angry all over again. Pop music at it’s very dreariest, and far more offensive than any of the novelty hits I’ve had to suffer. I expected my lowest-rated song to be from the X Factor conveyor belt, but I feel some degree of sympathy towards those artists involved. It’s the man behind them that’s the true villain of chart music.
The Outro
Well, that was quite an experience. Yes, you could argue putting myself through every Christmas number 1, only to ultimately rediscover my love for Slade and hatred for Westlife, was pointless, but, despite my forlorn face above, and lots of moaning within this feature, it’s made for a fascinating experience. Tracing the Christmas number 1s from the inception of the charts has been like following the history of pop itself, which is after all what this site is all about. And no number 1 single better captures the eccentricities of the record-buying public than the Christmas number 1, throwing some real curveballs in there. Of course, listening to a history of pop like this has highlighted how far chart music has fallen over the last few decades. But there is still some hope for the future. And while this four-hour-plus experience has left me somewhat scarred, I’m already wondering if next year I should make my way through every UK Christmas number 2… Maybe I have developed a form of musical Stockholm Syndrome?
Of course, everyone’s entitled to an opinion… why not tell me yours? Feel free to shout me down and leave a comment in the box below the list.
Every UK Christmas Number 1 (1952-2016)
1952: Al Martino – Here in My Heart 1953: Frankie Laine with Paul Weston & His Orchestra – Answer Me 1954: Winifred Atwell & Her ‘Other’ Piano – Let’s Have Another Party 1955: Dickie Valentine with Johnny Douglas & His Orchestra – Christmas Alphabet 1956: Johnnie Ray – Just Walkin’ in the Rain 1957: Harry Belafonte – Mary’s Boy Child 1958: Conway Twitty: It’s Only Make Believe 1959: Emile Ford and the Checkmates – What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For? 1960: Cliff Richard and The Shadows – I Love You 1961: Danny Williams – Moon River 1962: Elvis Presley – Return to Sender 1963: The Beatles – I Want to Hold Your Hand 1964: The Beatles – I Feel Fine 1965: The Beatles – Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out 1966: Tom Jones: Green Green Grass of Home 1967: The Beatles – Hello Goodbye 1968: The Scaffold – Lily the Pink 1969: Rolf Harris – Two Little Boys 1970: Dave Edmunds – I Hear You Knocking 1971: Benny Hill – Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West) 1972: Donny Osmond – Long Haired Lover from Liverpool 1973: Slade – Merry Xmas Everybody 1974: Mud – Lonely This Christmas 1975: Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody 1976: Johnny Mathis – When a Child Is Born (Soleado) 1977: Wings – Mull of Kintyre/Girls School 1978: Boney M – Mary’s Boy Child – Oh My Lord 1979: Pink Floyd – Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) 1980: St Winifred’s School Choir – There’s No One Quite Like Grandma 1981: The Human League – Don’t You Want Me 1982: Renée and Renato – Save Your Love 1983: The Flying Pickets – Only You 1984: Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas? 1985: Shakin’ Stevens – Merry Christmas Everyone 1986: Jackie Wilson – Reet Petite 1987: Pet Shop Boys – Always on My Mind 1988: Cliff Richard – Mistletoe and Wine 1989: Band Aid II – Do They Know It’s Christmas? 1990: Cliff Richard – Saviour’s Day 1991: Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody/These Are the Days of Our Lives 1992: Whitney Houston – I Will Always Love You 1993: Mr Blobby – Mr Blobby 1994: East 17 – Stay Another Day 1995: Michael Jackson – Earth Song 1996: Spice Girls – 2 Become 1 1997: Spice Girls – Too Much 1998: Spice Girls – Goodbye 1999: Westlife – I Have a Dream/Seasons in the Sun 2000: Bob the Builder – Can We Fix It? 2001: Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman – Something Stupid 2002: Girls Aloud – Sound of the Underground 2003: Michael Andrews and Gary Jules – Mad World 2004: Band Aid 20: Do They Know It’s Christmas? 2005: Shayne Ward – That’s My Goal 2006: Leona Lewis – A Moment Like This 2007: Leon Jackson – When You Believe 2008: Alexandra Burke – Hallelujah 2009: Rage Against the Machine – Killing in the Name Of 2010: Matt Cardle – When We Collide 2011: Military Wives with Gareth Malone – Wherever You Are 2012: The Justice Collective – He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother 2013: Sam Bailey – Skyscraper 2014: Ben Haenow – Something I Need 2015: Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir – A Bridge Over You 2016: Clean Bandit featuring Sean Paul and Anne-Marie – Rockabye
