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The Toppermost of the Poppermost - UK Number Ones : part 1 - The 50s

Started by daf, March 10, 2019, 03:16:57 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Nowhere Man

Quote from: Johnboy on March 24, 2019, 12:59:47 AM
I played David Whitfield then youtube followed it up with Hey Joe - quite a contrast

everything sounds good though, I've had some stout

everything sounds good to me too







































i'm listening to the beatles lol!!

Answer Me was covered by Barbara Dickson, who performed it on TOTP but it didn't chart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7sq3l0Sb8A

Infact this is the earliest #1 for which a cover version has been discussed on the Chart Music podcast

Captain Z

I was wondering if there were any other examples of two versions of the same song vying for number 1? The only one that came to mind was 'Sunset Strippers - Falling Star' and 'Cabin Crew - Star To Fall' in 2005, although I don't think either really troubled the top spot.

I can't believe I'd never heard of it but apparently the Mike Flowers Pops version of 'Wonderwall' got to #2 while Oasis' version was still top 10. In 1965 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling' got to #1 for the Righteous Brothers while Cilla Black's was in the top 5. In 1955 there were four versions of 'Unchained Melody' in the chart at one stage. And I don't know the chart positions or release dates, but there are two versions of 'Don't Stop Believing' on Now 75, one by Glee Cast and one by Journey. Then there was the counter-X-Factor campaign to get Jeff Buckley's 'Hallelujah' to #1 instead of Alexandra Burke, which failed but saw them both in the top 2.

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/1919655/same-song-by-different-artists-in-the-charts-at-the-same-time
https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/1198067/two-versions-of-the-same-song-in-top-ten

daf

Answer me, Lord so pure, how many versions must I endure? its . . .

15.  Frankie Laine - Answer Me



From : 8 November – 5 December 1953 (4)
        + 6 – 12 December 1953 (Joint number One with David Whitfield's version) (1)
        + 13 December 1953 - 2 January 1954 (3)
Weeks : 8
Flip side : Blowing Wild (The Ballad Of Black Gold)

QuoteDuring the Second World War Frankie Laine found employment in a munitions plant, at a salary of $150.00 a week. He quit singing for what was perhaps the fifth or sixth time of his already long career. While working at the plant, he met a trio of girl singers, and became engaged to the lead singer. The group had been noticed by Johnny Mercer's Capitol Records, and convinced Laine to head out to Hollywood with them as their agent.

In 1943, he moved to California where he sang in the background of several films, including The Harvey Girls, and dubbed the singing voice for an actor in the Danny Kaye comedy The Kid from Brooklyn. It was in Los Angeles in 1944 that he met and befriended disc jockey Al Jarvis and composer/pianist Carl T. Fischer, the latter of whom was to be his songwriting partner, musical director, and piano accompanist until his death in 1954.

When the war ended, Laine soon found himself "scuffling" again, and was eventually given a place to stay by Jarvis. Jarvis also did his best to help promote the struggling singer's career, and Laine soon had a small, regional following. In the meantime, Laine would make the rounds of the bigger jazz clubs, hoping that the featured band would call him up to perform a number with them. In 1946 at Billy Berg's jazz club on Vine Street in Hollywood, Hoagy Carmichael heard the young unknown performing a favorite Carmichael composition, "Rocking Chair." This chance encounter led to a steady job at Billy Berg's, which in turn resulted in a recording contract with Mercury Records. On his first session he recorded a forgotten 1931 ballad entitled, "That's My Desire".

He enjoyed his greatest success after impresario Mitch Miller, who became the A&R man at Mercury in 1948, recognized a universal quality in his voice that led to a succession of chart-topping popular songs. Laine and Miller became a formidable hit-making team whose first collaboration, "That Lucky Old Sun", became the number one song in the country three weeks after its release. Their second collaboration, "Mule Train" (1949), proved an even bigger hit, making Laine the first artist to hold the Number One and Two positions simultaneously.

In an interview, Mitch Miller described the basis of Laine's appeal :
"He was my kind of guy. He was very dramatic in his singing...and you must remember that in those days there were no videos so you had to depend on the image that the record made in the listener's ears. And that's why many fine artists were not good record sellers. For instance, Lena Horne. Fabulous artist but she never sold many records till that last album of hers. But she would always sell out the house no matter where she was. And there were others who sold a lot of records but couldn't get to first base in personal appearances, but Frankie had it both."

QuoteLike David Whitfield, Frankie recorded the new "My Love" version of the song, but despite Laine's success in the UK, it was Nat King Cole's version that became a hit in the USA.

On the 6th of December 1953, for the first time in British chart history, two songs were tied at number one. An unusual, but not unique, occurrence in the early years of the charts.

However . . . this is the ONLY time two versions of the SAME song have shared the top-spot - if that ever happens again, I'll show my arse in Burton's window!

second version :
Frankie Laine - Answer Me, My Love

daf

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on March 24, 2019, 01:56:13 AM
Answer Me was covered by Barbara Dickson, who performed it on TOTP but it didn't chart

I love that version - shows what you can do with a good arrangement.

She does wonders transforming the middle section - I had to check the original to make sure it wasn't a completely newly written bit!

Quote from: Captain Z on March 24, 2019, 12:45:24 PM
I was wondering if there were any other examples of two versions of the same song vying for number 1? The only one that came to mind was 'Sunset Strippers - Falling Star' and 'Cabin Crew - Star To Fall' in 2005, although I don't think either really troubled the top spot.

I can't believe I'd never heard of it but apparently the Mike Flowers Pops version of 'Wonderwall' got to #2 while Oasis' version was still top 10. In 1965 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling' got to #1 for the Righteous Brothers while Cilla Black's was in the top 5. In 1955 there were four versions of 'Unchained Melody' in the chart at one stage. And I don't know the chart positions or release dates, but there are two versions of 'Don't Stop Believing' on Now 75, one by Glee Cast and one by Journey. Then there was the counter-X-Factor campaign to get Jeff Buckley's 'Hallelujah' to #1 instead of Alexandra Burke, which failed but saw them both in the top 2.

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/1919655/same-song-by-different-artists-in-the-charts-at-the-same-time
https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/1198067/two-versions-of-the-same-song-in-top-ten

Singing The Blues - Guy Mitchell and Tommy Steele

https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-chart/19570111/7501/

blackcockerel

Also, Perez Prado and Eddie Calvert both had number ones with versions of Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White in 1955...

Hello! I'm a long long long time lurker on this site. Finally saying hello because I run a site called everyuknumber1.com. It's very amateurish but i'm reviewing them all in order, with news events of the time thrown in too. Just got up to the end of 1967. Enjoying the thread... never thought i'd enjoy reliving some of these early tracks!

daf

Welcome along - Just had a quick peep at your site - nice work!

(I've just cribbed your bit about there actually being more than one shared UK number one for my notes - good info!)

blackcockerel

Cheers Daf! These bizarre chart occurrences seem to stem from the very primitive way in which the NME's chart was compiled. At this point, they gathered their data by ringing around a grand total of 20 shops!

Bobtoo

Sometimes it was because a UK artist had managed to record and release their version of a big US hit slightly ahead of the US version being released here.


machotrouts

There really doesn't need to be so many versions of this song. I know God was all the rage back then, but what's he supposed to do with all these identical questions? He'll think it's a co-ordinated prank. Rude and blasphemous. This is from a time when the BBC stood against leaving harassment on old men's answerphones.

If I'm following the chart correctly, this marks Frankie Laine becoming the first three-time UK #1 hitmaker. He'll be surpassed a few years later by Frankie Laine, the first four-time UK #1 hitmaker.

Quote from: daf on March 24, 2019, 01:34:26 PMOn his first session he recorded a forgotten 1931 ballad entitled, "That's My Desire".

The song isn't forgotten by me – a version of it, by Martha Tilton apparently, is in rotation on the car radio in the 1947-set game L.A. Noire. I think it's the one the DJ (calling him a "DJ" might be anachronistic but I'm not interested in checking) keeps calling a "lovely ballad".

I hate it. It's such an arbitrary little song to hate, but I do. Something about it, I think some combination of the anodyne harmonised vocals and minus-figure BPM, makes me genuinely queasy. You can't change the station or turn the radio off, so I have to jump out of the car and start walking whenever it comes on. Infuriating. That and the fucking sitcom with the yapping dog. I wish sometimes 1947 would just shut the FUCK up

buzby

Quote from: Bobtoo on March 25, 2019, 07:34:11 AM
Sometimes it was because a UK artist had managed to record and release their version of a big US hit slightly ahead of the US version being released here.
Yes, it was very common in the 50s and 60s for UK record labels to get hold of copies of the latest US hits and rush them over to the UK for their artists to record covers of as most of the US labels had no or little presence over here. In Frankie Laine's case he was on Columbia in the US at this time, who had a distributiuon deal in the UK with Philips, but there was still usually a long delay between the US and UK releases (in the case of 'I Believe' it was 4 months, and for 'Answer Me' it was a month).

Even in the 60s after the licencing situation had improved, it still happened, most famously leading to the feud between Dionne Warwick and Cilla Black over the latter rush-releasing a cover of Warwick's 1964 US hit 'Everyone Who Had A Heart' in the UK. There was also the Chicory Tip case in the 70s, when their manager Roger Easterby got hold of a promo copy of Giorgio Moroder's original just before Christmas 1971, got a local radio station to play it once (so it would be legal to cover it - you can't cover a song that hasn't been broadcast or publicly performed without the original artist's consent) and then got his band in the studio over Christmas so their version would be out in the shops in the New Year, gazumphing Moroder's version.

Quote from: machotrouts on March 25, 2019, 10:56:57 AM
If I'm following the chart correctly, this marks Frankie Laine becoming the first three-time UK #1 hitmaker. He'll be surpassed a few years later by Frankie Laine, the first four-time UK #1 hitmaker.
Technically 'I Beleive' was number one three times - it's 18 weeks at the top included two one-week interruptions

daf

Oh! Mein Parp-Parp, its . . .

16.  Eddie Calvert - Oh Mein Papa



From : 3 January – 6 March 1954
Weeks : 9
Flip side : Mystery Street

QuoteAlbert Edward "Eddie" Calvert was born in Preston, Lancashire on 15 March 1922 at the age of 0.
He grew up in a family where the music of his local brass band featured highly. He was soon able to play a variety of instruments, and he was most accomplished on the trumpet.

After the Second World War, invalided out of the Army, he borrowed money from his father to get his first job in a Manchester band and graduated from playing as an amateur in brass bands to professional engagements with popular dance orchestras of the day, including Geraldo's and Billy Ternent, and he soon became renowned for the virtuosity of his performances. Following his exposure on television with the Stanley Black Orchestra, an enthusiastic announcer introduced him as the 'Man with the Golden Trumpet' – an apt description that remained with him for the rest of his musical career.

Quote"O mein Papa" is a German nostalgic song, as related by a young woman remembering her beloved, once-famous clown father. It was written by Swiss composer Paul Burkhard in 1939 for the musical Der schwarze Hecht (The Black Pike), reproduced in 1950 as Das Feuerwerk (The Firework) to a libretto by Erik Charell, Jürg Amstein, and Robert Gilbert. In 1954, that musical was turned into the film Fireworks with Lilli Palmer.

During the first two months of 1954, while Eddie Fisher's vocal of "Oh My Papa" (with Hugo Winterhalter's orchestra and chorus) was topping the U.S. charts, Eddie Calvert's mostly-instrumental version (with Norrie Paramor And His Orchestra) - was holding down the #1 position in England. Thus becoming the only time in the history of the charts that two separate Eddies held the Transatlantic Top-spots at the same time . . . probably.

This was the first UK #1 to be recorded at 'Abbey Road Studios' (known as 'EMI Recording Studios' at the time).

Captain Z

Instrumental, but obeys the classic pop rule of having occasional vocal inserts singing the track title. Very much the 'ATB - 9pm (Till I come)' of its time.

The Culture Bunker


purlieu

Well this is definitely throwing out some interesting ones. Love it when the organ appears halfway through. Adds a nice seaside feel to it.

daf

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on March 25, 2019, 07:52:04 PM
Born at the age of 0... Never would have guessed.

seems Guy Mitchell was exactly the same age as Eddie when he was born too - what are the chances of that!

Talulah, really!

Quote from: buzby on March 25, 2019, 11:36:17 AM
Even in the 60s after the licencing situation had improved, it still happened, most famously leading to the feud between Dionne Warwick and Cilla Black over the latter rush-releasing a cover of Warwick's 1964 US hit 'Everyone Who Had A Heart' in the UK. There was also the Chicory Tip case in the 70s, when their manager Roger Easterby got hold of a promo copy of Giorgio Moroder's original just before Christmas 1971, got a local radio station to play it once (so it would be legal to cover it - you can't cover a song that hasn't been broadcast or publicly performed without the original artist's consent) and then got his band in the studio over Christmas so their version would be out in the shops in the New Year, gazumphing Moroder's version.

Only just learned from David Hepworth's new book on the rock LP Fabulous Creation* that 'Dark Side of the Moon' came out in the US first and was only released in the UK a couple of weeks later, so in the meantime there was a small trade in importing copies to flog around the record shops of London, as a consequence a 15 year old Danny Baker had the job of handing out tickets to the people queuing outside one record store to reserve their copy of the new arrived vinyl.

And just let me add my appreciation of Daf and Buzby, splendid chaps, both of them.

*The 1976 chapter is focused on the first Derek & Clive LP.


machotrouts

Trumpet: Calvert. Flute: Galway. Voice: Monro. Gun: Scaramanga. The dream band line-up

Cilla's version of Anyone Who Had A Heart was given the OK by Bert Bacharach so it's not really a steal as much as a mutually agreed commercial decision to cash in on the popularity of Liverpool singers and George Martin's hit-making track record. Warwick's version is fantastic of course but commercially in 1964 it was British vocalists who were selling. Two years earlier the choice of Black over Warwick would have been inconceivable.

George Martin hated Norrie Paramor for getting first dibs on most songs (see Lewisohn) and I suspect O My Papa might be an early example.

buzby

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on March 26, 2019, 10:49:09 AM
Cilla's version of Anyone Who Had A Heart was given the OK by Bert Bacharach so it's not really a steal as much as a mutually agreed commercial decision to cash in on the popularity of Liverpool singers and George Martin's hit-making track record. Warwick's version is fantastic of course but commercially in 1964 it was British vocalists who were selling. Two years earlier the choice of Black over Warwick would have been inconceivable.
Warwick's version was released in the US in November 1963, and peaked at #8 in the Billboard chart at the end of December/beginning of January. It was scheduled for release in the UK via Warwick's label Scepter Records' licence with Pye at the beginning of February. A copy of Warwick's single was brought to George Martin by a scout at the end of the year and he was going to  ecord it with Shirley Bassey. Brian Epstein heard it and persuaded Martin to record it with Black instead, who was still basically a nobody here, never mind anywhere else in the world (she had released one prior Lennon/McCartney-written single that had peaked at #35 the previous October).

The Black version was rush-recorded and released a week ahead of Pye's scheduled release of Warwick's version. Black's vocal delivery is basically an identical copy of Warwick's (to the point that Warwick said if she had coughed in the middle Cilla would have copied it). In fact, they got part of the lyrics wrong in one of the choruses, which implies they transcribed it from the record rather than recording from the actual sheet music (or it was that rushed they didn't have time to get her to do another take).

The source for that Wiki quote from Bacharach is a 2015 puff piece in the Express after Cilla's death. I doubt very much in January 1964 he had even heard of her, let alone told George Martin to record it with her instead of Shirley Bassey. Regardless of any of that though, it's still a classic example of the tactic of a UK record company exploiting the delay in the release of a single by a US artist on a rival label to get a hit for one of thier own artists.

Warwick learned from the experience, and her follow-up single Walk On By was released simultanously in the US and UK by Scepter and Pye at the end of April.

daf


daf

From the brown rings of Uranus, its . . .

17.  Stargazers - I See The Moon



From : 7 March – 10 April 1954 (5)
        + 18 – 24 April 1954 (1)
Weeks : 6
Flip side : Eh Cumpari

QuoteThe Stargazers were a British vocal group, jointly founded in 1949 by Cliff Adams and Ronnie Milne.

Ronnie Milne left school in 1935 at age 14 and, along with his older brother Douglas, joined a juvenile Band and toured Britain for several years. In 1939 he enlisted in the Welsh Guards Band despite Scottish heritage. He arranged during the 1940's for Britain's big bands - Stanley Black, Geraldo, George Melachrino - and was staff arranger for the Ted Heath Orchestra. Captain Milne also played trumpet in big bands. In 1942 he won 1st prize for a Jazz Composition at the Professional "Jazz Jamboree" for his composition "October Mood".

Quote"I See the Moon" was written by Meredith Willson.

A flute and piccolo player, Robert Reiniger Meredith Willson (18 May, 1902 – 15 June, 1984) was a member of John Philip Sousa's band (1921–1923), and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini (1924–1929). Willson then moved to San Francisco, California, as the concert director for radio station KFRC, and then as a musical director for the NBC radio network in Hollywood.
A composer, conductor, musical arranger, bandleader and playwright, he was best known for writing the book, music, and lyrics for the hit Broadway musical The Music Man - which featured three songs that became American standards: "Seventy-Six Trombones", "Gary, Indiana", and "Till There Was You". The last was recorded by The Beatles for their UK album With The Beatles.

The Mariners, in the United States, and The Stargazers, in the United Kingdom, had the best-known versions. The Stargazers' recording reached number one in the UK Singles Chart in 1954. In taking "I See the Moon" to number one, the Stargazers became the first act in British chart history to reach number one with their first two records.
Their next record The Happy Wanderer missed out on completing the hatrick by stubbing it's toe at number 12 in the Pop Parade.

Quote"Eh, Cumpari!" is a novelty song. It was adapted from a traditional Italian song by Julius La Rosa and Archie Bleyer in 1953 and sung by La Rosa with Bleyer's orchestra as backing on a recording that year. The song reached #1 on the Cash Box chart and #2 on the Billboard chart in 1953. As a result, the song was also featured in a performance by Dennis Day on The Jack Benny Program on CBS Radio.
In the mid-1970s The Gaylords recorded another popular version for an Alitalia Airlines commercial, in the middle of which a comical letter from someone in "the old country" culminating with a joke about Alitalia is read.


purlieu

Well. That was less spacey than the band name and title suggested.


daf

Is this our first Comedy Number One?

As you mention on your blog, this was produced by Dick Rowe (who also produced Lita Roza's version of 'Doggie in the Window') - the man at Decca who became notorious for turning down The Beatles . . . though he did later sign The Brumbeats , so made up for it in spades there!

machotrouts

I like that the joke just seems to be that it's shit. They all sat down and went "it's a normal song, right, but we're going to sing it shit, and that's the joke. That'll be #1 for 6 weeks." And they were right.

Quote from: daf on March 26, 2019, 03:48:59 PM"Eh, Cumpari!" is a novelty song. It was adapted from a traditional Italian song by Julius La Rosa and Archie Bleyer in 1953 and sung by La Rosa with Bleyer's orchestra as backing on a recording that year.

I looked this up after La Rosa died a couple of years ago and found myself increasingly furious with the way he kept laughing as the song escalated. "Ha ha, a honking sound. That's good that is." That's Julian La Rosa that is. [[The Stargazers version is less annoying], is a sentence you don't often get to type], is a sentence lacking in weight in 2019 when very few people have opinions about the Stargazers either way.

Have any cumulative songs been #1 in the UK? As an a-side, I mean. A sadly underused technique in non-children's music. Personally I would like to pop my pussy in the club to the German version of Il Pulcino Pio.