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March 28, 2024, 01:11:38 PM

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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

blackcockerel

Quote from: purlieu on April 18, 2019, 04:38:19 PM
I always found classic rock 'n' roll quite baffling, as I enjoy so little of it that I can't imagine why it was ever popular. But my word what a bit of context can do for a song. Having listened to the various songs from the past few weeks, that sounded fresh and exciting in a way I never imagined it could. For kids around at the time... yeah, I totally see now why it all took off.
Oh for fuck's sake.

I was the same. The guitar solo in particular sounds amazing on the back of some of the previous stuff. Sadly it doesn't mark a sea change in number ones as such, but it's influence does start to creep in gradually now.

EOLAN

Well did a binge on all those songs to date. Not bad. Know about a third of the songs through Dean Martin and wouldn't have any other versions above him. Rosemary Clooney was a surprise highlight and seemed to have a pre-rock and roll type of raunchiness and general fun to her songs.
Jimmy Young was pretty trite. And the video performance of Guy Mitchell was the biggest example I ever saw of someone so obviously acting, can just see him thinking of all his movements and hitting his marks in it. 

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: purlieu on April 18, 2019, 04:38:19 PM
Oh for fuck's sake.

The 'shit sandwich' succinctness of that review really made me laugh. It's all the song deserves.

Dickie's Christmas crap (a much better title) feels like a stuffy adult telling a bunch of unruly kids, "Right, you've had your bit of fun, now let's all calm down and behave."

Danny Cedrone has a brilliant guitar solo on Haley's version of "Rocket 88" from back in 1951. It's arguably more rock and roll than the Ike Turner original because the latter is dominated by saxophone whereas Haley's is definitely a guitar driven record. I'm amazed it's not better known because it's gorgeous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPLS2i9dSy0

machotrouts

"S is for ol' Santa, who makes every kid his pet."

!?

Outstandingly awful even by the standards of Cosy Christmas Pop, my least favourite music genre at the best of times.

machotrouts

My ranking of the 40 #1s so far.


  • Perez Prado - Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White
  • Eddie Calvert - Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White
  • Rosemary Clooney - This Ole House
  • The Johnston Brothers - Hernando's Hideaway
  • Frankie Laine - Hey Joe
  • Rosemary Clooney - Mambo Italiano
  • Johnnie Ray - Such a Night
  • Bill Haley & His Comets - Rock Around the Clock
  • Mantovani - The Song from Moulin Rouge
  • Slim Whitman - Rose Marie
  • Ruby Murray - Softly, Softly
  • Guy Mitchell - Look at That Girl
  • Perry Como - Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes
  • Doris Day - Secret Love
  • Winifred Atwell - Let's Have Another Party
  • Alma Cogan - Dreamboat
  • Eddie Calvert - Oh Mein Papa
  • Jo Stafford - You Belong to Me
  • Kitty Kallen - Little Things Mean a Lot
  • Lita Roza - How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?
  • Al Martino - Here in My Heart
  • Dickie Valentine - The Finger of Suspicion
  • Jimmy Young - The Man from Laramie
  • The Stargazers - Broken Wings
  • Kay Starr - Comes A-Long A-Love
  • Frankie Laine - I Believe
  • Tony Bennett - Stranger in Paradise
  • Guy Mitchell - She Wears Red Feathers
  • The Stargazers - I See the Moon
  • David Whitfield - Cara Mia
  • Jimmy Young - Unchained Melody
  • Tennessee Ernie Ford - Give Me Your Word
  • Eddie Fisher - Outside of Heaven
  • Frankie Laine - Answer Me
  • Vera Lynn - My Son, My Son
  • David Whitfield - Answer Me
  • Don Cornell - Hold My Hand
  • Eddie Fisher - I'm Walking Behind You
  • Frank Sinatra - Three Coins in the Fountain
  • Dickie Valentine - Christmas Alphabet

This is definitive.

daf

Everyone's Favourite Ol' Pea-Picker, its . . .

41.  Tennessee Ernie Ford - Sixteen Tons



From : 15 January – 11 February 1956
Weeks : 4
Flip side : You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry

QuoteFord scored an unexpected hit on the pop charts in 1955 with his rendering of "Sixteen Tons", a sparsely arranged coal-miner's lament, that Merle Travis first recorded in 1946 reflecting his own family's experience in the mines of Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.

"Sixteen Tons" spent ten weeks at number one on the country charts and seven weeks at number one on the pop charts. The record sold over twenty million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. The song made Ford a crossover star, and became his signature song.

Ford subsequently hosted his own prime-time variety program, The Ford Show, which ran on NBC television from October 4, 1956, to June 29, 1961.  Ford's program was notable for the inclusion of a religious song at the end of every show; Ford insisted on this despite objections from network officials who feared it might provoke controversy. Network officials stepped back when the hymn became the most popular segment of his show. He earned the nickname "The Ol' Pea-Picker" due to his catchphrase, "Bless your pea-pickin' heart!"

From 1962-65, Ford hosted a daytime talk/variety show, The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show (later known as Hello, Peapickers) from KGO-TV in San Francisco, broadcast over the ABC television network.

Ford left Capitol Records in 1975. By that time the quality of his country albums had become uneven and none of his releases were selling well. He would never record for a major label again.

Quote"Sixteen Tons" is a song written by Merle Travis about a coal miner, based on life in coal mines in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. It was first released in July 1947 by Capitol on Travis's album Folk Songs of the Hills.

A 1955 version recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford reached number one in the Billboard charts, while another version by Frankie Laine 1956 was released only in Western Europe, where it gave Ford's version competition.

George S. Davis, a folk singer and songwriter who had been a Kentucky coal miner, claimed on a 1966 recording for Folkways Records to have written the song as "Nine-to-ten tons" in the 1930s; he also at different times claimed to have written the song as "Twenty-One Tons". There is no supporting evidence for Davis's claim. Davis recorded his version of the song in 1966 (with some slightly different lyrics and tune, but titled "Sixteen Tons")

Tennessee Ernie Ford recorded "Sixteen Tons" in 1955 as the B-side of his cover of the Moon Mullican standard "You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry". With Ford's snapping fingers and a unique clarinet-driven pop arrangement, it quickly became a million seller. It hit Billboard's country music chart in November and held the No. 1 position for ten weeks, then crossed over and held the number 1 position on the pop music chart for eight weeks, besting the competing version by Johnny Desmond. In the United Kingdom, Ford's version competed with versions by Edmund Hockridge and Frankie Laine. Nevertheless, Ford's version was the more successful, spending four weeks at number 1 in the UK Singles Chart in January and February 1956.

Laine's version was not released in the United States but sold well in the UK. Ford's version was released on 17 October and by 28 October had sold 400,000 copies. On 10 November, a million copies had been sold; two million were sold by 15 December.

The song has been recorded or performed in concert by a wide variety of musicians, including :
1955: B.B. King & His Orchestra
1957: The Platters on the Mercury Records EP Millioniéme.
1960: Bo Diddley released a version on his album Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger.
1966: Stevie Wonder recorded a version influenced by Motown and soul music on his Down to Earth album.
1967: Tom Jones's version with a rock edge, on his album Green, Green Grass of Home.
1972: A blues-rock version was recorded by CCS.
1986: A version by English punk band The Redskins on their 1986 album Neither Washington Nor Moscow.
1987: Johnny Cash released a country version on his album Johnny Cash Is Coming to Town.
2013: Robbie Williams included it on the deluxe edition of his Swings Both Ways album.
2014: Gary Clail released a break-beat/dub version on his comeback album Nail It To The Mast.

On This Day :
Quote17 January : Paul Young born in Luton, Bedfordshire
18 January : Tom Bailey, (Thompson Twins), born in Halifax, West Yorkshire
26 January : The 1956 Winter Olympics open in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
28 January : Elvis Presley makes his first appearance on US national television on The Dorsey Brothers Stage Show.
31 January : John Lydon (Sex Pistols) born in Holloway, London
31 January : A. A. Milne, author of 'Winnie-the-Pooh', died age 74
11 February : British spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean appear in the Soviet Union, five years after vanishing from the UK.

Nowhere Man

As monumental as Rock Around The Clock is, this is my favourite song as of yet to reach No. 1

So familiar, you can't imagine being without it.

machotrouts

I don't recognise it at all!

It's great. Blackly comic capitalist desolation bop. Music to unionise to.

Poor Dickie Valentine with those #1s either side of him. Spitroasted.

purlieu

Yeah, no complaints there, always an excellent song that. And we've hit 1956! Picking up a good speed here. Be interested to see how much of a slog it becomes when we get a new number 1 nearly every bloody week from around 1997 to 2007.

daf

Everyone's Favourite Little Ol' Wine Drinker He, its . . .

42.  Dean Martin - Memories Are Made Of This



From : 12 February – 10 March 1956
Weeks : 4
Flip side : Change Of Heart

QuoteDean Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti on June 7, 1917, in Steubenville, Ohio, the son of Italian father Gaetano Alfonso Crocetti and Italian-American mother Angela Crocetti. His first language was Italian and he did not speak English until he started school at the age of five.

At 15, he was a boxer who billed himself as "Kid Crochet".  Martin gave up boxing to work as a roulette stickman and croupier in an illegal casino behind a tobacco shop, where he had started as a stock boy. At the same time, he sang with local bands, calling himself "Dino Martini" (after the Metropolitan Opera tenor Nino Martini). In the early 1940s, he started singing for bandleader Sammy Watkins, who suggested he change his name to Dean Martin.

Martin released his first single, "Which Way Did My Heart Go?" and was first paired with comic Jerry Lewis in 1946. The two shared a bill at the 500 Club in Atlantic City, but the night they combined their acts into a combo of manic comedy and debonair music saw the birth of a phenomenon. They were the hottest ticket around and parlayed their onstage success into a string of hit movies and television appearances for the next ten years.

Martin had many hit singles during his lifetime, but only two went to No. 1 on the pop charts – "Memories Are Made of This" in 1956 and "Everybody Loves Somebody" nearly a decade later. A close runner-up was "That's Amore", which stalled at No. 2. Other Top Tens included "Powder Your Face with Sunshine" (No. 10), "Return to Me" (No. 4), "The Door Is Still Open to My Heart" (No. 6), and "I Will" (No. 10 in 1965).

After "Volare" reached No. 12 in August 1958, Martin experienced a bleak six-year period in his recording career without any significant single activity, exacerbated by changing pop trends and his focus on movie roles. Inexplicably, a song strongly associated with Martin, "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?," never charted when released as a single. His highest-charting single during that span was "On an Evening in Roma" which barely registered at No. 59.

It would take "Everybody Loves Somebody" to rejuvenate his chart decline - knocking the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" off number one in the United States in 1964.
The final year that the singer had any significant chart success was 1969, when "Gentle on My Mind" reached No. 2 in the UK.

A total of 32 original studio albums were released in Martin's career. His most critically well-regarded projects were released on Capitol Records in the late 1950s – e.g. Sleep Warm (1959) and This Time I'm Swingin'! (1960). Nevertheless, the singer had no significant album chart success until he signed with Reprise Records in the early 1960s.

Martin virtually retired from the studio after November 1974, exacerbated by Reprise's decision to withhold the 'Once in a While' project. The label believed Martin paying tribute to his influences would not sell well. The label finally reversed its decision four years later after embellishing the backing tracks with a more modern, disco-flavored rhythm section. 'Once in a While' concluded the artist's association with Reprise.

His longtime producer, Jimmy Bowen, eventually persuaded Martin to record one more album, and The Nashville Sessions, released on Warner Brothers, became a moderate success in 1983. The crooner's recording career ended in July 1985, when he recorded the non-charting single, "L.A. Is My Home". 

Quote"Memories Are Made of This" was written by Terry Gilkyson, Richard Dehr, and Frank Miller in 1955.

The song was first issued by Mindy Carson with Ray Conniff's Orchestra and The Columbians,  reaching No. 53 on Billboard's Top 100 chart.

Martin's version reached No. 1 on Billboard's Top 100 chart, remaining at the top for five weeks in 1956. It became a Gold record and Martin's biggest hit. It was also his only UK number one hit, topping the UK Singles Chart on 23 February 1956, and remaining at the top for four weeks.

After the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the song was adapted into the "Honvágy-dal" ('The Song of Homesickness') and used as an unofficial anthem for refugees scattered around the world. Recorded by Ida Boros, it became a cultural phenomenon and a sign of protest against the communist government.

In Germany, titled "Heimweh" ("Homesickness") and performed by Freddy Quinn and with lyrics by Ernst Bader and Dieter Rasch, the song was 14 weeks at number one, the most successful song of 1956. Worldwide it sold more than eight million, thus exceeding sales of the Dean Martin version

On This Day :
Quote13 February : Peter Hook, (New Order), born in Salford
19 February : Dave Wakeling, (The Beat), born in Birmingham
22 February : Elvis Presley enters the US music charts for the first time, with "Heartbreak Hotel"
23 February : Norma Jean Mortenson legally changes her name to Marilyn Monroe.
27 February : Poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath meet for the first time


machotrouts

My mum played Dean Martin around the house ad nauseum through my childhood, and the nausea resurges when I listen to him now. "Everybody Loves Somebody"? HURRRRGHHHH. "That's Amore"? BLARRRGGHHH. "Ain't That a Kick in the Head"? SPLEURRRGHGHH. "On an Evening in Roma"? NWURRKKKKKKHHH. "The Door Is Still Open to My Heart"? GLORRRRJJJJJJJJJJJ.

'Memories Are Made of This' is about the only song of his I didn't come to hate – the "sweet, sweet" hook is strong enough that you can just anchor onto that and mentally fuck Dean Martin off for a game of soldiers.

If I wasn't careful, I might find myself outright liking it now, but paying more attention to the lyrics than I would've as a child gives me new things to be nauseated by. A recipe of wedding bells and moonbeams? "Three little kids for flavour"? Downright bilious coming after the bite of 'Sixteen Tons'.

daf

Puff The Magic Dragon, Lived by the sea, its . . .

43.  The Dream Weavers - It's Almost Tomorrow



From : 11 – 24 March 1956 (2)
        + 1 – 7 April 1956 (1)
Weeks : 3
Flip side : You've Got Me Wondering

QuoteThe Dream Weavers was an American popular music, vocal group, famous in the 1950s, formed at the University of Florida by Gene Adkinson (baritone and ukulele) and Wade Buff (lead vocals). The two met as sophomores in their respective high schools (Adkinson at Miami Edison Senior High School, Buff at Coral Gables High School) when both were members of The Greater Miami Boys' Drum and Bugle Corps, a 100-piece band and drill team. They became friends and composed a number of songs while still in high school.

They both went on to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, where they performed in a freshman talent show before 5,000 students and won. As a result, they were given a twice-weekly half-hour program slot, radio station, WRUF in 1955. With the program ending at 10:30pm, they felt it appropriate to sign off with a song they had composed in high school in 1953, "It's Almost Tomorrow" (words by Buff, music by Adkinson). Buff served as the lead singer, and the third part was sung by various female singers (Sally Sanborn, Mary Carr, Mary Rude, and others).

The announcer of the show, Chuck Murdock, thought of running a contest on the show to name the group, and the contest winner stated that because the song they wrote was dreamy, they were weavers of dreams, thus "The Dream Weavers."

After making a recording of "It's Almost Tomorrow" in Jacksonville, the song got played on the radio in Miami, and this led to recognition by Milt Gabler at Decca Records. As a result, Decca cut a new recording of the song. It charted in 1956, reaching the Top Ten in the United States of America selling over one million copies. It was released by Brunswick Records in the United Kingdom, where it hit the chart on February 10, 1956 and reached number one on March 16. In total the song was in the UK charts for 18 weeks.

The group had one subsequent minor hit in America, "A Little Love Can Go A Long Way", taken from the TV play "Joey", made the Billboard 100 at #33 for just one week on May 19, 1956. The Dream Weavers recorded two further singles, but neither charted.

In March 1956, Buff married Mary Rude, who was a fellow 1952 graduate of Edison High and had sung with the group. After their honeymoon, he rejoined the group to travel, but after a short while decided that travelling on the road was not compatible with a good marriage. He let Adkinson have full control of the group, and as a result of auditions in New York, Lee Raymond replaced Buff. When Adkinson got drafted into the United States Army however, the duo ended its short existence. 

Quote"It's Almost Tomorrow" is a 1955 popular song with music by Gene Adkinson and lyrics by Wade Buff. The song was actually written in 1953, when Adkinson and Buff were in high school.

The Dream Weavers recorded the most successful version of the song for Decca Records. Their version first charted in Billboard on November 12, 1955, and reached No. 7, and also reached No. 1 on the UK  chart.

Jo Stafford, David Carroll, Snooky Lanson, and Lawrence Welk also recorded versions. In the UK, the song was covered by Mark Wynter in November 1963 peaking at No. 12.

In 1962 the melody was "borrowed" by Peter Paul and Mary for "Puff The Magic Dragon" - as a result, writers Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow were ordered to pay over half the royalties . . . totally got away with it - the massive thieves!

On This Day :
Quote12 March : Steve Harris, (Iron Maiden), born in London, England
14 March : Harry Pollitt, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, unveils a memorial to Karl Marx at Highgate Cemetery, London.
15 March : 'My Fair Lady' receives its Broadway première at the Mark Hellinger Theatre, with Rex Harrison in the role of Higgins and Julie Andrews as Eliza
23 March : Devon Loch, a horse owned by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and ridden by Dick Francis, collapses 50 yards from the finish while leading the Grand National.
6 April : Elvis Presley signs a three-picture contract with Paramount Pictures.

purlieu

Yes, 'Memories are Made of This' has a certain charm to it, albeit a very twee one.
'It's Almost Tomorrow', however, is way too much. Vomitorama.

machotrouts

I've been listening to these on Spotify rather than clicking on links, which might all go to a secret second forum where you trade pictures of my cock and bollocks for all the fuck I know, and this wasn't immediately easy to find – it's under "The Dreamweavers" despite clearly saying "The Dream Weavers" right there on the cover art, and I think it's the first time I've only been able to find one version, rather than several scattered across compilations, and the one version that exists of this has a basically negligible stream count. Rights issues, or just faded from public interest over time?

It feels a decade or two more ancient than the Tennessee Ernie Ford and even Dean Martin songs, but melancholy lullaby pop weathers well, I think. You might imagine it turning up on a Ladytron album with a cool Bulgarian lady making pronouncements in the background. I was more or less won over by it, until that horrible ending bit... what is that called, when a song does that? You know, when the melody fucks off and it does from "der der der" to "derrr... DERRR... DERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!", that thing. Always disgusting, but particularly in such an otherwise gentle song. I'm so glad that's fucked off from pop music except for the odd X Factor Big Band Week.

daf

Quote from: machotrouts on April 21, 2019, 07:23:30 PM
I've been listening to these on Spotify rather than clicking on links, which might all go to a secret second forum where you trade pictures of my cock and bollocks for all the fuck I know

I was wondering why I hadn't seen you over in the secret Cock'd and Bollock'd forum. *

You recently missed out on Vera Lynn showing off her 'white cliff of dover' - amazing scenes!

- - - - - - -
* (tonight's password = "Cokey-Nuts")

daf

One-two-three, Two-two-three, four o'clock, waltz, its . . .

44.  Kay Starr - The Rock And Roll Waltz



From : March 25 – 31 1956
Weeks : 1
Flip side : I've Changed My Mind A Thousand Times

QuoteKatherine Laverne Starks was born on 21 July, 1922. When Starr's father changed jobs, the family moved to Memphis, where she continued performing on the radio. She sang Western swing music, still mostly a mix of country and pop. While working for Memphis radio station WMPS, misspellings in her fan mail inspired her and her parents to change her name to "Kay Starr".

At 15, she was chosen to sing with the Joe Venuti orchestra. Venuti had a contract to play in the Peabody Hotel in Memphis which called for his band to feature a girl singer, a performer he did not have at the time. Venuti's road manager heard Starr on the radio and recommended her although she was young and her parents insisted on a midnight curfew.

In 1939, she worked with Bob Crosby and Glenn Miller, who hired her to replace the ill Marion Hutton. With Miller she recorded "Baby Me" and "Love with a Capital You". They were not a great success, in part because the band played in a key that, while appropriate for Hutton, did not suit Kay's vocal range.

In 1946 Starr became a soloist and a year later signed a contract with Capitol Records. The label had a number of female singers signed up, including Peggy Lee, Ella Mae Morse, Jo Stafford, and Margaret Whiting, so it was hard to find her a niche of her own. In 1948 when the American Federation of Musicians was threatening a strike, Capitol wanted to have each of its singers record a back list for future release. Being junior to all these other artists meant that every song Starr wanted to sing was taken by her rivals on the label, leaving her a list of old songs which nobody else wanted to record.

Most of Starr's songs had jazz influences. Like those of Frankie Laine and Johnnie Ray, they were sung in a style that anticipated rock and roll songs. These included her hits "Wheel of Fortune" (her biggest hit, No. 1 for 10 weeks), "Side by Side", "The Man Upstairs", and "Rock and Roll Waltz". One of her biggest hits was her version of "(Everybody's Waitin' For) The Man with the Bag", a Christmas song that became a holiday favorite.

After The Dave Clark Five and The Brumbeats swept older performers from the charts, Starr appeared in the television series Club Oasis, mostly associated with the bandleader Spike Jones. She recorded several albums, including Movin' (1959), Losers, Weepers... (1960), I Cry By Night (1962), and Just Plain Country (1962).

After leaving Capitol for a second time in 1966, Starr continued touring in the US and the UK. She recorded several jazz and country albums on small independent labels, including How About This, a 1968 album with Count Basie.

Billie Holiday called her "the only white woman who could sing the blues."

Quote"The Rock and Roll Waltz" is a popular song with music by Shorty Allen and lyrics by Roy Alfred in 1955, although the identity of the lyricist is in dispute. Other sources cite a Dick Ware, Dick Wise, or Dick Wine ("slightly brackish with cheesy topnotes")

As the title suggests this novelty song is a waltz in triple metre, but it also contains a bass riff that is reminiscent of typical boogie woogie and rock and roll riffs. The song is told from the point of view of a teenager who comes home early from a date, and catches her parents attempting to dance to one of her rock and roll records; only, having no frame of reference, the couple tries to waltz to the music . .  the soppy sods!

The Kay Starr recording of the song, made in 1955, reached number one on the Billboard singles chart in 1956, staying there for six weeks. It was Kay Starr's first recording of great significance for RCA Victor after leaving Capitol Records. She had a number of lesser chart entries on RCA in 1955, including "Good and Lonesome" and "Turn Right". She thought it was a joke when the A&R staff at RCA Victor picked it for her; it was so different from what she was used to recording.

Other artists who recorded this song include Ann-Margret (in 1962), Annette Funicello (in 1961), Lawrence Welk and His Champagne Music with Alice Lon on vocals (in 1956), and Johnny Welly

On This Day :
Quote25 March : Robert Newton, English actor (Long John Silver), died age 50  . .  Aah-Harrrrr!!!
26 March : Colonel Tom Parker is formally appointed as Elvis Presley's manager.
28 March : The UK cargo ship Changsha runs aground at Tokyo, Japan; it was later successfully re-floated.

Pranet

That was actually a bit better than I was expecting. She could certainly sing, I'll give her that.

machotrouts

Kay Starr's usual stock-in-trade seems to be incredibly annoying showtunery, so I welcome the genre diversion, though this is of more use as a snapshot of an era than a record to be enjoyed in its own right. What would be a modern equivalent of this? The Mumble Rap Disco?

"Hugo Winterhalter" is a terrific supervillain name.

daf

Hope everyone's found the secret link for tonight's 'Cock and Bollock' party :

(tonight's password = "Dick Wine")

machotrouts

Dick Wine is actually spelled "Dick Whine", and that's what it's called when I howl "Dick Ware" (Dick? Where?), hoping to catch the attention of someone who is likely to know where dick is, because they're Dick Wise (dickwise).

That's not the only contentious name here. "Johnny Welly" is actually an informal pet name for "Condom Wellington".

daf

Let them eat Boogie!, it's . . .

45.  Winifred Atwell - The Poor People Of Paris



From : 8 – 28 April 1956
Weeks : 3
Flip side : Piano Tuner's Boogie
Bonus : TV apperance

QuoteAtwell's peak was the second half of the 1950s, during which her concerts drew standing room only crowds in Europe and Australasia. She played three Royal Variety Performances, appeared in every capital city in Europe, and played for over twenty million people. At a private party for Queen Elizabeth II, she was called back for an encore by the monarch herself, who requested "Roll Out the Barrel".

She became a firm television favourite. She had her own series in Britain. The first of these was Bernard Delfont Presents The Winifred Atwell Show. It ran for ten episodes on the new ITV network from 21 April to 23 June 1956, and the BBC picked up the series the following year. On a third triumphal tour of Australia, she recorded her own Australian television series, screened in 1960–1961.
Her US TV debut was to have been on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956, but on arrival in America she was confronted with problems of selling the show in the south with a British-sounding black woman. The appearance was never recorded.

She toured Australia many times and took on Australian guitarist Jimmy Doyle as her musical director in the 1960s. In 1962 she made a nationwide tour of Britain, with "The Winifred Atwell Show". She was accompanied by the Cy Bevan Group, who were with her then current radio series "Pianorama". However, her popularity in Australia led to her settling in Sydney in the 1970s. She became an Australian citizen two years before her death.

Though a dynamic stage personality, Atwell was, in person, a shy, retiring and soft-spoken woman of modesty.  Voracious in her reading habits and a devotee of crosswords, she confessed to an inordinate love of mangoes.

In 1983, following an electrical fire that destroyed her Narrabeen home, she suffered a heart attack and died while staying with friends in Seaforth. She is buried beside husband Lew Levisohn in South Gundurimba Private Cemetery in northern New South Wales, just outside Lismore.

Quote"The Poor People of Paris" is the English name of the French language song "La goualante du pauvre Jean" ("The Ballad of Poor John"), with music by Marguerite Monnot and words by René Rouzaud. Edith Piaf had one of her biggest hits with the original French version.

The song was adapted by American songwriter Jack Lawrence in 1954, and he wrote English lyrics, which are considerably different from the French. The English-language title arises in part from a misinterpretation of the French title, as "pauvre Jean" was taken for the same-sounding "pauvres gens," which translates as "poor people."
Lawrence's lyrics which pronounce Paris in the French style, as "PaREE," are seldom heard. Most of the popular recordings of the song in the English-speaking world have been instrumentals.

A recording of the tune by Les Baxter's orchestra was a number-one hit on the Billboard chart in the US in 1956:  the last song to reach number one before Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" topped the chart.

In the same year, the piano version by Winifred Atwell was number one in the UK Singles Chart for three weeks - the "whistling solo" in the middle was actually a singing saw - added by engineer Joe Meek (who else! - Ed.)

Other instrumental versions include those by Lawrence Welk, Russ Morgan, and Chet Atkins.
Dean Martin and Bing Crosby with Rosemary Clooney recorded a version containing the seldom-heard Lawrence lyrics.

On This Day :
Quote
10 April : A Nat King Cole concert in Birmingham, Alabama, is interrupted by three Ku Klux Klan members, who push Cole from his piano stool. Cole would never again perform in his home state.
14 April : Ampex demonstrates the VR-1000, the first of its line of 2 inch Quadruplex videotape recorders at a convention in Chicago
18 April : Actress Grace Kelly marries Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, in a civil ceremony at the Prince's Palace of Monaco.
19 April : Sue Barker, British tennis player, born in Paignton
23 April : Narnia writer C. S. Lewis marries US poet Joy Gresham in a civil ceremony at Oxford register office
27 April : World heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano announces his retirement (unbeaten), aged 32, from professional boxing.
28 April : France completes its military withdrawal from Vietnam
28 April : Jeremy Beadle, TV broadcaster, born in York

We are only 3 weeks away from 'Heartbreak Hotel' making its chart debut (May 17), eventually peaking at 2.

daf


Other debuts:

24.5.56 Blue Suede Shoes - Carl Perkins
31.5.56 Blue Suede Shoes - Elvis Presley

A case of a US act having his big moment stolen by another US act.

But Perkins would be a huge influence on George Harrison among others.

machotrouts

I don't think I've ever heard of a "singing saw" before and I love it. Sounds like Winifred's fending off a UFO.

daf

Makes you wonder why they bothered to invent the Theremin - does everything that did, and you can up cut logs with it afterwards!

Sleepwalk


daf

Going clip-clippety-clop on the stair, its . . .

46.  Ronnie Hilton - No Other Love



From : 29 April – 9 June 1956
Weeks : 6
Flip side : It's All Been Done before (with Alma Cogan)

QuoteBorn Adrian Hill in Hull, Yorkshire, on 26 January 1926, Hilton left school at 14 and worked in an aircraft factory at the beginning of the Second World War, then was part of the Highland Light Infantry. Following demobilisation in 1947, he became a fitter in a Leeds sewing plant.

He started singing professionally under his adopted name in 1954 after leaving his safe job in a Leeds engineering factory. A true Yorkshireman, Hilton always remained loyal to his roots – especially to Leeds United. He composed, sang and recorded several anthems as tribute to the club.

He came to fame by supplying smoothly delivered cover versions of popular American songs during the 1950s. His most enduring recordings were "No Other Love"; and his last chart entry in 1965 with "A Windmill in Old Amsterdam" written by Ted Dicks and Myles Rudge. The latter spent a total of 13 weeks on the UK Singles Chart, winning an Ivor Novello Award in 1966 for the Year's Outstanding Novelty Composition.

From a comparatively unknown Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, "Me and Juliet" written in 1953, Ronnie Hilton took the hit tune "No Other Love", and scored his one and only UK Number One hit in 1956. Oddly, no American versions of "No Other Love" reached the UK Singles Chart at the time. Perry Como had been very successful with the song in America, but his version was released much earlier in 1953, when "Me and Juliet" first opened on Broadway.

Hilton also performed in three Royal Variety Performances. He also took part in the inaugural A Song For Europe contest in 1957, failing in his attempt to be the UK's first representative in the Eurovision Song Contest - losing out to this stinker. Hilton's last chart hit for almost five years, in 1959, was "The Wonder of You".

In 1967 he released a single with covers of "If I Were a Rich Man" and Dave Bowie's "The Laughing Gnome" on the A-side and B-side respectively. Amazingly, it failed to chart.

In 1968 he participated in a successful album of songs from the then newly released film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This was issued on the budget Music For Pleasure label, and was his only charting album.

Hilton presented Sounds of the Fifties, a nostalgic radio series for BBC Radio 2. The British Academy of Song Composers and Authors honoured him with its gold medal for services to popular music in 1989.

He died in Hailsham, East Sussex from a stroke, aged 75.

Quote"No Other Love" is a show tune from the 1953 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical flop Me and Juliet.

Richard Rodgers originally composed this tune (with the title "Beneath the Southern Cross") for the NBC television series Victory at Sea (1952/1953). When Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II collaborated on Me and Juliet, Rodgers took his old melody and set it to new words by Hammerstein, producing the song "No Other Love". The song has a tango rhythm (referred to by Rodgers as a "languid tango" in his autobiography, Musical Stages).

The 1953 song should not be confused with "No Other Love", a song of 1950 - as recorded by Jo Stafford. The melody for the 1950 song was taken from Étude in E major, Op. 10, No. 3 by Frédéric Chopin.

On This Day :
Quote3 May : Granada Television begins broadcasting to Northern England.
5 May : During the FA Cup Final (Manchester City 3-0 Birmingham City), Bert Trautmann breaks his neck (and plays on!)
7 May : Anne Dudley, (Art of Noise), born in Beckenham, Kent
8 May : John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger receives its première at the Royal Court Theatre in London
13 May : Monaco Grand Prix is won by Stirling Moss, driving for Maserati.
13 May : Richard Madeley, (Richard & Judy), born in Romford, Essex
14 May : Harry Pollitt resigns as General Secretary of the British Communist Party; replaced by John Gollan.
14 May : Steve Hogarth, (Marillion), born in Kendal England,
17 May : 'Heartbreak Hotel' by Elvis Presley makes its UK chart debut, eventually peaking at number 2 during it's 22 week run.
24 May : The first Eurovision Song Contest is broadcast from Lugano, Switzerland - won "Refrain" sung by Lys Assia for Switzerland.
25 May : Sugar Minott, born in Kingston, Jamaica
29 May : LaToya Jackson born in Gary, Indiana
29 May : Larry Blackmon, (Cameo) born in New York City
2 June : Malcolm Garrett, record sleeve designer (Buzzcocks, Duran Duran), born in Northwich
3 June : British Railways abolishes 'Second class' on its trains and "Third" class is redesignated "Second" class.
5 June : Elvis Presley appears on The Milton Berle Show, singing "Hound Dog".
6 June : Björn Borg, Swedish tennis player, björn in Stockholm

machotrouts

I like the drama of the opening 15 seconds, before Ronnie feels the need to bloody well sing over it. I think I'd have accepted it as a nice tango song if he'd sung in Argentinian. Now I'm googling to check whether Argentinian is a language and it isn't. Embarrassed now.



Slacking, daf.