FIRST HOUR
You're My Best Friend (Queen)
(1976)... unusually for a Queen single, written by another member of the band rather than Freddie Mercury. Bass player John Deacon came up with an instantly appealing, out-and-out pop song, dedicated to his wife Veronica. You're My Best Friend, on which he plays a Wurlitzer electric piano, first appeared on the album A Night At The Opera and could hardly have been more different to its most famous track ~ the epic Bohemian Rhapsody
Take Me In Your Arms And Love Me (Gladys Knight & The Pips)
(1967) ... their biggest hit in the UK while signed to Tamla Motown. Switching to the Buddah label during the '70s would bring greater success
Nothing Ever Happens (Del Amitri)
... immediately grabbed your attention, with its memorable lyrics. '... while Angry from Manchester writes to complain about all the repeats on TV...' has always been my favourite line, but there are plenty more to choose from ... a well deserved hit in the first few weeks of this hour's featured year
Re-invented as rockabilly...
Pretend (Alvin Stardust)
[1981) .... originally sung as a slow, gentle ballad by Nat 'King' Cole way back in the '50s, the same decade that Perry Como had a big hit with...
Love Makes The World Go Round (The Jets)
(1982)..... these particular Jets were British and musically speaking, could hardly have been more different from the American pop-soulsters of the same name who did well a few years later with Crush On You (1987, # 5 )
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Something (The Beatles)
(1969)... specially for Valentine's Day, one of the all time greatest love songs as it was considered to be, by Frank Sinatra, no less, Praise indeed from someone who made no secret of his dislike of most 'modern' music, from '50s rock 'n' roll to '60s pop. Something was the only George song to be chosen as the 'A' side of a Beatles single, although strictly speaking, it shared top billing with John Lennon's Come Together. Both songs were on the Abbey Road album released around the same time which probably explains why the single didn't take the top spot, peaking at # 3. One thing is certain ~ George had written a timeless classic which became the second most covered Beatles song after Yesterday, with no fewer than 150 different artists recording it during the '70s alone. A year after the original, Shirley Bassey's version of Something spent 22 weeks on the chart, peaking at # 4. George's biggest solo hit is in our second hour....
Shoorah Shoorah (Betty Wright)
(1975) ...American soul and R&B singer who had a couple of Top 30 hits in the UK ~ Where Is The Love was the other one, which charted the same year. Her biggest US single Clean Up Woman three years previously, was a turntable hit here
Newsround Tameside: 31 years ago ~ 1990
96 Tears (The Stranglers)
... the original version by American garage band ? and The Mysterians * peaked at # 37 in 1966 - covered by artists as diverse as Aretha Franklin, Thelma Houston, Eddie & The Hot Rods and Inspiral Carpets. Only The Stranglers succeeded in making it a Top 20 single. ( * The Mysterians' lead singer Rudy Martinez was known simply as '?' in print - 'Question Mark' when spoken about!)
Could Have Told You So (Halo James)
... one of the very last new chart entries at the end of the '80s, its uplifting, sing-a-long-able chorus guaranteed plenty of radio play and a surefire spot in the Top 10 in early 1990
Shine On (The House of Love)
... re-recorded version of a song first released in '87 on the independent label Creation. On its first outing, it did nothing at all chart-wise, but as a Fontana single release, it finally took off and made the Top 20
Just Like Jesse James (Cher)
... follow-up to her recent Top 10-er If I Could Turn Back Time ~ both songs from the album Heart Of Stone
Tears On My Pillow (Kylie Minogue)
... one week at No.1 for Kylie's authentic-sounding cover of a '50s teen ballad by Little Anthony & The Imperials ~ from the film The Delinquents, her big screen debut
The Only One I Know (The Charlatans)
... forever associated with the Madchester sound of the late '80s/eary '90s, The Charlatans started out in the Midlands and made their base in Northwich, the town in Cheshire where lead singer Tim Burgess had lived since childhood,although he was actually born in Salford. The Only One I Know was their debut hit, the first of many through the '90s and beyond
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SECOND HOUR
Cathy's Clown (The Everly Brothers)
(1960) ... their biggest selling single in a long and prolific chart career, with seven weeks as the UK # 1
Right Now (The Creatures)
(1983) ...a side venture for members of Siouxsie & The Banshees which gave them a one-off Top 20 hit. Right Now is an uptempo jazz/pop song, written in 1962 with music by Herbie Mann and lyrics by Carl Sigman and initially recorded as an instrumental. Later that same year, with lyrics by Sigman, the song was popularized by jazz singer Mel Tormé on his album Comin' Home Baby! Much more recently, The Pussycat Dolls covered it in 2005 (Source: Wikipedia)
If Not For You (Olivia Newton John)
... teaser track for our second featured year ~ well before her famous film role in Grease and those mega-selling duets with John Travolta, Olivia's first chart success came courtesy of a Bob Dylan song which George Harrison had recently covered on his triple album All Things Must Pass
Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
,,, a bit of a 'do' and a stroll in a mountainous woodland region of Germany...which famously has a cake named after it
Shindig (The Shadows)
(1963) ... four years on from their first chart success, those lyricless hits kept on coming for Messrs Marvin, Welch and Bennett
A Walk In The Black Forest (Horst Jankowski)
(1965) ... classically trained pianist from Germany, best known as an easy listening pop composer. Ein Schwarzwaldfahrt, to give its original title in his native language, has been covered by many other recording artists, keyboard players especially
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Newsround Tameside: 50 years ago ~ 1971 including a brief fast forward to '81...
My Sweet Lord (George Harrison)
... first solo No.1 by any of the four ex-Beatles, from the triple album All Things Must Pass. Other tracks included George's version of If Not For You, which soon afterwards gave Olivia Newton John her first hit, as heard earlier and What Is Life, which Olivia took into the Top 20 the following year
I Am The Beat (The Look)
(1981)... stomping good fun, peaking at # 6, Reminds me of Racey a couple of years earlier - Lay Your Love On Me . The Look hailed from Ely, Cambridgeshire ~ although they never managed to replicate the success of this, their debut single, they unexpectedly reformed in the '00s with a well received new album
Stoned Love (The Supremes)
... second of five Top 10-ers in the early '70s as the group embarked on a new phase of their career after Diana Ross left to go solo. Mary Wilson, the remaining original member who stayed on until the group finally called it a day in 1977 sadly died from a heart attack last week, aged 76, just a couple of days after announcing her latest venture. The Supremes still hold the record as the most successful girl group of all time with 14 US No.1s during their '60s heyday
Your Song (Elton John)
... four years into their songwriting partnership Elton and Bernie Taupin finally struck gold with a Top 10 debut which has become a timeless classic
I Think I Love You (The Partridge Family)
... real life imitated a TV show just as it had done for The Monkees five years earlier. The soon to be teen heart-throb superstar David Cassidy and his on-screen family including real life stepmum Shirley Jones got to No.1 on the American Hot 100. I Think I Love You reached # 18 here, but their three other hits did much better with Breaking Up Is Hard To Do (their cover of Neil Sedaka's song) making the Top 3
The Pushbike Song (The Mixtures)
... sing-a-long-a- one hit wonder from Down Under ~ time to get those pedals turning... "got to get across to the other side of town, before the sun goes down..." It may have been the only time their wheels were firmly in motion in the UK, but fair to say,The Mixtures had much more enduring success back home in Australia
Resurrection Shuffle (Ashton Gardner & Dyke) ... ... singer-keyboard player-songwriter Tony Ashton spent his formative years in Blackpool and played in '60s Liverpool band The Remo Four.. Later on, he teamed up with ex-Deep Purple duo Jon Lord and Ian Paice
Rose Garden (Lynn Anderson) ...written by Joe South (Hush, The Games People Play) ~ a cheery sing-a-long country crossover which became a massive worldwide hit. Rose Garden was famously sampled by the Canadian synth-pop duo Kon-Kan (I Beg Your Pardon, 1989, # 5)
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SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)
Please bear in mind: it's a live show and so, occasionally I might need to change the running order, leave a song out, or play an unplanned extra song which will not be shown in this weekly music blog.
- MW
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