FIRST HOUR
Little Does She Know (Kursaal Flyers)
(1976) ... quirky, one-off hit with lyrics that are firmly tongue in cheek ~ getting 'spin dryer', 'detergent' and 'underwear' in one song must have taken some doing
A Lover's Concerto (The Toys)
(1965) ... based on a familiar classical melody, the Minuet in G Major from The Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach ~ composed by her husband, Johann Sebastian
This Is How It Feels (Inspiral Carpets)
... officially from Oldham, but in their early days, they often crossed over the Tameside border to rehearse at a studio near Guide Bridge, owned by their keyboard player Clint Boon, who features prominently on This Is How It Feels, with its distinctive organ sound ~ their chart debut in the first of today’s featured years
Contrasting cover versions
... by a band whose first and last Top 10 hits were fresh interpretations of familiar songs in a very different style to the originals.
Tears Of A Clown (The Beat)
(1979) ... fast and frantic ska re-working of one of Motown's greatest hits ~ a UK # 1 at the start of the decade for Smokey Robinson
and The Miracles. Lead vocals for The Beat were shared between Dave Wakeling and Roger Charlery - better known as Ranking Roger
Can't Get Used To Losing You (The Beat)
(1983) ...a highly unlikely, but hugely likeable cover of the Andy Williams classic which made the Top 3 and gave the band their biggest hit, just as they announced they were splitting up. Dave Wakeling's vocal sounds uncannily like the man himself, despite its reggae styling and a more uptempo feel compared to the original
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Sarah (Thin Lizzy)
(1979) ... written by Phil Lynott and Gary Moore for Phil's 'baby girl' ~ his new-born daughter. A mellow, mid-tempo pop song, with a wider appeal to singles buyers than many of their rockier songs
Newsround Tameside: 31 years ago ~ 1990
Dub Be Good To Me (Beats International)
... not so much a group, more a fairly loose collective gathered together by Norman Cook, formerly of The Housemartins and eventually known as Fatboy Slim. Beats International was his first venture into electronic dance music ~ this re-working of The SOS Band's Just Be Good To Me, with vocals by Lindy Layton spent four weeks at # 1. Meanwhile, the band launched by two other former Housemartins also had a successful year *
Everybody Needs Somebody (The Blues Brothers)
... Top 20 hit taken from the album The Blues Brothers Band Live In Montreux – recorded during a reunion tour celebrating the feelgood music and spirit of the original Blues Bothers film
My Book (The Beautiful South) *
... second single from Choke, their second album , The follow up to the chart-topping A Little Time, My Book stalled at a lowly # 43
I Want To Stay Here (Dusty Springfield)
... working with those Pet Shop Boys in the late '80s successfully revived Dusty's chart career, three decades after her debut. The album Reputation followed in 1990, which Neil and Chris co-produced. It included I Want To Stay Here, written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, which had been a big hit for Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé back in '63 when Dusty was enjoying her first taste of success
Birdhouse In Your Soul (They Might Be Giants)
... timeless, classic pop ~ it could be from almost any era, through to the present day, but would still sound just as wonderful
Strawberry Fields Forever (Candy Flip)
... not many bands would be brave enough to cover one of John Lennon's most iconic songs with The Beatles, but the duo Candy Flip succeeded in making it sound fresh and appealing to a new generation
Better The Devil You Know (Kylie Minogue)
... Stock Aitken Waterman song widely seen as a turning point in Kylie's chart career, as she began to move away from the girl-next-door who found fame in Neighbours to a more sophisticated image and sound
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SECOND HOUR
Shooting Star (Dollar)
(1978) ... first time on the chart as a duo for David Van Day and Thereza Bazar, previously of Guys and Dolls, the vocal ensemble who had clocked up a couple of hits in '75-'76
Knock On Wood (Eddie Floyd)
(1967) ... classic soul track which stayed on the UK chart for 17 weeks peaking at # 19. David Bowie released a live version in the mid '70s which was true to the spirit of the original (1974, #10) but the most successful chart-wise was Amii Stewart's 1979 disco reworking which topped the US chart and reached # 6 here, returning to the Top 10 as a remix in '85
Everybody's Somebody's Fool (Connie Francis)
... teaser track for our second featured year ~ a song which started out as a bluesy ballad may have been an unlikely choice for a country/pop singer but resulted in a worldwide hit. Full marks for the attention-grabbing organ intro which sounds like it's been borrowed from a social club concert night or a seaside end-of-the-pier show
Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
... quirky, one-hit wonder '70s instrumentals with titles which are strangely similar to the artists' names
El Bimbo (Bimbo Jet)
(1975) ... topped the chart in France and several other countries. In the UK, sufficient numbers of returning holidaymakers and many others who had heard it being constantly played in clubs and on the radio went out and bought the single, taking it to # 12
Groovin' With Mr Bloe (Mr Bloe)
(1970) .... originally written for Wind, a US studio group who released it as a B-side. Stephen James of Dick James Music heard the tune and wanted to release it in the UK and tried unsuccessfully to secure the rights. His next move was to record it himself with other musicians, resulting in this one-off Top 10-er which spent a total of 18 weeks on the chart The harmonica player Harry Pitch can also be heard on Ronnie Hazlehurst's theme tune for the BBC sitcom Last of the Summer Wine (Source: Wikipedia)
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Half A Minute (Matt Bianco)
(1984) ... there was no Matt, as in a specific person - it's just the made-up name of the mostly male band who had a handful of hits in a style best described as Latin flavoured jazz pop. Here it's Basia, the group's sole female on lead vocal
The Village Green Preservation Society (Kate Rusby)
(2006) ... written by Ray Davies of The Kinks ~ the original version was the title track of the band's '68 album The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. Kate Rusby, one of the leading lights of the English folk scene recorded her version in 2006 as the theme for a BBC comedy Jam and Jerusalem. It was included as a bonus track on her album Awkward Annie
Reflections: 61 years ago ~ 1960
How About That? (Adam Faith)
... having started the new decade at No. 1 with What Do You Want , he had an unstoppable run of five monster-size hits during the year, all of them making the Top 5 and including a second chart topper Poor Me
Colette (Billy Fury)
... Billy's biggest hit to date, his first time in the Top 10 with a song he wrote himself
A Mess of Blues (Elvis Presley & The Jordanaires)
... fresh from his US army service, Elvis was back with a sequence of 1960 singles which reached # 3, # 2 and # 1 ~ A Mess of Blues was the one in the middle, between Stuck On You and It's Now Or Never
Lucille (The Everly Brothers)
... Don & Phil covering a Little Richard hit from three years earlier
Sweet Nothins (Brenda Lee) ... the debut hit by 'Little Miss Dynamite'
Because They're Young (Duane Eddy)
... lyricless bonus which almost cries out for lyrics to sing along to ~ no surprise then, to discover a vocal version by James Darren made the chart soon afterwards. A few years on, the Duane Eddy version was adopted by Johnnie Walker as his theme tune on the offshore pirate station Radio Caroline and later on BBC Radio One
Fings Ain't Wot They Used T' Be (Max Bygraves)
... a cheery look at the changing scenes of life all around as a new decade dawned and a new era began to unfold ~ sung by one of Britain's biggest stars and written by Lionel Bart, best known for his stage musicals, ~ including, most famously, Oliver! which had its London premiere in the same year. The line 'they changed our local palais into a bowling alley' was cross referenced more than 20 years later by Ray Davies in The Kinks' Come Dancing (1983)
Please Don't Tease (Cliff Richard & The Shadows)
,,, after two No.1s the previous year this one made it a hat trick ~ by the end of the year The Shads had also topped the chart in their own right with Apache, first of their long run of instrumental hits over the next few years
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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
