FIRST HOUR
Life Is A Flower (Ace of Base)
(1998) ... five years on from their chart topping debut All That She Wants, one of the highest placed ( # 5) of a dozen Top 40 hits for the group from Sweden
Elenore (The Turtles)
(1968) ... third and last of their bright and breezy hat-trick of hits, all of them within a time span of around 18 months
Have You Ever Had It Blue (The Style Council)
... Top 20 single from the film Absolute Beginners - in the first of today's featured years. Although the film -set in late '50s London - was a box office flop, it yielded two chart hits, of which this was one. The title track written and sung by David Bowie was by some distance the more successful, peaking at # 2. Fans of The Jam will have spotted an unlikely connection here ~ back in 1981, the trio had a hit with a different Absolute Beginners, written by Paul Weller... who also wrote Have You Ever Had It Blue
'Surname only' duos
Pick Up The Pieces (Hudson Ford)
(1973)... not to be confused with the Average White Band instrumental of the same name ~ this Top 10-er came with a full set of lyrics. John Hudson and Richard Ford had recently left The Strawbs, having had a huge hit which they co-wrote ~ the highly topical of-its-time picket line chant, Part of The Union
Rosetta (Fame and Price)
(1971)... one-off Top 10 coming together of Georgie Fame and Alan Price ~ between them, they had previously clocked up a dozen or more hits during the '60s
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Nothing But Blue Skies (Jackie Wilson)
(1968) ... the era when he also recorded I Get The Sweetest Feeling and (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher, both of which were hits in the UK more than once. Reissues ensured the name and voice of Jackie Wilson would still be familiar to chart-watchers during the '70s and '80s. Nothing But Blue Skies, in complete contrast, remained largely unknown and failed to reach anything like the same heights, although much loved on the Northern Soul scene
Newsround Tameside: 36 years ago ~ 1986
Left Of Center (Suzanne Vega)
... featuring Joe Jackson on piano, from the hit film soundtrack Pretty In Pink which also included songs by Echo And The Bunnymen, New Order and the title track by Psychedelic Furs [W]
Happy Hour (The Housemartins)
... they were an up-and-coming band still awaiting their big breakthrough when their second single Sheep made the lower reaches of the chart in the early spring of '86. Within weeks, they finally struck gold third time lucky when Happy Hour made the Top 3. Both songs also appeared on their debut album London 0 Hull 4. By the end of the year, the 'Martins' a-capella cover of the Isley Brothers' Caravan of Love had taken them all the way to the top
Calling All The Heroes (It Bites)
... band from Cumbria who had their one and only chart run of any significance in the summer of '86
Smile (Audrey Hall)
... reggae singer who had two Top 20 hits here within a few months ~ Smile was the second, following on from One Dance Just Won't Do She began her career singing in a duo with Dandy Livingstone - best known for Suzanne Beware of The Devil (1972)
Too Good To Be Forgotten (Amazulu)
... previously a '70s Top 10-er for The Chi-Lites, this was the one that saw Amazulu soaring to their best ever chart placing (# 5 )
Boys Don't Cry (The Cure)
... a re-mix with a re-recorded vocal of a song which had first seen the light of day a few years earlier
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Released in '86, remixed in '89
The Time Warp (PWL Remix) (Damian)
.... singer who grew up here in Tameside and recorded a 'Hi-NRG ' dance version of the song from the musical The Rocky Horror Show in 1986. The single - produced by Des Tong, who had been in the Manchester band Sad Café and like Damian, was originally from Audenshaw - gained a cult following on the club scene and just nudged into the lower reaches of the Top 75 'The Hitman' Pete Waterman thought it would have more commercial potential if it was slightly re-worked. His instinct proved to be spot on ~ the PWL re-mix was a huge success - three years after the original release. Damian appeared on Top of The Pops, the single leaped up the chart and reached the dizzy heights of # 7.
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SECOND HOUR
If You Can't Give Me Love (Suzi Quatro)
(1978).... after a bit of a lull chart-wise in the mid 70s, Suzi returned with a mellower sound, continuing her connection with writers Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. If You Can't Give Me Love was in a similar style to the hits they were currently writing for her Rak Records label mates Smokie
This Day Will Last Forever (Ocean Colour Scene]
(2005) ... radio friendly feelgood single by the band who came to prominence during the '90s Britpop era. Despite plenty of airplay, it failed to make the Top 40
Where Did Our Love Go (The Supremes)
... teaser track for our second featured year ~ one of the first Motown hits to cross the Atlantic, although it was originally released here on EMI's Stateside label. Where Did Our Love Go was a UK # 3 - the follow up which we'll hear later went all the way to the top. Both songs were written by Motown's formidable in-house songwriting and production trio Holland-Dozier-Holland - brothers Brian and Eddie Holland together with Lamont Dozier who died earlier this month aged 81
Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
A Fifth of Beethoven (Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band)
(1976) ... disco-tastic re-invention of the famous first movement of Beethoven's Symphony No:5. A year later, it featured on the film soundtrack Saturday Night Fever
Percolator (Hot Butter)
(1972) ... unsuccessful follow-up to their worldwide hit Popcorn, in a very similar style ~ electronic pop played on a Moog synthesiser, bubbling along nicely, just like one of those handy coffee-making appliances
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Suffragette City (David Bowie)
(1972)... one of the best known songs on the legendary Ziggy Stardust album, also the B side of Starman
Holiday (Katrina from Katrina & The Waves)
(2020) ... much played song from Katrina's recent solo album ~ timeless pop in the best tradition of those familiar hits of the past, especially Love Shine A Light, the UK's 1997 Eurovision winner
Newsround pre-Tameside: 58 years ago ~ 1964
Tobacco Road (The Nashville Teens)
.... based around one of the most stunning guitar riffs, ever! The band's ultra cool name was their only connection with Nashville ~ they were actually from Surrey [W]
You're No Good (The Swinging Blue Jeans)
.... having made their mark with The Hippy Hippy Shake and Good Golly Miss Molly, the lads from Liverpool made it a hat-trick of hit cover versions ~ songs which had already been successful in America for the original artists [W]
A Hard Day's Night (The Beatles)
... title song of the Fab Four's film debut and their third album - the first to consist entirely of Lennon and McCartney originals
Baby Love (The Supremes)
... as mentioned earlier, this was their second smash hit of '64, which became Motown's first UK # 1, again, courtesy of Holland-Dozier-Holland... Hold that thought...
Baby I Need Your Loving (The Four Tops)
... H-D-H also supplied the Four Tops' first US chart single for the label Baby I Need Your Loving failed to break through here, although UK success was not long coming. Their 1965 debut I Can't Help Myself (# 23) and its follow up It's The Same Old Song ( # 34) maintained the fruitful relationship with H-D-H
Don't Throw Your Love Away (The Searchers)
... the group's third and final # 1 had started out as a fairly modest sized American hit for The Orions. The Searchers' previous chart-toppers were Needles And Pins (also in '64) and Sweets For My Sweet ('63) [W]
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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)
[W]: Source: Wikipedia
If you missed any of the show, you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 21/08/2022:
https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/
