Posted at
March 3, 2013 @
5:47 pm by Tony in
Live!
Great Torrington, North Devon. Friday March 1st, 2013.
In 1646 the decisive battle of the south-western campaign of the First English Civil War was fought here. It marked the end of all Royalist resistance in the West Country.
Since then, very little has happened. Until this evening. Tonight, Great Torrington finds itself once again on the map as it plays host to a performance by Public Service Broadcasting.
Public Service Broadcasting are a London-based electronic musical ensemble comprising J Willgoose, Esq on guitars, computer loops and keyboards and drummer Wrigglesworth.
Currently performing a number of installations at venues up and down the country that are, until now of course, “off the beaten track” , so to speak.
Each musical item served up for our delectation this evening is accompanied by black-and-white video footage, each a veritable montage from Britain’s past – but this is no simple exercise in nostalgia.
Far from it.
For in an age where all respect for authority has been lost, some would say rightfully, where are the young to find moral guidance?
Public Service Broadcasting have concluded, as have many of us, that this can and must come from an examination of Britain’s past – and they do this in a very clever way, by superimposing images and voices from the past over the dance beats that young people find so compelling.
Three examples of this are provided below.
The spirit of the Blitz is commemorated with the defiant “London Can Take It”. Sinister air-raid sirens sound over the familiar English church bells as a comforting voice ensures us all will be well.
Next we have “Spitfire” – a truly inspirational tribute to the aircraft that won the Battle Of Britain.
And finally, one of the ensemble’s newer pieces, “Signal 30”, a stark warning to be safe when behind the wheel of a car, which is more timely today than it has ever been.
All these numbers and many others are performed this evening with elan, éclat and – always – with gravitas and dignity.
Mr Willgoose and his trusty drummer do not deign to engage in futile exchanges with the occasional yahoo who dares to “heckle” them. Instead, these fellows are made to look pretty silly by electronic means – more I shall not say, as this is all part of the show.
It is my fervent hope that every man, woman and child reading these words should soon attend a performance from Public Service Broadcasting.
They are currently engaged in travelling the length and breadth of this sceptred isle, so, as our American cousins might have it, they will most certainly be coming to a town near you soon.
Furthermore, the ensemble’s debut long playing record will be released on May 6th, 2013, and should be available from HMV and Woolworth’s, as well as from your local independent record shops.
In conclusion, may I thank Messrs Willgoose and Wrigglesworth for such an enlightening evening and assure them on behalf of all present that their stated aims to Inform, Educate and Entertain have been met – indeed, exceeded.
Posted at
March 1, 2013 @
2:44 pm by Tony in
Records
There are many, many “what if”s to ponder in Beatles history.
What if they hadn’t sacked Pete Best in favour of Ringo?
What if Brian Epstein had been straight and therefore less able to see the potential to create the world’s first boy band?
And what if John had never met Yoko? Well, for one thing, they would never have split up when they did.
In 1970 the four Beatles were far from creatively spent. Looking back at the early 70s it seems that for the first few years after the breakup , all four members were furiously engaged in trying to out-do each other as to who could put out the best songs and sell the most records.
I’ve never subscribed to the theory that “they never reached the heights they reached together”.
It is more accurate to say “they never reached the sustained heights” – and it is my contention that the only reason for this was that they were no longer working together.
Paul would have vetoed John’s more indulgent experiments, and John would have continued to rein in the more overt examples of Paul’s whimsy. And both would have encouraged George to new heights.
Simple mathematics tells us that if the same creative team makes four albums separately, these are, on average going to be only 25% as good.
Weight the average in favour of John and Paul and against Ringo and you’d probably expect a Lennon or a McCartney album to contain 40% Fabs-quality material, George’s album would have a one in five hit-rate and anything Ringo could come up with would be a bonus.
So, suppose the Beatles had taken a year off after the release of Let It Be, gone their separate ways, but then reconvened at Studio Two, Abbey Road around mid-1971.
The resulting album could have been their best yet. They would have argued about the tracks and the order, with John finally winning the battle to finish on a political, rather than a feel-good song.
What Is Life (George)
Back Off Boogaloo (Ringo)
Another Day (Paul)
Wah Wah (George)
Maybe I’m Amazed (Paul)
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey (Paul)
Instant Karma (John)
Side Two
Imagine (John)
The Back Seat Of My Car(Paul)
Give Peace A Chance (John)
It Don’t Come Easy (Ringo)
C Moon (Paul)
My Sweet Lord (George)
Working Class Hero (John)
When buying or selling vinyl records it’s easy to be subjective about the condition a record is in.
Fortunately the excellent Record Collector Magazine provide a grading guide which is now widely accepted :
MINT: The record itself is in brand new condition with no surface marks or deterioration in sound quality. The cover and any extra items such as the lyric sheet, booklet or poster are in perfect condition. Records advertised as Sealed or Unplayed should be Mint.
EXCELLENT: The record shows some signs of having been played, but there is very little lessening in sound quality. The cover and packaging might have slight wear and / or creasing.
VERY GOOD: The record has obviously been played many times, but displays no major deterioration in sound quality, despite noticeable surface marks and the occasional light scratch. Normal wear and tear on the cover or extra items, without any major defects, is acceptable.
GOOD: The record has been played so much that the sound quality has noticeably deteriorated, perhaps with some distortion and mild scratches. The cover and contents suffer from folding, scuffing of edges, spine splits, discolouration, etc.
FAIR: The record is still just playable but has not been cared for properly and displays considerable surface noise; it may even jump. The cover and contents will be torn, stained and / or defaced.
POOR: The record will not play properly due to scratches, bad surface noise, etc. The cover and contents will be badly damaged or partly missing.
BAD: The record is unplayable or might even be broken, and is only of use
as a collection filler.
As well as the above grades, Near Mint is often used as well; this is really for a record that appears new but is known to have been played because the label has light spindle marks or because it has come from a previous owner and is assumed to have been played by them. For records which appear to fall between the accepted grades, + and – are also often added to the grading.
With HMV going into administration this week, the importance of places like Rise Records in Bristol cannot be overestimated.
On two floors in the trendy student area of Clifton, it has now undergone a refurbishment in which the ground floor is now a coffee shop, with the excellent music stock now limited to the first floor.
I won’t go into full details but just as an example, their Rockabilly section, as well as including the 50s and 60s classics, also includes The Cramps, who usually get incorrectly lumped in with Goth.
These guys know what they’re doing.
The other crucial addition is a space at the back of the coffee shop that turns into a music venue with a capacity of maybe 200.
This seems to be an excellent template for how independent record shops can survive in the current climate, and more power to them. They’ve announced loads more similar events – if you’re in the Bristol area check ‘em out - Rise Records in Bristol and support your local indie record shop
Much like the Metropolitan Police back in the day counting people on demonstrations, I’m not great at estimating the size of crowds but there seem to be around 150 people here digging the magnificent sounds of the first buzz band of 2013, Dutch Uncles.
They’ve been around for a few years, putting out a couple of albums and building a bit of a following and some airplay. In an era where bands come into the public eye far too quickly, before they’re the finished article, this is a fine old-fashioned way of doing things, very much in keeping with the band’s stated love for 70s Prog and King Crimson in particular. Bands were allowed to develop in those days.
This is one of a few in-store gigs the band is doing to promote it. The deal is, you buy the album on CD or vinyl and you get a download code and two tickets to an in-store. Being as how I’m very old, I went for the Gold Vinyl option at £13, and to be honest I’d have paid that for one gig ticket so it’s a bargain.
I haven’t been to an instore gig for a while, and they can be hit and miss depending on whether the band sees it as a contractual engagement they’d rather not do or a proper gig. Dutch Uncles are firmly in the latter category.
They play for a good hour, tight, organised, effective. There is even room for some serious freaky dancing from lead singer / pianist Duncan Wallis. I need to see what he does on a big stage, dude’s got moves! Imagine Martin Fry of ABC without such an industrial consumption of pies.
They start off with a couple of hits from previous LP “Cadenza” before playing the bulk of the brand spanking new “Out Of Touch In The Wild”.
There are a lot of complex songs on OOTITW, but all are played with panache and brio. The singles “Fester” and “Flexxin” get the biggest cheers, having been featured on Radio One, or so I’m told.
The band wear their prog and art-rock influences proudly, but these songs are so much better, catchier and more danceable than anything King Crimson or Talking Heads ever came up with.
There are bits that remind me of Van der Graaf Generator, Japan, Neu!, Grammatics and XTC. As influences go, you can’t get much better than that for my money.
Often, particularly with complex songs, the trap for a band when playing live is to lose the subtleties and speed up too much. Dutch Uncles, on their third album, do neither of these things. Indeed, the songs are given new depths and meanings in a gig context – I’d love to hear a live album from them some time.
Meantime, I’d recommend the album to anybody with ears.
Posted at
January 2, 2013 @
8:09 pm by Tony in
Radio
This week is New Music Takeover week on Radio One, and it’s great to switch on at 6.30 am and hear Huw Stephens, followed by Annie Mac doing the mid-morning show.
The station deserves great credit for doing this every year, although it does beg the question, why not all the time? … but I guess you can’t have everything.
It is a little-known fact that Radio One first did this experiment in the first week of 1973, where each and every one of the station’s then-current alternative DJs got to broadcast throughout the day, and were given free rein to play what they wanted.
Owing to the BBC’s policy of wiping tapes, no official recordings exist, but I definitely remember avidly listening to it – can anybody else confirm that the schedule went something like this?
07:00 John Peel’s Breakfast Show
09:00 Housewives’ Choice with John Peel
12:00 Lunchtime show with your friend and mine, Johnnie Peel
14:00 Sequence. Two hours of records played without interruption while John Peel is given a cortisone injection
16:00 Drive time with John Peel.
19:00 Closedown. Thankfully the station closed down in the early evening in those days, otherwise Peel would probably not have survived “New Music Takeover Week” and therefore punk WOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED.
Remember, this blog post must be true because you saw it on the Internet
Final instalment of my imaginary Festive Fifty from 1962. This is my idea of what might have been included in a listeners’ Festive Fifty chart if John Peel, or similar, had been working for the BBC in 1962.
Hope you’ve enjoyed it – you may or may not agree with the selections, which is perfectly fine by me. Happy to chat about any glaring omissions / ridiculous inclusions.
Here’s the Top Ten, followed by a full rundown of the entire Festive Fifty.
10. ROY ORBISON – Dream Baby
An example of how the right singer can transform a song.
Writer Cindy Walker, a prolific sountry singer in her own right, was not happy with this song until she heard the The Big O’s take on it, which transforms it from a fairly standard yearning ballad into a sleazy bar-room wail.
9. THE CRYSTALS – He Hit Me And It Felt Like A Kiss http://bit.ly/Vc1QMj
One of the most controversial songs of the year, this was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King after hearing that singer Little Eva (“The Locomotion”) was being regularly beaten by her boyfriend. When asked why, Eva replied that his actions came out of love for her.
The song comes across as a simple slice of life story, told without judgment.
It’s pretty shocking and it’s hard to find any hint of irony in it.
I reckon John Peel would have played it in the face of criticism from his employers, and his listeners would have picked up on it and voted it in here as a rebellious action.
But feminism and equal rights for women were a very long way away in 1962, and it is perhaps fanciful to imagine him, or any other male DJ (and I’m not sure there was any other kind of DJ then) playing it as a political statement.
8. THE CONTOURS – Do You Love Me
Written by Berry Gordy (well, that’s what it says on the label but there’s a whol can of worms there, perhaps a topic for another day) for the Temptations, who, like the Contours at the time, had no hits to their name, but, incredible as it sounds, the Temps were unaware that Gordy had a song for them to record and had disappeared to undertake another paid engagement.
So the Contours gratefully recorded it and it became a huge hit for them – indeed, their only hit.
It’s a great record, but something of a one-off novelty without a great deal of depth to it, so it may well be that the Temptations had a lucky escape. Who knows, if they hadn’t found a gospel music showcase gig when Gordy was looking for them, it could have been them who were introduced to the world with this dance cash-in rather than the sensitive, meaningful “My Girl”. On such events do our lives change.
7. DION – The Wanderer
Another record from the simple era that was the early sixties.
Sung completely without irony it is basically a celebration of shagging around that is difficult to resist.
Always wondered what precisely he meant by the “two fists of iron” line though, in the context of a song about a womaniser. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it?
6. TONY SHERIDAN AND THE BEAT BROTHERS – My Bonnie
The first big hit, at least locally on Merseyside, for the Beatles (credited here as the Beat Brothers and backing club singer Tony Sheridan.
Legend has it that this is the song that alerted future manager Brian Epstein to the band’s existence when a teenage boy came into his record shop and asked for it.
Epstein had never heard of the record or the band. Intrigued, he began to investigate the band and ended up managing them.
This record had come out the previous year but, in this alternative Peel history, would have achieved a huge head of steam during 1962, and would have gained plenty of votes from those in the know.
5) DICK DALE – Misirlou
The origins of this tune are unclear, but it was written in the late twenties by an unknown Greek writer.
It became popular throughout the Middle East in various tempos, styles and even lyrics being added.
In 1962, Dick Dale was challenged by a fan to play a song on one string of his guitar. Dale’s family was a Lebanese-American musician, and he remembered seeing one of his uncles play “Misirlou” on one string of the oud.
Speeding up the song to a rock and roll tempo and adding the crashing drums, cinematic strings and the crazed closing piano figure, the record became a massive hit, and would be covered by pretty much all the surf bands of the era.
4) DEL SHANNON – So Long Baby
This could well have struck a chord with the listeners.
Possibly the greatest “We’re through and I’ve moved on” song ever recorded, the protagonist begins by putting a brave face on it but it soon becomes clear that he is on no way over the relationship.
The minor key and oddly plaintive horn solo bring this out further.
And all this is done in just a shade over two minutes.
3) HOWIE CASEY & THE SENIORS – The Fly
1962 was undoubtedly the Seniors’ year.
Slightly ahead of the other Mersey groups in terms of making records and tightening up their live sound, this dancefloor classic captures the feel of Merseybeat 1962 in two and a half minutes.
Things would change once the Beatles started hitting their stride though.
2) BOOKER T & THE MGs – Green Onions
Organist Booker T Jones and his band were the house band for Stax Records during the sixties.
This simple 12-bar blues tune with a soulful Hammond organ lead line that pretty much defined the sound of sixties R and B.
1) THE TORNADOS – Telstar
Named after the Telstar communications satellite, which was launched into orbit in July 1962, this was written and produced by the legendary British produced Joe Meek.
It still sounds like an alien thing today, so God only knows what effect it had in 1962.
It was a ground-breaking record in many ways. Firstly, the futuristic lead line played on the clavioline, an early electronic keyboard. Secondly, it was the first record by a British band to reach Number One in the USA, very much the shape of things to come over the next couple of years during the British Invasion.
Most of all, though, all the futuristic-sounding effects were created in Meek’s recording studio, which was a flat above a shop in North London.
I’ve really enjoyed putting this imaginary Festive Fifty together and I hope you’ve enjoyed it too.
I’ll most likely do one for 1963 next Christmas. There would be a good argument for including about 20 Beatles tracks but we’ll see …
Meantime, here’s the full rundown.
FESTIVE FIFTY OF 1962
1. THE TORNADOS – Telstar
2. BOOKER T & THE MGs – Green Onions
3. HOWIE CASEY & THE SENIORS – The Fly
4. DEL SHANNON – So Long Baby
5. DICK DALE – Misirlou
6. TONY SHERIDAN & THE BEAT BROTHERS – My Bonnie
7. DION – The Wanderer
8. THE CONTOURS – Do You Love Me?
9. THE CRYSTALS – He Hit Me (And If Felt Like A Kiss)
10. ROY ORBISON – Dream Baby
11. DUANE EDDY – The Avenger
12. HOWIE CASEY & THE SENIORS – I Ain’t Mad At You
13. ISLEY BROTHERS – Twist And Shout
14. MARVIN GAYE – Hitch-Hike
15. MARY WELLS – Operator
16. DUANE EDDY – The Ballad Of Paladin
17. BOB DYLAN – Song To Woody
18. THE RIVINGTONS – Papa Oom Mow Mow
19. THE SHADOWS – Wonderful Land
20. THE TOKENS – The Lion Sleeps Tonight
21. BOBBY “BORIS” PICKETT AND THE CRYPT-KICKERS – The Monster Mash
22. THE BEACH BOYS – 409
23. DEL SHANNON – Cry Myself To Sleep
24. DUANE EDDY – Dance With The Guitar Man
25. BOB DYLAN – You’re No Good
26. ELVIS PRESLEY – Good Luck Charm
27. EVERLY BROTHERS – I’m Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail
28. HOWIE CASEY & THE SENIORS – Twist At The Top
29. MARY WELLS – I’m Gonna Stay
30. MARVIN GAYE – That Stubborn Kind Of Fella
31. LITTLE OTIS HAYES – I Out-Duked The Duke
32. BOB DYLAN – Talking New York
33. ELVIS PRESLEY – Return To Sender
34. GENE CHANDLER – Duke Of Earl
35. RAY CHARLES – Half As Much
36. THE VENTURES – My Bonnie Lies
37. EVERLY BROTHERS – I’m Not Angry
38. GINO PARKS – Fire
39. JET HARRIS – The Man With The Golden Arm
40. LORD BLAKIE – Maria
41. THE BEATLES – Love Me Do
42. RAY CHARLES – It Makes No Difference Now
43. THE TORNADOS – Jungle Fever
44. BOB DYLAN – Fixin’ To Die
45. BYRON LEE – River Bank Jump Up
46. DAPHNE ORAM – Four Aspects
47. EVERLY BROTHERS – How Can I Meet Her
48. GINO PARKS – For This I Thank You
49. LITTLE STEVIE WONDER – Wondering
50. SAM COOKE – Bring It On Home To Me
Posted at
December 30, 2012 @
10:55 am by Tony in
Live!, Tunes
December 30th, 2012
This is my interpretation of what might have appeared in John Peel’s Listeners’ Festive Fifty in 1962, had he been working for the BBC at that time.
We’ve reached numbers 20-11.
20. THE TOKENS – The Lion Sleeps Tonight
One of those songs everybody knows thanks to The Lion King.
Originally written and recorded in 1939 by South African singer Solomon Linda, it is said to be about Shaka Zulu, the Zulu king who resisted the European settlers in the nineteenth century. Much like King Arthur, he is said to be sleeping until his country’s hour of greatest need.
There were countless versions of the song both before and after The Tokens took it to Number One in the US charts – the Karl Denver Trio had a good go at it. I first heard it performed by Miriam Makeba on one of my Dad’s
LPs, so that’s always going to be the definitive version for me.
Tight Fit were to take it to Number One in the UK in the early eighties, but we can, I think, draw a veil over that.
19. THE SHADOWS – Wonderful Land
In pop histories of the sixties, the Shadows are (ahem) overshadowed by the group from Liverpool that came along just after they did. But in the early sixties they were massive. This record stayed at Number One in the UK for eight weeks, longer than any other record in the entire sixties, although I suppose you could argue that just proved what little competition they had.
This is a majestic, atmospheric record that lives in your head a long time after the final fade-out. Hank Marvin’s trademark guitar sound is perfectly matched with the orchestral sweeps.
18. THE RIVINGTONS – Papa Oom Mow Mow
The Rivingtons had previously been known as the Sharps, and had hits both in their own right and backing Duane Eddy. This was their first hit after the name change and can lay claim to being the first garage record, certainly the first HIT garage record.
17. BOB DYLAN – Song To Woody
Dylan in wistful mode as he sings a living tribute to his hero Woody Guthrie, who he met in 1961 when the folk legend was in hospital in New Jersey.
Also namechecked here are Guthrie collaborator Cisco Houston and bluesmen Leadbelly, and Sonny Terry. It’s a clear indication of Dylan’s intention to acknowledge his influences, but also to move on and forge his own musical identity.
16. DUANE EDDY – The Ballad Of Paladin
Duane Eddy put his own unique spin on the closing theme to the Western TV Series “Have Gun – Will Travel” which starred Richard Boone. Originally a standard Western ballad, Eddy takes it by the scruff of the neck, cranks up the volume on the guitar and sets it to a proto-Ennio Morricone orchestral backing.
15. MARY WELLS – Operator
Mary sounds like she’s trying to imitate the vocal delivery of song composer Smokey Robinson here. Chugs along in a decent enough groove, but an odd choice for the imaginary listeners to make in 1962. There were far odder choices made by Peel’s real listeners in the eighties though. A clue as to this song’s unexpectedly high placing can perhaps be gleaned from the theory that the song was hyped into the upper reaches of this chart by Post Office workers.
14. MARVIN GAYE – Hitch-Hike
This song’s high placing is perhaps due to the fact that it was released very close to the Festive Fifty deadline in mid-December, and so would have been fresh in Peel’s listeners’minds.
Not perhaps as soulful or meaningful as much of his work, it nevertheless has a joy that is undeniable.
Co-written by Clarence Paul (who also wrote and produced the Little Stevie Wonder tracks listed elsewhere in this chart)
13. ISLEY BROTHERS – Twist And Shout
Their first big hit since “Shout” almost three years earlier. The song’s writer, Bert Russell, had seen Phil Spector produce a dismal version of the song by the Top Notes the previous year, and was keen to show Spector how the record should have sounded.
The result was two and half minutes of snap and energy, coming as close as possible to capturing the energy of a live performance.
Both “Shout” and “Twist And Shout” would later be covered by British artists to great effect.
12. HOWIE CASEY AND THE SENIORS – I Ain’t Mad At You
B-side to Twist At The Top. Unusually for British beat groups, they featured a black lead singer, Derry Wilkie, who actually gets a separate credit on the record as you can see from the Youtube vid.
The fact that the band started as Derry And The Seniors and ended up taking the name of the sax player tells you something about the relative business nous of the two men.
Often airbrushed out of Merseybeat history, they were in fact the first Liverpool band to play in Hamburg, paving the way for Rory Storm and The Hurricanes and others.
11. DUANE EDDY – The Avenger
Shamefully low chart position. Didn’t even make the Hot 100 in the States and failed to trouble the scorers in the UK. Snuck out in early 1962 while Eddy was in the process of changing record labels. Interesting to note exactly how much artists were at the mercy of the whims of the record company back then. Nowadays, he would have released it on a download from his website and his rabid fans would all have bought it direct.
Back at 8pm for the Top Ten. Place your bets on the Number One …
Numbers 30-21 of the countdown, with some perhaps more familiar names as the chart gets closer to the top.
30) MARVIN GAYE – That Stubborn Kind Of Fella
Marvin Gaye’s first album consisted of jazz standards sung in a “black Sinatra” style which didn’t really pay off.
This single signalled a style change to a more soulful delivery, which paid off immediately after the mawkish “Soldier’s Plea”. It was Marvin’s first big hit, reaching No 8 in the US R&B chart and grazing the bottom end of the pop top 50.
29) MARY WELLS – I’m Gonna Stay
Mary Wells was the major female star at Motown during 1962, with the cruelly dubbed “No-hit Supremes” unable to produce a hit despite the label’s best attempts.
It’s a shame she’s only really remembered for “My Guy”, as she made so many other great records
This was the B-side to “The One Who Really Loves You” and is an equal, if not superior song. Peel would definitely have flipped the disc and played this more, as was his inclination.
28) HOWIE CASEY AND THE SENIORS – Twist At The Top
The first Mersey Beat band to make an album.
This would have been seized on by Peel’s Merseybeat-hip listeners.
(NB – the reason why very few Beatles songs are included here despite the Fabs doing three sessions in 1962 is because the tapes no longer exist. I could swing for the BBC sometimes, I really could.)
27) EVERLY BROTHERS – I’m Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail
A surprising selection showing that the older listeners who had grown up the first wave of with rock’n’roll had (a) not abandoned the show and (b) developed more “mature” musical tastes.
The subject matter of the song would not really have reflected the lives of most of the Everly’s fans, but the delivery and passion are, as always, exemplary.
26) ELVIS PRESLEY – She’s Not You
Elvis achieves an operatic performance on this song, while maintaining genuine emotion.
I still maintain his baritone / basso profundo had the potential to wow ‘em at Bayreuth
Imagine him, dressed in robes, singing the role of Wotan in Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Go on, imagine it.
Ah yes. No, you’re right. He couldn’t have sung opera. But this is better than bloody opera, anyway.
25) BOB DYLAN – You’re No Good
Side One, Track One of Bob Dylan’s first album.
This cheeky, raw take on Jesse Fuller’s song of rejection only lasts one minute and forty seconds but manages to define Dylan’s template for the next couple of years, complete with falling over the words, giggling, and an audacious harmonica solo.
24) DUANE EDDY – Dance With The Guitar Man
Duana Eddy’s “Peter Gunn” was, famously, John Peel’s second favourite record (I forget the first placed record) and he would have featured Duane Eddy’s work heavily.
This record, if you think about it, features backing vocals but no lead vocal, only Eddy’s trademark twangin’ gitar.
23) DEL SHANNON – Cry Myself To Sleep
“Runaway” reached Number One in the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.
This scraped into the Top Thirty in the UK and only reached No. 99 in the US, which was actually a slightly better performance then his previous two singles.
Seemingly, boys singing about their emotions didn’t strike much of a chord with record buyers.
Fools.
22) BEACH BOYS – 409
Although for shorthand purposes the Beach Boys are generally called a “surf band” they did songs about cars too.
This paean to the early 60s boy racers’ dream car, the Chevrolet 409, was the flip to the massive hit “Surfin’ Safari” and, in the days when B-sides were counted separately to A-sides, actually made the Hot 100 in its own right.
Not as well-known as their later hot rod song “Little Deuce Coupe” but still a great tune.
21) BOBBY “BORIS” PICKETT AND THE CRYPT-KICKERS – Monster Mash
Peel loved the occasional novelty record. Never forget that it was he who was responsible for getting Laurel and Hardy into the charts in the Seventies.
This one would have delighted as many of his listeners as it infuriated, I think.
That’s all for now. Back for the countdown of numbers 20-11 at 8pm on Saturday on Twitter (hashtag #festive50yearsago).
Welcome to the second part of the rundown of the Festive Fifty from 1962, or more accurately, my version of what might have appeared in the Festive Fifty in that year if John Peel had been (a) in the country (b) working for the BBC and (c) compiling a Festive Fifty. Enjoy!
40. LORD BLAKIE – Maria.
Lord Blakie was one of the lesser-known calypsonians to come out of Trinidad in the late fifties. Always in the shadow of the global superstar Mighty Sparrow, this was his finest hour, winning the first official “road march” with this song. He is so damn cool in this clip, too.
39. JET HARRIS – The Man With The Golden Arm.
Debut solo hit from the former Shadows bass player.
An off-the-cuff remark by Shadows guitarist Bruce Welch about Harris’ wife’s ongoing affair with Cliff Richard(!) led to Harris quitting the band in April 1962.
A mere four months later he was in the chart with this brilliant, searing arrangement of the theme from the 1955 Frank Sinatra film.
The subject matter of the film – heroin addiction – could be seen as a statement from Harris about his own addiction problems, although these involved the bottle rather than the needle.
38. GINO PARKS – Fire.
A massive blast of angry noise which was very much out of sync with the vast majority of Motown’s early 60s output.
Gino Parks can be said to have been ahead of his time – this record certainly was, by two or three years.
Unfortunately Berry Gordy’s ideas about what the “Motown sound” should be meant no place for this kind of record , and Parks had few further opportunities at the label.
37. THE EVERLY BROTHERS – I’m Not Angry.
A B-side which would undoubtedly have received more airplay on Peel’s show than its more famous A-side “Crying In The Rain”.
In 1977 Elvis Costello included a track with the same title on his debut album, and the similarities go beyond the title to include the meaning and intent of the protagonist.
By the end of both songs, the listener is left in no doubt that the guy in the song is fooling nobody, let alone himself.
36. THE VENTURES – My Bonnie Lies
Never massive in their home country in the same way their UK rivals The Shadows were in theirs, nevertheless The Ventures laid the instrumental groundwork for the surf sound that formed the second (ahem) wave of American rock’n’roll music.
This record, a hepped-up reworking of an old weepie, was only a minor hit, but its inclusion here can be traced to another, vocal version of the song that was popular in this year (in the UK at least).
35. RAY CHARLES – Half As Much
In which Ray Charles really pulls out all the showstopping stops and creates a huge, fat middle of the road record that is a million miles away from “What I’d Say”. The piano playing and voice are more restrained but still classic.
34. GENE CHANDLER – Duke Of Earl
In a later era, the likes of Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey would make careers out of doing voice exercises to music, but this was probably the first worldwide hit record to be created out of a doo-wop band’s warm-up routine.
Neither a fast doo-wop number or a slow ballad, its intermediate pacing made it stand out and it went to No. 1 in the early weeks of 1962.
33. ELVIS PRESLEY – Return To Sender
Elvis’s career was at least as much about making films by 1962 as it was about making music, and this song was one of the highlights from the bikini classic “Girls Girls Girls”.
32. BOB DYLAN – Talkin’ New York
If you can argue – and you can – that the truest work of an artist is in his early, penniless, hungry years, then how much truer is that of folk music, where honesty is the most prized, maybe the only, virtue?
This is one of the two self-compositions on Dylan’s first album, and it’s a cracker, honest and true, detailing Dylan’s experiences on arriving in the Big Apple as a 20-year-old singer and trying to get noticed.
“New York Times said it was the coldest winter in seventeen years
I didn’t feel so cold then”
31. LITTLE OTIS HAYES – I Out-Duked The Duke
Answer Records were a great tradition of the fifties and sixties, briefly being revived as a record industry stunt with “F.U.R.B”, a record which didn’t really live up to it’s illustrious predecessors of two or three generations ago.
This one is a belter. Little Otis takes the basis of the tune of “Duke Of Earl” and gleefully rips out a derogatory lyric about how he “popped the Dook’s girl” while he was out of town. Magnificent.
So, tomorrow evening it’s numbers 30-21. See you then.
I was idly musing about music the other day, while listening to Brian Matthew’s still excellent Sounds Of The Sixties on Radio Two.
If you’re not aware of the show, give it a go.
It’s not quite the parade of obvious, familiar hits you might find on a commercial station, and they cover every sixties genre from surf to psychedelia, Motown to early metal and all points inbetween.
I got to thinking about what sort of music John Peel, or his equivalent, would have played if he’d been on the radio in the early sixties and the phrase “Festive Fifty, Fifty Years Ago” popped into my head.
It seemed so obvious, I couldn’t believe nobody had ever done it before. A quick search on the Interweb confirmed that no, they hadn’t.
(not that I could see, anyway – if I am mistaken then please send me the links so I can check out how it differs from my take)
It seemed to happily coincide with me turning fifty this year.
So here is my take on what the Festive Fifty might have looked like in 1962 if John Peel – or somebody with similar eclectic tastes in music – had been on BBC Radio in 1962, and if he had invited his listeners to write in with their favourite tracks of the year.
The general consensus among music fans about 1962 seems to be that it was not a great year.
The initial surge of rock’n’roll had run out of steam a couple of years previously.
Elvis Presley had gone into the army in 1958 and although he came out in 1960 he wasn’t really making records with the same raw power.
The charts were full of crooners.
The great years of Stax and Motown lay ahead, and the British Beat Boom was only happening in one port town in the North-West of England.
Not a classic year, then?
I beg to differ. Here is part one of the evidence, m’lud.
50. SAM COOKE – Bring It On Home To Me
One of the pioneers of soul music, that is to say, singing with a lot more raw emotion than was traditional for black singers of the forties and fifties, Sam Cooke became a huge star, with hits not only in the black record charts but also in the pop charts, thus paving the way for the likes of Marvin Gaye, Bobby Womack and Al Green.
This song, about infidelity, was written by Cooke against the backdrop of a troubled marriage in which both himself and his wife Barbara had a number of extramarital affairs. Several other artists, notably Eddie Floyd and The Animals, were later to have hits with the song, which would become a standard.
In 1962 it reached No.13 in the US chart but failed to chart in the UK, although it just sneaked into the Festive Fifty.
49. LITTLE STEVIE WONDER – Wondering
The twelve-year-old prodigy Stevland Hardaway Morris was signed to Berry Gordy’s Tamla label and recorded his first, instrumental album, “The Jazz Soul Of Little Stevie Wonder” in 1962. Little Stevie didn’t sing on it and most of the tracks were written by his mentors Clarence Paul and Henry Cosby but this track is one of two to be co-written by the boy genius, and features a searing keyboard solo which was entirely Stevie’s creation.
48. GINO PARKS – For This I Thank You.
Berry Gordy’s theory for selling records was much the same as Lee “Scratch” Perry’s a few years later – churn them out in sufficient quantity and some of them will be hits. In a year when Marvin Gaye and Mary Wells, among others, were hitting the high numbers, records like this Northern Soul classic remained unjustly ignored. Gino Parks never had a hit, but he deserved one.
47. THE EVERLY BROTHERS – How Can I Meet Her
By 1962 Phil and Don Everly were expanding their style to include polished pop records like this one as well as their more traditional country-rock sound. The gorgeous vocal harmonies are still intact here, though. Lennon and McCartney were big fans, and I don’t think it’s too fanciful to see the influence of this record in some of the early Beatles songwriting efforts over the next couple of years. Lyrically, this song is the natural grandfather of “Fit But You Know It” by The Streets. (link).
46. DAPHNE ORAM – Four Aspects
Daphne Oram was a sound engineer at the BBC during and after World War II. She was largely responsible for setting up the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1957, becoming its first director.Realising her heart lay in creating her own compositions for their own sake and not merely as background or incidental music, she left the BBC, continuing to write music and inventing a system of drawing on strips of 35mm film which were read by photo-electric cells and converted into sound. She dubbed this system “Oramics” and this short piece is an early, eerie example of the possibilities of electronic music.
45. BYRON LEE AND THE DRAGONAIRES – Jump Up
The world first superstar of Jamaican music, Byron Lee and his band the Dragonaires had been around since 1956 but got their first big break when they appeared in a cameo in the first ever James Bond film “Dr No”, as the hotel band performing this song. Seen by movie-goers worldwide both at the time and to the present day, it gave the sort of exposure to Jamaican music that could not be bought for money.
44. BOB DYLAN – Fixin’ To Die
Bob Dylan’s first album contained very few originals, and this is a cover of an old Bukka White song, the lyrics of which examine the effect of the protagonist’s death on his family, which is most unsual for blues songs of the time. Dylan adjusted the melody and added a few of his own (uncredited) verses, which could either be seen as a young artist taking his first tentative steps to writing his own songs, or simply continuing the folk tradition of perpetually adding verses to existing songs.
43. THE TORNADOS – Jungle Fever
I like to think Peel would have approached playing records on his show like he did in the seventies, and play the B-side of a single as frequently as the A-side. Bet he’d have said he preferred this to the more illustrious A-side, too. Does “Telstar” get into the Festive Fifty of 1962? You’ll have to wait and soo
42.RAY CHARLES – It Makes No Difference Now
From the “Modern Sounds in Country And Western” album which saw Ray Charles make a deliberate and wildly successful attempt to cross his more usual blues and soul music with country and western. His rich tones perfectly suit country music, and the instrumentation brings a cool, jazzy feel which is being milked by artists on Radio Two to this day. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
41. THE BEATLES – Love Me Do
One of the lesser Liverpool groups of the very early 60s, the Beatles’ management were, however, close friends with the publisher of Mersey Beat, who featured the band heavily during 1961 and 1962.
There was some controversy when they unexpectedly won the paper’s readers’ poll in January 1962, when favourites Rory Storm And The Hurricanes were found to have attempted to rig the vote. The Beatle’s young manager, Brian Epstein, has done exactly the same thing, but was not found out (Rory Storm’s manager had foolishly used a distinctive green pen for his multiple votes …)
The head of steam behind The Beatles grew throughout the year, and this record finally charted for them in October. There were rumours that Epstein had bought ten thousand copies of the record with his own money, but these were strenuously denied by the band.
Tomorrow, it’s the countdown from 40 to 31. Stay cool, hep cats.
