Monthly Archives: December 2012

FESTIVE FIFTY YEARS AGO – 1962 Part Four
30
Dec

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 …

FESTIVE FIFTY YEARS AGO 1962 – Part Three
29
Dec

FESTIVE FIFTY YEARS AGO 1962 – PART THREE

December 29th 2012

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).

Stay cool, hep cats.

FESTIVE FIFTY YEARS AGO 1962 – PART TWO
27
Dec

December 27th, 2012

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.

FESTIVE FIFTY YEARS AGO 1962– PART ONE (50-41)
26
Dec

December 26th, 2012

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.

The First Festive Fifty Of Them All
23
Dec

In 1976, in those odd in-between days between Christmas and New Year when you’re not quite sure if the country is on holiday or at work, fourteen-year-old me listened avidly to John Peel broadcasting his Festive Fifty songs of the year on BBC Radio One.

Unlike subsequent years, this was an all-time listing, summed up here in twelve minutes.

I’m going to make a cup of tea while you watch and marvel at it.

Good, innit?

Still stands up to this day as a superb list, combining the obvious …

… with the idiosyncratic

… and the occasional complete curve ball

There’s even a couple of Genesis tracks. But we shall move swiftly past THOSE.

Oh, and this Prog Classic by Yes sneaked in at number 50,making it the first Festive Fifty record to be broadcast. Bet Peel LOVED that.

There was no chart the following year, but it resumed in 1978 and continued in its more familiar role as a chart of songs that came out in the current year, until the DJ’s untimely death in 2004.

Strictly speaking, of course, it wasn’t Peel’s Festive Fifty at all – it was, as he frequently stressed, his listeners’ Festive Fifty.

Quite a few fans have carried on the tradition to this day, selecting or voting for tracks they think would have made the chart, had Peel still been with us. Again, these are all well worth checking out.

Special mention to Dandelion Radio, an Internet radio station which plays Peelmusic. They do a Festive Fifty every year, voted for by listeners, and you can hear it every day from Xmas Day until the end of January. They’re fully PRS licensed too, btw, which I think Peel would have liked.