It has been awhile since I posted some of this stuff, but the musical timeline has progressed to the February 15, 1964. The British Invasion is really beginning to kick in. The Beatles have already released I Want To Hold You Hand which sits at #1, She Loves You #3, Please, Please Me #45, I Saw Her Standing There #54, & now we have My Bonnie, their 5th single in just 5 weeks of charting in the US.
But the 2nd English artist in the form of Dusty Springfield has charted with her 1st single,I Only Want To Be With You which is at #27 & climbing. And, this week we get the 3rd of the big names charting with their 1st single.
The flood gates have opened. These songs all charted on the same week. Not too bad.
Glad All Over – The Dave Clark Five
The debut single for these guys was written by Dave & lead singer Mike Smith. It hits #6 on the Pop Chart & has been installed in The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.
The band was from London & included group members Dave Clark on drums, Mike Smith lead vocals & keyboards, Lenny Davidson guitar, Denny Payton sax & Rick Huxley on bass.
The engineer Adrian Kerridge developed a thumping drum sound for this track, which became known as the Tottenham sound. Tottenham is an area in North London, where Dave Clark came from. Dave said: "I knew that we needed a song with the thumps in. We had been playing dance halls and we were getting a great audience response to the stomping things we were doing."
Mike Smith came across a song called "Glad All Over" by Carl Perkins and wrote a new song with the same title. Smith recalled, "We had lost out on 'Do You Love Me' to Brian Poole and so Dave thought we should do an original. He asked me to come up with something and I looked through my record collection for a suitable title."
The song knocked The Beatles "I Want To Hold Your Hand" out of the top spot on the UK Charts.
After The Beatles drew record ratings on the Ed Sullivan Show, the host was looking for the next British Invasion stars and found them in The Dave Clark Five. The band appeared on the show March 8, 1964, where they performed this song. This gave the band an audience in America and propelled the song up the charts; it reached its peak position of #6 on April 25.
The Dave Clark Five were a favorite of Sullivan, who had them back on the show 11 more times (plus three re-airs and one show that featured film clips of the band). Getting them on the show the first time proved a challenge, however. The show wasn't broadcast in England, so Dave had never heard of it and turned down the offer. When Ed's producer called back offering a substantial payment, he convinced his bandmates to make the trip.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EipdAjhImrcHere is perhaps the most out of the box #1 hit of the year.
Hello Dolly – Louis Armstrong
This stays around for 19 weeks & it will spend a week at the top of the charts making it the 17th biggest hit of the year. It also gets 9 weeks at #1 on the AC Chart. The song is in the Grammy Hall Of Fame & it won Grammy’s for Song Of The Year & Pop Male Vocalist of the year. Jerry Herman wrote the song.
He had not hit the Top 40 since 1956 & will not do so again until 1988…17 years after he passed away!
This is the title song from the Tony Award-winning 1964 musical which featured Carol Channing in the lead role. Although the contemporary score was composed in its entirety by Jerry Herman, the play can be traced in one form or another as far back as 1835, in outline at least. In spite of the immediate success of the stage production, the song was released as a single only reluctantly. In its May 23, 1964 edition, the English music paper Melody Maker carried an article "HELLO DOLLY! The hit no one wanted," which included an interview with Louis Armstrong. Herein it was revealed that although the song had reached #1 in the US charts selling more than a million copies, no one wanted to record it. In retrospect, Satchmo was an obvious choice.
This song eventually knocks The Beatles out of the top spot where they had resided for 14 weeks with 3 different songs. At 62 Louis became the oldest artist to top the charts
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmfeKUNDDYsFun, Fun, Fun – The Beach Boys
Brian Wilson & Mike Love wrote this one & it goes to #5 while staying around for 11 weeks.
The song was written by Brian with some of the lyrics by lead singer Mike Love, as he was much more attuned to teen culture than his cousin Brian. Mike Love said "I suggested that we write a song about a girl who borrows her dad's car and goes cruising, rather than to the library, 'like she told her old man, now.' So I came up with the concept and the lyrics, and Brian went in and recorded the track. And I even told him, it's got to start like a Chuck Berry song with a guitar lead intro, which Carl Wilson supplied. And so that's how that came to pass."
Until some legal wrangling sorted out the songwriting credits in the '90s, this song was solely credited to Brian Wilson. As Love tells it, the reason he wasn't credited on this and some other Beach Boys songs he helped write was because Murry Wilson (father of band members Brian, Carl and Dennis), administrated the publishing rights and left him off the credits.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS5ttqc8iDw67) My Bonnie – The Beatles with Tony Sheridan
Another week is upon us & another new single from The Beatles lands. The song goes to #26 while staying around for just 6 weeks.
This song was originally recorded in Hamburg, Germany in 1961.The band was essentially the backing musicians for vocalist Tony Sheridan but after they hit it big the song was credited to them. The recording since it was made so early included drummer Pete Best & not Ringo. George plays lead guitar on the recording, but Tony handles the solo, which was later spliced in from a different take.
The Beatles had performed with Tony at the Top Ten club in Hamburg. They came to the attention of German bandleader Bert Kaempfert, who suggested that they record some songs together.
“We did a recording with Tony Sheridan, My Bonnie, for Bert Kaempfert, a band leader and producer. It was actually 'Tony Sheridan und die Beat Brothers'. They didn't like our name and said, 'Change to The Beat Brothers; this is more understandable for the German audience.' We went along with it – it was a record.”
Paul McCartney
The Beatles came to the attention of Brian Epstein when 18-year-old Raymond Jones came into his record store and asked for a copy of My Bonnie. He told Brian about The Beatles and how they played at The Cavern Club, which was near the store. “Brian heard that we were playing 200 yards away. So he came to the Cavern and the news got to us: 'Brian Epstein is in the audience – he might be a manager or a promoter. He is a grown-up, anyway.' It was Us and Grown-ups then.”
Paul McCartney
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh9YJO5k4GY
Loved Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh, I'm at Camp …….
Loved Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh, I'm at Camp …….
