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1959 Emile Ford & The Checkmates: What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For?

Mention Caribbean immigrants to the UK in the context of the 1950's and like as not the music usually associated with the notion is the indigenous Ska, Calypso and Mento that they introduced to British culture. West Indies born Ford however had moved to the UK well before the Empire Windrush set sail and his sole UK number one looked the past and a different culture altogether than the one he emerged from.

Originally an American tune from 1916, 'What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?' in 1959 comes dressed up in a swinging big band persona with side helpings of R&B and doo-wop. Or rather, as big a big band persona as three jobbing musicians can make, but the cocky strut of Ford's humour-filled vocal is big enough to fill any gaps and gloss over the repetition with the good natured smile of a man who knows he's being led on but who also knows he's going to get the last laugh ("Well that's all right, I'll get you alone some night. And baby you'll find, you're messing with dynamite"). There's a confidence about 'What' that blazes a comet-like trail from start to finish - there's not a lot going on here, but it's put to good use with nothing spread too thinly, and the sheer bonhomie of Ford's rolling swagger would have fired up any Christmas party reveller who had the mistletoe handy.

1959 Adam Faith: What Do You Want?

Another British teen idol given voice through rock and roll, Faith's unconventional vocal has always been an acquired taste, but twisted here into a ping pong match between Buddy Holly and Reggie Kray it's more acquired than usual. The Holly tics and gurgles are prescient due to the obvious similarities 'What Do You Want?' shares with 'It Doesn't Matter Anymore' - both glide by on a sheen of plucked strings (courtesy of a John Barry arrangement) though here Faith is trying to get the flames of a new love burning ("Say what you want and I'll give it you darling. Wish you wanted my love baby") rather than saying goodbye to a departing one. At a shade over a minute and a half long. it's the shortest number one we'll be meeting on these travels and it reduces 'What Do You Want?' to a perfectly delightful and fully formed miniature. And while Faith's attempt to bribe someone into bed with money, diamonds and pearls may seem slightly distasteful under close analysis, there simply isn't enough of it to get worked up about. Either way really.

But John Barry eh? Can only mean that The Sixties (TM) are just around the corner.....

1959 Cliff Richard & The Shadows: Travellin' Light

'Travellin' Light' marks a shift in direction for Cliff and The Shadows (name now changed from the litigation bothering 'Drifters'). There's no attempt to emulate anything approximating a rock and roll song and instead Hank Marvin picks out a simple yet mournful country blues refrain on an acoustic guitar in a style that recalls Jimmy Rogers hitching a ride on a train to the next good time - Cliff too is on his way to see the woman he loves and he's carrying nothing that will slow him down. It's a slight song though no less heartfelt for that, yet it would have exuded a whole lot more charm had producer Norrie Paramor not drenched Cliff's vocal in a from a bottom of the well echo. Whatever target was aimed for, it missed and the needless reverb breaks up the intimacy like a klaxon at a eulogy. And that's a shame.

1959 Bobby Darin: Mack The Knife

A Berlin cabaret song detailing the antics of a vicious rapist, arsonist and murderer seems unlikely fodder for a fingersnapping makeover and number one single, but that's precisely what Bobby Darin provided with 'Mack The Knife'; the man is nothing if not versatile. Sourced from Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill's 1928 work Die Dreigroschenoper, 'Die Moritat von Mackie Messer' (to give it it's full title) lays bare the nefarious deeds of Macheath , London's greatest and most notorious criminal, which sets the scene for the opera to come.

Darin's version arrives via the stepping stone of Louis Armstrong's 1956 jazz swing version, and though the lyric is watered down (via Marc Blitzstein's 1954 translation) from the 18 rating of Brecht's original to a 12 (with Armstrong adding a sly reference to Weill's wife and famed performer of the song Lotte Lenya which Darin retains), it's still hardly pop friendly with MacHeath's crimes laid out no less baldly for all to see.

'Mack The Knife' was originally scored for rubbed raw voice with a gritty edge of disdain, not celebration (track down Brecht's own guide vocal version as a good as example as any of this). Darin, on the other hand, lights it up with the sparkle of Vegas with a vocal that relishes his walk on the wild side, providing dispatches from the lowlife like a tourist passing through a slum in a Bentley. Bad taste? It could have been, but Darin's reportage is no less wide eyed and disaproving for all the glamour and his 'Mack The Knife' builds in intensity with each verse, breaking up his telling of the tale with gasps of 'Ah', 'Oooh, and even an 'Eeek' mingling with the stabs of brass that carry you along in the rush till the final warning of "Look out … old Macky is back!!" Wonderfully subversive, 'Mack The Knife' helps close the generation gap from the other side, being as it is a song for the hipper grown-ups that would equally alienate the square ones. Something of a classic.

1959 Jerry Keller: Here Comes Summer

'September' wrote Ray Bradbury, is 'a bad month: school begins. Consider August, a good month: school hasn't begun yet. July, well July's really fine: there's no chance in the world for school. June, no doubting it, June's best of all, for the school doors spring wide and September's a billion years away".* Which is in essence a prose re-write of 'Here Comes Summer' - "Here comes summer, school is out, oh happy day. Here comes summer, I'm gonna grab my girl and run away"; it's those teenage dreams so hard to beat again.

'Here Come Summer' is a young man's song with Keller not so much concerned with the season as the freedom it brings ("Well school's not so bad but the summer's better") and on that note the light breeze of the tune recreates the simple joys of being young and in love. Basically a 'School's Out' for the kids from the more respectable families rather than the troublemakers at the back of the bus, what rains on Jerry's parade are some awkward, very grown up harmony backing vocals that sound like they are glad school's out too because they've got a raft of chores for Jerry to be cracking on with. They add a stiffness to the song that's really not welcome and a point of comparison with Cliff Richard's leaner take on it shows how far more enjoyable it is without them. The fact that Keller's and Richard's vocals sound uncannily identical only adds to the contrast.

* Ray Bradbury - Something Wicked This Way Comes. Though it's slightly ironic that 'Here Comes Summer' hit number one in October, just as summer was going. This fact (and the song) would have irritated the life out of me had I been a schoolboy in 1959 in the same was as Cadbury's did in the nineties when they ran their 'Thank Crunchie It's Friday' TV adverts on Sunday night.

1959 Craig Douglas: Only Sixteen

You've got to be either brave or stupid to tackle a Sam Cooke song though I think in this instance Craig 'The Singing Milkman' Douglas is more than a bit of both. Brave for thinking his plod of a voice could follow any path trailed by Mr Cooke in the first place and stupid for choosing 'Only Sixteen' as a song to cover. I can guess why he chose it -"But I was a mere lad of sixteen, I've aged a year since then" runs the bridge and Craig was seventeen himself at the time. Well there's nice.

Such hardwired gimmicks are all very well (and Douglas flogged the teen horse angle until it was beyond dead), but few would regard the cheery swing of 'Only Sixteen' as a song from Cooke's top drawer. It's main selling point was always Sam's own grit and honey voice that could spin the finest gold out of any old straw; Douglas is blessed with no such innate talents and so the song is left to fend for itself. With a bit of imagination something could have been salvaged, but some trilling vibrato doesn't go far when up against the square and chunky British knock off blandness of the music. In Craig's hands, 'Only Sixteen' has all the power and grace of a milkfloat, and this is especially noticeable when Cooke's own version is available for comparison in the same chart, albeit languishing way back at number 23. There's definitely no accounting for taste.

1959 Cliff Richard & The Drifters: Living Doll

When Cliff first appeared on the popular music front he was touted as Britain's answer to the rock and roll rebellion of Elvis. And for good reason - 'Move It' was as authentic a rock and roll single as this country ever produced. It still thrills today. But alas, it didn't take too many miles later before Cliff Richard's vehicle veered from left of centre to the middle of the road and whatever edge was present on 'Move It' had settled into a comfy armchair by the fire and put it's feet up by the time of 'Living Doll', a song that marked the emergence of a softer style that Cliff followed ever since.

A Lionel Bart song, to my mind 'Living Doll' has always hinted of something originally intended for a full length musical that never actually got written (much like Keith West's 1967 'Excerpt From A Teenage Opera'). The narrative of the lyric could have made sense in the progressive context of an ongoing storyline (in the way that West's tale of Grocer Jack does when you know the background), but when taken in isolation there's something downright creepy about it all - much like 'Dream Lover', there's an ambiguity about the lyric that doesn't show Cliff in a good light whatever interpretation you settle on.

Is Cliff's girl so good to be true that she must be a fake, or is she some life sized automated mannequin that he keeps locked up in a trunk solely for his own gratification? Dunno, but whichever way you cut it there's little that's wholesome in "Take a look at her hair, it's real, and if you don't believe what I say just feel" or "Got a roving eye and that is why she satisfies my soul". At least Bryan Ferry had the decency to dress his antisocial dalliance with a sex doll up in a weird swirl of ennui and electronica* - the nursery rhyme tune and sing song vocal of 'Living Doll' lures you into it's oddness like a n'er do well with a bag of sweets and the promise of some non existent puppies in the bushes. And it's those same qualities that ultimately sink the song - put simply, it's too polite, dull and repetitive to truly be any fun. Rock and roll it most definitely isn't, and while Hank Marvin tries to chivvy it along with a twangy guitar break it's not enough - 'Living Doll' is Boresville, pure and simple.

Though saying that, although there is no parent musical to make sense of the weirdness, 'Living Doll' does feature in his 1959 film 'Serious Charge' in a far more upbeat and swinging style with Cliff himself singing it while lounging resplendent amongst a gaggle of adoring females in a coffee bar like some hoodlum king in his teenage pomp. It still doesn't make it a wonderful song, but it sounds better with this bit of bite whereas the 45 version could have been recorded by that Cliff's square twin brother in between Bible study. Which by itself neatly sums up the two sides of Mr Richard. And I know which side I prefer.

* Roxy Music - In Every Dream Home, A Heartache.

1959 Bobby Darin: Dream Lover

The epitome of versatility, Darin's output runs the gamut from goofy cornball to serious protest with the reluctance to be pigeonholed probably the biggest stumbling block between his genuine talent and more widespread fame. For me, 'Dream Lover' is a good example of the kind of paralysis that's engendered by this sense of inner conflict; as confident a vocalist as he is, Darin here sounds remarkably unsure about his own song. There's a rusty stilt to his delivery on the verses suggesting that Darin has written a teen ballad and rather wishes he hadn't. It's only on the terrific build up to the hook of the chorus ("Because I want...a girl...to call...my own") that he pulls away the blocks to let his vocal free wheel with any passion.

And the lack of focus is replicated in the music too - for what is essentially teen orientated pop there's a veritable factory of sound whirring away in the background with precious little of it in harmony. A flamenco-like guitar riff, some plucked strings pinging like raindrops over the top of it, a ghostly wail of female backing harmony and a more earthbound 'yeah yeah' from the men - 'Dream Lover' pulls in too many directions to be comfortable and it makes the end product flat and lifeless. And just what is this dream lover? The idealised, unobtainable female who haunted The Everly Brothers, or does Darin yearn for a presence to share his dreams like some lust fuelled Freddy Kruger? The song doesn't tell and 'Dream Lover' remains frustratingly inaccessible right to the end.

1959 Russ Conway: Roulette

Second number one of the year for Mr Conway and, truth be told, one that's not a million miles removed from the earlier 'Side Saddle', almost to the point that the reviews could be interchangeable. Except perhaps to say that I prefer 'Roulette' to the latter. It's a busier tune with all the gaiety and substance of an ice cream van jangle, albeit an ice cream van plying its trade around the dusk tinged streets of a council estate on a late October evening. In the rain.

1959 Elvis Presley: A Fool Such As I/I Need Your Love Tonight

Another much covered song from 1953, Presley's recording shows the great leap forward from country to rock and roll never was a jump that far, if there was ever much of a divide in the first place. Either way, 'A Fool Such As I' is an exercise in treading water for Presley and the band with all participants wobbling unsteadily on the ledge between innovation and entertainment. 'A Fool Such As I' is meat and potatoes stuff for sure, but rather than spice it up with some jagged guitar licks and runs, any rough edges are sanded flat with Presley himself, if not exactly taking the piss, not exactly injecting any fire either. 'I Need Your Love Tonight' on the double A side is better in terms of rockabilly swing, but it still sounds like something from one of the myriad Elvis impersonators instead of the real thing. It's all solid enough stuff but - come on - it's not what he's remembered for.

1959 Buddy Holly: It Doesn't Matter Anymore

"When a young singer dies to our shock and surprise
In a plane crash or flashy sports car
He becomes quite well known
And the kindness he's shown has made more than one post mortem star"

So wrote Paul Williams on "Goodbye, Eddie, Goodbye" from his soundtrack to The Phantom Of The Paradise. Buddy Holly, of course, had been killed two months previous by a plane crash in a snowy field, and in what will become quite a depressingly regular scenario, his record company Coral saw mileage in releasing a back catalogue single to cash in, thus giving popular music its first ever posthumous number one.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh there, after all, 'It Doesn't Matter Anymore' was only recorded the previous year and it's hardly the sound of a barrel being scraped. A Paul Anka song, Holly's take keeps the basic tune but overhauls its presentation by replacing Anka's more pedestrian chug with a ball bearing quick orchestration of pizzicato strings repeatedly pulling the tablecloth from under Holly's sharpshooter vocal that manages to both spit out bile at his departing lover while dosing them in couldn't give a toss sweetness for her benefit.

Holly's vocal tics are there to rub her face in his indifference ("Well whoops a daisy how you drove me crazy, well I guess it doesn't matter any more") though by song end his true feelings poke through when the 'it' of their love gets personal ("I'll find somebody new and baby, we'll say we're through and you won't matter any more"), making it just as well that the song is barely two minutes long - given any more rope and things could well have got nasty.

I've always liked Holly's 'It Doesn't Matter Anymore' and I've always believed it was number one material even had he not caught that small airplane in Iowa. Holly was a class act before death made him a "post mortem star", and whilst it's true he didn't write this, he'd already written enough stone cold classics to let someone else provide a song for him without diminishing his own talent. In fact, his approach to this shows his versatility and originality extended to redrafting the texts of others as well as creating new ones on his own songs, defying anyone to pigeonhole him as just another rock and roller. A fitting enough memorial on the whole.

1959 Russ Conway: Side Saddle

I can remember once asking my mother what it was really like back in the sixties and her replying 'well they didn't bloody swing around here". I can relate to that now - I wasn't alive for most of the sixties, but after effectively growing up in the eighties I always find myself cocking a wry snook at those who think it was a day glo era of big hair and pastel suits. Because it wasn't. Not round here anyway. I wasn't alive in the fifties either, but to my idealistic mind it was all expresso bars, pony tails and Wurlitzer jukeboxes. And whilst the presence in the charts of Elvis and his buddies only serves to egg me on, it's the appearance of the likes of Russ Conway that lets in the most light to give probably clearer picture of the true state of Britain in 1959.

A pianist by trade, next to the finger shredding runs of Winifred Atwell Conway is a far more relaxed player with a lighter touch, a Hank Marvin to her Steve Vai.* Lightness can be a virtue, but the self penned 'Side Saddle' and its production is an inconsequential dribble of light entertainment that comes with a lack of guts and a surfeit of repetition that fails to hold the attention beyond the first couple of bars; something as short as it is really shouldn't get so boring so quickly.

'Side Saddle' has the quaint and dusty feel of a pianola endlessly tinkling out it's scrolled rhythm to no one in some long abandoned Western ghost town. To my mind it conjures up an image dreary black and white world of lardy cakes, weak tea, half day closing, de-mob suits and BBC radio's 'Light Programme', and in that respect it forever puts me in mind of Verne, the half brother of the narrator of Colin MacInnes' 1958 novel 'Absolute Beginners'. Verne was a bitter 25 year old in 1958, too old to enjoy the lifestyle of the new breed of teenagers yet young enough to feel bitter at missing out on what his teenage half brother was experiencing. The jollity of 'Side Saddle' tries hard to make friends with its perma grin cheer, but it missed the party to such an extent that it must have felt old and in the way mere seconds after it was recorded.

* Perhaps because one of his fingers had already been shredded courtesy of an accident with a bread slicer.

1959 The Platters: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Now then, how did we get from there to here? 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes' was originally a Kern and Harbach showstopper from their 1933 operetta 'Roberta'. In the 1935 film version, it's sung by light opera diva Irene Dunne in suitably flamboyant light opera style at a dinner table, ending with her breaking down in tears (I'm going to keep Dunne's interpretation as a reference point here). So much for 'then' anyway. As for 'now', for at least the past thirty years it's difficult to tag any fifties based film, TV series or stage show that doesn't have The Platters' version of the song on the soundtrack somewhere (usually at a prom scene where the prom queen has been jilted by some jock). Nevermind that the song has been recorded by over thirty different artists from across all genres since, it's always this version that's returned to as the standard.

I'd peg the reason for its ubiquity largely on the striking lead vocal from Tony Williams. Falling into a hinterland between Broadway and street doo wop, Williams starts out with a slow fuse on "They asked me how I knew, my true love was true" before igniting and leaping out to grab you by the collar on "Oh, I of course replied" with a lunge of confidence that dares you to disagree. Yet disagree we must because, as Williams recounts, his love turned out to not be true at all ("Yet today my love has flown away") and by the close when it's all gone sour he's shedding "Tears I cannot hide" through a brave face that insists "Oh, so I smile and say, when a lovely flame dies, smoke gets in your eyes".

But these lyrics are there for everyone; Williams neither wrote nor modified them so why has his take endured where Dunne and her like haven't? Again, I'd put it down to impetration; Dunne had sophistication in spades and trilled the song as pretty as a canary, yet its central imagery of "Oh, when your heart's on fire, you must realise, smoke gets in your eyes" rings hollow in her mannered delivery that doesn't make it sound like she'd get into much of a lather about anything. To compensate, the film version has her with her head in her hands at the close to hammer home the message, but in wrapping it up in a more immediate and youth friendly doo wop package, Williams and The Platters ensure such visual aids are not required.

Williams' more earthy tone veers from an in your face assuredness to a less cocky hubris, painting no less vivid a picture of hurt and generating a general atmosphere of emptiness that mines a layer of depth you don't get from a surface reading. It's not rock and roll, but then neither is it tin pan alley. There's an eerie, ghostliness about the arrangement; Williams sounds like he's singing to himself in some empty dancehall long after everybody else has paired up and left for home but what blows it is an orchestral backlash of an ending that shatters the solitude with the subtlety of a nailbomb, puncturing the drama rather than accentuating it. Such bombast didn't work for Shirley Bassey and it doesn't work here - the song isn't ruined, but it ends it on an awkward note of defiance when Williams sounds like he'd rather slink out through the back door unnoticed. Luckily for him and the song, he's done enough by then for such indulgence to be overlooked by all but the hardest of hearts.

1959 Shirley Bassey: As I Love You

Very much a singer's singer, Shirley Bassey is showgirl to the core to the extent that she'd play to the gallery even in a bungalow. Her performance here is no exception, but perhaps it should have been - underneath it all, 'As I Love You' has the heart of a tender ballad, but brassy Bassey slaps on the glitter and glue to belt it out like she's singing for her every supper past and to come. There's nothing wrong in playing to your strengths (and this kind of tinitus inducing oomph works wonders on showstoppers like 'Hey Big Spender'), but the music here simply can't contain the onslaught; it's too slight for that and as a result, Bassey colours outside of the lines at every opportunity to make 'As I Love You' a sloppy mix and match that's about as odd, unappetising and faintly nauseating as double cream poured over a bowl of dog food. Forgettable.

1959 Elvis Presley: One Night/I Got Stung

A tortoise and the hare twofer from Elvis - the tortoise comes in the shape of 'One Night', a slow and strung out bluesy holler that follows much the same template as set by Jane Morgan previous. Unlike Jane though, Elvis makes good on the promise of the music by delivering a pressure cooker vocal of sexual frustration; the anguish in his "Now I know that life without you has been too lonely too long" suggests he doesn't plan on doing much sleeping during that one night. So far so good, but beneath it all Presley by now sounds more like he's putting on an act, a bit of showmanship that aims for one last gasp of groin based bravado before the flame of rebellion gets snuffed out for good (that sleeve shot shows it's already more than half ways there). It's not a bad song, but its merits shine that much brighter when placed next to some of the horrors to come than when compared to some of the gems that have been.

The hare duly arrives on 'I Got Stung', a busy bee tune that leaps around like a bust spring but winds up chasing it's own tail in an ever diminishing spiral. Elvis puts out his by now trademark 'uh huh huh's' on cue but here they're the sound of a singer marking time, filling in the gaps while he waits for the song to get a grip on itself and take off in a single direction he can follow. Sadly, it never does and 'I Got Stung' limps to a close with its tail between its legs in a way that makes you wonder if there ever was a song there in the first place. On a note of trivia,'I Got Stung' was co-written by David Hill who, under the name David Hess, spent most of the seventies murdering, torturing and raping his way through a series of low budget, high violence video nasties like 'Last House On The Left', 'The House On The Edge Of The Park' and 'Hitchhike'. If he'd channelled some of that aggression into this then we'd all have been quids in.

1959 Jane Morgan: The Day The Rains Came

My first exposure to 'The Day The Rains Came' was via some incidental music on 'The Young Ones' back in the early eighties. This helped fix it in my mind that Jane Morgan was some kind of comedienne peddling a comedy song, but on that score I was wide of the mark. Written by Gilbert Bécaud, 'The Day The Rains Came' is very much a mixed metaphor made aural. It opens with a bawdy brass swagger before settling into a languid pace for Morgan to sing predatorily over and such sleaze begs a lyric of seduction and desire. But alas, 'The Day The Rains Came' busies itself with equating the rustle of spring with blossoming love in a po-faced manner that would make even the most shameless Hallmark hack feel queasy. "The day that the rains came down buds were born, love was born. As the young buds will grow, so our young love will grow" - it's all too much for me I'm afraid so it comes as no surprise that I far prefer the B side to this. It's exactly the same song, but as it's sung by Morgan in its native French (and because my French only extends as far as 'bonjour') then I can at least pretend that Jane is enticing me into her den of vice with a wink and a leer.

1958 Conway Twitty: It's Only Make Believe

To be honest, it would have suited my agenda far better had this been the final song of 1959 rather than 1958 because it would have been a neat way to end the decade. So far we've seen the songs at number one move away from the traditional crooners and balladeers toward a younger sound aimed at a younger audience, and as a primer of the fifties, 'It's Only Make Believe' has a little bit of everything that we've encountered so far.

Twitty was a major country star and the influence of his genre is evident in 'It's Only Make Believe's opening strum and shuffle, but when Conway kicks in he's more Elvis than Hank. And while he doesn't have Presley's low notes, he uses his trick of building to the high ones in a heartburst of misery as he realises his love is all one way traffic. This repeats in cycles that climb the ladder to a crescendo before sliding down a snake to begin again before ending on a shout of self pity at the realisation of self delusion at which point Twitty presumably slinks off to cry himself to sleep. Throw in some doo-wop 'do do do do' backing vocals and you have a song that straddles the past and the future in a way that suggests Twitty both wants to have his cake and eat it.

The fact he manages to do just that is testament to the quality of the song and spareness of the writing/arrangement. A self penned song, if 'It's Only Make Believe' wasn't born from experience then Twitty makes a pretty good fist of convincing us that it was. Much of the emotion deriving from the non closure of the song - unlike The Everly Brothers, dreaming of his loved one isn't going to be enough; it's the real deal or nothing. And much of the song's heartache is derived from the fact that that's precisely what he's left with at the close - nothing.

There's always room in every decade for a big, bawling ballad - 'Release Me', 'Without You', 'Everything I Do (I Do It For You)' all spring to mind as turning on the emotional tap for a dewy eyed audience to bathe in. But whilst all of these can in part be accused of overwraughtness or self indulgence, at just over two minutes 'It's Only Make Believe' is prizefighter lean and as earthy as groundsoil with no flab evident to distract from what it's trying to say. Number ones are getting better with every release.

1958 Lord Rockingham's XI: Hoots Mon

One of the common criticisms of British acts of the rock and roll era was that, with a few notable exceptions notwithstanding, they were by and large pale imitations of their American counterparts (certainly as far as the commercial market went in any case). We've seen this effect already with Tommy Steele's take on 'Singing The Blues', but that's not to single him out for the bumps - for every 'Shaking All Over' or 'Move It', there were skiploads of half hearted filler from Billy Fury, Marty Wilde, Adam Faith et al that tried and tried but missed every point.

Lord Rockingham's XI was the shop front name for a bunch of session musicians, led by Harry Robinson, brought together to play as the house band on TV's 'Oh Boy!" Not an auspicious beginning and one that doesn't promise much, so it's all the more surprising to find a definite greasy vibe about 'Hoots Mon', a Church Street Five/Johnny & The Hurricanes saxophone drenched instrumental workout of gusto and energy. Basically a revved up jazz/rock re-write of the traditional 'A Hundred Pipers', Robinson teases out the central line of melody and floors it to the max in much the same way as Johnny Paris (of The Hurricanes) did with 'Red River Valley' and 'Blue Tail Fly'.

Which isn't to say that it's some carbon copy knock off - the interjection of the stereotypical Scottish colloquialisms may irritate some but it only adds to the fun. I love the way they defiantly stamp 'Hoots Mon' with a Made In Britain watermark; 'there's a moose loose aboot this hoose' - unless you're in the know then the enigma machine itself won't crack the meaning of that one. And that in turn links to my opening point - the comedic touch shows that Harry Robinson and his band weren't trying to imitate rock and roll so much as say 'pffft, is that all there is to it'?

The sense of joie de vivre about 'Hoots Mon' is palpable. The key changes at the end of each round of bars link with the handclaps and a funky organ to whip it ever faster like a top until you honestly believe it was only the space restraints of seven inch vinyl that made them break off where they did, but that they kept on playing afterwards anyway. Maybe they're still playing now, either in this world or the next, it would explain why they never got round to recording much else anyway. Which is both a shame and a great 'what if', because 'Hoots Mon' captures the good time kinetic riot of rock and roll as well as just about anything did, and a damned sight better than most.

1958 Tommy Edwards: It's All In The Game

When I was growing up in the seventies, the first 'record player' we had as a family was a hefty wood and bakelite 'Radiogram' cabinet affair made up primarily of a two foot diameter woofer on the front face. It also had a chunky turntable that let you build a wobbly stack of singles on its central spindle that would drop down onto the platter in sequence until the tonearm was virtually at right angles to its base. Happy days indeed, but even back then I thought there was something anachronistic about the likes of Suzi Quatro and Slade blasting out of something that seemed more suited to Al Bowly. I get the same feeling of mismatch from Tommy Edwards' version of 'It's All In The Game', only in reverse.

As a recording it's startling retro, almost defiantly so, but not in any kind of La Roux knowing or ironic way; Edwards sounds like he's just emerged Rip Van Winkle-like from a cave after falling asleep mid song in 1939 and then carried on where he left off, oblivious to anything going on around him. Is this a fair criticism of anything in itself? Doesn't quality always win out? Maybe. And there's no doubt that the song's quality shines through when artists like the Four Tops and Jerry Vale are in the driving seat. But Tommy's cut is creaky stuff that would have creaked no less a decade or two previous.

Compared to the va voom of 'Stupid Cupid' it's still on the starting block tying its laces carrying a sense of inertia not helped by Tommy's half hearted cabaret phrasing that makes every line sound like a question. Nothing certain in any event, and it's this general lack of conviction that makes for an uninvolving listen. Not an unpleasant one, just uninvolving. We've moved on from this and, quite frankly, it's showing its age, though I will say it's the greatest number one of all time to have been co-written by a US vice president.

1958 Connie Francis: Carolina Moon/Stupid Cupid

A double A side from Connie and, unlike her previous 'Who's Sorry Now', she keeps the cork in the venom bottle on both and instead showcases two other strings to her bow. Contemporary familiarity with 'Stupid Cupid' makes it surprising that 'Carolina Moon' was regarded as the lead song here, but it's not difficult to see the appeal of its lush, country balladry. Connie's voice is given acres of prairie space to yearn for her lover over in a spooky swoon that provided KD Lang with her entire career, whilst the underlying panorama of plucked guitar and harmonica safely roots the song to terra firma.

On the flip, 'Stupid Cupid' is a far more frothy affair where Connie seems to have borrowed Alma Cogan's laugh for her voice with a glorious hiccup on the 'stupid' that's mirrored by a single detuned twang of a guitar string. The blowsy saxophone and handclaps give it a virtual continental feel, and though Connie is picking a fight ("Hey hey set me free, stupid Cupid stop picking on me"), she's not fooling anyone - she's only too glad to be "acting like a lovesick fool". The lightness of touch in 'Stupid Cupid' belies the craftsman's hand in its construction; with not a note wasted or out of place the barely two minutes of play time wraps up the charm of the past and the thrill of the present in one neat package that personifies for me what seven inches of vinyl were made for.

1958 The Kalin Twins: When

'When' first came to my attention via Showaddywaddy's 1977 revival. If that band were good at anything, it was stripping out the superfluities on older numbers and reducing them to the power of the tune alone with no excess baggage. Sure enough in their hands 'When' becomes an almost Northern Soul-like floorshaker, but in its original form the song that The Kalin Twins were purveying is a less gutsy affair all round.

With a biscuit tin drum beat and plastic Palitoy saxophone squawk, 'When' is an overly fussy trinket that throws in a lot of eggs but never manages to create a decent omelette out of the mix. The tune follows the same route from A-Z as Showaddywaddy's take, but there's a lot less fun to be had on the journey - if the latter created a house of bricks from the raw material then The Kalin Twins abode is one made of straw just waiting for one good strong puff to blow it all over. It's still a catchy tune, but sometimes that's not enough. Like here.

On a trivia note, a pair of genuine twins wouldn't reach the UK number one spot again until The Proclaimers managed it in 2007 with 'I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)'

1958 The Everly Brothers: All I Have To Do Is Dream/Claudette

A double A side from The Everly Brothers, but it's very much a game of two halves. First off, 'Claudette was originally written by Roy Orbison while he was still plying his trade as a rocker at Sun Studios. As he wrote the song for his wife it was always going to be a tall order for anyone to tackle it and make it their own, and though the brothers are game enough with some choppy acoustic bursts that stab with a purpose, it's all a bit too hayseed for my liking. The drive of the original is lost and the brothers never sounded less comfortable on a song where their harmonies weren't allowed to shine.

The gold is on the other side - 'All I Have To Do Is Dream' is a Felice and Boudleaux Bryant tune that provided a coupling which Orbison, knowing a thing or two about dreams himself, would have appreciated. The song is wistful enough in anyone's hands, but the lazy longing for a lover who may not even care is captured perfectly by the summer's almost gone ambience of the twin harmonies that make "I need you so that I could die" sound like a throwaway remark of adolescent angst yet at the same time totally believable.

Unlike Tab Hunter's attempt to describe it, this is young love personified, a curious mix of ennui, inexperience, inertia and obsession that the older generation would frown upon and dismiss with a curt 'pull yourself together'. But by 1958 popular music wasn't aimed four square at such people anymore, and away from sex crazed rebellion (sic), rock & roll could have a tender side that was no less appreciated by the young. Ah yes, the young - the Everly's know there's no future in living for maybes ("Only trouble is, gee whiz, I'm dreaming my life away"), yet they manage to sound like they neither care nor care that they don't care and in that sense the song is an emotional dead end representing an ever looping spiral of self delusion that leads nowhere, helped no end by the not quite there dreamlike (sorry!) ambience of shimmering guitar.

This isn't the straight forward young lust of 'I wanna hold her wanna hold her tight. Get teenage kicks right through the night"* or the couldn't give a fuck self loathing of "I've got nothing to do, but hang around and get screwed up on you"** (to cite two more contemporary riffs on the same theme) but something more detached and somnambulistic, a mood that recalls T.S. Eliot's (who himself knew a thing or two about somnambulism) "One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing white light folded". More akin in fact to Orbison's own "In dreams you're mine all of the time, we're together in dreams", right back where we started in other words. In short, a timeless quality that gives it a timeless appeal that makes it entirely appropriate that the song closes on a repeated "Dream, dream, dream dream" - teenage dreams really are so hard to beat.

* The Undertones - Teenage Kicks
** Therapy? - Screamager. Chosen purely for the personal pleasure of seeing Therapy? and The Everly Brothers together in the same review.

1958 Vic Damone: On The Street Where You Live

Isn't this where we came in? 'On The Street Where You Live' is a song from Lerner and Loewe's 'My Fair Lady' and on it Damone pulls every stop marked 'restraint' and bawls out the lyrics 'Here In My Heart' stylee in an over the top bellow that goes beyond excitement at being on the street where his loved one lives and borders on the psychotic. If he gets this worked up with "the overpowering feeling that any second you may suddenly appear" then lord alone what state he gets into when he does finally spot her. I bet he's forever changing his pants at any rate. Pants - a good word to sum up the charmless bombast of this histrionic throwback to an era I thought had been concreted over. The song is by no means a bad one, but Vic's performance just makes me want to stick my fingers in my ears.

1958 Connie Francis: Who's Sorry Now

'Who's Sorry Now' had been kicking around since 1923 before Connie Francis gave it definition and made it her own. And make it her own she did - all previous versions that I've heard (Marion Harris et al) present it as a wistful jazzy ballad, but Francis turned it into a Patsy Cline-alike gloatathon - there's no question mark in that title, Connie knows who's sorry and by god he's going to pay.

There's an understated yet unmistakably country tinged arrangement to the song, though it keeps to the background seemingly too scared to challenge Connie when she's in this mood - whatever her guy has done, her steely "You had your way, now you must pay. I'm glad that you're sorry now" would make you feel sorry for Hitler if he was on the sharp end of it. It's unusual to see so much bitterness at number one yet undeniably refreshing - a good put down always strikes a prescient chord with me and 'Who's Sorry Now' makes a fine change from the usual boo hoo, spurned lover as victim tragedies that clog up the charts with their goo.

1958 Marvin Rainwater: Whole Lotta Woman

I always feel like I'm doing Marvin a disservice before I even start with this one; with a title like that, I imagine some AC/DC cum Led Zeppelin hybrid that shits electricity from arm thick cables with a volume loud enough to get the furniture moving around. Alas, it's not, but I can't blame him for not living up to my expectations; 'Whole Lotta Woman' is in fact a rockabilly tune with affinity enough to Elvis and the boys to allow it to blend in at the back fairly inconspicuously in the manner of a young looking thirty year old putting on a uniform and trying to pass himself off as a schoolboy.

But not that inconspicuously - you don't have to look too closely to see the cracks that reveal 'Whole Lotta Woman' to be the work of a chancer hanging on to the coat tails of rock and roll for grim death with a hope that the front facing facade of frantic energy and innuendo (to be fair, the "It takes a whole lotta loving just to keep my baby happy. Coz she's a whole lotta woman and she gotta have a whole lotta man" is about as mainstream risqué as it was possible to be in 1958) would be enough to disguise the Eddie & The Hot Rods to Presley's Sex Pistols scratchy, guts free, weak tea too stop starty for its own good end result. But I'm afraid it doesn't. 'Whole Lotta Woman' may have punched its weight in 1958, but in modern parlance it's the portait in the attic made flesh.

1958 Perry Como: Magic Moments

Another crooner's tune to depose 'The Story Of My Life', 'Magic Moments' (also written by Bacharach and David) for me is one song with two strong memories. On the one hand I can remember singing a rather crude set of fresh lyrics to this in the schoolyard while on the other, it's a song that I habitually confuse with 'Memories Are Made Of This'.

Thankfully, I've grown out of the former, but the latter still holds sway, largely because the two do share similarities. Both seek comfort in a rose tinted remembrance of things past, but while Martin's song served up a recipe for a good life, Como is more specific in his nostalgia, relating a series of events that give an everyman appreciation of the kind of commonplace happenings that provoke the warmest glows. And for every "I'll never forget the moment we kissed, the night of the hayride" for UK listeners to scratch their heads over, there's a "The telephone call that tied up the line, for hours and hours" bullseye from Hal David that's universal enough to drag a whistful sigh from anyone.

It's feelgood stuff, marshmallow music with no bite with the good humour underlined in crayon by a brass motif laughter track that chuckles everytime Como recounts a memory and (yet another) chirpy 'whistle while you remember' theme to give it a backbone of sorts. It could have been unspeakably smug in its insular cosiness, but there's a wry, kindly uncle smile in Como's voice that makes it hard to take offence.

Sure it's a step backwards from the hole in the wall punched by Elvis and co, but that doesn't make it any less endearing. Or enduring even - I seem to have known this song forever (even before those crude lyrics were added) and it's longetivity is born from both the quality of the writing and 'born to sing this' performance from Como that plays to his strengths instead of pretending he's something he isn't.

1958 Michael Holliday: The Story Of My Life

Written by Bacharach and David, 'The Story Of My Life' breezes along with a jaunty whistle and a spring in its step that lets you know that even when things are bad ("The sorrow when our love was breaking up, the memory of a broken heart"), they'll soon be alright again ("But later on, the joy of making up, never never more to part") with the underlying message of togetherness foreverness ("So the story of my life can start and end with you") able to force a smile out of the most granite of hearts. Holliday hailed from Liverpool, but on this recording he could have been from anywhere in the Anglo/American axis. His voice sounds never less than chipper throughout and the wink in his tone conjures up images of him surrounded by cartoon birds whistling along as they perch on his shoulders. Which makes it all the more distressing that he actually committed suicide five short years hence following a mental breakdown.

1958 Elvis Presley: Jailhouse Rock

On the one hand it's incredibly heartening to view just how open and generous the record buying public appeared to be back in the late fifties as rock and roll swept across the Atlantic to blow away the cobwebs of the past. Or as the genre's poet laureate wrote, "Hail, hail, rock and roll, deliver me from the days of old". Usually such a new wind hits walls of distrust and refusal that keep it out, and yet here we are with an Elvis song topping the charts for the second time in a matter of weeks on the back of number ones by Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly. It must have been a great time to be a teenager. Needless to say when my own time came there was no trilogy of number ones from the Sex Pistols, The Clash or The Buzzcocks. Those walls kept that particular wind firmly shut out.

That's one way of looking at it anyway, but get out the magnifying glass out for a closer look and a slightly different picture emerges. Because after all, what was really that different? Jerry Lee gave us a good time party song slap bang in the middle of the party season, Buddy gave us a tune safely steeped in familiar country and while Elvis's hit may have had sensuality to burn, he always sounded in control of his libido and the womenfolk were safe enough.

Just as The Clash eventually hit number one with the ramalama chug of 'Should I Stay Or Should I Go' rather than 'White Riot', there's little of the rebellion or in your face sexuality that could be found elsewhere in the genre. There's none of the generational gap 'fuck off' of 'Summertime Blues, the paedophilic lust of the teenage groupie in 'Sweet Little Sixteen' or the barn dance shagathon of 'Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On' ('Shakin'? Right!) - the songs so far have been safe, songs the parents could enjoy along with their kids. Until now that is - 'Jailhouse Rock' rocks (HA!) this particular boat with a violent shove, with the shove coming not least from Presley himself.

A Lieber and Stoller tune from the eponymous movie, 'Jailhouse Rock' is an 'adult' song that the adults of 1958 probably didn't appreciate all that much. From the opening yell of "The warden threw a party in the county jail" this is Elvis with the lid off. One of Presley's strengths was always the fact he could sing anything and sound believable, yet the throat peeling rasp he produces for this was rarely heard again and certainly not in any of his post army output. There's an edgy friction to his vocal that stares down any attempt to label 'Jailhouse Rock' a novelty tune about jailbirds, yet Presley knows how to take the brakes off on the call to arms of "Let's rock, everybody, let's rock" to find a swaggering sexual rhythm for his hips to follow.*

Ah yes, the sex and the rhythm; if 'rock and roll' was originally taken as an euphemism for sex then 'Jailhouse Rock' carries on the tradition admirably. Probably carries it even further than it's been before in fact; Presley's vocal is macho personified, but there's more than a hint of a homosexual subtext to what was going on down at that jail. "Number 47 said to number 3, 'You're the cutest jailbird I ever did see'" - the film itself didn't have the convicts dressing up as women concert party style (which is actually the kind of context Mike Stoller had in mind when he wrote it), but it adds another layer of depth for both discussion and to make the older generation uncomfortable (see? an adult song that's not for adults).

The song's tone is set by that ominous, two chords and double dragged drum beat opening. As an intro it's as recognisable as Chuck Berry's guitar burst on 'Johnny B Goode' or Jon Perry's nervy twitch on 'Another Girl, Another Planet' but around it Scotty Moore whips up some of his most barbed and stinging guitar lines at the breakdown while Bill Black puts a walking bassline in any gaps that Elvis leaves to fill. Add The Jordanaires on backing vocals and you have a veritable who's who of early rock and roll royalty meaning that unlike 'Great Balls Of Fire','Jailhouse Rock' is no one man band performance, no matter how much Presley tries to dominate.

Jerry Lee Lewis, Michael Bolton, Merle Haggard, Motley Crue, ZZ Top, The Cramps et al - all and sundry have had a crack at 'Jailhouse Rock' over the years (clever clogs seventies band 10CC wrote 'Rubber Bullets' as a sequel of sorts where the national guard poured cold water on the dance party by spraying the convicts with the titular bullets) yet most have missed the point of the package by either stressing the groove or the vocal while never coming close to marrying the two with the same primal urgency of this 1957 recording. There's nothing 'safe' about 'Jailhouse Rock; it's wild and it's uncompromising. It's also the last time such a pure genre recording would top the UK charts. In a few short years both Holly and Cochran would be dead, Berry would be in jail, Jerry Lee silenced by scandal, Little Richard back in the church with Elvis himself only appearing again after his balls had been shorn along with his hair by the army. But while it lasted it must have been a good time to be a teenager. A hell of a good time.

* To my mind, the dance sequence in the film that accompanies this performance compliments the song brilliantly, with the grooving prisoners and baton wielding warders visually presenting the mix of campness and borderline violence that underpins the song. The first music 'video' proper? Yes, I think so.

1958 Jerry Lee Lewis: Great Balls Of Fire

On a visit to the Louvre in Paris some years ago I was curious to see a huge crowd congregating around the Mona Lisa with each person pushing and shoving for a better view. Perhaps not surprising in itself - after all, it's probably the most famous painting in the world, but what was surprising for me was that the thing is set deep behind darkened, bullet proof glass, making a close up view impossible. Honestly, you'd literally be better off looking at a reproduction in a book.

And yet in their clamour to gawp, the two Raphael's hanging openly either side were more or less ignored in the crush. Then again, you don't go to the Louvre to look at two obscure Raphael paintings do you? It's the big boy on the block they've all come to see, just to confirm both its and their own existence by viewing it with their own eyes. I think the point I'm trying to make is that when dealing with 'Great Balls Of Fire', there's a temptation to consider it more than just another song.

Probably moreso than either 'All Shook Up' or 'That'll Be The Day', 'Great Balls Of Fire' comes pre-packed with the baggage and weight of cultural significance and expectation. It is, after all, a cornerstone Sun Studio recording by a rock and roll pioneer of no small fame, giving it a lot to live up to just by virtue of what it is. And what it is is a title that even those who don't like all this wild rock and roll stuff will be able to recognise and source even if they've never actually sat down to listen to it, in the same way they'll be able to tell you that Da Vinci painted the 'Mona Lisa' when they probably couldn't name a single other painting hanging in a single other gallery. And when we're dealing with Jerry Lee Lewis, 'wild' is invariably considered a suitable adjective

Like Presley, Jerry Lee was part of the first wave of rock and roll performers who, unlike Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard et al did not write their signature tunes ('Great Balls Of Fire' is an Otis Blackwell/Jack Hammer composition). Whether this consideration was catalyst to the mix that spurred his lifelong rivalry with Elvis I don't know, but there was always something unhinged about Jerry Lee, something more than a bit strange about the driven by God Southern boy playing the devil's music in the manner of one possessed by the devil himself. That's the accepted view anyway, but taking 'Great Balls Of Fire' as an example then you'd struggle to find all that much satanic about either song or performer.

As a song, 'Great Balls Of Fire' shrugs off its chains of expectation with a good natured chuckle and sets about it's good time business; 'Great Balls Of Fire' is a party song through and through. Nothing fancy, there's a percussive beat throughout that keeps the 4/4 time signature as surely as a white line divides a road, but Lewis makes a mockery of its straightness by playing clear over the top with a left hand boogie woogie roll and a right hand that runs across the keys at random. Like a bad actor who doesn't know what to do with his hands, Lewis sounds like he can't keep still with the excitement of it all, that he can't wait to stop playing and telling us about his girl because he wants to go off and play with her himself. At less than two minutes long it still crams in two piano solos and a bolero building breakdown with Lewis's vocal modulating all the while with the unpredictability of a teenage voice on the brink of breaking .

If you try to view 'Great Balls Of Fire' as a milestone in culture and popular music then like as not you'll come away as disappointed. It's too slight for that. Lewis himself makes the song and busts a gut to make it what it is, but there's precious little going on around him. That label credit of 'Jerry Lee Lewis And His Pumping Piano' is absolutely spot on, and in isolation he could be any New Orleans boogie woogie merchant jacked up on too much bourbon on a Saturday night. But listen to the song as a whole cold and its fresh as a daisy, over the top spontaneity ("Well kiss me baba, woo-oooooo....it feels good") leaps out at you the same way it must have leapt out at parties and dances over the 1957 Christmas holidays. Timeless, in other words, or in other other words, the mark of a classic single.

But look at me - I could have said all that in one paragraph if I'd set my mind to it. I guess I'm just as crushed by the weight of expectation as the next man so I'll close before I'm hoisted any higher by my own petard.

1957 Harry Belafonte: Mary's Boy Child

A Christmas song from 1956 that manages to sound a whole lot older and traditional than that, my biggest gripe about it all is that Belafonte's sing speak vocal is too hushed and reverential by half. It might suit the subject matter, but that doesn't necessarily make for a good single and Harry's respectful phrasing sounds borderline comical to my rather more cynical and secular ears.* "Oh a moment still worth was a glow, all the bells rang out there were tears of joy and laughter, people shouted "let everyone know, there is hope for all to find peace"; well kudos to him for trying to inject a little spirituality into what is essentially a commercial festival, but I'll take a rain check thanks.

* Boney M would run this through their disco machine to produce something far more celebratory, but then they went a spoiled the party by outstaying their welcome as the hosts looked at their watches and hinted it was time for bed.

1957 The Crickets: That'll Be The Day

I have to declare a conflict of interest up front here and say that, if it could ever be said that I have 'idols', then Buddy Holly would stand amongst their ranks; in the history of popular music, I can think of no other artist who wrote such a large quantity of what have now become cross genre classics or standards in such a short period of time. Saying that, 'That'll Be The Day' is not my favourite Holly song. Not this version anyway. And that's because after the opening jangle of twangy fender, the song falls into a rut of mid tempo stomp that maintains the same constant line through till the end.

Not that this is necessarily the fault of the song - an earlier version Holly and the band recorded for Decca in Nashville for veteran country producer Owen Bradley is a far more raucous, echo drenched affair that drips a primitive rock and roll verve and excitement from every pore (this is credited to 'The Crickets' only due to contractual issues with Decca over that earlier recording).

It's easy to see why Bradley was unimpressed; it's a step outside of some very old hat and into the future and that's precisely why it's the version I always return to. But it's not this one. Ironically, this later re-recording takes far more from country music than rock and roll, making it a surprisingly muted affair buffeted by some 'Ahhhhhhh' backing vocals that ensure it never quite catches fire. Holly's vocal hics and tics can be an acquired taste and though he colours the song with some of his trademark vocal gymnastics, they don't inject enough colour to counter the monochrome beat that may have sounded fine in old money but now seems leaden compared to the Presley that's been and the Jerry Lee to come.

Maybe I'm being a bit too hard here to overcompensate for my own personal appreciation of Holly, 'That'll Be The Day' remains a fine single, regardless of any shortcomings I highlight above. Holly may have stolen the title from John Wayne, but he gained ownership rights via a song that's gone down as one of his signature recordings, an instantly recognisable watermark of a single that Rolling Stone listed at 39 on their '500 Greatest Songs Of All Time' list. Not the I ever give much credence to anything Rolling Stone have to say, but Holly's bridging of pop, country and rock more than deserves its place. Even if I'd personally rank the earlier version higher.

1957 Paul Anka: Diana

Set to a busy, saxophone drenched layer cake of sound, 'Diana' is a catchy enough pop song that never quite rings true. Although fairly typical of its genre, at this remove it sounds more like a pastiche of the honking r&b and street doo wop it's celebrating than the real thing (to my ears it presents the sort of 'Angel Fingers' vibe that Wizzard came up with in the seventies). And I think that's chiefly down to Anka himself; there's something smug and patronising about hearing a sixteen year wailing "I'm so young and you're so old" in a voice that mistakes cockiness for confidence, especially one that contains neither grit nor grease. Instead, Anka's performance reminds me of someone reciting their twenty three times table by rote instead of mentally working out the figures as they go. He seems to believe the sheer force of his presentation and personality will be enough to knock the girl off her feet, and maybe it would have had the relentlessly ascending verses resulting in a hundred megaton pay off instead of limping to a close with an almost apologetically understated mumble of 'Diana' that sounds like a red faced schoolboy asking for condoms at the chemist. It's solid enough, but whether that's damning it with feint praise will be up to the listener.

1957 Elvis Presley: All Shook Up

John Lennon once famously said 'Before Elvis there was nothing'. I can't say I agree with that; we've just seen that there was plenty before Elvis, albeit not necessarily the sort of stuff Lennon would want to listen to. But wherever you place him in the chronology of the development of Western popular music there's no question that he presented an iconic magnetic north to which generations of musician turned their heads to the first time they picked up a guitar.

There was plenty before 'All Shook Up' too. Presley first troubled the UK charts in 1956 with 'Heartbreak Hotel' and it took nine subsequent singles before he got his first number one. 'All Shook Up' itself only reached number 24 before a re-entry took it to the top and it seems strange that with fayre like 'Heartbreak Hotel' and 'Mystery Train' on offer that the UK still preferred Pat Boone and Guy Mitchell (America itself had no such trouble in giving him number ones galore). But if this little project of mine has taught me anything, it's that there's no accounting for taste.

I know purists wave their copies of 'The Sun Sessions' aloft as the motherlode, but it's the post Sun, pre join up years at RCA that I return to most often and it's a period that 'All Shook Up' falls four square into. Written by Otis Blackwell (Presley's writing credit shouldn't be fooling anyone at this stage of the game) what I love most about 'All Shook Up' is that deep, sensuous voice spouting the confused "Well a bless my soul what's a wrong with me?" nonsense of a man so in love he doesn't know what he's saying; "I'm itching like a man on a fuzzy tree. My friends say I'm acting wild as a bug" Huh? "I'm in love, I'm all shook up". Ah!

Even in half mumble mode, Elvis sounds effortless, a star still in first gear and it's to those Mms and Uh-huh's that 90% of Elvis impersonators namecheck, even when they're wearing skin tight white jump suits. As a foundation for rock & roll it sinks twelve feet deep and the music too is understatement personified with a loose and low key boogie woogie piano rolling away in the background only broken by a frequently out of time percussive slap that sounds as confused as Elvis does. In fact, the song as a whole is littered with missed beats and stumbled meters ("Her lips are like a volcano and it's hot") that give it the feeling of a first take rehearsal instead of a finished product, but to my mind the lack of polish only adds to the mystery, one more thing for Elvis to try and make sense of. A fine debut number one - come in Mr Presley, we've been expecting you.

1957 Lonnie Donegan: Putting On The Style/Gamblin' Man

It's probably a bit too convenient to say that this recorded live double A side showcases both sides of Lonnie Donegan, the joker and the rocker. It's true that 'Putting On The Style' is an amiable piece of music hall clatter that's been a perennial family favourite ever since, but Donegan (as we will find out) was prone to travel much further left than that in the blatant party singalong stakes, and not always with pleasant results. As it stands, 'Putting On The Style' keeps on the right side of George Formby corn with added lines by Donegan that update the original's period talk of horses, courting and dramshops to hot rod sports cars and the hellfire of Satan. Decent rather than essential; 'Gamblin' Man' is where most of my interest lies.

An almost straight cover of Woody Guthrie's song, the liberties Lonnie doesn't take with the lyrics he makes up for with a jacked to the max performance that hits the ground with an innocuous canter and then just gets wild until Donegan sounds like a man possessed, hurtling through the verses and looped fire and brimstone "He's a gamblin' man man man" chorus with the bug eyed ferocity of a revivalist preacher on judgement day. The joined to his hip band steam along with him until a drum and guitar solo lets breaths be caught before they're off again twice and fast and twice and loud as before.

'Gamblin' Man' is a primal blast of energy that shreds the rest of the chart around it like (to cite a personal point of comparison) The Jesus And Marychain's 'Upside Down' did to Wham!, Billy Ocean, and Duran Duran in the November 1984 top ten. Except of course 'Upside Down' didn't get to number one. Or even chart at all. Which makes Lonnie's achievement even more remarkable - were people more open minded in 1957 I wonder, or was this bought on the strength of 'Putting On The Style' while its evil twin never saw the light of day? Whatever, 'Putting On The Style/Gamblin' Man' was the last UK single to be issued solely on 78rpm. I'd like to think that Lonnie's tune played no small part in the realisation that the old guard had had its day.