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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A lot of my recent comments have been concerned about how established stars tried to adapt to the changing of the guard from silents to the talkies once Elvis started wiggling his hips and nailed shut the door to tin pan alley. That some were less successful than others has been ably demonstrated, but on this Johnny Ray does better than most, not least because he avoids tackling the sea change head on by becoming your dad down the local disco and instead delivers a part homage, part pastiche take on the Bo Diddley sound.
There's precedent for that too - in May of that year, Buddy Holly cut a white bread version of 'Bo Diddley' that although faithful in structure, missed out on the voodoo of the original. Ray manages to go one better by adopting the style in essence but not losing sight of his own audience. It's all there on 'Yes, Tonight Josephine' - the shave and a haircut shuffle, the happy clappy female backing singers spouting a Greek chorus of nonsense ("Yip yip way bop de boom ditty boom ditty") and a lyric that exudes a lusty intent ("I will squeeze and hold you tight. Pack each kiss with dynamite"). It's 'Hey Bo Diddley' or 'Mona' in all but name and whilst Ray chugs through it with a purpose and swagger that befits Diddley himself, he deviates from Bo's template by not sourcing his bragging rights in rampant self belief and mythologising (one of Bo's trademarks), but by delivering a straightforward declaration of love that, thankfully, doesn't rely on any further plays on that awful title to get by. And by not trying to force on glass slippers that clearly don't fit, Ray makes 'Yes, Tonight Josephine' as accessibly joyous 'now' as it was 'then'.
The only UK number one for Andy Williams yet it's via a song that but rarely turns up on any 'Greatest Hits' or 'Best Of' sets. Why? Well I'd suggest two reasons. Firstly, 'Butterfly' hails from early in Williams's career, a time pre easy ballads and chunky cardigans where the emerging rock and roll stars were seen as competition. Or at least someone saw it that way - Williams himself sounds far less at ease here than even Guy Mitchell did on his previous foray into the genre and his voice struggles to find purchase amongst the choppy handclap rhythms; every time he tries to settle into his comfort zone the song speeds off from underneath, leaving him chasing shadows in a medium he's singularly ill suited to be dabbling in.
Secondly though, I think the song's content itself borders on the questionable; Andy is in love with a flighty woman who won't stay faithful ("You tell me you love me, you say you’ll be true, then you fly around with somebody new"). It's the old story - can't live with her, can't live without her ("I’ve made up my mind to tell you goodbye, but I’m no good without you, you butterfly") so to put an end to her galavanting he decides "I love you so much I know what I’ll do, I’m clipping your wings, your flying is through". Hmmmm. Whether this is metaphorical or whether he actually plans on keeping her chained up barefoot in the kitchen with the occasional pot in the gob to keep her in line isn't clear, but it's tone sits ill with the easy going, romantic persona that Williams was to dine off from the sixties on. With all this in mind then, to be honest, the whole song must be counted as a mistake, a misfire that does nobody any credit. Best leave it lie quietly in its grave.
This is the last time we're going to meet Guy Mitchell on this particular journey, and even though I've been less than kind to him so far in, I'm going to miss him. True, some of his offerings to date would be best viewed disappearing round a U bend, but there was always something dogged about Mitchell, something of the derring do in the way he shamelessly bounces from song to style like a steel pinball looking for a genre he could call his own. By 1957, the sands of opportunity were running low for a thirty year old, pre 'pop' pop star and in listening to 'Rock A Billy' I hear an act of desperation.
'Rock A Billy' is a fun but neutered party song that, in an attempt to snare as wide an audience as possible, spreads its hybrid pop/rock & roll assault too thinly. That he almost pulls it off is again down to that tenacity I so admire; more hokey ("Wiggle like a trout" indeed) than any genuine attempt to re-cast himself as a rocker, Mitchell's gritted teeth vocal knows its out of its depth delivering faux hip jive like "Since rock-a-billy swang the do-si-do, and the gee-tar man chased the old banjo. Leave the hoe for the crow, holler Go, man, go", and repeating 'rock, rock, rock' over and over again begs the question as to who he's actually trying to convince?
Because judging by the distance he puts between himself and any pretence of understanding what he's on about, Mitchell may as well have been singing phonetic Greek, though I'm sure the alcoholic to come in him would have appreciated the "Give me mountain juice, turn me loose, leave me wave my arms about" shout. I've been there too Guy, and judging by that cover pic you're not too far off yourself. And for making me smile in the middle of a bad week, I'm going to cut you some slack and mark this as a 'break even' kind of number one, even if it is too square for the hip kids but too rowdy for the oldies.
Before rock & roll took hold, the UK held sway to an unprecedented rise in popularity of skiffle, a less polished offshoot of trad jazz that could be (and frequently was) played on 'found' instruments. In terms of it's 'anyone can do it' attitude, skiffle had a lot in common with seventies punk. In fact, it went one further - punk stressed you didn't need to be Eric Clapton to pick up a guitar but skiffle pointed out that you didn't even need a guitar in the first place. Just stick a broom in a tea chest and you were away.
In keeping with its trad jazz origins, 'Cumberland Gap' is a re-working of an Appalachian folk tune from the American civil war. With no 'author' or set lyrics, it's a song that's grown and mutated over the years as many folk ballads are wont to do (check out that 'New words and new music' credit on the label). Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger had both already recorded their own versions and the Viper Skiffle Group had taken the song to number 10 the previous month. And 'same' is an apt description of their static version, a die straight run through that's respectful of its source to the point of ennui. By comparison, Lonnie adds to the mix by greasing the music with vigour and re-drafting some of the lines so they're sifted through a country via a music hall comedy filter ("I got a girl six feet tall, sleeps in the kitchen with her feet in the hall") that's as British as roast beef on Sunday*.
At under two minutes long, there's a rough and unruly wildness to Donegan's performance, a rush to make a song that says very little for itself say as much as possible to its audience, if not in words then in its inherent kinetic energy; Donegan and his band start off at a lick then spur on ever and ever faster until the cart threatens to derail. Even by changing the core lyrics to drop a syllable (Donegan shortens Guthrie's 'seventeen miles to Cumberland Gap' and the Vipers' 'nineteen' to the more onomatopoeically pleasing and quicker to say 'fifteen'), he still overruns the bars with his breathless gallop, straying into keys the band couldn't possibly follow and in so doing creates something unlike anything seen at number one so far. Frankly, it makes 'Rock Around The Clock' sound pensionable.
As a craze, skiffle wasn't to last. It would soon lie buried under the coming tsunami of Buddy's, Chuck's and Eddie's and abandoned by the home-grown stars who sought to emulate them. Many of the turncoats faded into obscurity, but a significant number of performers like Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood, Richie Blackmore, Roger Daltrey and John Lennon used skiffle as a springboard to forge a uniquely British take on r&b/rock&roll that transcended mere copycat status and beat those Americans hands down at their own game. For a while anyway, but that's a story that will unfold in the next decade. As far as 1957 goes, Lonnie Donegan drew from a past found on both sides of the Atlantic to unleash a howl of ferocity that for a little while sounded like the future come early. Fine stuff.
* For years I thought his "Cumberland gap ain't nowhere, fifteen miles from Middlesbrough" was a sly re-working to give the song a British base that pre-dated Billy Bragg's similarly (and more obvious) Anglo make-over of the 'Route 66' standard as 'A13, Trunk Road To The Sea'. But in writing this piece I have discovered that the actual Cumberland Gap is partly located in Middlesboro, Kentucky. Which makes Donegan's song either incredibly lucky or a lot cleverer than I gave it credit for. It only adds to the charm.
We've come a fair way since Al Martino started this particular ball rolling through the good and the not so good, and all the while I've dropped the occasional comment about feeling like a bewildered stranger in a strange land looking for the yellow brick road the leads to the land of number one singles as I understand them to be. In other words, singles that sound like they were being bought by 'the kids' rather than their parents. And to that end, it's sobering that up until 1957, the only mention of 'Young' that we've come across is in the context of Jimmy, which isn't exactly what I ever had in mind.
Written by Ric Cartey and Carole Joyner, 'Young Love' is the first instance of a song that specifically targets a younger generation. To date, all the love in the songs has been of the sophisticated grown up variety, fully formed and stiff with adult confidence. Cartey and Joyner's song captures that first love/first kiss moment where falling in love for the first time means, by definition, you haven't yet appreciated the hellish fallout when it all goes bad. Rife with a curious mix uncertainty and wide eyed wonder at an experience that's so good it has to be forever ("They say for every boy and girl, there's just one love in this whole world. And I know I've found mine") 'Young Love' is a song that 'grown ups' can only listen to in wistful remembrance or with a bitter and ironic 'HAH'! Which is fine, because it's not aimed at 'them', and so again, by definition, 'they' shouldn't be the ones singing it.
At 26, Hunter wasn't really qualified to be commenting on young love, being almost old enough to be the father of the person whose viewpoint he's meant to be giving voice to. Bad enough by itself, but the clincher in the wincing stakes is his chalk dry voice that sounds 26 going on 56. The song itself is an amiable lope with an underlying infectious 'tickety tick' percussion, but there's an arid, emotionless tinge to his vocal that ultimately simply crumbles into dust on the final "Ever in my heart" and "Love for you or for me" lines on each verse. If you take Donny Osmond's later version as comparison (but not a benchmark, for that look to Sonny James), then at least Donny's squeal has an adolescent 'you don't understand, it's not fair' edge to it whilst Hunter sounds paternally mocking and not a little bit patronising. That's not to detract from the song which remains a good one; any shortcomings here can be laid at Hunter's feet. He conveys the sentiment but not the emotion, but at least he puts me halfways onto the road I'm dying to follow.
The first UK number one for 'Mr Moonlight' and a long way from his best, 'The Garden Of Eden' runs on a wonky rail where an acoustic guitar riff duels ferociously with a big band swing vibe. Both try hard to gain the upper hand but only end up creating an ungainly tussle somewhere in the middle. Isolated from the vocal it sounds a jerry built mess, but Vaughan tries to bring order by blasting over the top with the demeanour of a random pensioner sitting alongside you on the bus and shouting directly into your ear about how they are never on time these days. It steadies the ship, but in a manner that's like 'fixing' a crunching gear box by pouring in sawdust - in other words, a not very satisfactory one.
And not least because it brings to the fore a set of lyrics that would have done better had they sat quietly in the background. "When you're yearning for loving, and she touches your hand. And your heart starts a-pounding, and you're feeling so grand" - all very touching, but for some reason this dame is 'forbidden' and Frankie ends with the repeated questioning angst of "Can you leave her there?" Dunno. But the song doesn't make me want to care either. Sorry Frankie. Again.
What the Dickens??? This is the second time that a song has replaced itself at number one - didn't they have enough songs to go 'round back then? Ah, but unlike the tracing paper copies of 'Cherry Pink (And Apple Blossom White)', there's enough of a difference between the two versions of 'Singing The Blues' on offer here to suggest that the buyers weren't totally doolally. Though maybe I should qualify that by saying that there was a similarity in that both singers were trying to adapt to changing styles by cribbing off somebody else; Mitchell had his eyes on a Johnnie Ray cry-a-thon while Tommy Steele's role model sights were on no less than Elvis Presley (those sleeve pictures almost review the songs by themselves).
And how - Steele's version is more of a chunky Sun Studio's strum than Mitchell's in your face take with Tommy uh-huhing the lyrics until he's in danger of swallowing his tongue. Without Presley's bass depth to give it resonance though, his vocal sounds slightly weedy, a talented impersonator and nothing more. Which is fitting because that's what 90% of British rock and roll was; an approximation of the rhythms from across the Atlantic fed through an attitude raised on milky tea and Lyons cakes instead of grits and gumbo.
Had I been alive and buying records in 1957, then I'm pretty sure I'd have preferred the rush of Steele's version hands down. It's still perfectly listenable, but the intervening years have sprayed it with the sepia tint of a museum piece, making it more something to be appreciated for what it is rather than truly enjoyed (because of what it isn't). But for all that, what I do still find fascinating is the knock on wood percussion that punctuates the track like a hammer on nails some six months before Presley himself used the same device on 'All Shook Up. Maybe the influences weren't all one way traffic after all?
Mitchell's number ones to date have been the rum sound of a man struggling to find a niche for his talents and a decent song to demonstrate them. On 'Singing The Blues' he was handed both gift wrapped. The song is simple enough, being pretty much one line of melody on auto repeat with some jaunty whistling (again) to gee it along. Mitchell gets stuck into it like a starving man at a feast and it's a smart coincidence that this followed 'Just Walking In The Rain' to the top because his performance apes Ray's hics and tics to a tee ("like suh-hinging the blues", "like cuh-huhrying all night" and with no small success. Yes, it's more method actor that anything born from a genuine desire to sing the blues, but it's also more convincing (and enjoyable) than an end of the pier impersonator. Or either of his other number ones - it's a performance where Mitchell redeems himself after much rottenness and for once I can forgive the smug look on his mug.
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.
