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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.