It was here, at Holy Trinity C of E School, in a tight-knit neighbourhood of terraced houses just off Moston Lane that two of the original Four Tops came to open the parish Christmas fair.  The presence of  Abdul Fakir and Renaldo Benson - known to all as 'Duke' and 'Obie'. had the desired effect, attracting a larger-than-usual turnout for the fair which raised £1,100 for church funds  - a hugely impressive sum in an era of high unemployment and economic restraint. Inevitably there was a long and winding queue of fans and autograph seekers eager to meet two of the legendary American soul group, among the main players of the 1960s 'Motown Sound' -  their classic hits including  Reach Out I'll Be There, Standing In The Shadows of Love and Walk Away Renee.

What a scoop for the church - and for us!  The vicar, Father Nicholas was one of our regular contacts and had invited me along with Reporter photographer Dave Dent to capture a unique occasion for the church, school and the local community.  Duke and Obie were happy to chat to me and to pose for a photo with Father Nicholas and two girls from the local Brownie pack. 

The story and picture made the front page of our local edition the following week - and after all these years still has pride of place in my scrapbook.

The following is an extract from my original report from October 1980 - including the thoughts of the two special guests:

To cheers from customers and stallholders, Duke Fakir and Obie Benson were introduced by Father Nicholas as they entered Holy Trinity Primary School hall. They called at each stall chatting with the stallholders before signing photographs...

A lengthy queue of youngsters and adults waited patiently to meet the singers. Some carried instamatic cameras to photograph friends or relatives with the Tops.

Visits to schools and churches are part of a regular routine for the group in the United States. Duke told the Reporter: "At home in Detroit we make many appearances like this. In England I think many people are afraid to ask us because they don't think we will come."

Obie added: "When we were youngsters we often dreamed of meeting our favourite pop stars. After we became famous we decided we should make these kind of public appearances to keep in touch with the people."

Pictured below: Obie Benson and Duke Fakir of The Four Tops are offered crisps by two members of Holy Trinity Brownies, Janine Pope and Amanda Bartholomew, both aged eight. Looking on is Father Nicholas.  Photo by Dave Dent, East Manchester Reporter, 25/10/1980

THE FOUR TOPS

23/07/2024: Last surviving member dies aged 88: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4ng8015n2wo

Abdul 'Duke' Fakir: December 26, 1935 – July 22, 2024

Levi Stubbs:  June 6, 1936 – October 17, 2008

Renaldo 'Obie' Benson: June 14, 1936 – July 1, 2005

Lawrence Payton:  March 2, 1938 – June 20, 1997

Biggest hits include:   

Reach Out I'll Be There, 1966, highest chart position no.1

Standing In The Shadows of Love, 1967, highest chart position no.6

Bernadette, 1967, highest chart position no.8

Walk Away Renee, 1967, highest chart position no. 3

If I Were A Carpenter, 1968, highest chart position no.7

It's All In The Game, 1970, highest chart position no.5

Simple Game, 1971, highest chart position no.3

When She Was My Girl, 1981, highest chart position no.3

Loco In Acapulco, 1988, highest chart position no.7

© Mike Wallbank, The Show That Time Forgot

Tameside Radio

July 2024

Songwriter Mick Coleman from Gee Cross will be on stage with his brother Tim and the Vernon Park School choir singing the 1978 chart-topper Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs written by Mick as a tribute to the artist L.S. Lowry. 

Mick and Tim Coleman - appearing with Vernon Park school choir

The Stockport Music Story concert at the Plaza on Thursday 14 September will be a celebration of the town's musical heritage from the 1960s to the present day

The present day St Winifred's school choir from Heaton Mersey will step back in time to salute the famous class of 1980 who had the Christmas No.1 There's No-One Quite Like Grandma.

Two years earlier the choir also sang on the original Matchstalk Men  single by Brian and Michael accompanied by Tintwistle Brass Band. With a very limited budget it was recorded at Pluto Studios, Stockport - a cheaper alternative to the much more famous Strawberry Studios in the same building. Pluto could be hired for £16 an hour - compared with £25 per hour at Strawberry

Clint Boon, Inspiral Carpets keyboard player and Manchester music legend also features in the concert's eclectic line-up along with Mossley based Kyla Brox, internationally acclaimed blues and soul singer - the daughter of Ashton-born veteran blues man Victor Brox who died earlier this year. Kyla will welcome on stage her mum Annette Reis, Stockport-born author, poet and jazz singer.

John Barratt who organises the popular Stockport Music Map walking tours will host the concert featuring classic songs by 10cc, Blossoms, Joy Division, The Beatles, The Hollies, Neil Sedaka and many more. It also promises a 'never to be repeated' collaboration as Joe Beard and Chris Millward from Stockport College art school folk band The Purple Gang team up with the Take Note Community Choir from Marple to perform their 1967 cult single Granny Takes A Trip.

Two songs about the town itself are included in the set list - .Great Moor Junior School will sing Frank Sidebottom's classic Stockport Is Really Fantastic. The evening will end on a high with Clint Boon and  Fuzzy Sun performing  Frankie Vaughan's 1983 homage Stockport

Veteran rock'n' roller Pete Maclaine - the original lead singer of '60s Manchester band The Dakotas (pre-Billy J. Kramer) - will be performing a set with current Stockport band The Tall Faces, including his 1963 Pete Maclaine and The Clan single Yes I Do and Stay, The Hollies' debut hit.

Pete was a good friend of The Hollies' Graham Nash - they had worked together at The Toggery boutique on Princes Street, Stockport, the 'go-to' hip and trendy clothing store for the region's teens and '20s including many of the local bands. Its iconic status would see five up-and-coming musicians naming their 'freakbeat'* group The Toggery Five. (* 'freakbeat' = R&B, beat and psychedelia).

The concert will pay tribute to The Toggery Five and also Wimple Witch ~ the resident band at The Sinking Ship, a nightclub in the town's historic Underbank, where they played support to The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Another Hollies' connection - Eric Haydock, the group's original bass guitarist hailed from Stockport and later opened a record shop there. In the late '90s he had a shop in Grosvenor Street, Stalybridge, specialising in guitars, strings and accessories

The Stockport Music Story concert is supported by Arts Council England Lottery Fund and presented in collaboration with Stockport Town of Culture, British Drum Co, Seven Miles Out Records and Stockport Music Map

For tickets contact the box office 0161 477 7779 or online at Stockport Plaza

----------------------------------------

The excellent Manchester Beat website has a wealth of information on many of the local bands active during the '60s including:

Pete Maclaine and The Clan

https://www.manchesterbeat.com/groups1/pete-maclaine-and-the-clan-dakotas?highlight=WyJwZXRlIiwibWFjbGFpbmUiXQ==

The Hollies

https://www.manchesterbeat.com/groups1/hollies?highlight=WyJlcmljIiwiaGF5ZG9jayJd

The Purple Gang

https://www.manchesterbeat.com/groups1/purple-gang?highlight=WyJwdXJwbGUiLCJnYW5nIl0=

The Toggery Five

https://www.manchesterbeat.com/groups1/toggery-five?highlight=WyJ0b2dnZXJ5NSJd

Wimple Winch 

https://www.manchesterbeat.com/groups1/wimple-winch?highlight=WyJ3aW1wbGV3aW5jaCJd

Fast forward to 2023, Mick has finally published some of the 'secret stash' of poems and a children's story which he had hidden away for decades and almost forgotten...

Mick originally sang Matchstalk Men with long time friend Brian Burke. They had performed locally as the music and comedy duo Burke and Jerk but changed to Brian and Michael. Another friend Kevin Parrott immediately saw the song's potential, inviting Tintwistle Brass Band and St Winifred's School choir from Heaton Mersey to join them on the record which he produced at Pluto Studios in Stockport in 1977. It was several months later in the spring of 1978 that the single finally took off - the rest is history.....

You can read more about Brian and Michael... and Kevin on our 1978 nostalgia page in the Tameside Reporter:

Nostalgia page_25-05-23

Mick recently came to our studios at Tameside Radio to talk about the collection of poems and the children's story book he has recently published  - read my review in the Tameside Reporter and Glossop Chronicle here:

Mick Coleman unlocks the past 25-05-23

You can also hear me in conversation with Mick here (first broadcast on Tameside Radio ~ The Show That Time Forgot, Sunday 28-05-2023)

The book of poems 'Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs' is available from Bedford Falls Publications (£12.99):

https://www.all-things-considered.org/product-page/matchstalk-men-and-matchstalk-cats-and-dogs

Little Harry The Hedgehog by Michael Coleman is available online from Amazon (£9.99).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?=michael+coleman+little+harry+the+hedgehog&crid=IFJ7I3A9HCPQ&sprefix=michael+coleman+little+harry+the+hedgehog%2Caps%2C162&ref=nb_sb_noss

An internationally renowned blues singer and musician, Victor had a lifelong connection with the Tameside area.

Born in Ashton-under-Lyne in 1941 and brought up in Droylsden he formed his own band the Victor Brox Blues Train while he was still at school.. Later he sang with the highly regarded Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation who released a string of successful LPs and toured America.

Victor continued performing until just a few weeks before he died on February 20 2023.  Throughout his long career, he always felt equally at home appearing in front of a large crowd at a blues festival as when he played in local pubs for a handful of friends and followers.

Bernard Silk, an old friend from Droylsden has written a heartfelt tribute for the Tameside Reporter which you can read here:

Tribute to Victor Brox

On The Show That Time Forgot, we paid homage to Victor's very distinctive vocal talents with two completely contrasting songs 

First, from 1967, Trouble No More, a typical blues with Aynsley Dunbar's band:

Secondly, from 1970...

Victor sang the part of Caiphas the High Priest on the original studio-recorded double album of the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar.The writers Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber gathered together an ensemble of singers including Deep Purple's Ian Gillan  (Jesus), Yvonne Elliman (Mary Magdalene), Murray Head (Judas Iscariot) and Mike D'Abo, previously with Manfred Mann (King Herod).

Here's the song I played on the show - Hosanna, which starts with a chorus then it's over to Victor as the first solo voice, followed by Ian Gillan:

Shout To The Top (The Style Council) 
(1984) ... keyboard player Mick Talbot providing one of the brightest, punchiest, best intros ever

A Hazy Shade Of Winter (Simon & Garfunkel)
(1966 US, 1991 UK) ... originally a stand-alone single in the US, it eventually reached a wider audience on their 1968 album, Bookends, but only became a UK hit as a reissue in the early '90s,  by which time The Bangles version had given the song a much higher profile (1988, # 11) [W]

Lookin' Through The Windows (The Jackson 5) 
...  from the first of today's featured years ~ the title track of the group's sixth album. As a single it became their latest UK Top 10-er at a time when 14-year-old lead singer Michael had recently had his first solo successes

Girl groups with similar names

Please Mr Postman (The Marvelettes)
(1961)  ...   Motown's first American chart-topper ~ up-and-coming Liverpool band The Beatles liked what they heard and made it a mainstay of their regular live set. Later on, they would record a version for their second album, With The Beatles. Fast forward to the mid '70s, Mr Postman finally delivered a UK hit single, courtesy of The Carpenters

He Was Really Sayin' Somethin' (The Velvelettes)
(1965) ...  a fairly modest sized Motown hit in the US , successfully covered here in the early '80s by Bananarama & Fun Boy Three

---------------------------

Sleigh Ride (KT Tunstall)
(2007) ... from a six-track EP of festive favourites which also includes KT versions of Fairytale In New York, Lonely This Christmas and Mele Kalikimaka (Christmas In Hawaii)

Newsround Tameside: 50 years ago ~ 1972

Rock Me Baby (David Cassidy)
(1972) ... top teen heart-throb rocking up the tempo in a dramatic change of pace and style compared with the light and frothy teen pop of Could It Be Forever (# 3) and his cover of the slow-building, soaring ballad How Can I Be Sure ( # 1) earlier in the year. It was a brave move but possibly a little too soon to do something so radically different - Rock Me Baby peaked, disappointingly, at # 11

Keeper Of The Castle (The Four Tops)
... their first single and album title track after leaving Motown for pastures new with the ABC label in the US (Probe in the UK)

What Made Milwaukee Famous (Rod Stewart)
... one side of a stand-alone double 'A' single - What Made Milwaukee Famous, a country song previously sung by Jerry Lee Lewis was coupled with a bluesy version of Angel  - the original by Jimi Hendrix had appeared on his posthumous album released the previous year, The Cry of Love

Stay With Me (Blue Mink) 
..,.  soothingly soulful ballad, a fine performance by lead singer Madeline Bell, as far away from the mainstream of early '70s  teeny pop and 'glam' as you could possibly imagine... and the complete opposite of its early '70s namesake Stay With Me - the barnstorming 'rock classic by The Faces (vocal by Rod Stewart)

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) (John & Yoko with the Plastic One Band & the Harlem Community Choir) 
... the title speaks for itself, loud and clear as a plea for peace on earth ~ a US hit in '71 which made our Top 5 a year later

Crazy Horses (The Osmonds)
...  who could have predicted that the brothers previously known for their bubblegum pop and soppy ballads would literally rock up on Top of the Pops with a song like Crazy Horses.??!! If only they had released it under a different name, young lads like me might  have owned up to liking it (almost) as much as the girls going crazy for anything and everything Osmond-related

Merry Christmas Darling (The Carpenters) 
...  another of those much played seasonal songs over the years, not a massive hit but much played ever since

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR   

All Those Years Ago (George Harrison) 
(1981) ... written and sung by George, with Paul McCartney on backing vocals and Ringo Starr on drums ~ a fitting tribute to their old band-mate John Lennon, who had died a few months earlier

That'll Be Christmas (Thea Gilmore)
(2009) ...  Thea's wry observations of the impending festivities and life in general at this time of year deserved to reach a much wider audience, especially with its nod to a certain seasonal classic, with a name-check for Jona Lewie

Then He Kissed Me (The Crystals)
.... teaser track for our second featured year by one of two girl groups in producer Phil Spector's roster of artists, along with The Ronettes who are on the playlist later in the hour. Then He Kissed Me became Then I Kissed Her when covered a few years later by The Beach Boys

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break 
... with a distinctly festive flavour

Jingle Bells (Gheorghe Zamfir)
(1984) ... Romanian pan flute player, who has released over 200 albums, racking up total sales of 400 million+ at the last count

We All Stand Together (Humming Version) (Paul McCartney & The Finchley Frogettes)
(1984) ... B side of Macca's seasonal smash with The Frog Chorus, expertly produced by his old friend and mentor from The Beatles era, George Martin. The tune was written for the soundtrack of  Paul's pet project, the cartoon film Rupert & The Frog Song

---------------------------

Back In The Night (Dr Feelgood)
(1975) ....   top song from the deepest recesses of my '70s memory bank. While attracting its fair share of airplay which helped to get them noticed beyond the London pub rock scene,  it never came close to being a hit. A few moments of magic to remember guitarist and creative force Wilko Johnson who died last month

Santa Tell Me (Ariana Grande) 
(2014) ... one of the more memorable new Christmas songs of the past two decades from an EP which also featured the much covered Santa Baby

Newsround pre-Tameside: 59 years ago ~ 1963

24 Hours From Tulsa (Gene Pitney)
... new entry on the chart in December '63. ~ his first time on the UK chart as a performer, having written He's A Rebel, 1962 hit for The Crystals

You Were Made For Me (Freddie & The Dreamers)
... their third single in a row to make the Top 3, a fine run of form which they were unable to sustain during the following year

I Wanna Be Your Man (The Rolling Stones) 
...  Lennon and McCartney song on The Beatles' second album With The Beatles which became a hit for another up-and-coming group who were about to become their biggest rivals. In '63 The Beatles ruled supreme and it was almost a foregone conclusion they would would claim the seasonal top spot *

Frosty The Snowman (The Ronettes) 
... as hinted at earlier ~ the other girl group to receive the Spector 'big wall of sound' treatment. The legendary album A Christmas Gift For You included seasonal standards sung by The Ronettes  The Crystals, Darlene Love and Bob B Soxx & The Blue Jeans

Don't Talk To Him (Cliff Richard & The Shadows)
... one of only a very few songs  in Cliff's long career for which he can claim a writing credit (jointly with Shadows guitarist Bruce Welch) 

I Want To Hold Your Hand (The Beatles)
... Christmas No.1, crowning glory of a phenomenal few months when Beatlemania had taken the entire country by storm

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show, you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 11/12/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Geno (Dexy's Midnight Runners)
(1980) ...  bold and brassy chart-topping single,  paying homage to soul legend Geno Washington which still sounds as fresh as ever

Malt And Barley Blues (McGuinness Flint) 
(1971)... second of two Top 5 singles from the band * formed by Tom McGuinness, former bassist and guitarist with Manfred Mann, and Hughie Flint, previously the drummer with John Mayall's band. Joining them were vocalist and keyboard player Dennis Coulson, also multi-instrumentalists / singer-songwriters Benny Gallagher and Graham Lyle who returned to the chart five years later as Gallagher and Lyle ( I Want To Stay With You, Heart On My Sleeve, Breakaway) *  In more recent times Tom McGuinness continues to receive a warm response from live audiences whenever he plays the McGuiness Flint hits on tour with the present day band The Manfreds [* W]      

California Dreamin' (River City People)
...  bringing The Mamas and Papas' '60s classic to a new generation, in the first of today's featured years. The single also featured one of their own songs Carry The Blame

Cheery Christmas chart hits - but nothing to do with Christmas

Thank U Very Much (Scaffold) 
(1967) ... debut hit from the Liverpool music and comedy trio who went on to have the following year's Christmas # 1 Lily The Pink

I'm The Urban Spaceman (Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band)
(1968) ... their only chart success, produced by Gus Dudgeon and Apollo C Vermouth – alias the ever versatile Paul McCartney

---------------------------

It May Be Winter Outside (But In My Heart It's Spring) (Love Unlimited)
(1975) ....  song written in the '60s by their mentor Barry White, long before he was famous. Love Unlimited took it into the Top 20 in the UK, eight years after the original single by Felice Taylor - also produced by Big Barry - had failed to break through  Love Unlimited 's version can be found on several 'various artists'  Christmas compilations, although it actually charted in February '75, long after the seasonal tinsel came down

Newsround Tameside: 32 years ago ~ 1990 
  
King of The Road (The Proclaimers)
... twins Craig and Charlie Reid usually write and sing their own songs, but their cover version of a classic '60s country chart-topper by Roger Miller was a rare exception which slipped seamlessly into their repertoire. A Proclaimers' original included on the same CD single follows at the end of the first hour...

Step Back In Time (Kylie Minogue)
... one of  Kylie's final outings with the Stock Aitken Waterman 'Hit Factory, suitably nostalgic for this show ~ 'remember The O'Jays, remember the old days?....

I'll Be Your Baby Tonight (Robert Palmer with UB40) 
... one-off pooling of talents, taking an old Bob Dylan song and creating a gently uplifting reggae ballad, similar in style to some of the slower songs in UB40's own repertoire

Saviour's Day (Cliff Richard) 
 ... two years on from Mistletoe and Wine, Cliff was back with another Christmas number 1 ~ bear in mind, though, his first, way back in 1960 was the simply titled but not at all seasonal I Love You

A Little Time (The Beautiful South)
...the only chart topper of their long run of Top 40 singles just the one week at # 1 and unusual in that Dave Hemingway is the male vocalist, rather than Paul Heaton, duetting with Briana Corrigan

Don't Worry (Kim Appleby) 
... ...a first solo outing for Kim after losing her younger sister Mel to cancer at  the tragically young age of 23.  As Mel and Kim they had  four Top 10 hits in the late '80s, including a # 1 with Respectable

Lulu Selling Tea (The Proclaimers)                                                                                                                                                                                      .... this time it's a  short-but-sweet snapshot from Craig and Charlie of their younger days, growing up in the '60s, with[lucky bags, Bazooka Joes, school milk, shoes with animal tracks, Batman, Daktari and Skippy  on TV... and George Best  ~ Manchester United's Belfast boy wonder 'who wore his hair the Beatles way' ([see also: King of The Road, earlier in the hour]

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR

Little Saint Nick (The Beach Boys)
(1963) ... never a hit in the UK, but widely known from several of those seasonal collections by 'various artists'

Warm This Winter (Gabriella Cilmi) 
(2008) ... keeping faith with the original 1962 US hit by Connie Francis, which had the slightly elongated title I'm Gonna Be Warm This Winter

You Make Loving Fun (Fleetwood Mac)                                                                                                                                                                              ... teaser track for our second featured year ~  single taken from Rumours, the band's mega-selling classic album, played today in tribute to Christine McVie who died a few days ago aged 79. You Make Loving Fun was one of the songs on the album written by Christine on which she sang lead vocal and played keyboards - there's another one on the playlist later this hour...

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
... timeless tunes from different music traditions

Elizabethan Reggae (Boris Gardiner)
(1970) .,..re-working a familiar light classical tune, Elizabethan Serenade. * The composer Ronald Binge chose the title to reflect the post-war optimism of a 'new Elizabethan Age' that began with the accession of Queen Elizabeth II in February 1952.  *  And yes, it's THE Boris Gardiner, who later re-emerged, as a singer rather than an instrumentalist, with a # 1 in 1986,  I Want To Wake Up With You  [* W]

Greensleeved (Jethro Tull)
(2003) ... folky prog rock in a laid-back lounge jazz style is how I'd describe many of the tracks on the highly recommended Jethro Tull Christmas Album ~ this centuries-old melody is no exception

---------------------------

Bless The Weak (Daniel Takes A Train)
(2022)... bona fide '80s band stepping through the time tunnel once again with a brand new charity single for 2022.  Echoes of REM and The Police - according to two of the positive reviews the song has had so far. For me, after several plays, I'm thinking Paul Heaton / Housemartins.  The song is released in partnership with the leading housing charity Shelter -  "every stream with help a great cause":

https://open.spotify.com/track/7DRT8hD8vsqqjHXLoYHLiT?si=ed2c72b1315d4ed7

Newsround Tameside: 45 years ago ~ 1977

Peace On Earth / Little Drummer Boy (David Bowie & Bing Crosby) 
... ... contender for unlikeliest duet ever ~ recorded for a 1977 TV special in the US, and finally saw the light of day as a successful Christmas single, five years later (1982, # 3)

Rockaria! (ELO)
... one of a run of Top 10 singles from the previous year's album A New World Record

Songbird (Fleetwood Mac)
... continuing the thread of thought from earlier, with another track written for the Rumours album by the late Christine McVie. Songbird features her on piano and vocals

Floral Dance (Brighouse & Rastrick Band)
... one of the biggest instrumental hits of the '70s, thanks to Terry Wogan playing it  constantly  on his BBC Radio 2 breakfast show. His loyal listeners loved his sing-a-long to one of the Cheeriest Cheery Tunes ever ~ so much so that it was only a matter of time before Terry was persuaded to record his own version which also made the chart, peaking at # 21 in early '78

Daddy Cool / The Girl Can't Help It (Darts)                                                                                                                                                                         ... debut hit for the doo-wop revivalists, a fast and frantic two and a half minutes combining two '50s songs  originally recorded by The Rays and Little Richard respectively.

Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue (Crystal Gayle) 
... country-pop crossovers don't come much bigger than this ~ # 1 on the US country chart, # 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, Top 5 here and a major hit in several other countries

Dancin' Party (Showaddywaddy)
...  12 months after their No.1 Under The Moon of Love became the big Christmas '76 party hit, those chart successes kept on coming. Dancin' Party had been an early '60s hit for the 'king of the twist' Chubby Checker, but his highest placing (# 19) was easily beaten by the unstoppable force that was Showaddywaddy. The band of eight from Leicester, consisting of  * two vocalists, two drummers, two guitarists, and two bassists * took the song to # 2  [* W]

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show, you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 04/12/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

The 'In' Crowd (Dobie Gray)
(1965)... . chart hit which became a Northern Soul classic and was later successfully covered by Bryan Ferry (1974, # 13)

Ice In The Sun (Status Quo)
(1968) ...one of Quo's earliest hits in a hugely successful, long-lasting career which would span the next few decades

Tell Me What He Said (Helen Shapiro)
... terrific performance from Britain's top teen star in the year we are featuring across both hours of today's show. After hitting the ground running with two consecutive chart toppers the previous year, Helen had to settle for # 2 this time out. It was the year a dance hall scene in the classic northern comedy Billy Liar was filmed on our doorstep, right  here in Ashton-under-Lyne. ... but before we go there...

Singing Billys... 

Do You Want To Know A Secret (Billy J Kramer & The Dakotas) 
(1963) ... Lennon-McCartney song which appeared on the Fab Four's debut album Please Please Me with  20-year-old George Harrison, the youngest of the four stepping up to sing lead vocal. Billy J & co topped the singles chart with their version

Wondrous Place (Billy Fury)
(1960) .... stripped back raw emotion ~ in complete contrast to the 'big production' sound of most of his best known songs

Billy Liar on Location: 60 years ago ~ 1962                                                                                                                                                                    including, during the show, the memories of Beryl Birchall (neé Heathcote), one of the local 'extras' who appeared in the film's dance hall scene

Speak To Me Pretty (Brenda Lee) 
... highest placed of three UK Top 10-ers in '62 - and ultimately the best showing of her chart career

Let's Twist Again (Chubby Checker)
... guaranteed to fill any available dance floor, often seen in archive black and white footage of the pre-Beatles era. Let's Twist Again - which returned to the Top 10 as a reissue in 1975 - is a rare example of a follow up song very similar to the original * achieving a higher chart placing and profile - at least, here in the UK. (* on the playlist in the second hour of the show)

Return To Sender (Elvis Presley)
... Elvis covered many classic Christmas songs and seasonal standards, but this was his only UK Christmas # 1 single 

Starlight Starbright (Maureen Evans)
...  tucked away on the B side of her Top 3 single Like I Do, ~ but definitely deserving a life of its own as a top-billing 'A' side 

Twistin' The Night Away (Sam Cooke) 
... self-penned song which became his highest placed UK hit (#6), although it would eventually be overtaken by the 1986 reissue of Wonderful World (#2)

The Locomotion (Little Eva)
... looking for someone to sing the surefire hit you have just written? Why not ask the baby-sitter?! That's how Little Eva got her lucky break with Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Returned to the Top 20 as a reissue 10 years later 

Billy Liar main theme (Acker Bilk)                                                                                                                                                                                         ...  light orchestral music, fairly typical of that era, from the original film score by the prolific composer Richard Rodney Bennett. The famous clarinetist 'Mr' Acker Bilk had 1962's biggest selling single Stranger On The Shore ~ the first instrumental to out-sell every other single in a given year, an achievement which would be matched a decade later by Amazing Grace, played by The Pipes and Drums and Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR   

Nowhere To Run (Martha Reeves & The Vandellas)
(1965) ... one of the early Motown hits from the US to break through on to the UK chart

Our Day Will Come (Ruby & The Romantics)
(1963) ....  #1 in America, but did nothing at all over here - a much loved, much covered song with as many as 60 different versions over the years . Frankie Valli  made it a US hit all over again in the mid '70s, - but, like Ruby & co, missed out completely this side of the pond. Cher, The Supremes and Cliff Richard are just a few of the many  other artists who have recorded it. Probably the most recent was Amy Winehouse -  Our Day Will Come appears on her posthumous 2011 album Lioness: Hidden Treasures

A Picture of You (Joe Brown and The Bruvvers)
(1962)... biggest hit and signature song  of one of our homegrown stars of the early '60s, still active in recent years

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
... super hero, sci-fi / spy connections

Shazam! (Duane Eddy)
(1960) ...  Shazam! was the the magic word by which Billy Batson turned himself into the super hero Captain Marvel in the heyday of American comic books. A new generation of fans have become acquainted with the character following the 2019 film of the same name. A sequel Shazam! Fury of the Gods is due for release in 2023 [W]

Joe 90 (Barry Gray Orchestra)
(1968)  ...  theme from the then latest Gerry Anderson 'super-marionation'  puppet adventure series,  following the likes of Stingray, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons. Joe 90 was a nine-year schoolboy super-spy.

---------------------------

You Don't Own Me (Lesley Gore)                                                                                                                                                                                        (1964) . ... a hit in America, which never made over it here ~ at least not until late 2015 / early 2016, when a new version by Australian singer Grace leaped up the chart after featuring in a House of Fraser Christmas TV ad. Amazingly, despite a time lapse of more than 50 years, the recordings of the song by Lesley Gore and Grace were both produced by Quincy Jones

More memories of 60 years ago ~ 1962 

The Twist (Chubby Checker)
... here it is, as promised earlier, the original Twist song which stalled at # 44 in the UK first time out and was totally outflanked by Let's Twist Again which reached # 2. As a reissue in '62, The Twist finally reached the Top 20 this side of the Atlantic. In the US, it was the only song of the rock era to reach No. 1 twice in two different years (1960 and 1961) [W]

Speedy Gonzales (Pat Boone)
...  most of his hits were in the previous decade – but  Speedy came along unashamedly as a bit of a novelty a few years later. A spoken intro sets the scene... there's a bit of a tale to tell....

The Young Ones (Cliff Richard & The Shadows)
... # 1 song from the film of the same name, featuring some particularly fine guitar work from Hank Marvin of the 'Shads'

Everybody's Twistin'  (Frank Sinatra)
... Ol' Blue Eyes speaking on behalf of the older generation wanting to take up the Twist  with all that "squirming and a worming and a twisting around"

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Just A Little Lovin' (Dusty Springfield)
(1969) ... song from the highly acclaimed Dusty In Memphis album

Surfin' USA (The Beach Boys)
(1963) .... their biggest hit to date in America and first time on the chart in the UK

Any Time At All (The Beatles)
(1964) ... from A Hard Day's Night (film and album), Any Time At All was mainly composed by John Lennon (who sings lead) with an instrumental middle eight by Paul McCartney. [W]

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show, you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 27/11/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Sky High (Jigsaw)
(1975) ... pure '70s pop at its finest, with one of the catchiest choruses ever!!

Kiss Me (Sixpence None The Richer) 
(1999) ... band from Texas who also charted with their version of The La's song, There She Goes. Their name was inspired by a passage from the book Mere Christianity by CS Lewis [W]

It's A Shame (The Motown Spinners)
... from the first of today's featured years ~ American soul group 'The Spinners' were known here as The Motown Spinners to avoid confusion with the equally well established English folk group of the same name. They clearly had to drop the 'Motown' tag when they signed with Atlantic Records at which point they became the 'Detroit Spinners' for the UK market

Canine companions

The Puppy Song (David Cassidy)
(1973)...one side of a double A which gave him his second UK # 1, coupled with Daydreamer. The Puppy Song was written by Harry Nilssson, or Nilsson as he was usually credited. The hook line 'Dreams are nothing more than wishes'  became the title of David Cassidy's latest album

I Love My Dog (Cat Stevens)
(1966) ... his first chart hit which peaked at # 28 ~ followed within a few short months by the much more successful Matthew and Son (1967, # 2)

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Da Doo Ron Ron (The Crystals) 
(1963).... having debuted the previous year with He's A Rebel (# 19) this was the first of two UK Top 10-ers within a few months

Newsround pre-Tameside: 52 years ago ~ 1970

Nothing Rhymed (Gilbert O'Sullivan) 
... singer-songwriter who immediately stood out from the crowd with his cloth cap image  but more importantly, the quality of his songs, Nothing Rhymed being a superb, stand-out example. The cap was a fairly shortlived gimmick which did the trick - it got him noticed. More than fifty years on, Gilbert is still performing live and writing songs - one of his latest Take Love, on which he duets with KT Tunstall, made our daytime playlist on Tameside Radio earlier this year. A solo hit from KT is coming up in the second hour...  

I Hear You Knocking (Dave Edmunds)
....  the official 1970 Christmas no. 1 ~ not the slightest bit Christmassy, but a terrific performance, by any reckoning, well deserving of its five weeks at the top

Snowbird (Anne Murray)
... she was the first Canadian female solo singer to reach # 1 on the US.chart, and also the first to earn a gold record for one of her signature songs, the very hummable Snowbird (UK, # 23)

Woodstock (Matthews Southern Comfort)
... three weeks at the top for the British country rock / folk rock band with a Joni Mitchell song also covered in the same year by Crosby, Stills and Nash [W]

It's Wonderful (To Be Loved By You) (Jimmy Ruffin)
... as far as the UK was concerned, 1970 was his most successful year with three singles in the Top 10 ~ Farewell is A Lonely Sound and I'll Say Forever My Love were the other two

Baby I Won't Let You Down (Pickettywitch)
... third and final chart hit for the Opportunity Knocks winning group with lead singer Polly Brown

Ride A White Swan (T Rex) 
...   it was out with the old, in with the new as the folky acoustic Tyrannosaurus Rex made way for Marc Bolan's new electric line-up with the short and snappy new name T Rex.  Ride A White Swan reached # 2 towards the end of 1970  with the band's next few releases going on to  even greater success

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR

Get Ready (The Temptations)
(1966 US, 1969, UK).... from the mid '60s heyday of the Motown sound through to the mid '80s, The 'Temps' had several chart entries, but only three UK Top 10-ers ~ this was one of them

The Incidentals (Alisha's Attic) 
(1998) ...  arguably the most memorable of the duo's handful of hits in the late '90s. Shelley and Karen are the daughters of Brian Poole, original frontman of The Tremeloes in the early '60s

Why Do Fools Fall In Love (Diana Ross)
... teaser track for today's featured year ~ giving a fresh lease of life to a famous '50s hit by Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
... colourful names with TV and film connections

Blue Peter (Mike Oldfield) 
(1979)... the kids show famous for John Noakes, Shep the dog and sticky back plastic had been on our screens for just over 20 years when the BBC decided the iconic theme tune -  originally known as Barnacle Bill - should be given a makeover for the impending new decade. Mike Oldfield, having had previous chart success with quirky instrumentals  rose magnificently to the challenge  with each stage of the re-arranging and recording process being captured on camera and shown on the programme. The revamped theme was released as a single and made the Top 20 

Scarlett O' Hara (Jet Harris & Tony Meehan)
(1963) ...  one of a handful of instrumental hits for the duo who were previously with The Shadows. Bonus points for knowing Scarlett O'Hara was a character in the big screen epic Gone With The Wind

---------------------------

Black Horse And The Cherry Tree (KT Tunstall)
(2005) ...  her career took off following a critically acclaimed live performance of Black Horse on BBC2's Later With Jools Holland. It went on to become the first of four Top 40 hits that same year [W]

High Time (Paul Jones) 
(1966) ... flying solo for the first time after leaving Manfred Mann and eventually to be recognised as a man of many talents - singer, actor and broadcaster. In recent years he has continued to play live dates with The Blues Band and with The Manfreds 

Newsround Tameside: 41 years ago ~ 1981

Wedding Bells (Godley and Creme)
...... Kevin and Lol, having left 10cc in the mid '70s to work on their own projects, returned to the chart with two in a row in the autumn of  '81 ~ Wedding Bells following on from Under Your Thumb

Stray Cat Strut (The Stray Cats)  
... rockabilly band who scored a hat-trick of hits - best remembered, though, for lead singer Brian Setzer's fabulous, 'quiff-tastic' '50s hairstyle

I Go To Sleep (The Pretenders)
... written by Ray Davies and first released by The Applejacks. I Go To Sleep was never recorded by The Kinks, but Davies's demo can be found among reissue bonus tracks of their second studio album Kinda Kinks. It was the second time The Pretenders had covered one of his songs  ~ their debut hit was Stop Your Sobbing (1979, # 34 )  Chrissie Hynde, the Pretenders' singer was reportedly in a relationship with Davies at the time [W]

Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl) (Haircut 100)
... ...   writing in the October '81 issue of Smash Hits, critic Fred Dellar described the band's debut single as "doing for jazz-funk what Dexy's once did for R&B".  Although not overly impressed by the song, he praised their musicianship as "both impeccable and exciting." [W]

When She Was My Girl (The Four Tops)
... first time in a decade that the Tops were in the Top 10. Fast forward to 2022, a new version of When She Was My Girl with a very similar sounding arrangement to the original can be heard on Bruce Springsteen's new album of classic soul covers, Only The Strong Survive

It Must Be Love (Madness) 
... made the Top 10 in December '81, exactly 10 years after the original by Labi Siffre - who made a surprise guest appearance in the video

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show, you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 20/11/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Downtown (Petula Clark)
(1964] ...  in an enduring career which began as a child star in the 1940s, this was the stand-out song which reinvented Petula as a bona fide '60s pop star. Fast forward to 2022, on 15th November, she will celebrate her 90th birthday. Two more hits from her golden era, by the same writing team of Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent are on the playlist today...

Dance With Me (Orleans) 
(1975)...   radio friendly single which somehow failed to trouble the chart in the UK ~ not even a solitary week on the bottom rung of the Top 75

Just Don't Want To Be Lonely (Freddie McGregor)
....  reggae singer hitting the Top 10 in the first of today's featured years, easily overtaking the  # 27 achieved  by '70s soul group The Main Ingredient

Mellow Motown

It's All In The Game (The Four Tops)
(1970) ... an old song which had been already been a hit twice over - for Tommy Edwards (1958, # 1) and Cliff Richard (1963, # 2). The Tops peaked at # 5

The Tracks of My Tears (Smokey Robinson & The Miracles)
(1965, US, 1969, UK) ... .highly rated by both of the major American chart publishers. Billboard hailed it as a "first rate teen ballad with pulsating dance beat." Cash Box described it as "a slow-shufflin’ pop-r&b tearjerker about a gal who has several regrets about losing her guy." [W]

---------------------------                                                                                                                                                                                                         

I Vow To Thee My Country (Military Wives Choirs)
(2018) .... first of two for Remembrance Sunday ~ I Vow To Thee My Country is sung to a familiar tune from The Planets Suite by Gustav Holst. A different section of the same tune was adapted by Manfred Mann's Earth Band for their 1973 hit Joybringer,

Newsround Tameside: 35 years ago ~ 1987

Weak In The Presence of Beauty (Alison Moyet)  
... sixth in a run of seven hits, most of which made the Top 10

Build (The Housemartins) 
... the third single from their second - and final - album The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death, made in Stockport at Yellow Two Studios, is a foretaste of the direction in which most of the band would be heading post-Housemartins as founder members of The Beautiful South.  'With top session man Pete Wingfield on piano, Build followed the softer template of the band's later material  and is unusual in that drummer Dave Hemingway is  on vocals for the choruses, whilst usual singer Paul Heaton sings the verses and bridge.' [W]

Under The Boardwalk (Bruce Willis)
... the actor best known at the time for the TV series Moonlighting, soon to become much more famous for the Die Hard films, showed a softer side in a brief spell as a recording artist. His version of the old Drifters song stormed the chart all the way to # 2, a second major hit hot on the heels of his first, a few months earlier, re-working The Staple Singers' soul classic Respect Yourself (highest position # 7)

The Circus (Erasure)
...  title track of the duo's breakthrough album and also the last of four singles taken from it

Faith (George Michael) 
... Top 10 hit from the album of the same name ~ George's first as a solo artist

My Baby Just Cares For Me (Nina Simone)
... recorded way back in the '50s, but gained a new lease of life and became a huge hit after featuring in a TV ad for a certain brand of perfume

Little Lies (Fleetwood Mac) 
...  radio-friendly Top 10 single from the album Tango in the Night, written by band member Christine McVie and her then-husband, Eddy Quintela, with lead vocals performed primarily by McVie, although the chorus features backing vocals by Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks [W]

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR

Bye Bye Love (The Everly Brothers) 
(1957) ... Don and Phil's first time in the UK Top 10, beginning a long run of chart entries which would endure for the next eight years, with over 30 hits in all, including three # 1s

Wherever You Are (Military Wives Choir with Gareth Malone & London Metropolitan Orchestra) 
(2011) .... second of two for Remembrance Sunday ~ this was the song which first brought the Military Wives and Gareth Malone to our attention just over a decade ago. Wherever You Are went on to be the 2011 Christmas # 1

My Love (Petula Clark)
... teaser track for our second featured year from the singer who celebrates her 90th birthday this week (see Downtown earlier). A third and final reminder of her heyday decade is on the way later....

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break 

Tokyo Melody (Helmut Zacharias)
(1964) ... specially written for the Tokyo Olympics by the German musician and composer who created over 400 works and sold 14 million records [W]

Scotch On The Rocks (Band of The Black Watch)
(1975) ... bring on the bagpipes and drums ~ a surprise Top 20 hit in an era of unexpected chart entries ranging from Jasper Carrott to Billy Connolly to Laurel and Hardy

---------------------------

(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love and Understanding (Brinsley Schwarz) 
(1974) ..... much played turntable hit, which failed to break through on to the chart, written by the band's lead singer and bass player Nick Lowe, who went on to find solo success (I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass, Cruel To Be Kind). What's So Funny 'Bout... was later covered by Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Home Thoughts From Abroad (Rumer)
(2012)... fine performance of a Clifford T Ward song, much played by the late great Sir Terry Wogan. Rumer is currently midway through a series of live dates - the Woman to Woman tour - with Judie Tzuke, Beverley Craven and Julia Fordham which arrives in Manchester, at the Bridgewater Hall on Thursday 17th November

Newsround pre-Tameside: 56 years ago ~ 1966

My Mind's Eye (The Small Faces)
...  fourth in their run of seven Top 10 hits through the middle years of the decade. My Mind's Eye was the follow-up to All Or Nothing which reached # 1

What Would I Be (Val Doonican)
...top songwriting team Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent gave the king of easy listening and Saturday night TV  his biggest chart hit, peaking at # 2. Next up, the artist we've been featuring today who recorded several Hatch/Trent songs...

Colour My World (Petula Clark) 
 ... third of three today ~ Petula had a run of best sellers in the mid '60s, mostly written by Hatch/Trent. Colour My World, by the same writers, seemed a dead cert to continue that unblemished run, but surprisingly failed to make the Top 50

Morningtown Ride (The Seekers)
...   the train whistle was a blowing ~ much played on the BBC radio request show, Junior Choice, presented by the very sadly missed Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart. An instrumental version of Morningtown Ride by the pianist and band leader Stan Butcher became the show's theme tune

Dead End Street (The Kinks)
...  their third Top 5 single of the year, hot on the heels of the classic summer # 1  Sunny Afternoon

You Keep Me Hangin' On (The Supremes)
... Motown classic successfully revived 20 years later by Kim Wilde ~ one of her biggest ever hits (1986, # 2)

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show, you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 13/11/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Best Years Of Our Lives (Modern Romance) 
(1982) ...  . hearing this frothy, poppy party favourite, it's difficult to imagine Modern Romance in their previous life as a 'punk parody' band ~ The Leyton Buzzards who had just the one minor hit, Saturday Night (Beneath the Plastic Palm Trees) (1979, # 53). Regrouping as Modern Romance, a  decent run of Top 10 / Top 20 hits followed in the first  half of the '80s. Best Years gave them their highest chart placing,  # 4

It's Been So Long (George McCrae)
(1975)... really hitting those high notes, one of the most memorable in a run of disco-tastic Top 40 singles which followed on from the one for which he will forever be remembered, Rock Your Baby (1974, # 1)

Be My Baby (Vanessa Paradis) 
...after Joe Le Taxi, she had a few years to wait for a second Top 10-er. Be My Baby eventually proved the one to hit the target, in the first of today's featured years

'60s songs with double barreled girl's name titles

Hello Mary Lou (Ricky Nelson)
(1961) ...  his highest ever UK chart placing (# 2) and  the last  time  'Ricky' Nelson was the name on the record label.. Subsequent releases were credited to the more mature sounding 'Rick'

Barbara Ann (The Beach Boys)
(1966) ...  very catchy song with an instantly memorable hook-line, and the group's trademark harmonies ~ not surprisingly, becoming one of the group's most successful UK singles

---------------------------

Family Affair (Sly & The Family Stone)
(1972) ...  US chart-topper for the psychedelic funk-soul band,  a distinct shift in style from Dance To The Music and their other previous hits.  Recording consultant engineer Richard Tilles muted most of Sly Stone's guitar parts while emphasising the electric piano played by Billy Preston and - in the words of rock critic David Hepworth "edit[ing] the rhythm box to sound like a heartbeat."  Sly Stone and his sister Rose sang lead and Bobby Womack played rhythm guitar. The lyrics reflect the good and bad  of being family, with Sly opting for a low funk-styled tone instead of his earlier gospel-based shout, sounding off rhythm and off key, his screams emulating a child crying...  (W)

Newsround Tameside: 30 years ago ~ 1992

Hello (Turn Your Radio On) (Shakespears Sister)
... one of the high points of a successful few months for Siobhan Fahey and Marcella Detroit. Hello... was the final track on their album Hormonally Yours, and the fourth single taken from it, following Stay ( # 1 for eight weeks), I Don't Care (# 7) and Goodbye Cruel World (# 32)

Sleeping Satellite (Tasmin Archer) 
... classy, timeless song which stood head and shoulders above most of the other hits on the chart at the time  Against the run of play, Tasmin took the top spot in an era dominated by dance tracks and re-mixes

Iron Lion Zion (Bob Marley & The Wailers)
... posthumous release of a previously unheard Marley song recorded in 1973-74. Billboard magazine's review of the Songs of Freedom CD box set mentions that the original track was enhanced by contemporary musicians including the jazz saxophonist Courtney Pine and female vocal trio I Trees, featuring Marley's widow Rita. Music Week's Alan Jones hailed a "Marley masterpiece... a hugely commercial, lightly dubbed and joyous reminder of his talent". (W) 

Oh No Not My Baby (Cher)
... Goffin-King song from the '60s, previously a hit for Manfred Mann (1965, # 11) and Rod Stewart (1973, # 6)

My Destiny (Lionel Richie)
... upbeat second single from the album Back To Front ~ his first UK Top 10-er since Dancing On The Ceiling six years previously

(Take A Little) Piece of My Heart (Erma Franklin)
... US hit in '67 for Aretha Franklin's older sister which finally made it on to our chart a quarter of a century later, after featuring in the latest Levi's TV ad.  Several other artists have recorded the song, including Janis Joplin in 1968, Faith Hill and Shaggy (both in the '90s), through to Beverley Knight (2006)   

A Little Respect (Bjorn Again)
... highly acclaimed Abba tribute band with a perfect tongue-in-cheek response to Erasure's recent chart-topping EP, Abba-esque.  Under the collective title 'Erasure-ish' their single featured two of the duo's best known songs, A Little Respect and (the B side) Stop!

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR

Needle In A Haystack (The Velvelettes)
(1964)... classic Northern soul floor filler, never a hit in the UK. The Velvelettes also recorded the original version of (He Was) Really Sayin' Something, successfully covered in the '80s by Bananarama with Fun Boy Three 

Just Got Lucky (Jo Boxers) 
(1983) .... hot on the heels of their first and biggest hit Boxer Beat, their Top 10 follow up was far less frantic, a steady toe tapper rather than one to stomp your feet to 

Take Good Care Of Yourself (The Three Degrees)
... teaser track for our next featured year from the trio at the forefront of the Philadelphia sound

Absolutely Lyricless ~  instrumental break
... from bluegrass country to bossa nova

Orange Blossom Special (The Spotnicks)   
(1962) ... Swedish group apparently renowned for their ground-breaking electronic guitar sound... and the space suit costumes they wore on stage

Soul Bossa Nova (Quincy Jones)
(1962) ...  instantly familiar, which is hardly surprising having been 'borrowed' as theme music or backing music by numerous TV and radio shows over the years. It was sampled / re-worked by Canadian hip hop band Dream Warriors for their 1990 hit  My Definition Of A Boombastic Jazz Style

---------------------------

See Those Eyes (Altered Images)
(1982) ...  single which completed a hat-trick of hits but just missed out on the Top 10

I'm A Boy (The Who) 
(1966)...  matching the success of My Generation the previous year to become their joint highest placed chart hit, peaking at  # 2. Amazingly, for one of the biggest bands of the '60s,  they never had a #1 

Newsround Tameside: 47 years ago ~ 1975

If You Think You Know How To Love Me (Smokie) 
...  beginning their run of hits through the second half of the '70s with a Top 3 song penned by the prolific Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, successful writers for The Sweet, Mud, Suzi Quatro and others

Hold On To Love (Peter Skellern)
... he had a distinctive style which attracted a loyal following  Hold On To Love provided a second taste of chart success, three years after his debut with You're A Lady

Funky Moped (Jasper Carrott) 
...  Jasper - real name Bob Davis - started out as a folk club  compere and singer in and around Birmingham, eventually switching to stand-up comedy. Funky Moped  was a novelty song which gained plenty of airplay and went on to reach the dizzy heights of # 5 on the singles chart... although millions bought the single for the other side - a strictly for adults only send-up of the children's TV series The Magic Roundabout -

L'L'Lucy (Mud)
...  having achieved huge success over the previous couple of years, Mud moved to a new record label, working with new writers and producers. L'L'Lucy, their first single after signing with Private Stock, continued their run of Top 10-ers

Harmour Love (Syreeta)
... 'harm(our)nising nicely in the background is none other than Stevie Wonder, Syreeta's long-time friend, music mentor, and previously her 'other half'

There Goes My First Love (The Drifters) 
... peaking at # 3, one of the biggest hits of their mega-successful UK revival, more than a decade after their initial success

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show, you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 06/11/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Even The Bad Times Are Good (The Tremeloes)
(1967) ...  intriguing start which feels as though you are eavesdropping on a party in the studio. With the background 'atmos' continuing in the background, it quickly erupts into an upliftingly cheery chorus

So Good To Be Back Home Again (The Tourists) 
(1980) ... second and final Top 10-er for the band featuring Dave Stewart & Annie Lennox ~  before they became Eurythmics

Arms of Mary (Sutherland Brothers & Quiver) 
... from the first of today's featured years  ~  the great coming together of the Sutherlands who had previously been best known for writing Rod Stewart's chart-topper Sailing with the band Quiver who had been around for a few years without chart success. Arms of Mary was the song they had long been waiting for, reaching the Top 5

Tribute to Jerry Lee Lewis (1935-2022), last of the legendary '50s rock'n'rollers

Great Balls of Fire (Jerry Lee Lewis)                                                                                                                                                                                  (1957-58) ...... the 'piano-pounding wild man of rock' with his signature song  which peaked at # 2 in America but went one better over here

What'd I Say (Jerry Lee Lewis)                                                                                                                                                                                          [1961) ...  more rhythm and blues than rock 'n' roll,  with a long, rhythmic piano intro before the vocal kicks in. Ray Charles' original had been a US hit two years earlier, but failed to chart in the UK

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In The Morning (The Coral)
(2005) ... band from the Wirral with their second highest placed chart hit, peaking at # 6, two years after Pass It On (# 5). Both are under two and a half minutes - which makes them two of the shortest chart songs of the 21st Century to date

Newsround Tameside: 46 years ago ~ 1976

Love Me (Yvonne Elliman) 
... US soul singer  who had recently been working with Eric Clapton, and previously best known for the show stopping ballad I Don't Know How To Love Him on the original 1970 various artists double album of Jesus Christ Superstar. Love Me was her first time on the chart in her own right ~ a couple more hits would follow

The Killing of Georgie Part I and II (Rod Stewart)
... a true story sensitively told ~ Rod wrote the lyrics and the music and was rightly applauded for tackling a subject where few other writers or performers would have have ventured at that time.  * When asked about writing a song with a gay theme, he said: "It's probably because I was surrounded by gay people at that stage. I had a gay PR man, a gay manager. Everyone around me was gay. I don't know whether that prompted me into it or not. I think it was a brave step, but it wasn't a risk. You can't write a song like that unless you've experienced it. But it was a subject that no one had approached before. And I think it still stands up today." [ * W]

More More More (Andrea True Connection)
... disco-tastic one-hit wonder, # 5 on the American Billboard Hot 100, and climbing one place higher on  our chart. Fast forward to 1999, the familiar instrumental riff from More More More was famously sampled in Steal My Sunshine by the Canadian band Len.

The Girl of My Best Friend (Elvis Presley with The Jordanaires)
...  recorded in 1960 for the album Elvis Is Back which marked the King's return to civilian life after his US army service. Sixteen years later , having never previously been a single in the UK, it made the Top 10 - the first of two consecutive releases from the vaults. The follow up Suspicion did just as well - in fact, both singles peaked at # 9  [W]

My Resistance Is Low (Robin Sarstedt) 
...   Hoagy Carmichael song from the '30s which unexpectedly became a Top 3 smash in '76 ~ completing a Sarstedt family hat-trick. Robin's older  brothers had already 'been there, done that'. Peter Sarstedt had topped the chart in '69 with Where Do You Go To (My Lovely?)  and a few years before him, eldest sibling Richard had been a hit parade regular as Eden Kane

Jungle Rock (Hank Mizell) 
 ...  slice of obscure late '50s rockabilly, which sank without trace in the US, only to resurface, unexpectedly in the Netherlands, years later. Eventually it was reissued as a single and became a UK # 3 as well as topping the Dutch chart

That's Me (Abba)
... a track on their # 1 album Arrival and also the B side of Money Money Money, written by Abba's regular creative trio Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Stig Anderson,  * A greatest hits compilation by Agnetha released internationally in 1998 was named after the song as, apparently, it was one of her favorites from the Abba years [* W]

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The Addams Family (Andrew Gold)                                                                                                                                                                                   (1996) ... from the album Halloween Howls: Fun and Scary Music, staying true to the spirit (!) of the original '60s TV theme and clocking in at a mere 1 min 25 secs. In the next hour, we'll remember a rival show from the same era....

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SECOND HOUR

Coming Around (Travis)
(2000) ... tuneful, timeless guitar pop ~ Coming Around made the Top 5 as a stand-alone single although it was later added to a special live limited edition of the album The Man Who

Ooh Do U Fink UR (Suggs & Paul Weller) 
(2022) ...  instantly hummable song by the newly-formed vintage duo who had long been awaiting a chance to work together ~ Madness frontman Suggs, 61, and Paul Weller, 63, were inspired by a phrase they remember from their schooldays in the 1970s. Perhaps they were also thinking of Slade's tongue-in-cheek mis-spelling of song titles in that same era. The track has been described as a "gloriously sunny, optimistic and defiant Motown influenced stomper" 

Cherish (Madonna) 
... teaser track for our second featured year, not to be confused with those other Cherishes - by Kool & The Gang (1985) and David Cassidy (1972, album title track) ~ they are all different songs

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break                                                                                                                                                  

Theme From The Munsters (Jack Marshall) 
(1965)... US comedy horror achieving higher ratings than its much more famous rival The Addams Family, which made a successful transition to the big screen [W]

Gremlins main theme (Jerry Goldsmith)
(1984) ... American black comedy horror film directed by Joe Dante and written by Chris Columbus, and starring Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Hoyt Axton, Polly Holliday and Frances Lee McCain, with Howie Mandel providing the voice of Gizmo, the main mogwai character [W]

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Monster Mash (Bobby 'Boris' Pickett & The Crypt Kickers)
(1962 US, 1973, UK)... fun from start to finish, on Halloween as on any other day  ~ a #1 in America which made it into our Top 3, 11 years later. 

Homeward Bound (Simon & Garfunkel)
(1966)...from their album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme which largely consists of acoustic pieces, mostly written during the time Paul Simon was living in England the previous year [W].  Legend has it that Homeward Bound was inspired by his experience of waiting to change trains at Widnes station while on tour

Newsround Tameside: 33 years ago ~ 1989

You On My Mind (Swing Out Sister) 
... much played on the radio, but not one of their biggest hits, peaking at # 28. Swing Out Sister's style of music had previously been described as cool, sophisti-pop. You On My Mind, lead single from their second album Kaleidoscope World,  sits under that general banner but also has a retro '60s feel, taking the sophistication to a new level

If Only I Could (Sydney Youngblood) 
... Top 3 hit in several countries - the follow up Sit And Wait proved just as popular in Austria, Belgium and Sweden but could only manage # 16 here

Wouldn't Change A Thing (Kylie Minogue)
...   Kylie's seventh hit with the Stock Aitken Waterman 'Hit Factory'  - all of which had reached either # 1 or - as in this case - # 2.

The Second Summer of Love (Danny Wilson) 
...  not as everyone thought, an individual musician who had given his name to the band - a la Manfred Mann ~ Scottish trio Danny Wilson - brothers Gary and Kit Clark and Ged Grimes - did exactly the opposite, adopting a male name from the title of a 1952 Frank Sinatra film. Meet Danny Wilson was a favourite of Gary and Kit's dad.  The Second Summer was their second hit (# 23) a year after their first  Mary's Prayer eventually made the Top 3 [W]

Be With You (The Bangles) 
... upbeat follow up to their chart-topping ballad Eternal Flame.  Drummer Debbi Peterson takes the lead vocal on Be With You which she co-wrote 

My Brave Face (Paul McCartney) 
...  one of a handful of songs written by Macca and a certain Declan McManus, aka Elvis Costello. This instantly likeable single and trailblazer for the McCartney album Flowers In The Dirt was a distinctly 'Beatley' blast from Paul's musical past

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SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show, you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 30/10/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Our House (Madness)
(1982) ... one of the biggest hits for Camden's favourite Nutty Boys ~ and the first song played on the very first Show That Time Forgot, 15 years ago  [21-10-2007]

Here I Go Again (Archie Bell and The Drells)
(1972) ...  began life as a B side in America in '69 before breaking through over here on the Northern Soul scene to become a Top 20 chart hit. By the mid '70s, they had become part of the Philly Sound having signed with the Philadelphia International label ~ their biggest success in that later era was Soul City Walk (# 13, 1976)

Breakfast In Bed (UB40 with Chrissie Hynde)
... from the first of today's featured years ~  having previously topped the chart together with I Got You Babe, The Pretenders' singer reunited with Ali Campbell and co, this time with a song originally written for Dusty Springfield's 1969 album Dusty In Memphis

Animal activity - or inactivity

The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh) (The Tokens) 
(1962) ... Top  20 hit, 20 years before the chart-topping Tight Fit

Simon Smith and The Amazing Dancing Bear (Alan Price Set) 
(1967) ... the one-time Animals keyboard player mostly wrote his own songs, but not this one - the credit belongs to Randy Newman 

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Carpet of The Sun (Renaissance) 
(1973) .... having recently played the excellent Northern Lights which remains their one and only crossover into chart land, it seemed a shame that was the only song I had ever played from the band's extensive back catalogue. Here then, is a delightful song from Ashes Are Burning, the fourth of thirteen albums released by Renaissance to date.  Their career spans more than 50 years, albeit with some long gaps and numerous changes of line-up. Carpet of The Sun has been hailed as a 'progressive rock classic' [W]

Newsround Tameside: 34 years ago ~ 1988

Harvest For The World (The Christians)
(1988) ... their highest placed chart hit (# 8) was a cover of the much played Isley Brothers' song from the mid '70s and proved just as popular

Find My Love (Fairground Attraction) 
... finding a follow up to a  No. 1 song is never easy at the best of times but a particularly tough call when that song is ...Perfect . Expectations were running high for the next single ~ but Fairground Attraction rose admirably to the challenge and made the Top 10

Wild World (Maxi Priest)
... a second reggae hit version of Cat Stevens' song, following in the footsteps of Jimmy Cliff, who took it into the Top 10 in 1970, soon after the original had its first airing on Stevens' album Tea For The Tillerman

Way Behind Me (The Primitives)
...  Coventry trio ~ singer Tracy Tracy, guitarist Paul Court and drummer Tig Williams never quite managed to repeat the success of Crash, their single earlier in the year which stormed the Top 5. Way Behind Me deserved to do as well but stalled at # 36 and subsequent releases fared no better [W]

Don't Call Me Baby (Voice of The Beehive)
...  drummer Woody Woodgate  had enjoyed huge success with Madness, who had recently gone their separate ways - this Top 20 hit was included on VoTB's debut album ~ Let It Bee.  Someone's imagination must have been really buzzing to come up with that one...

Tears Run Rings (Marc Almond) 
... an outstanding single  which deserved to do much better than # 26. I would go so far as to say it was probably his finest hour since the heady heights he had scaled a few years earlier with Soft Cell 

With A Little Help From My Friends (Wet Wet Wet)
...  chart-topping charity single by two completely contrasting music acts ~ this was the poppier and by far the most played of the two sides ~ the other was She's Leaving Home by Billy Bragg and Cara Tivey. Both tracks were included on a Childline album involving a multitude of artists re-creating songs from the Beatles' Sgt Pepper

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Tuxedo Junction (Manhattan Transfer) 
(1976)...... first UK hit for the jazz vocal group, who breathed new life into many a classic song from the swing/big band era of the '40s.  Glenn Miller & His Orchestra recorded what many would consider to be the definitive version of Tuxedo Junction in 1940

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SECOND HOUR

Love Really Hurts Without You (Billy Ocean)                                                                                                                                                                      (1976) ... much played Motown-esque crowd pleaser which just missed out on a No. 1 ~ further successes followed but the top spot eluded him for ten years ~  he finally got there with When The Going Gets Tough (The Tough Get Going) in '86

She Moves In Her Own Way (The Kooks)
(2006) ...  Top 10 single from their debut album Inside In / Inside Out. Famously they took their name from the song Kooks on David Bowie's 1971 album Hunky Dory [W]

Third Finger Left Hand (Martha Reeves & The Vandellas)
... teaser track for our second featured year, unbelievably, tucked away on the 'B' side of Jimmy Mack which I had always imagined to have been a sizeable Motown smash ~ # 21 was its highest chart position in '67 and again as a reissue three years later

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break 
... with an international dimension, making all the right moves 

Mexican Shuffle (Herb Alpert  & The Tijuana Brass)
(1964) ... renowned for their 'sunshine' sound, of which this is a fairly typical example. While sounding instantly familiar, it was never a hit in the UK 

Egyptian Reggae (Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers) 
(1977)... ....   despite the Sahara sand-dance style and seemingly tongue-firmly-in-cheek title, it was based on a genuine Jamaican reggae tune by Earl Zero - None Shall Escape The Judgement  [W]

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Sick And Tired (The Cardigans)
(1995) ... first time in the UK Top 40 for the Swedish band whose finest hour chart-wise came two years later when Lovefool reached # 2

On My Radio (The Selecter)                                                                                                                                                                                            (1979)... co-founders with The Specials of the late '70s 2-Tone ska revival which took hold in their home city Coventry

Newsround pre-Tameside: 55 years ago ~ 1967

Autumn Almanac (The Kinks)
...  one of the biggest and best of their mid '60s golden era with its sing-a-long-a music hall melody and Ray Davies'  brilliantly creative, whimsical word play, from a 'crawly caterpillar' to 'buttered currant buns' and a 'breeze blowing leaves of a musty coloured yellow'

Love You Till Tuesday (David Bowie) 
... from the debut album by the then unknown but up-and-coming Bowie in his 'Anthony Newley phase'. Fast forward a few years, his former record company just couldn't resist cashing in on Bowie's - by then - worldwide fame. The inevitable flurry of reissues included The Laughing Gnome, which became a 1973 Top 10-er

You Only Live Twice (Nancy Sinatra) 
...... the  fifth James Bond film saw Sean Connery at the height of his powers as 007. John Barry composed the music for this latest in the series as he had done for three or the previous four. Leslie Bricusse wrote the lyrics of You Only Live Twice having written the title song for Goldfinger (jointly with Anthony Newley) three years earlier

In The Country (Cliff Richard & The Shadows)                                                                                                                                                               ... .... one of their best, all about going out, having fun and therefore, I would say, a companion song to On The Beach from a couple of years earlier .Released in  late 1966, but still popular into 1967

Hole In My Shoe (Traffic) 
... middle one in a hat-trick of Top 10-ers for the band within a few months of each other. Fast forward to '84, Hole In My Shoe was the perfect summer novelty hit for The Young Ones' Neil the hippy, who managed to match the success of the original with a # 2 highest chart position

The Boat That I Row (Lulu)
... , written by a up-and-coming young songwriter, Neil Diamond,  no less. It was a milestone year in his career, with two of his songs becoming big hits for The Monkees ~ I'm A Believer and A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show, you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 23/10/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

[edited 23-10-22, 19:00, following  last minute changes to the live running order]

There She Goes (The La's) 
(1990) ...  re-mixed by top producer Steve Lillywhite, the Liverpool band's best known song is a timeless classic with echoes of the '60s beat groups. Two years on from its original release, The La's finally got the hit that they deserved

When Will I Be Loved (The Everly Brothers) 
(1960) ... Top 10-er both sides of the Atlantic. Linda Ronstadt's version in 1975 out-performed the original in the US, peaking at No. 2  [W]

Stop, Look, Listen To Your Heart (Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye)  
... from the first of today's featured years ~ Top 30 follow-up to their recent coming together You Are Everything (same year, # 5)

Places of worship 

Chapel of Love (The Dixie Cups)  
(1964) .... one of only two UK hits for the US girl group - the other, in the same year, was the much covered Iko Iko. Elton John sang Chapel of Love on the soundtrack of Four Weddings And A Funeral, as featured on the show a couple of weeks ago

Church of Your Heart (Roxette)
(1992) ....fifth and final single from Joyride, the Swedish duo's third studio album [W] 

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Is That Love (Squeeze) 
(1981) ... a punchier and pacier two and a half minutes you would be hard pressed to find ~ but despite the immediate impact, not the massive hit you might have imagined, #35 was its highest placing

Newsround Tameside: 48 years ago ~ 1974

Far Far Away (Slade) 
... one of the very best from the prolific songwriting duo Noddy Holder and Jim Lea, for their film Slade In Flame.  By this stage, the band's sound was definitely mellowing on some of their songs at least - Far Far Away being a prime example. They still rocked, though and vocally, Noddy never gave anything less than 100 per cent

When Will I See You Again (Three Degrees) 
...  two weeks at the top for one of the biggest hits under the banner of the Philadelphia 'Philly' sound. After several changes of line-up, the Degrees are still performing live and have popped up at fairly modest venues in recent years

Life Is A Rock [But The Radio Rolled Me] (Reunion)
... rapid-fire roll call of groups, singers, song titles, record labels and more interspersed with a sing-a-long chorus which picked up plenty of airplay and made the Top 40

No Honestly (Lynsey de Paul) 
.... theme song of a fairly shortlived ITV sitcom of the same name starring real life husband and wife John Alderton and Pauline Collins.  It was also one of Lynsey's most successful (# 8) chart singles and deservedly so

Another Saturday Night (Cat Stevens)
...   a rare cover version by an artist whose singles and albums tended to be self penned.  Another Saturday Night had been a hit for Sam Cooke in 1963

Pinball (Brian Protheroe)
...   the only chart hit for the singer-songwriter who would become much better known as an actor. In '73, he was playing the part of a pop singer in the play Death on Demand, when a representative from Chrysalis Records heard a song he had written for the show. His first single, Pinball was released in August 1974 and reached # 22  [W]

Then Came You (Dionne Warwick with the Detroit Spinners) 
...  essentially it's Dionne duetting with Bobby Smith of The Spinners ~ at  a time when her career had been at a low ebb, Then Came You certainly turned things around, topping the Billboard Hot 100 in the US

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SECOND HOUR

B-A-B-Y (Carla Thomas)
(1966) ... classic '60s soul on the Stax label ~ the much played original version which was never a hit. Rachel Sweet took it into the Top 40 in '79

Let's Get This Straight (From The Start) (Dexys Midnight Runners)
(1982) .... a few months on from their summer chart-topper C'mon Eileen, # 17 was as good as it got, this time out. In between the two was their cover of Van Morrison's Jackie Wilson Said (# 5)

Curly (The Move)
... teaser for our second featured year ~ hearing those first few notes played on a recorder by the mighty Roy Wood might take you back to music lessons at primary school. Curly was the last Move single with Carl Wayne as lead singer

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break 
... with a dancing connection - including a particular dance of a particular country

African Waltz (Johnny Dankworth & His Orchestra
(1961) ...  fast forward a decade, his Tomorrow's World theme was known to millions who watched the BBC's weekly science show

Dance On (The Shadows)
(1962) ...  The Shads' fourth # 1 was also a hit, with added vocals, for Kathy Kirby

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I’m Free (The Soup Dragons featuring Junior Reid)                                      
(1990) ... only major hit for the Scottish band who took their name from a character in The Clangers, a popular kids' TV series in the '70s. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote the song for The Rolling Stones' 1965 album Out Of Our Heads

If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind (Agnetha Fältskog)                                                                                                                                          (2004) ...  after a long hiatus from the music world, Abba's Agnetha had her biggest solo hit to date ( UK # 11, Sweden # 2) with a  well chosen song which most listeners would recognise from the hook in the lyric 'I Will Bring You) Flowers In The Morning'.  Written in the late '60s by John Cameron, it was originally a hit for Cilla Black (1969, # 20) [W]

Newsround pre-Tameside: 53 years ago ~ 1969

Throw Down A Line (Cliff Richard & Hank Marvin)
...  a year after Cliff and The Shadows went their separate ways, lead singer and lead guitarist were back in the studio. Hank wrote the song which undoubtedly had commercial appeal but had a harder-edged rock sound than you might have expected. Its credibility was boosted  considerably when The Jeff Beck Group recorded it [W]

Marrakesh Express (Crosby, Stills and Nash)           
...   David Crosby, previously of The Byrds and Stephen Stills from Buffalo Springfield, teamed up with Salford-born Graham Nash, who had recently left The Hollies

I Second That Emotion (Diana Ross & The Supremes & The Temptations)
... cover of a Smokey Robinson song to follow up their previous coming together, I'm Gonna Make You Love Me

Honky Tonk Women (The Rolling Stones) 
...   #  1, single released the day after the death of Stones founder and original leader Brian Jones, who had recently left the band

I'll Never Fall In Love Again (Bobbie Gentry)
...  much covered Bacharach and David song ~ for many people, this is probably still the best known version, although Deacon Blue did the duo proud on their Four Bacharach and David Songs EP (1990)

Viva Bobby Joe (The Equals)
,,, formed in the mid '60s by Guyanese-British musician and future successful solo artist Eddy Grant, The Equals will always be remembered as one of the very first racially integrated bands in the music mainstream. Viva Bobby Joe made the Top 10 a year after they topped the chart with Baby Come Back [W]

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SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show, you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 16/10/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

You Take Me Up (Thompson Twins) 
(1984)...  at the height of their success You Take Me Up with its stand-out harmonica and melodica solo became the Thompsons' highest placed hit, reaching # 2

That's When The Music Takes Me (Neil Sedaka) 
(1973) ... his first Top 20 entry with a new single for more than a decade,  a success which owed a great deal to where and with whom it was recorded - in England, at Strawberry Studios in Stockport, with the house band of four highly accomplished musicians who happened to be the recently formed 10cc. Having struck up such an amicable and fruitful working relationship, it was almost a foregone conclusion that Sedaka would return to Strawberry to work with the same team on his next album The Tra La Days Are Over

He's A Rebel (The Crystals) 
... teaser track for the year we are featuring across both hours of today's show ~ first UK hit for the American girl group, written, before he was famous, by Gene Pitney

All about the numbers

Living By Numbers (New Musik)
(1980) ... synth-pop band led by Tony Mansfield, songwriter, record producer and former member of the Nick Straker Band, on the chart with one-off hit A Walk In The Park the previous year. Living By Numbers (#13) was by far the most successful of three New Musik singles to reach the Top 40  [W]

2-4-6-8 Motorway (Tom Robinson Band)
(1978) ... described by writer and critic David Quantick as "somewhere between a terrace chant (or a demo marching song) and a Bruce Springsteen song" [W]

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Lemon Tree (Fool's Garden) 
(1995-96) ... quirky, but radio friendly song which was a hit across Europe and eventually here in the UK for German group Fool's Garden

Newsround pre-Tameside: 60 years ago ~ 1962 (Part 1)

Bobby's Girl (Susan Maughan) 
... one of the most memorable pop singles of its time ~ a lively, punchy vocal performance backed by a sparkling production featuring Wally Stott's orchestra and chorus

Love Me Do (The Beatles)
(1962) ... unknown to most record buyers outside Liverpool, the Fab Four's first single was released on 5th October 1962, 60 years ago this past week, eventually climbing to # 17 on the national chart just before Christmas.  On its 20th anniversary reissue in 1982, Love Me Do finally became a Top 10 -er, reaching # 4. The B side is on the playlist towards the end of the show

Let's Dance (Chris Montez)
... a classic of its time with pounding drums and very distinctive electric organ sound, Let's Dance had a repeat run in the upper reaches of the chart 10 years later (see also Little Eva, second hour *)

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N (Connie Francis) 
... the gimmick of spelling out the title had the desired effect to make it a feelgood smash hit for the summer holidays

It Might As Well Rain (Carole King) 
... Goffin-King song written for Bobby Vee but unexpectedly eclipsed by Carole's own recording which had only been intended as a 'demo' version. The Goffin-King partnership produced numerous hits for other artists, but Carole's next appearance as a recording artist was almost a decade away  ~ her 1971 album Tapestry

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Two of the best Bond songs                                                                                                                                                                                          ... 5th October 1962 was a pivotal moment in popular culture: not only the date of The Beatles' first single release, as mentioned earlier, but also the premiere of the first James Bond film Dr No.  60 years on, the mega-successful franchise now extends to 26 films with six different actors taking the title role

Live and Let Die (Paul McCartney & Wings) 
(1973) ... written by Paul and Linda for the soundtrack to Roger Moore's first appearance as 007

The Living Daylights (a-ha)
(1987) ... song which has gone on to have an enduring life of its own as one of the band's most played songs in live concerts, but was also the theme to the first of only two Bond appearances by Timothy Dalton, [W]  One more official Bond song will follow later along with one which was totally unofficial but 'inspired by...' 

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SECOND HOUR

You Haven't Done Nothin' (Stevie Wonder) 
(1974) ... first single from the album Fulfillingness' First Finale, ahead of Boogie On Reggae Woman.  With a funky clavinet riff to rival 1972's Superstition and a cameo guest appearance by The Jackson 5, You Haven't Done Nothin' is a pointed criticism of the US administration of President Richard Nixon ~  by no means the first time a set of lyrics by Stevie Wonder were a social commentary on the world around him  [W]

Just My Imagination (The Cranberries)
(1999) ... instantly endearing, championed  by the late Terry Wogan on his Radio 2 breakfast show  but sadly, missed out on a chart place in the UK.  Thankfully, it was a different story beyond these shores:  # 15 in Italy, # 10 in Belgium and... # 2 in Iceland

It Started All Over Again (Brenda Lee) 
(1962) ... Little Miss Dynamite had been a regular presence on the chart since the turn of the decade and continued to clock up hit after hit in today's lone featured year ~ more to come later...

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
... two of the top TV themes of their time with a countryside connection

Galloping Home (Black Beauty theme) (London String Chorale)
(1973-74) ... if you or your children were growing up in the early to mid '70s, you'll instantly recognise this as the theme of ITV's popular Sunday tea-time series, Released as a single, Galloping Home made it to # 31 on the chart in '74

All Creatures Great And Small (Johnny Pearson Orchestra)
(1978) ... from the much-loved BBC series of the same name, based on the books by veterinary surgeon turned author Alf Wight, who wrote under the pseudonym  James Herriot. The theme's composer Johnny Pearson directed the Top of the Pops 'house band' from the mid '60s until the early '80s, enjoying chart success firstly with Sounds  Orchestral (Cast Your Fate To the Wind, 1965)  and later with the Johnny Pearson Orchestra (Sleepy Shores - theme of the BBC drama series, Owen MD, 1971).  Fast forward to 2020, a reboot of All Creatures Great And Small with an all-new cast successfully debuted on Channel 5 and is now into its third series

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For Your Eyes Only (Sheena Easton) 
(1981) .... another Bond song as promised ~ having played Live and Let Die which opened the Roger Moore era, For Your Eyes Only was his fifth appearance in the role. Sheena Easton who had been 'discovered' in a BBC talent search only two years earlier joined the elite roster of artists invited to sing a Bond theme

Sleeping With The Enemy (Daniel Takes A Train) 
(2020) ..ska-inspired track intended as an tongue-firmly-in-cheek, alternative take on James Bond

Newsround pre-Tameside: 60 years ago ~ 1962 (Part 2)

TOP 5: week ending 06/10/1962

[5] The Locomotion (Little Eva) 
... looking for someone to sing the surefire hit you have just written? Why not ask the baby-sitter?! That's how Little Eva got her lucky break with Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Returned to the Top 20 as a reissue 10 years later  (* likewise, Let's Dance by Chris Montez, first hour)

[4] Sheila (Tommy Roe)
... US # 1 with distinct echoes of Buddy Holly's Peggy Sue. Tommy Roe had a couple more Top 10-ers the following year but is best known for Dizzy, his UK chart-topper at the end of the decade

[3] It'll Be Me (Cliff Richard & The Shadows)
... a UK # 2 for Cliff and a Top 10-er in several other countries ~ not bad at all for a song which began life as the B side of Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On, a 1957 hit for Jerry Lee Lewis [W]

[2] She's Not You (Elvis Presley with The Jordanaires)
...  his third of four UK No.1s  in '62 ~ the others were Rock-A-Hula Baby / Can't Help Falling In Love, Good Look Charm and Return To Sender  

[1] Telstar (The Tornados) 
...  chartwise, one of the biggest instrumental hits ever, # 1 here and in America. It was the second British single to top the US Billboard chart that year, following the success of another famous instrumental, Acker Bilk's soothing Stranger On The Shore ~ a greater contrast to the feisty, futuristic Telstar you could hardly imagine

PS I Love You (The Beatles)
... B side of Love Me Do, the Fab Four's debut single ~ PS Love You was another early Lennon & McCartney song to see the light of the day, a trailblazer of what would follow

Don't Ever Change (The Crickets) 
... another hit from the prolific partnership of Gerry Goffin and Carole King ~ giving The Crickets their biggest  UK hit  (# 5) since the death of original front man Buddy Holly three years earlier.  The lead vocal on Don't Ever Change is sung by Jerry Naylor  (W)

------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show, you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 09/10/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Free Electric Band (Albert Hammond)
(1973) ... considering he's had such a prolific career as a songwriter, with classics spanning the decades, big hits for The Hollies, Starship, Aswad #  and many, many more, it's hard to believe the relentlessly upbeat, feelgood Free Electric Band has remained his only UK hit as a singer in his own right. Also fair to say, it deserved to do much better than a # 19 ( # The Air That I Breathe, Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, Don't Turn Around)

If You Really Love Me (Stevie Wonder) 
(1972) ...  Top 20 hit from the previous year's album Where I'm Coming From, one of many songs around that time written by Stevie and his then wife Syreeta Wright

The Sign (Ace of Base)
...  peaking at # 2 in the first of today's featured years, nine months after their chart-topping debut All That She Wants

Acceptance, agreement, a seal of approval...

Okay! (Dave Dee, Dozy. Beaky, Mick & Tich)
(1967) ... midway through an impressive run of more than a dozen Top 40 singles, this was their third hit to reach # 4

That's Nice (Neil Christian)
(1966) ... one hit wonder, much played on the offshore pirate radio stations of that era. His backing group were The Crusaders  ~  although, clearly not the '70s jazz funk band of the same name (biggest hit - Street Life)

-----------------------

Them Heavy People (Kate Bush) 
(1978) ... 'Rolling The Ball' as many people know it  ~. the original version is on Kate's ground breaking debut album The Kick Inside. The following year it was the lead song on a 'live' EP which made the Top 10 singles listings

Newsround Tameside: 28 years ago ~ 1994

Parklife (Blur)
...classic '90s Britpop, with Phil Daniels, the actor best known for playing the lead character in the film Quadrophenia giving the spoken word narrative between each rousing chorus

Searching (China Black)
...  British pop reggae duo with the first - and biggest by far (# 4) - of three Top 40 hits. ** 1994 in British pop music was notable for a growing reggae/pop crossover trend. Artists such as Ace of Base, Chaka Demus & Pliers and Pato Banton (with the help of UB40), took their radio-friendly 'pop/reggae' hits to the top of the UK charts.... [W]

But Not For Me (Elton John)
... Elton sings Gershwin - short but sweet on the soundtrack of the mega-successful British film Four Weddings And A Funeral for which he also supplied the much more uptempo final song you heard as the credits rolled - it's coming up later.... 

I'll Stand By You (The Pretenders)
...  eight years on from their last chart appearance, this was the one to take Chrissie and co back into the Top 10, for the first and only time in the '90s

Saturn 5 (Inspiral Carpets)  
...   Oldham's standard bearers in the Madchester music explosion of the late '80s-early '90s with a Top 20 single from their fourth album Devil Hopping

Every Little Thing He Does Is Magic (Shawn Colvin) 
(1994) ... gently reworking The Police hit, slightly changing Sting's original lyrics to give a female-to-male perspective

Chapel of Love (Elton John) 
... originally a '60s hit for The Dixie Cups ~ the perfect choice as a rock 'n' rolling finale for the Four Weddings And A Funeral soundtrack. 
 

--------------------------

SECOND HOUR    

You Can't Hurry Love (Phil Collins) 
(1982-83)... side one, track one on the original Now That's What I Call Music album ~   a massive change of style from the kind of  music he had made with Genesis over many years. Staying true to the spirit of The Supremes' original, an unexpected combination of singer and song made it a dead cert chart-topper

My Man, A Sweet Man (Millie Jackson) 
(1972) ... popular Northern soul floor filler,  # 50 was its highest chart position. Millie Jackson is probably best known in the UK for duetting with Elton John (Act of War, 1985, # 32)

Jesamine (The Casuals) 
... teaser track for our second featured year ~ former teen star turned songwriter Marty Wilde was the creative force behind this one, giving the group from Lincoln their only major hit which soared to # 2 with a total of 18 weeks on the chart  [W]

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
... plentiful piano playing

Nut Rocker (B Bumble & The Stingers) 
(1962) .... .. rocking and rolling their way to the top of the chart with some fast and frantic piano and just a hint of a famous classical tune, the march from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker Suite. One of the biggest ever instrumental hits, # 1 in '62, returning to the Top 20 exactly 10 years later

Bad Penny Blues (Humphrey Lyttelton & His Band) 
(1956) ...  piano based jazz tune which apparently inspired Paul McCartney a dozen years later when he was working on the intro for The Beatles' Lady Madonna (1968, # 1)

---------------------------

For You (Judie Tzuke)
(1978) ... turntable hit pre-dating by a year  Stay With Me Till Dawn, her only major chart success. In recent years Judie has recorded and played live in an informal/occasional coming together with like-minded singer-songwriters Beverley Craven, Julia Fordham and Rumer (next up on today's playlist).... Following their last tour which played to 35,000 people countrywide,  they are back with another series of concerts including Buxton Opera House on 29th October and Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, 17th November

Goodbye Girl (Rumer)
(2010) .. the David Gates song was the final track on her high acclaimed, mostly all self penned debut album

Newsround pre-Tameside: 54 years ago ~ 1968

Days (The Kinks)
... its # 12 highest placing would be equalled by Kirsty MacColl who brought Ray Davies well crafted song to a new generation more than 20 years later

Hold Me Tight (Johnny Nash)
... debut hit by the American singer-songwriter ~ one of the first non-Jamaican artists to record reggae music in Kingston (the Jamaican capital)

I Close My Eyes And Count To Ten (Dusty Springfield) 
... powerful, slow-building ballad which grabs your attention from the start with its dramatic piano introduction 

---------------------------

60 years of Beatles, Bond... and front page news in the Ashton-under-Lyne Reporter! *

Love Me Do (The Beatles)
(1962) ... unbeknown to most record buyers outside Liverpool, the Fab Four's first single was released on 5th October 1962, 60 years ago this coming week . Also making its debut on that same day, with much more of a fanfare....

The James Bond theme (John Barry and The Seven)
(1962)... Sean Connery starred as agent 007 in Dr No, the first of the Bond films with its unforgettable signature theme

Headline News (Edwin Starr)
(1966 and 1968-69) ... one of his two Tamla Motown toe-tappers which just edged into the UK Top 40 in '66 - the other was Stop Her On Sight (SOS). Reissued as a double A side a couple of years later, they achieved a much more deserving # 11

* there's more to come next week...

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

Please bear in mind: it's a live show and so, occasionally I might need to change the running order, leave a song out, or play an unplanned extra song which will not be shown in this weekly music blog.

If you missed any of the show,  you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 02/10/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand

Dancing In The City (Marshall Hain) 
(1978) ... British duo Julian Marshall and Kit Hain came up with a song which made our Top 10, was a hit across Europe and topped the chart in Australia

The Kids Are Alright (The Who) 
(1966) ...  surprisingly, not one of their biggest hits, a lowly # 41 was its highest chart placing which was probably due to the band moving from one record label to another, around that time

I Think I Love You (Voice of The Beehive) 
... from the first of today's featured years, exactly two decades on from the original by David Cassidy and co, otherwise known as The Partridge Family

Summertime memories

Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer (Nat King Cole)
(1963) ... summer hits often have a fairly short lifespan, but here's one which survived longer than most ~ no fewer than 30 weeks on the US Billboard chart, more than two and a half times longer than the official 12-week, three-month summer. Although instantly familiar and always popular here in the UK, Those Lazy, Hazy... has never made our chart

Summertime Summertime (Hobby Horse) 
(1972) ... Mary Hopkin - hits including Those Were The Days, Goodbye and Temma Harbour - was by far the best known member of this trio, reviving a late '50s-early '60s US hit by The Jamies. Hobby Horse didn't register on the chart here, but made the Top 10 in Holland [W]

---------------------------

Torch (Soft Cell)
(1982) ... peaking at # 2, Torch was the duo's second biggest hit after the chart-topping Tainted Love. All told, they clocked up five consecutive Top 5 singles in a 12 month span from August '81 to August '82 

Newsround Tameside: 31 years ago ~ 1991

More To Life (Cliff Richard)
... theme song for a short lived BBC Sunday night  drama series  ~ involving horse racing ... does anyone remember Trainer??! Looking back, I don't think it's too over the top to say that Cliff singing More To Life* was easily the most memorable thing about it (* written by prolific TV music composer Simon May with lyrics by broadcaster/writer - and '80s era Cliff lookalike - Mike Read

Every Heartbeat (Amy Grant)
... a landmark year for Amy, who grew up; in Nashville and had made her name writing and performing contemporary Christian songs. Having reached the dizzy heights of # 2 with her first pop crossover Baby Baby, this one followed hot on its heels to make it two hits in a row

Heavenly Pop Hit (The Chills)
... New Zealand band with one of the most hummable songs ever - sadly not a hit, heavenly or otherwise, in the UK despite plenty of airplay from Simon Mayo who chose it as  his Record of The Week on the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show

Happy Together (Jason Donovan)
... chartwise, it proved just as popular as The Turtles' original back in '67  ~ numbers-wise, it managed to go two places higher, reaching # 10

The Size Of  A Cow (The Wonder Stuff)
...  first time in the Top 10 after several lower placed chart entries  for the band from Stourbridge, West Midlands      

Footsteps Following Me (Frances Nero)
... American soul and jazz singer who had recorded for Motown in  the '60s  After a lengthy hiatus, in 1989, she was contacted by Ian Levine, a British record producer and promoter of Northern soul music. They recorded Footsteps Following Me, written by Levine with Ivy Jo Hunter and Steven Wagner.  Her first recording for 23 years, the single reached # 17 in the UK in 1991 and was dubbed by British disc jockeys "the soul anthem of the nineties" [W]

The One I Love (REM)
... they were on a roll with no fewer than six Top 40 hits during the year. The One I Love had been their debut hit in the US back in '87

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR

Call Me Round (Pilot)
(1975) ...following up a # 1 is never easy ~ the single after the chart-topping January was another catchy song with that distinctive Pilot sound, but surprisingly stalled at # 34

Who Wants The World (The Stranglers)
(1980) ...  a non-album single which could manage only a modest #39 placing, despite a very catchy sing-a-long-able title line and Dave Greenfield's exuberant keyboard playing

This Little Bird (Marianne Faithfull)
... teaser track for our second featured year~ written by US singer songwriter John D Loudermilk best known for his hit earlier in the decade The Language of Love.  This Little Bird was Marianne's third Top 10-er - all three from famous or soon-to-be famous writers and performers. The other two were As Tears Go By (Mick Jagger and Keith Richards) and Come And Stay With Me (Jackie de Shannon) [W]

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
...   from famous TV ads  ~ with a chocolate connection...

Return of Django (The Upsetters)
(1969) ...  one-off hit by the house band for legendary Jamaican reggae producer Lee 'Scratch' Perry - those of us of a certain vintage may remember it  accompanying a Cadburys Fruit and Nut TV ad produced by Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame 

The Night Rider (Alan Hawkshaw)
(1972) ... the music forever associated with the Milk Tray man in the famous ads ~ one of the best known tunes by a prolific composer of TV themes, previously a member of Emile Ford and The Checkmates who had a handful of hits in the late '50s and very early '60s. Later he played on an early David Bowie song (In The Heat of The Morning) and worked with The Shadows, Cliff Richard, Olivia Newton John and others [W]

---------------------------

Wishful Thinking (China Crisis)
(1984) ... echoing Bernie Taupin's lyric for Elton John's Your Song ~ "I sat on the roof"... but the similarity ends there, They didn't kick off the moss and a few other verses didn't make them quite cross. In keeping with the song's dreamy feel, China Crisis preferred to use their elevated vantage point to "watch the day go by..."

Suburban Homeboy (Sparks)
(2002) ... from the album Lil' Beethoven, a very likeable, radio-friendly single from the Mael brothers, up to the high standard of their '70s heyday

Newsround pre-Tameside: 57 years ago ~ 1965

Long Live Love (Sandie Shaw)
... Sandie's second # 1 was one of four written by Chris Andrews who had a couple of hits in his own right Yesterday Man ( # 3) and To Whom It Concerns (# 13) all within the same year 

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (The Animals)
... song recorded the previous year by jazz pianist and singer Nina Simone

In The Middle of Nowhere (Dusty Springfield)
... straight in with an instantly catchy chorus and hook line ~   classic '60s feelgood song with Dusty at her poppiest

Here Comes The Night (Them)
...  band which launched the career of Van Morrison ~ the second and biggest of two hits within a few months of each other  

Leave A Little Love (Lulu)
... a slow, soul ballad in complete contrast to her debut the previous year with Shout !

I Got You Babe (Sonny & Cher)
...  chart-topper both sides of the Atlantic, one of the best duets ever. I Got You Babe returned to the UK top spot exactly 20 years later, courtesy of UB40 and Chrissie Hynde

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show,  you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 25/09/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Harlem Shuffle (Bob and Earl)
(1969) ... a UK Top 10-er six years after it had  been a hit in the US, also successfully covered in the mid '80s by The Rolling Stones

My Brother Jake (Free)
(1971) ... straight in with a nice bit of blues piano and an instantly catchy vocal 'hook' ~ every bit as good as All Right Now, rightly regarded as a rock classic. The writers, lead singer Paul Rodgers and bass guitarist Andy Fraser, apparently were inspired by someone they had met and become great friends with, reggae singer Horace Faith... My Brother Horace didn't really work as a lyric, though, so they had to think of a different name and Jake was what they came up with... [W]

Wings Of A Dove (A Celebratory Song) (Madness)
... from the first of today's featured years ~  having had a long run of hit after hit, Madness deserved great credit for coming up with something different  and were rewarded with one of their biggest ever, peaking at # 2. Featuring not only a gospel choir but also a steel band, Wings of A Dove was the band's 14th Top 10-er and 16th chart entry in all

It's all about the alliteration
... two word titles which double up on 'R's and 'S's (more to come later!)

Rockin' Robin (Michael Jackson)
(1972)... MJ's second solo hit had an instant appeal, not just for young fans of the Jackson 5, but for many of their parents' generation who remembered tapping their toes and singing along to Bobby Day's 1958 original

Sugar Sugar (The Archies) 
(1969) ...  massive hit both sides of the Atlantic for the cartoon group The Archies, four weeks at # 1 in the US followed by an eight week run here. The song was written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim - who went on to have a big hit in his own right with Rock Me Gently (1974, US # 1, UK # 2)

---------------------------

Northern Lights (Renaissance)
(1978) ... singer Annie Haslam has been a constant presence throughout most of the band's long history, amid numerous changes of line-up. Renaissance have usually been categorised as 'prog rock' although Northern Lights, their only hit single, has more of a folky acoustic feel

Newsround Tameside: 39 years ago ~ 1983

Don't Try To Stop It (Roman Holliday)
... three minutes of pure pop with a relentless rockabilly beat and a ridiculously  catchy chorus

Long Hot Summer (Style Council)
... '83 was the start of a soulful new chapter for Paul Weller after The Jam had split the previous year. Style Council hit the ground running with  their first four hits before the year was out. Long Hot Summer achieved  the highest chart position, # 3

I'll Tumble 4 Ya (Culture Club)
,,,  from their debut album Kissing To Be A Clever, a Top 10 hit in the US and Canada and a # 1 in Australia as a double A side with Karma Chameleon. Surprisingly, never a single in the UK even though it was always a highlight of their live set

Who's That Girl? (Eurythmics)
....  a vintage year for Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart with four Top 10-ers

Love Blonde (Kim Wilde)
...  two years on from her first flurry of success, Kim had hit a blip, a succession of not-so-high chart placings. Love Blonde - peak position # 23 - is one of those that you don't tend to hear much these days 

Boxerbeat (JoBoxers)
... foot-stomping crowd-pleaser which became the Boxers' first - and biggest - hit, peaking at # 3

Don't Talk To Me About Love (Altered Images) 
... last major hit for the Scottish indie band ~ lead singer Clare Grogan who has since become better known for her acting roles and occasional TV and radio presenting apparently was a source of inspiration for Gary Kemp when he wrote True, the Spandau Ballet classic which topped the chart in '83. Altered Images have re-convened in the past couple of years, playing live dates and  releasing some new songs

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR

Sweet Soul Music (Arthur Conley)
(1967) ...  Top 10 toe tapper with one of those attention grabbing intros demanding your immediate presence on the dance floor

Valerie (Mark Ronson with Amy Winehouse)
(2007) ... one of the top music producers to emerge in the '00s joining forces with one of the finest soulful voices, giving a fresh new  twist to The Zutons hit from the previous year

Summertime City (Mike Batt and The New Edition) 
... teaser track for our second featured year ~ The Womblemeister stepped out of his furry costume to  write and sing the theme song of the BBC TV  Saturday night variety show Seaside Special.   Released as a single, it soon took on a life of its own, reaching a peak of # 6. Its success was well deserved ~ one of the best summer songs ever, in my humble opinion. A Wombles hit which also had recently charted is on the playlist later in the hour

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
... all about the alliteration (again!) ~ two more two-word titles which double up on 'R's and 'S' [continuing the thread of thought from earlier]

Rebel Rouser (Duane Eddy)   
(1958) ... first UK hit  by the twangy guitar man, kick starting a fabulous five year span of 20 Top 40 entries

Sucu Sucu (Laurie Johnson & His Orchestra) 
(1961) ...  an already familiar tune, many different versions over the years, vocal and instrumental ~ Laurie Johnson's lively arrangement was the most successful chartwise, peaking at # 9, having been adopted as the  theme of a then current TV series Top Secret

---------------------------

Don't Matter Now (George Ezra)
(2017) ...  lead single from his second album Staying At Tamara's ~ eagerly awaited at the time as the first new song he had released since his mega successful debut three years earlier

Sha La La La Lee (The Small Faces) 
(1966)... their first time in the Top 10, with plenty more to follow for a band who would be one of the biggest musical influences on the Britpop movement of the 1990s, and were later inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. *  The song is in the '60s tradition of catchy songs with meaningless titles - Doo Wah Diddy Diddy  by Manfred Mann is another fine example  [* W]

Newsround Tameside: 47 years ago ~ 1975

This Will Be (Natalie Cole)
...  chart debut for the daughter of the late Nat King Cole, which made the US Top 10 and UK Top 40. All her other hits this side of the Atlantic were way off in the future, late '80s-early '90s. This Will Be was a bit of a one-off at the time, but perhaps the clue was in the title that we would be hearing much more from Natalie... eventually

Mama Never Told Me (Sister Sledge) 
... UK Top 20 debut for the family group who came into their own later in the disco era, continuing well into the next decade 

Superwomble (The Wombles)
... after many changes of musical style masterminded by maestro Mike Batt over the previous year and a half, this was The Wombles' last but one Top 40 hit. Let's Womble To The Party Tonight which followed at the end of '75 was to be the finale - until a flurry of reissues sparked a brief renaissance in the late '90s / early '00s. Superwomble was co-written with Richard Kelly and ace session guitarist Chris Spedding * who also plays on the track. It's the one where Steeleye Span - the legendary folk rock band whose latest album Mike Batt was currently producing - donned those furry suits to become Wombles for the day on Top of The Pops . * Another summer of '75 chart connection ~ he had his own solo hit which is coming up....

Motor Bikin' (Chris Spedding)
... one-off hit for the prolific musician who has released 14 studio albums and worked with just about everyone from Mike Batt and The Wombles, as mentioned above, to The Sex Pistols. Others include The Pretenders, Elton John and Roxy Music to mention just three.

I Do I Do I Do, I Do, I Do (Abba)
... surprisingly stalled at #38... their next single SOS put them quickly back on track, soaring into the Top 10 and from then on, for the next five years, the chart-toppers just kept on coming    

Misty (Ray Stevens)
.... cheery country toe-tapper which started out as a slow ballad, as sung by Johnny Mathis in the late '50s (UK hit, 1960)    

--------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show,  you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 04/09/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Oblivious (Aztec Camera) 
(1983) ... peaked at a lowly # 47 first time out, but a swift re-issue later in the year was enough to see Roddy Frame and co reach the Top 20 for the first time

Little By Little (Dusty Springfield)
(1966) ... good old toe-tapper massively influenced by Dusty's love of American soul music and the Motown sound in particular

Kid (The Pretenders)
... from the first of today's featured years ~ their second single to grace the Top 40 in the space of a few months, although greater glory would soon follow with Brass In Pocket going all the way to the top

Time-hopping hits which did much better second time around  

Stand By Me (Ben E. King) 
(1961, 1987) ...  reissued after featuring in one of those iconic TV ads for Levi jeans and reached # 1, an improvement of 26 places on the peak position it had achieved on its first outing. Stand By Me had also been 'borrowed' as the title song of a recently released film 

At The Club (The Drifters)
(1965, 1972) ... one side of a fabulous double A side which got as high as # 3 in the UK in '72. At The Club which had enjoyed modest success here in '65 (# 35) shared the spoils with an equally great song from the same era, the US Top 20 hit Saturday Night at The Movies

--------------------------

Female Of The Species (Space)
(1996) ....   the famous line about the female of the species being deadlier than the male is from a poem by Rudyard Kipling, written in 1911. Wikipedia describes the song as as 'a funky, upbeat, Latin-flavoured number with feel-good-sounding vibes and vocals' and goes on to say that it 'borrows to some extent, both thematically and in overall aesthetic, from The Walker Brothers' theme song for the 1967 film Deadlier Than The Male'. One of the more unusual '90s Britpop hits, it was adopted at that time by the Manchester based TV drama Cold Feet, and continued to be played over the closing credits when the series returned to our screens in recent years [W]

Newsround Tameside: 43 years ago ~ 1979

Do Anything You Want To (Thin Lizzy)
...  superb rhythmic drumming by the greatly under-rated Brian Downey and lyrics by Phil Lynott filled with rhyme and alliteration. In the first three lines alone, he somehow manages to include the words 'investigate', 'insinuate', 'intimidate', 'complicate',  'hesitate'...'

Chuck E's In Love (Rickie Lee Jones) 
... only UK hit for a singer who has alternated between rock, R&B, pop, soul and jazz

Accidents Will Happen (Elvis Costello) 
... follow up to the # 2 hit Oliver's Army , but much less successful despite its highly acclaimed animation video

Prime Time (The Tubes) 
... band from San Francisco renowned for their risque live shows, stepping into the mainstream with a radio friendly single ridiculing our obsession with TV. Prime Time - from the album Remote Control, produced by Todd Rundgren - peaked at # 34 in the UK  Singer and dancer Re Styles is the female voice, sharing vocal duties with regular frontman Fee Waybill  [W]

The Lone Ranger (Quantum Jump) 
... British one hit wonders who came up with what has to be the most attention-grabbing opening line ever ~  the world's longest word, according to the Guinness Book of Records, recited in the  language of the Maori, native to New Zealand.   All together now... "Taumatawhakatangihangakoayauo-tamateaturipukakapikimaungahoro-nukypokaiwhenuakitanatahu" [W]

Time For Action (Secret Affair)
... mod revival band with a fast and frantic Top 20 stomper, which reached  # 13. A year later they achieved similar success with My World (# 16)

Midnight Blue (ELO)
... the hits just kept on coming for the Electric Light Orchestra during '79 with no fewer than four singles in the Top 10. The slow ballad Midnight Blue with echoes of early Bee Gees was never a single but is one of many highlights of the album Discovery

--------------------------

SECOND HOUR

Make Your Own Kind Of Music (Mama Cass) 
(1969),... instantly familiar song from the prolific writing partnership of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil,  surprisingly, never a hit this side of the Atlantic. Fast forward several decades, 21st Century popster Paloma Faith covered the song which featured in a TV car ad (2018, # 28)

Rome Wasn't Built In A Day (Morcheeba)
(2000)... UK Top 40 hit which did well in several other countries especially New Zealand where it reached # 2 

Tower of Strength (Frankie Vaughan)
...  teaser track for our second featured year ~  by the Liverpool-born song and dance man/ all-round entertainer who had already had several chart hits. His turbo-charged cover of Tower of Strength, written by Burt Bacharach and Bob Hilliard and previously a US hit for Gene McDaniels gave him a Christmas # 1. Frankie - known as 'Mr Moonlight' after his signature song - once said:  *** "I was never just looking for songs to record... I wanted songs I could do in my act, songs that I could give a performance to... Tower of Strength was right up my street.".... taken at its full throttle [the song] was perfect for Frankie Vaughan with his stylised kicks. He promoted fitness and his illustrated feature for the 1962 Radio Luxembourg book of stars was entitled 'How To Be A Tower Of Strength And Stay Fit'  [ *** Source:  1000 UK Number One Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh)

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
... energetic early '80s with international connections

Can Can (Bad Manners)
(1981) ... Ooh-la-la ska! The mighty Buster Bloodvessel and co sound like they're having a whale of a time taking a famous old tune and doing it their way in typically raucous style

Cacharpaya  (Incantation)  
(1982) ... builds from a fairly steady pace to a frantic finish, featuring the traditional pan pipes sound of the Andes in South America

---------------------------

DIY (Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott)
(2014) ...  radio friendly but lowly charting (# 75) single for the former Beautiful South-ers, from their much more successful - Top 3 - album What Have We Become

I'm A Believer (Robert Wyatt)
(1974) ... a brilliant re-imagining of The Monkees '60s chart-topper (written by Neil Diamond) which, with the passage of time, I must admit I had completely forgotten about. Robert Wyatt had been the drummer in the prog rock/jazz fusion band Soft Machine before embarking on a solo career. In the early '80s, he had another one-off hit with Shipbuilding (lyrics: Elvis Costello, music: Clive Langer)

Newsround pre-Tameside: 61 years ago ~ 1961

You Don't Know (Helen Shapiro)
... having made her chart debut at the tender age of 14 with Don't Treat Me Like A Child (was that a deliberate choice?!) Helen would have two # 1 singles to her name by the end of the year ~ You Don't Know and Walkin' Back To Happiness

Cupid (Sam Cooke)
...  legendary singer & songwriter whose influence was far reaching, inspiring cover versions too numerous to mention of his best known songs -  Cupid was no exception, with Johnny Nash enjoying similar success in '69

The Writing On The Wall (Tommy Steele)
...  final chart hit for Britain's first rock 'n' rolling teen idol who was en route to becoming all-round showman entertainer and a star of stage and screen

Let's Jump The Broomstick (Brenda Lee)
...  Little Miss Dynamite was clocking up one chart entry after another in the early '60s, but her best run of form would come with a run of  six Top 10 singles over the  next couple of years

Let There Be Drums (Sandy Nelson)
... lyricless bonus ~ one of the most memorable instrumental tunes to make the chart in any era. Let There Be Drums has featured in TV  shows and films far too numerous to mention, a classic which has really stood the test of time

More Than I Can Say (Bobby Vee)
.... one of five Top 10-ers in what proved to be his most successful year in the UK

Runaway (Del Shannon)
... co-written with electric keyboard player Max Crook who created its distinctive sound ~ # 1 here and in America

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show,  you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 28/08/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Life Is A Flower (Ace of Base)
(1998) ... five years on from their chart topping debut All That She Wants, one of the highest placed ( # 5) of a dozen Top 40 hits for the group from Sweden

Elenore (The Turtles)
(1968) ...  third and last of their bright and breezy hat-trick of hits, all of them within a time span of around 18 months

Have You Ever Had It Blue (The Style Council)
... Top 20 single from the film Absolute Beginners - in the first of today's featured years.  Although the film -set in late '50s London - was a box office flop, it yielded two chart hits, of which this was one. The title track written and sung by David Bowie was by some distance the more successful, peaking at # 2. Fans of The Jam will have spotted an unlikely connection here ~ back in 1981, the trio had a hit with a different Absolute Beginners, written by Paul Weller... who also wrote Have You Ever Had It Blue 

'Surname only' duos

Pick Up The Pieces (Hudson Ford) 
(1973)... not to be confused with the Average White Band instrumental of the same name ~ this Top 10-er came with a full set of lyrics. John Hudson and Richard Ford had recently left The Strawbs, having had a huge hit  which they co-wrote ~ the highly topical of-its-time picket line chant, Part of The Union

Rosetta (Fame and Price)  
(1971)... one-off Top 10 coming together of Georgie Fame and Alan Price  ~ between them, they had previously clocked up a dozen or more hits during the '60s

--------------------------

Nothing But Blue Skies (Jackie Wilson)
(1968) ... the era when he also recorded I Get The Sweetest Feeling and (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher, both of which were hits in the UK more than once. Reissues ensured the name and voice of Jackie Wilson would still be familiar to chart-watchers during the '70s and '80s. Nothing But Blue Skies, in complete contrast, remained largely unknown and failed to reach anything like the same heights, although much loved on the Northern Soul scene

Newsround Tameside: 36 years ago ~ 1986

Left Of Center (Suzanne Vega)
... featuring Joe Jackson on piano, from the hit film soundtrack Pretty In Pink which also included songs by Echo And The Bunnymen, New Order and the title track by Psychedelic Furs [W]

Happy Hour (The Housemartins) 
...   they were an up-and-coming band still awaiting their big breakthrough when their second single Sheep made the lower reaches of the chart in the early spring of '86. Within weeks, they finally struck gold third time lucky when Happy Hour made the Top 3. Both songs also appeared on their debut album London 0 Hull 4. By the end of the year, the 'Martins' a-capella cover of the Isley Brothers' Caravan of Love had taken them all the way to the top

Calling All The Heroes (It Bites) 
...  band from Cumbria who had their one and only chart run of any significance in the summer of '86

Smile (Audrey Hall)
...  reggae singer who had two Top 20 hits here within a few months ~ Smile was the second, following on from One Dance Just Won't Do  She  began her career singing  in a duo with Dandy Livingstone - best known for Suzanne Beware of The Devil (1972)

Too Good To Be Forgotten (Amazulu)
... previously a '70s Top 10-er for The Chi-Lites, this was the one that saw Amazulu soaring to their best ever  chart placing (# 5 )

Boys Don't Cry (The Cure)
... a re-mix with a re-recorded vocal of a song which had first seen the light of day a few years earlier

----------------

Released in '86, remixed in '89
 
The Time Warp (PWL Remix) (Damian)
.... singer who grew up here in Tameside and recorded a 'Hi-NRG ' dance version of the song from the musical The Rocky Horror Show in 1986.  The single - produced by Des Tong, who had been in the Manchester band Sad Café  and like Damian, was originally from Audenshaw - gained a cult following on the club scene and just nudged into the lower reaches of the Top 75  'The Hitman' Pete Waterman thought it would have more commercial potential if it was slightly re-worked. His instinct proved to be spot on ~ the PWL re-mix was a huge success - three years after the original release. Damian appeared on Top of The Pops, the single leaped up the chart and reached the dizzy heights of # 7.

----------------

SECOND HOUR

If You Can't Give Me Love (Suzi Quatro) 
(1978)....  after a bit of a lull chart-wise in the mid 70s, Suzi returned with a mellower sound, continuing her connection with writers Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. If You Can't Give Me Love was in a similar style to the hits they were currently writing for her Rak Records label mates Smokie

This Day Will Last Forever (Ocean Colour Scene] 
(2005) ...  radio friendly feelgood single by the band who came to prominence during the '90s Britpop era. Despite plenty of airplay, it failed to make the Top 40

Where Did Our Love Go (The Supremes)
... teaser track for our second featured year ~  one of the first Motown hits to cross the Atlantic, although it was originally released here on EMI's Stateside label. Where Did Our Love Go was a UK # 3 - the follow up which we'll hear later went all the way to the top. Both songs were written by Motown's formidable in-house songwriting and production trio Holland-Dozier-Holland - brothers Brian and Eddie Holland together with Lamont Dozier who died earlier this month aged 81

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break 

A  Fifth of Beethoven (Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band)
(1976) ... disco-tastic re-invention of the famous first movement of Beethoven's Symphony No:5. A year later, it featured on the film soundtrack Saturday Night Fever

Percolator (Hot Butter)
(1972) ... unsuccessful follow-up to their worldwide hit Popcorn, in a very similar style ~ electronic pop played on a Moog synthesiser, bubbling along nicely, just like one of those handy coffee-making appliances

-----------------------

Suffragette City (David Bowie)
(1972)...  one of the best known songs on the legendary Ziggy Stardust album, also the B side of Starman 

Holiday (Katrina from Katrina & The Waves) 
(2020) ... much played song from Katrina's  recent solo album ~ timeless pop in the best tradition of those familiar hits of the past, especially Love Shine A Light, the UK's 1997 Eurovision winner

Newsround pre-Tameside: 58 years ago ~ 1964

Tobacco Road (The Nashville Teens)
....  based around one of the most stunning guitar riffs, ever! The band's ultra cool name was their only connection with Nashville ~  they were actually from Surrey [W]

You're No Good (The Swinging Blue Jeans)
.... having made their mark with The Hippy Hippy Shake and Good Golly Miss Molly, the lads from Liverpool made it a hat-trick of hit cover versions ~ songs which had already been successful in America for the original artists [W]

A Hard Day's Night (The Beatles)
... title song of the Fab Four's film debut and their third album - the first to consist entirely of Lennon and McCartney originals

Baby Love (The Supremes)
...  as mentioned earlier, this was their second smash hit of '64, which became Motown's first UK # 1, again, courtesy of Holland-Dozier-Holland... Hold that thought...

Baby I Need Your Loving (The Four Tops)
...  H-D-H also supplied the Four Tops' first US chart single for the label  Baby I Need Your Loving failed to break through here, although UK success was not long coming. Their 1965 debut  I Can't Help Myself (# 23) and its follow up It's The Same Old Song ( # 34) maintained the fruitful relationship with H-D-H 

Don't Throw Your Love Away (The Searchers)  
... the group's third and final # 1 had started out as a fairly modest sized American hit for The Orions. The Searchers' previous chart-toppers were Needles And Pins (also in '64) and Sweets For My Sweet ('63) [W]

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show,  you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 21/08/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Steppin' Out (Joe Jackson) 
(1983) ...  song about the 'anticipation and excitement of a drive around  town' which he wrote while staying in New York  ~ it became.his highest charting single in America, reaching # 6, which was also its peak position in the UK [W]

Somebody Help Me (Spencer Davis Group)
(1966)... many people would assume Keep On Running was the group's biggest hit ~  in fact, it shared that honour with Somebody Help Me. Both singles topped the chart within a few months of each other

Black Eyed Boy (Texas) 
... the first of today's featured years was one of the band's most prolific with four consecutive Top 10 singles including Black Eyed Boy - from their fourth studio album White on Blonde

'Girls name' songs that switch from English to French 

Michelle (The Beatles)
(1965) ... the original version as heard on the Rubber Soul album. Two cover versions competed against each other on the singles chart in early '66, The Overlanders enjoying three weeks at No.1, easily outflanking David and Jonathan (# 11) 

Jennifer Juniper (Donovan) 
(1968) ... AllMusic journalist Matthew Greenwald noted that "...capturing all of the innocence of the era perfectly, it's one of [his] finest singles". The sixth of seven Donovan Top 10-ers in the mid to late '60s,  it features a wind section with oboe, flute, and bassoon.
[W]

-----------------------

I Can't Help Myself (Donnie Elbert)
(1972) ... lively, upbeat re-working of the old Four Tops song ~ as a soloist with a distinctive falsetto voice, Donnie Elbert made it sound fresh and new, as if it was one of his own. I Can't Help Myself followed his successful re-working of another '60s Motown classic, Where Did Our Love Go, originally by The Supremes

Newsround Tameside: 25 years ago ~ 1997

Strange (Wet Wet Wet) 
... 10 years on  from Wishing I Was Lucky, the Wets could look back on an impressive run of hits, well into double figures. Strange was a single taken from the appropriately named album '10'

Lovefool (The Cardigans)
... biggest UK hit for the Swedish band ultimately peaking at # 2  having secured a second chart run thanks to its inclusion on the soundtrack to the Leonardo Di Caprio film Romeo And Juliet 

What A Beautiful Day (The Levellers) 
... rousing anthem by the punk-folk band - lead singer Mark Chadwick has claimed that it took him only three minutes to write 

Only If... (Enya) 
... single released from the compilation album Paint The Sky With Stars with that 'classic Enya' sound - rhythmic, hummable and radio friendly. Sadly it managed only two weeks on the chart, stalling at #43   

Tub-thumping (Chumbawamba)
... one of the year's stand-out songs which topped the chart in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Italy and New Zealand, peaked at #2 in the UK and # 6 in the US [W]

I Wanna Be The Only One (Eternal feat BeBe Winans)
... the British girl group's biggest hit to date was co-written by guest vocalist Benjamin 'BeBe' Winans, American gospel and R&B singer

I'll Be There For You (The Rembrandts)                                                                                                                                                                               ... famously the theme song of the hugely popular American sitcom Friends ~ but did you know the show's producers originally wanted to use REM's Shiny Happy People?!  [W]

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR

The Price Of Love (The Everly Brothers)
(1965) ... after a mega-successful run of hits stretching as far back as 1957, this was the Everlys' final time in the UK Top 10. Peaking at # 2, The Price of Love came close to becoming their first chart-topper since Temptation four years earlier.  Bryan Ferry later covered the song ~ it was  the 'lead' track on an EP, with the somewhat less than inspired title Extended Play (1976, # 7)

If Not For You (Olivia Newton John)
(1971)... first of two as a tribute to Olivia who has died aged 73  ~ well before  her famous film role in Grease and those mega-selling duets with John Travolta, her first chart success came courtesy of a Bob Dylan song which George Harrison had recently covered on his triple album All Things Must Pass

Rising Sun (Medicine Head) 
...   blues rock duo John Fidler and Peter Hope-Evans had been championed by John Peel on his legendary Radio 1 show.  In the year we are heading back to, later in the hour, they enjoyed mainstream success with a Top 3 hit One And One Is One with the follow-up Rising Sun peaking at # 11

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
.... memories of '60s offshore radio

Beefeaters (Johnny Dankworth)
(1964)...  long-time theme tune of broadcasting legend Tony Blackburn - the version played on the show features the authentic sound of Tony's canine companion Arnold the Dog

Rinky Dink (Johnny Howard Band)
(1964)... Tom Lodge, one of the first presenters on Radio Caroline chose this as his show theme. The original version by Dave 'Baby' Cortez, one of its co-writers had made the US Top 10 a couple of years earlier

---------------------------

Xanadu (Olivia Newton John with ELO)
(1980) ... continuing our tribute to Olivia ~ title song of a film in which she starred, largely forgotten with the passage of time. Written and produced by Jeff Lynne with that typical 'ELO sound', Xanadu the song was much more memorable, a one-off coming together which went all the way to the top

Take Love (Gilbert O'Sullivan with KT Tunstall)
(2022)... 50 years on from his chart career peak, Gilbert has just released Driven, his 20th studio album which has received some of the best reviews of his long career. Toe-tapping Take Love is one of two duets on the album - the other is the much slower Let Bygones Be Bygones with Mick Hucknall

Newsround pre-Tameside: 49 years ago ~ 1973

Pyjamarama (Roxy Music)
...  UK Top 10 -er released as a trailblazer for their second album  For Your Pleasure, although it wasn't actually on the LP.  Do The Strand, side one track one, became an instant favourite with the fans and seemed an obvious single ~ successfully filling that role in America and Europe, but, surprisingly, not in the UK, or at least not until five years later

Rock A Doodle Doo (Linda Lewis)
...  Essex-born singer, demonstrating an amazing vocal range from deep and soulful to a much higher pitch. Rock A Doodle Doo peaked at #15 but a couple of years later her disco version of It's In His Kiss (aka The Shoop Shoop Song) did even better (1975, # 6)

Step Into A Dream (White Plains)
...  grew into a fully-formed hit single after featuring in a TV ad for Butlins' holiday centres. One of those frothy, poppy songs which gets into your head and stays there, like it or not !

Smarty Pants (First Choice)
...  second UK hit in the space of three months for the American girl group, hot on the heels of Armed And Extremely Dangerous...but it would also be their last

I Saw The Light (Todd Rundgren)
(1973) ... American songwriter, musician and record producer influenced by British pop/rock of the late '60s ~ the likes of Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Move, The Who and The Yardbirds. I Saw The Light, instantly radio friendly, was his only hit here, highest position # 36 [W]

Alright Alright Alright (Mungo Jerry) 
... Top 3 summertime smash, an English translation of a French song by Jacques du Tronc ~ Et Moi Et Moi Et Moi (And Me, And Me,And Me) !

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show,  you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 14/08/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Summer In The City (The Lovin' Spoonful) 
(1966)... a rockin' '60s classic which has stood the test of time  as a really cool song,  a complete contrast from their other big hit from the same year, the very hummable but much more laid back Daydream 

Mirror Man (The Human League)
(1982)... having previously topped the chart with Don't You Want Me, they came close to repeating its success with Mirror Man, conceived and written as a celebration of Philip Oakey and Philip Adrian Wright's love of old Motown records [W]

You're The Reason Why (The Rubettes)
... from the first of today's featured years ~  a very under-rated single which deserved to do much better than a lowly # 28. Sounding more '60s than '70s, it's got a bit of the old Mersey Sound feel to it, pure pop with more of a stripped back production than previous Rubettes hits and most other chart singles  around at the time

Much sought-after Northern Soul 

I'll Do Anything (He Wants Me To) (Doris Troy) 
(1965) .. co-written by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff who later created the Philadelphia sound, working with the likes of The O'Jays, The Three Degrees and Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes. Much loved on the Northern Soul scene, sadly it never troubled the chart

I've Been Hurt (Guy Darrell)  
(1966 /1973)...  a good old stomper which finally made it into the Top 20 as a re-issue seven years after its original release

----------------------

It's Written In The Stars (Paul Weller)
(2001)...  Top 10 single from the chart-topping album Illumination, breaking away from the Britpop/ alt-rock leanings that had dominated his hit UK solo records ~ 'a return to the more soul-forward sound of The Style Council. The song is driven by a loop of an infectious horn-riff ... before some decidedly funky drums and Weller‘s voice enter the fray... (Source: http://www.djdmac.com/blog/song-day-paul-weller-written-stars/ )

Newsround Tameside: 46 years ago ~ 1976

Young Hearts Run Free (Candi Staton)
...  disco anthem which peaked at # 20 on the US Billboard Hot 100 but soared to # 2 here and was only held off the top spot by The Real Thing with You To Me Are Everything

I Love To Boogie (T Rex)  
... Marc Bolan's final chart outing during his lifetime was a short-but-sweet, back to basics rock 'n' roll song, pure and simple which, for fans and critics alike, was a welcome return to form after some fairly forgettable mid '70s output. Although well received, it deserved to do much better than a mere  # 13, a view which is borne out when you consider how popular it has become as time has gone on, and especially after it was included in the hit film Billy Elliot. I Love To Boogie is the song you hear in that memorable scene in which budding young ballet dancer Billy (Jamie Bell) is put through his paces by his teacher and mentor played by Julie Walters 

Let Your Love Flow (Bellamy Brothers) 
...   feelgood country cross-over, which topped the US Billboard Hot 100 and and made our Top 10 ~ one of the most played songs on the radio in the record breaking long hot summer of '76

This Is It (Melba Moore)  
... disco hit written by Van McCoy who had been successful in his own right the previous year with The Hustle. '90s chart watchers will remember This Is It sung by Dannii Minogue

Soul City Walk (Archie Bell & The Drells)
...  previously best known in the UK for Here I Go Again (1972, # 11). The start of the disco era prompted them to release a comeback album which included the single Soul City Walk (US # 42, UK # 13) 

The Continental (Maureen McGovern) 
... song which first saw the light of day in a 1934 film The Gay Divorcee, starring the twinkle-toed dancing duo, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers [W]

You Are My Love (Liverpool Express) 
... former members of  The Merseybeats and The Merseys who re-grouped  a decade after their first flush of success

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Georgy Girl (The Seekers)                                                                                                                                                                                               (1967) ... first of two in tribute to lead singer Judith Durham who has died aged 79.  Georgy Girl was written by two famous names from very different backgrounds  -  Tom Springfield (brother of Dusty and one time member of The Springfields) wrote the music with Jim Dale, the actor who starred in several Carry On films supplying the lyrics

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR

At The Hop (Danny & The Juniors) 
(1958)... classic rock 'n' roll combining 12 bar blues and boogie woogie piano, with lyrics name checking the popular dance routines of that time ~ the stomp, stroll, 'chalypso' and chicken . At The Hop topped the US chart and made the UK Top 3 [W]

Let's Stay Together (Tina Turner) 
(1983) ...  on fine form with a great version of the Al Green song  ~ the single which relaunched her career, with production and backing vocals from Sheffield's Heaven 17

High In The Sky (Amen Corner)
... teaser track for our second featured year, from the Cardiff band who took their name from the Amen Corner,  a regular Sunday night 'disc spin' (forerunner of the disco) in their home city [W]

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break

Murder She Said [Miss Marple theme] (Ron Goodwin)
(1961)  ... memorable theme tune of the Miss Marple films starring Margaret Rutherford. Fast forward to the '80s, Fun Boy Three recorded a version as the opening track on their album Waiting

Yakety Sax (Boots Randolph) 
(1963) ... US hit which became much more famous here as the music accompanying the infamous  'chasing madly around the park' routine at the end of each episode of the Benny Hill Show, a regular midweek fixture on ITV during the '70s and '80s

---------------------------

Stop (The Spice Girls)
(1998) ...  amazingly missed out on the top spot, living up to its name by bringing to a sudden halt their unbroken run of  six # 1 hits in less than two years.  They didn't have too long to wait for their seventh chart-topper (Viva Forever) and two more would follow, making a grand total of nine

Morningtown Ride (The Seekers)                                                                                                                                                                                      (1966) ... the train whistle was a blowing ~ much played on the BBC radio request show, Junior Choice, a song which brings back happy childhood memories for those of us of a certain age. Second of two played in tribute to lead singer Judith Durham who has died aged 79.

Newsround pre-Tameside: 54 years ago ~ 1968

Angel Of The Morning (PP Arnold)
... second hit for the American soul singer born Patricia Ann Cole, a year after the more successful and better known The First Cut Is The Deepest. She has recently published her autobiography Soul Survivor, described as 'a compelling memoir... charting the musical highs and personal lows of her extraordinary life'.  Another song coming up later...

Young Girl  (Union Gap featuring Gary Puckett)
.... cheery chart-topper which was quickly followed by another sizeable hit ~ Lady Willpower  (# 5).  We tend to think of the group as 'Gary Puckett & The Union Gap" ~ in fact, the lead singer only achieved top billing when Young Girl was successfully reissued  six years later  (1974, # 6)

Rainbow Chaser (Nirvana)
... clearly not the '90s grunge band ** ~ this lot were a '60s progressive rock group best remembered for this very hummable psychedelic pop  tune.  ** Kurt Cobain, frontman of the later and much more famous Nirvana would only have been one year old when Rainbow Chaser made the lower reaches of the Top 40

Step Inside Love (Cilla Black)
...  theme song for her first TV series on BBC1 ('Cilla' ). Step Inside Love was written specially for her by Paul McCartney and produced by George Martin

Jumpin' Jack Flash (The Rolling Stones)
...  two weeks at the top for a classic single widely regarded as one of the Stones' greatest ever

To Love Somebody (PP Arnold)
... second of two as promised ~  The Bee Gees song which Barry Gibb considered to be the best he had written. In a TV interview as recently as 2017, he told Piers Morgan he believed it stood out for its "clear, emotional message" [W]

Fire Brigade (The Move)
...  lyrically and musically, one of Roy Wood's greatest  songs ~ fun from start to finish, always plenty going on, all within a time frame of just 2 minutes 20 seconds

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show,  you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 07/08/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/
 

Wonderful World Beautiful People (Jimmy Cliff)
(1969)...  first of two UK Top 10-ers for the multi-talented reggae singer, musician and songwriter.  Another of his songs, Many Rivers To Cross became a hit for UB40 ( # 16, 1983)

You Got Me Dangling On A String (Chairmen of The Board)
(1970) ,,, second in a run of hits for the vocal group who were frequently compared with, and seen as rivals to The Four Tops

Mayor of Simpleton (XTC)  
... from the first of today's featured years ~ a very under-rated band whose chart positions never did them justice. Jangly guitar-based, tuneful English pop was always their speciality, of which Mayor of Simpleton is a fine example. Sadly it could only manage a mere four weeks on the chart, stalling at # 45

Just a 'Little'... 

I Will Follow Him (Little Peggy March)
(1963) ...   US # 1 which sold a million, but failed to catch on over here. Fast forward to the early '90s, it  became much better known when it was featured in Sister Act, the film starring Whoopi Goldberg

Tutti Frutti (Little Richard)
(1957) ... ask anyone to name a Little Richard song and it's highly likely they will immediately think of Tutti Frutti, arguably his signature song, although it achieved one of his lowest UK chart placings, a # 29 compared with Long Tall Sally (# 3), The Girl Can't Help It (# 9) and Lucille (# 10) in the same year, Good Golly Molly (1958, # 8) and Baby Face which surprisingly outshone all the rest (1959, # 2)

---------------------------

Cool Out Tonight (David Essex)  
(1977) ... midway through an impressive run of 17 Top 40 hits, Cool Out Tonight was a typically hummable song from an artist who enjoyed heart-throb status at the time and still commands a massive loyal following.  Having recently celebrated his 75th birthday he will soon be embarking on a series of rescheduled live dates including the Lowry, Salford Quays on 6th September

Newsround Tameside: 33 years ago ~ 1989

Days (Kirsty MacColl)
...  Kirsty sings The Kinks ~ with such conviction it sounds like one of her own.

Back To Life (However Do You Want Me) (Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler)
...   No.1 for the British R&B band, one of two songs with the same guest vocalist on their debut album Club Classics Vol One

A New Flame (Simply Red)
... Denton's most famous and successful musical son Mick Hucknall at his very best on this, the title track of the band's third album, also a Top 20 single

I'm On My Way (The Proclaimers)
... twins Craig and Charlie Reid with the third and final single from the album Sunshine on Leith

Street Tuff (Rebel MC / Double Trouble)
...  toe-tapping dance hip-house with a ska beat ~ an interesting fusion of styles. Apparently, that punchy bass line was 'borrowed' from a vintage reggae track by The Maytals 

Don't Wanna Lose You (Gloria Estefan)
...  Top 10 single from Cuts Both Ways, officially her first solo album although Miami Sound Machine still played a significant part in its overall sound

---------------------------

Right Said Fred (Bernard Cribbins) 
(1962)... always guaranteed to raise a smile, one of a hat-trick of chart hits for the much-loved Oldham-born actor and entertainer who has died, aged 93

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR

Spanish Stroll (Mink de Ville)
(1977) ... band which came to prominence in America through an influential New York nightclub at the forefront of the punk rock scene. Spanish Stroll,  their only UK hit, clearly belongs firmly in the mainstream of soul and R&B with not the slightest hint of anything 'punk' [W]

Skinny Genes (Eliza Doolittle)
(2010) ... a very likeable first single which picked up plenty of airplay, peaked at # 22 and paved the way for the ultimately more successful Pack Up Your Troubles a couple of months later [# 4]

I Saw Her Again (The Mamas & The Papas)
...   teaser track for our second featured year ~ co-written by band members John Phillips and Denny Doherty and released as the follow up to Monday Monday

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
... bringing together a famous band leader from Cuba and a Manchester beat group forever associated with the Mersey Sound

Guaglione (Perez 'Prez' Prado)
(1958 / 1995) ...  the Cuban bandleader recorded the best known version of a tune which had its origins in Naples Second time around, it leaped to # 2 in the UK after featuring in a famous TV ad. I wonder what could that be?....

The Cruel Sea (The Dakotas)
(1963)... Top 20 instrumental hit for the beat group best known for backing Billy J Kramer - he hailed from Liverpool ,but The Dakotas were from Manchester

--------------------------

I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (Sandi Thom)
(2006) ... one of those no messing, make-you-sit-up-and-take-notice songs that comes along every now and again, sounding totally fresh and unlike anything else

Newsround pre-Tameside: 56 years ago ~ 1966

Sunny Afternoon (The Kinks)
... the last of the Kinks' three mid '60s chart-toppers. Billboard magazine in the US praised the song's 'off-beat music hall melody' and bang up to date, topical lyrics. Like The Beatles' Taxman (on the Revolver album released later the same year) Ray Davies' song references the high levels of progressive tax introduced by Harold Wilson's Labour government [W]

You Can't Hurry Love (The Supremes)
,,,  exactly two years after their UK debut Where Did I Love Go climbed to # 3, You Can't Hurry Love reached the same peak

Hi-Lili Hi-Lo (Alan Price Set)
...  cheery tune first heard in the early '50s in the film Lili, starring Leslie Caron [W]

I Couldn't Live Without Your Love (Petula Clark) 
... one of a run of hits written specially for her by acclaimed songwriting duo Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent 

[UK Top 3 on the day England won the World Cup ~ 30-07-1966]

[3] With A Girl Like You (The Troggs)
... 1966 was 'their' year - With A Girl Like You was on its way to # 1, the middle one of three in a row which made the Top 3 ~ the others were Wild Thing and I Can't Control Myself

[2] Black Is Black (Los Bravos)
...  successfully revived in '78 by La Belle Epoque who equalled the original's highest chart position  # 2. Los Bravos were overall winners in one respect, however, by managing a reasonably successful follow up  (I Don't Care, 1966, # 16), while La Belle Epoque were destined for the one hit wonder club

[1] Out Of Time (Chris Farlowe & The Thunderbirds)
... mega-successful cover version of a Mick Jagger & Keith Richards song - The Rolling Stones' original had recently appeared on the album Aftermath

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show,  you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 31/07/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

I Can Hear Music (The Beach Boys) 
(1969) ... written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector for The Ronettes, who just about made it on to the bottom rung of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966. The Beach Boys version, with Carl Wilson on lead vocals, did much better ~ # 24 in America and # 10 here 

Ain't No Mountain High Enough (Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell) 
(1967) ... original upbeat version of the song  re-invented three years later as a gospel-style anthem for another Motown legend ~ the newly solo Diana Ross (1970, US # 1, UK # 6).  Marvin and Tammi's feelgood toe-tapper did well in the US but missed out completely this side of the pond

Talk of The Town (The Pretenders) 
...  from the first of today's featured years ~  the Top 10 follow-up to their chart-topping Brass In Pocket takes its title from a London nightclub. The song itself was apparently Inspired by a young fan  [W]

Seaside songs

Seaside Rendezvous (Queen)
(1976)... from the album A Night At The Opera which veers from seriously heavy rock to the pure pop of You're My Best Friend to the operatics of Bohemian Rhapsody... along with two of Freddie's short but sweet music hall novelty songs, of which Seaside Rendezvous is one (the even shorter Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon is the other)

Seaside Shuffle (Terry Dactyl & The Dinosaurs) 
(1972)...   'Terry' was the alias adopted by singer John Lewis who returned to chart land at the start of the following decade with a couple of hits in a different guise. One of those is coming later....* Seaside (or Sea Side) Shuffle which had sunk without trace when it was first released the previous year became a summertime smash, spending 12 weeks on the chart and scaling the dizzy heights of # 2. For anyone who has not heard the song before (really?!) it's a happy folk club-type stomper of a sing-a-long with an accordion to the fore - fun from start to finish

---------------------------

Our Day Will Come (Amy Winehouse)
(2011) ...   from the posthumously released album Lioness & Hidden Treasures,  a fine version of the 1963 US  # 1 (UK, # 38) for Ruby & The Romantics

Newsround Tameside: 42 years ago ~ 1980

Special Brew (Bad Manners) 
...   after breaking through into the mainstream, Buster and co realised they needed to write more songs... and headed out to the local off-licence for inspiration. One of the ideas sounded "a bit soppy... a bit of a long song," which was not their style... so, as legend has it,the Bad Manners front man picked up his beer and sang "I love you, yes i do 'cause i know that you're my special brew" ... the rest of the song was then written in a matter of minutes [W]

Babooshka (Kate Bush)
...story in a song about a wife's desire to test her husband's loyalty. In an interview at the time, Kate said she came up with the idea after hearing an old folk song - but had no idea Babooshka or 'babushka'  was the Russian name for a grandmother. The word also translates as 'head scarf' ~ putting those two together immediately creates a picture in the mind, but it has nothing to do with the song [W]

Oh Yeah [On The Radio] (Roxy Music)
...  second of a trio of classy singles from the album Flesh and Blood.  Oh Yeah followed Over You, both reaching the Top 5. The last of three The Same Old Scene peaked at # 12 to round off one of Roxy's most prolific years

Summer Fun (The Barracudas)
... immediately grabs your attention with a spoof American radio ad and then turns into a good ol' punk-pop stomper

You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties (Jona Lewie)
...  * as hinted at earlier, eight years after his one hit wonder success as Terry Dactyl, John Lewis returned as Jona Lewie. 'Kitchen At Parties'  made the Top 20 and was followed within months by the similarly quirky, and ultimately even more successful Stop The Cavalry, much played in the run-up to Christmas

Missing Words (The Selecter)
...  the 2-Tone ska band best known for On My Radio which made the Top 10 the previous year had further chart hits in 1980, including Missing Words (# 23). According to Rolling Stone magazine, lead singer Pauline Black "possessed the best voice that ever graced a 2-Tone release. Blessed with a bewitching soprano and dramatic panache, Black's voice reached plateaus that made every other musical detail sound like part of a backdrop painted just to set the stage for her entrance."  [W]  Pauline - recently awarded the OBE for services to entertainment - is currently on tour with The Selecter, including Holmfirth Picturedrome on Saturday 6th  August  https://www.picturedrome.net/tickets/The%20Selecter/20220806.htm

Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division)
...  Salford's experimental post-punk pioneers made a breakthrough into the mainstream with the anthemic Love Will Tear Us Apart in tragic circumstances, just weeks after the death of lead singer Ian Curtis

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR

Colour My World (Petula Clark) 
(1966) ... her singles were usually best sellers in the mid '60s, but amazingly, Colour My World was only ever  a turntable hit. Chart-wise, it flopped completely

How Beautiful Life Can Be (The Lathums)
(2021) ... instantly appealing slice of summer pop by a young band from Wigan for whom great things have been forecast 

Love of the Common People (Nicky Thomas) 
... teaser track for our second featured year ~ a reggae crossover hit which - hard to believe I know - started out as a folky, country ballad.  Fast forward a dozen years or so, the song was successfully revived, again in a different style, by Paul Young

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break 
... strutting about and bouncing back

Soulful Strut (Young-Holt Unlimited)
(1967)... the backing track to Am I The Same Girl had a life of its own as a Top 3 instrumental hit in the US, The original vocal version by Barbara Acklin was covered by Dusty Springfield, among others, and much later, in the early '90s, by Swing Out Sister  

On The Rebound (Floyd Cramer)
(1961) ... moving along at a fairly frantic pace, a  UK  # 1 and one of the biggest and best instrumental hits - ever!

----------------------

Rescue Me (Fontella Bass) 
(1965) ...  soul classic, by far her biggest success either side of the Atlantic (US #  4, UK # 11)

Newsround pre-Tameside: 52 years ago ~ 1970 

Question (The Moody Blues) 
... five minute epic which starts off uptempo before slowing down to a more typical Moody Blues pace and finally back 'up' again, all of which is underpinned superbly by Justin Hayward's acoustic guitar playing.

You Can Get It If You Really Want (Desmond Dekker)
... it was boom time for reggae- pop crossover artists, of which the Dekker man was one of the most successful. You Can Get It..., a rock-steady Jimmy Cliff song, made it a hat-trick of hits in just over a year

It's Like A Sad Old Kinda Movie (Pickettywitch)
... the pop-soul group who briefly found fame via the TV talent show Opportunity Knocks managed three chart appearances during 1970, of which this was the middle one. Singer Polly Brown returned to the chart in '74 as one of the duo Sweet Dreams (Honey Honey) and just missed out on the Top 40 with a much played solo single Up In A Puff of Smoke

Yellow River (Christie) 
...  originally recorded by The Tremeloes and scheduled as their next single, but at the last minute, for reasons best known to themselves, they had a change of mind. Songwriter Jeff Christie had the last laugh, however - his own band released their own version - and took it to No.1 [W]

Vehicle (The Ides of March)
...  apparently the fastest-selling single in the history of Warner Bros at the time,  peaking at  # 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and # 31 in the UK, ~ renowned for its very distinctive horn section - of the kind often deployed by the much better known Blood Sweat and Tears.  Despite their rapid rise, it was the Ides' one and only troubling of any major chart 

Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
...  an 'almost' Top 10-er  (# 11),  just a few months after Judy Collins took Joni's Both Sides Now into the Top 20. Big Yellow Taxi has been successfully covered by Amy Grant (1995, # 20) and Counting Crows featuring Vanessa Carlton (2003, # 16)

I'll Say Forever My Love (Jimmy Ruffin)
...  his best ever year in the UK ~  one of three UK Top 10-ers during  the year ~ the others were Farewell Is A Lonely Sound and and It's Wonderful  

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show,  you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 24/07/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Just What I've Always Wanted (Mari Wilson)
(1982) ...Top 10-er  steeped in nostalgia from a singer who managed to capture the style and sound of a previous decade 

Wishin' And Hopin' (The Merseybeats)
(1964) ... poppy Burt Bacharach - Hal David song, also covered by Dusty Springfield and Dionne Warwick

What Is Life (Olivia Newton John)
... from the first of our featured years ~ having debuted with a cover of  if Not For You, the Bob Dylan song which George Harrison had included on his triple album All Things Must Pass, here we have Olivia doing her version of another track on the same album ~ this time, a Harrison original which also been the B side of his # 1 single My Sweet Lord. Fans and critics alike were convinced What is Life was a strong enough song to be a hit in its own right - and so it proved to be, but for Olivia, rather than George

Jolly Jacks 

Tell Me When (The Applejacks)
(1964)... biggest and best known of a handful of hits by the 'Brumbeat' band who were mostly childhood friends from around Birmingham and Solihull who had been in the Scouts together. Their  sound was labelled 'Brumbeat'  - the Midlands answer to Merseybeat. What made them really stand out from the crowd was their decision to invite a woman to join the group as their bass player ~ Megan Davies, who hailed from Sheffield [W]

My Name Is Jack (Manfred Mann)
(1968) .. written by American record producer John Simon ~ his own version was included on the soundtrack of the film You Are What You Eat. The song is about residents of the "Greta Garbo Home for Wayward Boys and Girls", the nickname of a real life hostel, The Kirkland Hotel in San Francisco, where part of the movie was filmed  [W]

---------------------------

Honeymoon (Daniel Takes A Train)                                                                                                                                                                                    (2020) ...  instantly appealing, toe tapping tune much played on Tameside Radio by the '80s band who never quite made it - in the '80s... but will 'never say never'!  Honeymoon was mixed by Pat Collier who produced Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves back in '85

Newsround pre-Tameside: 50 years ago ~ 1972

School's Out (Alice Cooper)
... unleashed with perfect timing for the start of the school summer holidays and quickly became THE anthem for the class of '72. Shock rocker Alice made his sensational first appearance on Top of the Pops just before the last day of term, and within two weeks, much to the horror of parents, MPs and other deeply disapproving adults, School's Out was crowned  the nation's # 1  and defiantly held on to the chart's top spot for four weeks

Automatically Sunshine (The Supremes) 
... Jean Terrell and Mary Wilson shared lead vocal duties on a Smokey Robinson song which turned out to be The Supremes' final Top 10 single in the UK 

Meet Me On The Corner (Lindisfarne) 
... first big hit for the Tyneside folk rock band who have survived changes in line-up and continue to draw the crowds wherever they are playing

Back off Boogaloo (Ringo Starr)
...  Ringo's highest charting solo single, apparently inspired by his good friend Marc Bolan and produced by his Beatles bandmate George Harrison, The marching beat has been hailed as a "rare showcase" of Ringo's drumming. George's biographer Simon Leng also gives due tribute to "a roaring series of Harrison slide breaks that brought to mind Duane Allman" [W]

Hold Your Head Up (Argent)
... anthemic rock from the band formed by former Zombies  keyboardist Rod Argent. Guitarist Russ Ballard sings lead vocal on Hold Your Head Up, their first and biggest hit 

Sweet Talkin' Guy (The Chiffons) 
... charting much higher second time around, # 4 in '72 ~ compared with a relatively lowly # 31 on its first showing in 1966

Little Bit Of Love (Free)
... Reviewing the single, the weekly music paper Record Mirror said: "Having had their fair share of the knocks and problems of fame, Free are back in full swing again. An album on the way – and this single, which should do them a lot of good. It's a relaxed put together production, good lead voice, solid beat ~ a philosophic song and easy to pick up in the mind. Plus that very distinctive sound." Little Bit of Love spent ten weeks on the chart peaking at # 13  [W}

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR

Thank You (The Pale Fountains)
(1982)... the Liverpool music scene in the early  '80s was the liveliest it had been since the '60s. Although this would be the closest they came to a hit (# 48), Pale Fountains were among the bands leading this renaissance ~ others included Echo & The Bunnymen and Wah!  (later The Mighty Wah!)

Mr Haze (Texas)
(2021)...  recent song hailed as a 'soul-soaked, Motown-inspired track' * which grabbed our attention within a couple of seconds, with its sampling of Love's Unkind, 1977 hit for Donna Summer [* W]

Cradle of Love (Johnny Preston)
...  nursery rhymes 'Rock A Bye Baby', 'Hey Diddle Diddle' 'Jack be Nimble' and 'Jack and Jill' are referenced in the lyrics - it's the teaser track for our second featured year, a # 2 follow-up to the # 1, Running Bear

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
...  '60s instrumentals from groups with similar sounding names

Last Night (The Mar Keys)
(1961) ...  Top 3-er in America, which failed to chart in the UK

Soul Finger (The Bar Kays)
(1967) ... long-time theme tune of Stuart Henry, the former offshore pirate DJ (Radio Scotland) who went on to be one of the original line-up of presenters on BBC Radio1

---------------------------------

Sailing (Mike Oldfield - vocal: Luke Spiller)
(2014) ....  'radio single' /airplay favourite from Man on The Rocks, his 25th studio album - but only the second of his career with no exceptionally long or instrumental pieces [W]

Ti Amo (Gina G)
(1997) ... Australian singer who had  represented the UK at Eurovision a couple of years previously, continuing a run of chart entries with the Italian-titled Ti Amo which went on to top the charts -  in Lebanon

Newsround pre Tameside: 62 years ago ~ 1960

When Will I Be Loved (The Everly Brothers)
...  written by Phil Everly, # 4 here and # 8 in America. Linda Ronstadt covered the song in the mid '70s and did even better, reaching # 2 on the Billboard Hot 100

Let's Have A Party (Wanda Jackson)
... previously recorded by Elvis Presley for the 1957 film Loving You  ... next up is the man himself....

Stuck On You (Elvis Presley with The Jordanaires)
... pre-dating by very nearly a quarter of a century Lionel Richie's mid-80s song which shares the same title  

Shakin' All Over (Johnny Kidd & The Pirates)
...  not, as many people thought, American ~ they were English, through and through, a rock 'n'roll band with a fondness for theatrics and dressing up - as pirates, what else?!  Shakin' All Over topped the chart , one of the stand-out songs of the year and was by far their finest hour, ahead of its time with a compelling vocal and brilliant guitar riff which hooks you in from the start

Good Timin' (Jimmy Jones)
... second of two # 1 hits during the year,  following on from Handy Man. Between them, they notched up a total of 39 weeks on the chart. Despite such an impressive start, he never darkened the doors of the Top 20 again

Theme From A Summer Place (Percy Faith)
... lyricless bonus ~ one of the biggest and best instrumental hits ever, a lush string-driven melody which wafts over you like a gentle breeze. In  more recent times, it would probably have earned the accolade of  the ultimate 'chill-out' tune

Robot Man (Connie Francis)
... one side of a double A  side ~ Mama was on the other ~ one of her highest placed hits this side of the pond

Three Steps To Heaven (Eddie Cochran)
... the title has an added poignancy as it was one of the last songs the young American rock 'n'roller recorded, shortly before he died in a car crash, aged just 21, while on tour in the UK

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show,  you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 17/07/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Hold On Tight (ELO) 
(1981)... first single from the album Time, Top 10-er in the UK, the US and other countries far too numerous to list

If You Gotta Go (Go Now) (Manfred Mann)
(1965)...  one of many Bob Dylan songs successfully covered by other artists. Fairport Convention later recorded If You Gotta Go... in French. The title followed a literal translation to become Si Tu Dois Partir, a one off hit single in 1969, which I've played on the show from time to time

I'm Doing Fine Now (The Pasadenas)
...  from the first of today's featured years. The original version  was a '70s hit for New York City (1973, # 20), easily overtaken by The Pasadenas who scaled the dizzy heights of # 4

Contrasting cover versions
...  by a band whose first and last Top 10 hits were fresh interpretations of familiar songs in a very different style to the originals. 

Tears Of  A  Clown (The Beat)
(1979) ... fast and frantic ska re-working of one of Motown's greatest hits ~ a UK # 1 at the start of the decade for Smokey Robinson
and The Miracles.  Lead vocals for The Beat were shared between Dave Wakeling and Roger Charlery - better known as Ranking Roger

Can't Get Used To Losing You (The Beat)
(1983) ...a highly unlikely, but hugely likeable cover of the Andy Williams classic which made the Top 3 and gave the band their biggest hit, just as they announced that they were splitting up. Dave Wakeling's vocal has distinct echoes of the man himself, despite its reggae styling and a more uptempo feel compared to the original

---------------------------

Answer Me (Barbara Dickson)
(1976) ... familiar old '50s song given a folky flavoured fresh lease of life. Two different  versions - by Frankie Laine and David Whitfield -  had topped the chart way back in 1953 ~ both sang Answer Me as a slow ballad 

Newsround Tameside: 30 years ago ~ 1992

Sense (The Lightning Seeds)
... it makes no sense at all, that # 31 was as good as it got this time around for Ian Broudie and co

To Be With You (Mr Big)
...  nothing at all to do with the English band who had a hit with Romeo (1977). The '90s Mr Big were an American hard rock super group 

Love Is Strange (Everything But The Girl)
...  a much covered song from the mid '50s onwards, this version was the lead track on EBTG's Covers EP . The other three songs re-worked by the duo?  ~ Bruce Springsteen's Tougher Than the Rest, Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time and Elvis Costello's Alison [W]

Every Kind Of People (Robert Palmer)
... much played on the radio, attracting a plenteous amount of airplay. Amazingly, it just missed out on the Top 40

Feel So High (Des'Ree)
... failed to take off when first released in 1991, but gained traction as a reissue and reached the Top 20

Achy Breaky Heart (Billy Ray Cyrus)
...  first single ever to achieve triple platinum status in Australia where it was 1992's best-selling single. The music video for the song led to a huge surge of interest in line dancing. Although many have rated it one of the worst songs ever, Achy Breaky Heart was influential in the 'new country' movement which renewed interest in a dying breed of music among younger listeners [W]

---------------------------

Come Go With Me (The Dell Vikings) 
(1956) ... although never a hit in the UK, it earned a placed in Liverpool folklore as one of the songs that a 16-year-old John Lennon played with his band The Quarrymen at the local Woolton Church summer fete on 6th July 1957. It was there that one of John's circle of friends introduced him to a young lad called Paul McCartney who had only recently turned 15. The conversation which followed led to Paul being invited to join the band ~ the rest is history...

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR

My Girl Lollipop  (My Boy Lollipop) (Bad Manners) 
(1982) ...  in typically raucous style, the incomparable Buster Bloodvessel and co with a boy-girl re-working of the 1964 hit for Millie 

If You're Ready (Come Go With Me)  (The Staple Singers) 
(1974) ...legendary soul-gospel group ~ Pop Staples and his daughters Cleotha, Yvonne and Mavis, with the second  of two UK chart entries on the Stax label peaking at # 34. Now here's a thing ~ their family surname has an 's' on the end, but the group name does not

Bad To Me (Billy J Kramer & The Dakotas)
...  teaser track for our second featured year ~ second in a hat-trick of Top 5 hits in the space of just a few months, all of them written by John Lennon although credited on the label to Lennon & McCartney. First of the three was a cover of Do You Want To Know A Secret which The Beatles had already included on their debut album but the next two Bad To Me (# 1) and I'll Keep You Satisfied (# 4) were songs which John wrote specially with Billy J in mind

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
... with a 'wheel of fortune' connection

Roulette (Russ Conway)
(1959) ... second of his two chart-topping piano tunes within a few months of each other ~ Roulette was the follow-up to Side Saddle

Casino Royale (Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass)
(1967) ... from the film of the same name ~ 14 weeks on the chart, but never got any higher than # 27

---------------------------

Cloudbusting (Kate Bush)
(1985)... five minutes of perfection from the Hounds of Love album. As a single it was the middle one of three,  book-ended by the equally exquisite Running Up That Hill -  which recently topped the chart as a 2022 reissue -  and the title track.

Beautiful Daughter (The Move)
(1970) ...  the only new song on the album Shazam, which, I think it's fair to say, was the beginning of the end for The Move. For contractual reasons the band continued to record and release singles for two more years, while Roy Wood was also developing his new project The Electric Light Orchestra with Jeff Lynne. Beautiful Daughter features an uncredited string quartet, a hint of what was to follow with ELO

Newsround pre-Tameside: 59 years ago ~ 1963

I Like It (Gerry & The Pacemakers) 
...second of three No.1s all within the same year, with their first three singles ~ an achievement which would eventually be equalled just over 20 years later by fellow Liverpudlians, Frankie Goes To Hollywood

I'm Telling You Now (Freddie & The Dreamers)
... following up their debut hit earlier in the year, If You Want To Make A Fool of Somebody. The Dreamers were a Manchester beat group fronted by Freddie, a one-time milkman from Crumpsall, famed for his horn-rimmed glasses who brought a touch of slapstick comedy to their  performances by constantly leaping about and generally clowning around

It's My Party (Lesley Gore) 
... the first hit single produced by the mighty Quincy Jones topped the US chart and made the Top 10 here. Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin's reinvention of the song in the early '80s went all the way in the UK

(You're The) Devil In Disguise (Elvis Presley)
... British pop was riding the crest of a wave ~ The Beatles led the way with a plethora of Liverpool and Manchester groups about to follow in the Fab Four's footsteps. For the time being, though, there was still room for the 'old guard' especially Elvis - the only non-British artist to take the No.1 spot in the UK during '63, albeit for one solitary week

Dance On (Kathy Kirby)
... vocal version of The Shadows'  chart-topper from the previous year. Her best known hit was  the big ballad Secret Love, which became her next single

Just Like Eddie (Heinz)
... dedicated to the late Eddie Cochran. Singer Heinz had previously been part of the successful instrumental combo The Tornados ~ their mentor Joe Meek also produced and engineered Heinz's one and only solo single to make the Top 10

Lucky Lips (Cliff Richard & The Shadows) 
...  a 1956 US hit for R&B singer Ruth Brown, written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the prolific duo who first came to the fore supplying hit songs for Elvis Presley, including Jailhouse Rock and King Creole  [W]

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show,  you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 10/07/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Queen of Hearts (Dave Edmunds) 
(1979)...  instantly likeable, radio-friendly rockabilly from the singer-guitarist who came up with a hit or two every few years during the '70s  but never managed to match I Hear You Knockin', his chart-topping debut at the start of the decade 

For Once In My Life (Stevie Wonder)
(1968-69)... first of three Top 5 hits in a prolific spell of success n the UK - My Cherie Amour and Yester Me- Yester You-Yesterday would follow within months

Sunglasses (Tracey Ullman)
... from the first of today's featured years ~ her fifth and final hit at a time when she was also a rising star of TV comedy with Lenny Henry and David Copperfield in Three of a Kind

Things which go together

Concrete And Clay (Unit 4 + 2) 
(1965) ...  intriguing choice of name ~ they started out as a band of four, and, legend has it, chose the name Unit 4 after hearing Alan 'Fluff' Freeman's weekly radio show Pick of The Pops, which he divided into four parts, known as Unit 1, 2, 3 and 4. When two more musicians joined the band, the name was altered accordingly with '+ 2' added  

Needles And Pins (The Searchers) 
(1964) ...   song co-written by Jack Nietzsche and Sonny Bono (as in Sonny & Cher) ~  the original had been only a very lowly placed US hit for Jackie de Shannon, but The Searchers took it all the way to the top this side of the Atlantic

----------------------------

Pass It On (The Coral) 
(2003) ... clocking in at a mere 2 minutes 17 seconds, it surely has to be a contender for the shortest chart hit of the 2000s

Newsround Tameside: 38 years ago ~ 1984

Love Wars (Womack & Womack)
...  one of the year's stand-out singles, hailed by at least one music critic as falling 'somewhere between Latin funk and tropical soul'. Another reviewer praised the songwriting of husband and wife Cecil and Linda Womack, noting that "their lyrics about loss and conflict are sharper than those about love and happiness" [W]

I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me (Nik Kershaw)
...  Top 3 summertime smash as a reissue  ~  a few months previously, as his debut chart entry, it had stalled at # 47

Each And Everyone (Everything But The Girl)                                                                                                                                                                   ... jazzy duo Ben Watt & Tracey Thorn with a cool, laid back sound hailed by some music critics as 'sophisti-pop' (!), a description which could be applied to several other artists around at the time including Carmel, Matt Bianco... and Sade who is on our playlist a little later...

Seven Seas (Echo & The Bunnymen]
...  third single from their album Ocean Rain which reached # 16 on the chart. In a retrospective review, Allmusic journalist Dave Thompson said: "Regardless of the surreal lyrics, their enigmatic meaning dovetails marvelously with the mood of this exquisite piece." [W]

Hole In My Shoe (neil)                                                                                                                                                                                                      ...  aka actor Nigel Planer ~ in character as Neil the hippy from The Young Ones, the anarchic BBC 2 comedy series, also starring Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson and Christopher Ryan. His comedy cover of the Traffic classic turned out to be one of the biggest hits of the summer,  just missing out on a # 1 while the headline-grabbing Frankie Goes To Hollywood maintained their  grip on the top spot with Two Tribes

Your Love Is King (Sade)
...  soulful lead single from the critically acclaimed, mega-successful Diamond Life album which included at least one other classic, Smooth Operator. 

Locomotion (OMD) 
...  ultra catchy it may have been, but this Locomotion could never be confused with Little Eva's '60s dance craze song (later covered by Kylie Minogue). The OMD hit taken from the album Junk Culture reached the Top 5 in the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands and peaked at # 14 in Germany. Reviewer Paul Scott-Bates remarked: "In terms of a pop song, it borders classic – instantly recognisable from the first few seconds, a chorus that everyone knows and verses that were as memorable as the choruses..."  [W]

--------------------------

SECOND HOUR

Semi Detached Suburban Mr James (Manfred Mann) 
(1966) ... a perfect slice of English pop  in a pivotal era for the Manfreds with Mike D'Abo taking over from Paul Jones as lead singer. 

Spanish Harlem (Ben E King) 
(1960)... first of two US Top 10-ers after leaving The Drifters ~ a great performance but out-performed chart-wise by the follow up Stand By Me, his own composition.  Spanish Harlem failed to trouble the UK chart and Stand By Me was only a modest sized hit until its much later reissue in 1987. Spanish Harlem was a UK success for Aretha Franklin (1971, # 14)

I Feel The Earth Move (Carole King) 
... from the first of today's featured years ~ side one track one of one of THE classic albums of that particular decade. Its hit potential was finally realised with Martika's dance pop re-creation making the Top 10 in 1989

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break
... Pacific island police and a south coast English city

Hawaii Five-O (The Ventures) 
(1969) ... a US Top 10 hit and title track of an album released the year after the TV series first aired in the States. It was a couple of years later that it crossed the Atlantic

Portsmouth (Mike Oldfield)
(1976) ...  multi instrumentalist best known for the album  Tubular Bells, here with his take on a traditional English folk dance tune, which can be traced back to the early 18th Century. Leslie Penning joins him to play the recorder, as he did on the previous year's festive Top 5-er In Dulci Jubilo (the Christmas carol Good Christian Men Rejoice). Portsmouth did even better, finishing  one place higher (# 3). Mike himself plays everything else ~ acoustic guitar, accordion, mandolin, ARP string synthesiser, tambourine, kettle drum and bodhran (Irish drum)  Oldfield and Penning are jointly credited with the stomping of feet as the tune builds up to a sudden end [W]

---------------------------

Stupid Cupid (Connie Francis)
(1958)..... written by Howard Greenfield and Neil Sedaka, a much bigger hit here than in the US, enjoying a six-week run at No.1, with Carolina Moon as its double A side

Newsround pre-Tameside: 51 years ago ~ 1971

Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey (Paul & Linda McCartney)
... one of those epic Macca album tracks which seems to be several songs rolled into one - others to be found on The Beatles' Abbey Road and Wings' Band On The Run. UA/AH is the stand-out track of the album Ram, released by pre-Wings Paul & Linda. In the US it was released as a single and topped the charts. In the UK, a different song from the album was chosen - Back Seat of My Car which only just scraped into the Top 40. UA/AH later featured in a memorable episode of one of the nation's favourite sitcoms Only Fools and Horses (He Ain't Heavy, He's My Uncle, series 7, episode 5, 1991)

Tonight (The Move) 
... Roy Wood, Jeff Lynne and Bev Bevan were about to re-group as The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO),  but there was still unfinished business and the occasional single from The Move, for another year, at least 

I'm Gonna Run Away from You (Tami Lynn)
... from the big box of vinyl in the back bedroom, a toe tapping, floor-filling Northern Soul classic which made the Top 10 several years after it was first recorded.  It returned four years later as a reissue (1975, # 36)

Double Barrel (Dave & Ansell Collins)
....  one of the quirkiest, least expected '70s chart-toppers,  but also one of the coolest.  Now here's a thing ~ from the pairing of their names, I always imagined these two were brothers, but no... they are singer Dave Barker and keyboard player Ansell* Collins (* a name which appears to have at least three different spellings - look him up online and you will also see 'Ansel' and 'Ansil'

I'm Still Waiting (Diana Ross) 
... her first UK  # 1 as a solo artist, which only saw the light of day as a single after Tony Blackburn played it  relentlessly as an album track on his BBC Radio 1 breakfast show. It got such a huge response from listeners that the record company Tamla Motown wisely took the hint

Don't Let It Die (Hurricane Smith) 
... stepping into the spotlight as a singer- songwriter in his own right,  the distinctive, gravelly voiced Norman  'Hurricane' Smith was well known as a record producer for the likes of Pink Floyd and Barclay James Harvest, having started out as an EMI sound engineer who had worked on the first few Beatles albums.  Don't Let It Die won him  the 1971 Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. The lyrics have an ecological theme, stressing the beauty and fragility of nature, and the human responsibility to look after it and not to 'let it die' [W]

Move On Up (Curtis Mayfield) 
... much respected soul singer, musician and songwriter, with his one and only Top 40 hit in the UK

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show,  you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 03/07/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

Hourglass (Squeeze) 
(1987)... a welcome return to the upper reaches of the chart after a six-year gap ~ you would still have expected it to do better than # 16

Too Busy Thinking About My Baby (Marvin Gaye) 
(1969) ...  Top 5 follow up to the chart-topping I Heard It Through The Grapevine which came with a classic 'B' side - Marvin's 1962 recording of Wherever I Lay My Hat which had failed to chart in the UK

(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear (Blondie)
...  from the first of today's featured years ~ a fairly swift follow-up to Denis,  their debut hit which was a revival of an old song. This time they went with a Blondie original

Brian Wilson @ 80                                                                                                                                                                                                         

...  following on from last week's Big Birthday salute to Sir Paul McCartney, it would be remiss of us not to acknowledge another 'born in June 1942' music legend  who has reached the same life milestone

Sloop John B (The Beach Boys)
(1966) ... produced and arranged by Brian Wilson, the BBs' 'de facto' leader ~ one of a run of four consecutive Top 3 hits in a year which was by far  their most successful in the UK. Sloop John B - also known as The John B Sails - was an old folk song from the Bahamas brought bang up to date with those glorious Beach Boys harmonies. It's also one of the tracks on their hugely influential, ground-breaking Pet Sounds album  [W]

Don't Worry Baby (The Beach Boys)
(1964) ... tucked away on the B side of I Get Around # ~ Brian Wilson would later refer to Don't Worry Baby as perhaps the group's finest record. The lead vocal  is considered one of his defining performances. # In America, it charted separately, reaching # 24. [W]  Another Beach Boys song is on the playlist in the second hour 

---------------------------

You Keep It All In (The Beautiful South)
(1989)... their second  Top 10-er which followed soon after the success of their first, Song For Whoever 

Newsround Tameside: 44 years ago ~ 1978

What A Waste (Ian Dury & The Blockheads)
...  first time on the singles chart for the much-missed master of word play,  renowned for tongue-firmly-in-cheek rhymes and wry observations of life. The Blockheads, led by Ian's best friend and 'minder'  Derek Hussey  continue to celebrate his legacy playing regular live gigs around the country

Stumblin' In (Suzi Quatro & Chris Norman)                                                                                                                                                                         ... one-off duet which surprisingly just missed out on a Top 40 place.By this time, between them, Suzi and Chris - the lead singer with Smokie - had clocked up around a dozen Top 10-ers

Ça plane pour moi (Plastic Bertrand)
...  international hit for the Belgian musician and songwriter ~ real name Roger François Jouret. Described by some as 'parody punk',  its title is a French expression best translated as 'everything's going well for me' - literally: 'it is gliding for me'  [W]

Boogie Shoes (KC & The Sunshine Band)                                                                                                                                                                          ...  three-year-old album track which became a Top 40 hit after featuring on the soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever

I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass (Nick Lowe)                                                                                                                                                               ... a mainstay of the '70s pub rock scene, with one of his best known songs

The Man With The Child In His Eyes (Kate Bush)                                                                                                                                                              ...  written at the tender age of 13, recorded with producer Dave Gilmour when she was 16 ~ and that was three years before it finally saw the light of day on her first album The Kick Inside and also served as a successful follow up to Wuthering Heights

If I Can't Have You (Yvonne Elliman)                                                                                                                                                                                  ... American chart topper which did almost as well here (# 4).  At the start of the decade, while still an unknown, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber asked her to sing Mary Magdalene's part for the original studio double album of Jesus Christ Superstar, which led to four years as a member of the stage show's travelling cast [W]

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR

Put Yourself In My Place (The Elgins) 
(1965, US 1971, UK) ...  finally made on to our chart a couple of years after it had already been a hit over here for The Isley Brothers ~ two noticeably similar versions sharing that unmistakable Motown sound

Long Train Running (Bananarama) 
(1991)...  their 20th Top 40 hit, peaking at # 30. The Doobie Brothers' original missed out completely in the UK, when it first came out in the '70s, despite plenty of airplay but a remix finally made the Top 10 a couple of years after Bananarama's version 

Here Comes My Baby (Cat Stevens)
 -  teaser track for our second featured year ~ his own version which remained as an album track while The Tremeloes made it an instant success as a single in the Top 10 

Absolutely Lyricless ~the instrumental break
... men of distinct qualities

Man Of Mystery (The Shadows)
(1960) ... second Top 10-er in their own right having topped the chart for several weeks with Apache

Man of Action (Les Reed Orchestra)
(1970) ... theme tune of the offshore pirate radio station Radio North Sea International,  written by the prolific composer Les Reed whose credits included numerous hit songs for the likes of Tom Jones

--------------------------

Temptation (Heaven 17)
(1983) ... the Sheffield trio were joined for this, their biggest hit, by respected session singer Carol Kenyon

Miracle Cure (Daniel Takes A Train) 
(2022) ... another play for the recent song from the '80s time-warpers who released their first album 30 years after splitting up. Miracle Cure is all about self-help gurus, health and dietary fads and the quick fix culture, with a powerful drive-time friendly rock groove reminiscent of Tears For Fears, Prefab Spout, Simple Minds or Big Audio Dynamite in their mid-1980s pomp

Newsround pre-Tameside: 55 years ago ~ 1967

When You're Young And In Love (The Marvelettes)
...  one of the lesser known Motown groups in the UK, with their only chart hit on this side of the Atlantic.  It's not their best known song, though ~ a few years earlier they had the original US hit Please Mr Postman, as covered by The Beatles and much later on by The Carpenters

Alternate Title (The Monkees)
...  written by Monkee Micky Dolenz about a party he had attended at the Speakeasy Club in London where the other guests included Top of the Pops 'disc girl' Samantha Juste (his future wife) - inspiring the opening line 'She's a wonderful lady' and Mama Cass of The Mamas and Papas 'the girl in the yellow dress'. The song was retitled Alternate Title for release as a single in the UK - after the record company deemed as inappropriate Dolenz's original suggestion 'Randy Scouse Git' ~ which was how loudmouth Londoner Alf Garnett would often describe his Liverpool born son-in-law in the controversial BBC sitcom Till Death Us Do Part. Dolenz had watched an episode while in England [W]

Heroes and Villains (The Beach Boys)
... continuing our 80th birthday salute to Brian Wilson (see first hour). Co-written with American musician, arranger and producer Van Dyke Parks for the album Smiley Smile, Wilson envisaged an Old West-themed musical comedy that would surpass the recording and artistic achievements of the previous year's Good Vibrations [W]

Dedicated To The One I Love (The Mamas & The Papas) 
... much-covered by various artists, successfully reggae-fied in the '90s by Bitty McLean. Mama Cass, as mentioned in The Monkees song played earlier, would go to enjoy solo success over the next couple of years. I thought this was a nice pic of the group - shame about the incorrect use, not once but twice, of the dreaded 'grocer's apostrophe'. Rant over!!!  :-)

The Days of Pearly Spencer (David McWilliams)
...  much played on the offshore pirate radio station Radio Caroline but never a  chart hit  until Marc Almond covered it  in the early '90s. it's a song about a homeless man McWilliams had encountered in his native Northern Ireland, featuring 'a sweeping orchestral arrangement  and a chorus sung as if  through a megaphone. This low-tech effect was actually achieved by recording the vocals from  a phone box near the studio! [W]

Jimmy Mack (Martha Reeves & The Vandellas)
 ... instantly catchy, familiar Motown toe tapper ~ surprisingly, faring no better as a 1970 reissue than on its first outing. For the first AND second time of asking,  Jimmy Mack climbed no further than # 21 in the UK 

---------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show,  you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 26/06/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

The Only Way Is Up (Yazz & The Plastic Population)
(1988).... uplifting, feelgood anthem destined to be a summertime smash ~ five weeks at # 1 and the year's second best selling single

Children of The Revolution (T Rex) 
(1972)...  recorded for the film Born To Boogie starring Marc Bolan and the rest of the band with Elton John guesting on piano and Ringo Starr as the second drummer alongside regular Rex percussionist Mickey Finn. Having topped the chart twice earlier in the year with Telegram Sam and Metal Guru, this one fell just one place short. Still a corker though!

It's The Same Old Song (The Four Tops) 
... from the first of today's featured years ~ one of the earliest Motown hits to break through this side of the Atlantic 

McCartney @ 80  

18-06-2022  ~ a milestone birthday for one of the biggest names in music of the past 60 years. With such a prolific back catalogue, as a Beatle in the '60s, with Wings for most of the following decade and more than a dozen solo albums from 1970 to the present day ~ it's impossible to think of four or five 'obvious' songs to play....  Selections here and later in the show are therefore mostly random, although the first one is an obvious tie-in, to mark the occasion...

Birthday (Paul McCartney)
(1990) ...  live version of a McCartney crowd pleaser which first appeared on The Beatles' White Album in 1968

Dance Tonight (Paul McCartney)
(2007) ...  single taken from the album Memory Almost Full ~ a solo performance in every sense with the man himself playing mandolin, electric guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, percussion and autoharp  [W]

---------------------------

Listen To Your Father (Feargal Sharkey) 
(1984)... as it's Father's Day, how about this one, produced by Chas Smash, trumpet player with Madness with more than a slight hint of that cheery, upbeat 'Nutty Boys' sound. I wouldn't be too surprised if other members of the band were involved ... another Dad song later...

Newsround pre-Tameside: 57 years ago ~ 1965

Stop In The Name of Love (The Supremes) 
.... their third Top 10-er following the previous year's Where Did Our Love Go (#  3) and Baby Love (# 1). Interesting to note that their only release in this period which didn't have word 'love' in the title, Come See About Me was nowhere near as successful (# 21) 

Heart Full Of Soul (The Yardbirds)..  
... swiftly following up For Your Love, which had given the band and the young guy from 'up North' who wrote the song ~  future 10cc-er Graham Gouldman - their mutual chart debut  Heart Full Of Soul, by the same writer, made it two Top 3 hits in the space of a few weeks, during which Eric Clapton quit The Yardbirds and was replaced by Jeff Beck whose guitar playing is featured to such great effect on this track

Where Are You Now My Love (Jackie Trent) 
... best known, with Tony Hatch, as a writer of hit songs for Petula Clark among others ~ in '65 she had a No.1 in her own right

Wooly Bully (Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs)
...   with 'two big horns and a woolly jaw' -  to modern day listeners that sounds like a line from the children's story The Gruffalo. Add to that the rather concerning behaviour issues implied in the title and  you have to admit, it's unusual subject matter even for a  one hit wonder novelty

The Night Before (The Beatles)  
...  upbeat song from the Help! album and film ~ continuing the 'McCartney at 80' tribute running through today's show.....

Yesterday (The Beatles)
...  also on the Help! album, but not in the film, Yesterday was an early solo outing for Paul McCartney in all but name, as none of the other three Beatles were involved. The final recording, with a string quartet drafted in by producer George Martin was so far removed from the music the band were making that they vetoed its release as a single in the UK . Other artists were quick to see its potential  With more than 2,200 cover versions to date, the melancholy ballad about the break-up of a relationship became one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music. Yesterday was voted the best song of the 20th Century in a 1999 BBC Radio 2 poll of music experts and listeners and the No. 1 pop song of all time by MTV and Rolling Stone magazine the following year. [W].  A song from arguably the best McCartney album post-Beatles is in the second hour...

Summer Nights (Marianne Faithfull)
... her fourth - and final -Top 10-er in just under 12 months, following As Tears Go By, This Little Bird and Come And Stay With Me

Get Off My Cloud (The Rolling Stones)
... a golden era in which number ones came thick and fast for the Stones ~ this was their fifth in a row

---------------------------

SECOND HOUR

After All (The Frank and Walters)
(1993) ... Irish band with their one and only UK hit. Their name was inspired by two 'real old characters'  in Cork, their home city

Daddy Cool / The Girl Can't Help It (Darts)
(1977) ... debut hit for the doo-wop revivalists, a fast and frantic two and a half minutes combining two '50s songs  originally recorded by The Rays and Little Richard respectively. (see also Listen To Your Father, first hour)

The Man Who Sold The World (Lulu) 
.... teaser track for our second featured year, Lulu re-working a David Bowie song,  with the man himself playing sax, singing backing vocals and producing. Bowie's original had been an album title track some four years earlier.  Lulu's single peaked at # 3 ~ her highest placing since the '60s

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break

Diamonds (Jet Harris & Tony Meehan)
(1963) ...  chart-topping tune by the ex-Shadows guitar & drums duo

Green Onions (Booker T & The MGs)
(1962, US; 1979-80, UK) ... featuring a rippling Hammond organ sound, widely regarded as one of the all-time great rock and soul instrumentals

---------------------------

There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis (Kirsty MacColl)
(1981) ...   Kirsty's first time on the chart - breezy, tongue-in-cheek country pop and with a title like that, who could resist...?!  'Chip Shop' was changed to 'Truck Stop' for the song's US release [W]

Newsround Tameside: 48 years ago ~ 1974

Liverpool Lou (The Scaffold)
... recorded at Stockport's Strawberry Studios featuring the sound of the gizmo, the clever guitar add-on created by 10cc's Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. That same year, Scaffold lead singer Mike McCartney (aka Mike McGear) also recorded a solo album at Strawberry with more than a little help from older brother Paul, who we have been celebrating today

Bluebird (Paul McCartney & Wings)
... 1974 the year of Band on The Run, which many fans and critics regard as Macca's best post-Beatles album 

There's A Ghost In My House (R Dean Taylor)                                                                                                                                                                    ... driven by that relentless, toe-tapping beat,  a Northern soul classic and one of Motown's finest, it became a Top 3 hit seven years after its first release ~ and deservedly so

Judy Teen (Cockney Rebel)
... quirky Top 10 debut from the original line-up, successfully followed up with Mr Soft before a parting of the ways. Fast forward a few months to the start of '75, Steve reappeared on Top of The Pops with a new band and a subtle change of name. Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, as they would now be known, immediately hit the top spot with Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) and other hits followed

Midnight At The Oasis (Maria Muldaur)
....  sending the camel to bed and nipping off round the sand dunes ~ nice work if you can get it ~ successfully covered in the '90s by Brand New Heavies

Going Down The Road (Roy Wood) 
... typically tongue in cheek, the Wizzard-meister with a solo hit. It's subtitled  'A Scottish Reggae Song' - and, fair to say, does what it says on the tin

Ring Ring (Abba)
...  translated into English by Neil Sedaka and his co-writer Phil Cody from the original Swedish lyrics by Abba's Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus. Ring Ring was a re-release from the previous year ~ 'before they were famous' ~ which became the follow-up to their Eurovision-winning chart-topper, Waterloo

--------------------------

SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show,  you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 19/06/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/

I Only Want To Be With You (The Tourists)
(1979) .... first big hit for Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox before eventually evolving into Eurythmics. The Tourists were the third act to cover the song and take it into the Top 10, following Dusty Springfield in '63 and The Bay City Rollers in '76 ~ amazingly,  all three achieved exactly the same highest chart position, # 4 

I'm Your Puppet (James and Bobby Purify)
(1976) ... by the time it finally became a hit here, a decade after its original release in America, not only had the song been re-recorded, it also featured a new Bobby Purify.  Amazing but true... unlikely though that anyone this side of the Atlantic would have been able to spot the difference ~ unlike the occasional scenario in TV soap land when a regular character in Coronation Street or Emmerdale disappears from our screens, only to return weeks, months or years later, played by a different actor 

Whenever, Wherever (Shakira)
...  big hit in the first of today's featured years for the Colombian singer-songwriter Shakira. Whenever Wherever, from her fifth studio album and English-language debut, Laundry Service went on to be a worldwide best seller. An irresistible fusion of Latin rhythms and worldbeat, heavily influenced by Andean music, the instrumentation includes a charango (small string instrument, similar to a lute ) and panpipes.. The song was written, composed, and produced by Shakira and Tim Mitchell, with additional songwriting input from Gloria Estefan. [W]

Ballooning one hit wonders

Up Up And Away (Johnny Mann Singers)
(1967) ... American arranger, composer, conductor leading a group who had been supplying backing vocals for numerous hits by other artists since the late '50s. They achieved success in their own right in the UK when their recording of Up Up And Away managed to overtake the US hit version by Fifth Dimension to reach the Top 10

I Can't Let Maggie Go (Honeybus) 
(1968) ...  featured in a famous TV ad for the slimmers' bread, Nimble - the one with the hot air balloon(s)

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Shut Up (Madness)
(1981) ... ..  with a typically madcap video which starts with a piano falling from the sky, landing in front of 'policeman' keyboardist Mike Barson  who promptly starts playing it. Apparently, the song was completed with no title. Shut Up appears to have been a totally random suggestion  as it doesn't appear in  the lyrics

Newsround Tameside: Golden Jubilee 2002

Just A Little Bit More (Liberty X)
... third single from their debut album which proved the key to mainstream and critical success, reaching # 1 on the UK singles chart and the Top 10 in Australia, Ireland, the Netherlands and New Zealand [W]                                                         

A Little Less Conversation (Elvis v JXL)
...  dance remix which became a 21st Century UK chart-topper, staying at # 1 for four weeks. The original had been  a minor US hit for Elvis Presley in 1968 (Billboard Hot 100, # 69)

A Thousand Miles (Vanessa Carlton)
... massively successful debut single, which, to date is still her only major hit ~ a.piano-driven song supported by a string orchestral arrangement  which she described as "a combination of reality and fantasy. It's about a love that so consumes you that you do anything for it. That's how I felt at that time."  [W] 

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Newsround Tameside: Diamond Jubilee 2012                                                                                                                                                               

Dance With Me Tonight (Olly Murs)
... released towards the end of the previous year, becoming Olly's third UK No.1 and spending 20 weeks in the Top 40 through the first half of 2012

Drive By (Train)
... buoyant acoustic riffs and a hook-laden melody from the American roots rock band...lead singer Pat Monahan sings in a characteristic "sing-talk vocal croon"  [W]

Seven Nation Army (Marcus Collins)
...  The White Stripes' 2003 classic was, to say the least, a surprise choice of song for the 2011 X-Factor runner-up, but was, in effect, 'a cover of a cover' closely following French soul singer Ben l'Oncle Soul's funk re-working rather than the original

 Call Me Maybe (Carly Rae Jepsen)
... the year's second best selling single, topping charts in no fewer than 18 countries. Only the the quirky, ethereal Somebody I Used To Know (Gotje featuring Kimbra) racked up more sales

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SECOND HOUR

Rock Your Baby (George McCrae)
(1974)... most music critics and enthusiasts would agree this summer chart-topper was 'the' song which launched the mid '70s disco era this side of the Atlantic

Surrender (Diana Ross)
(1971) ...  one of several songs supplied by Motown's husband-and-wife songwriting-production team (Nickolas) Ashford and (Valerie) Simpson for the album of the same name. In the UK Surrender was Diana's follow up single to the chart-topping I'm Still Waiting

Get Back (The Beatles with Billy Preston)
...   teaser track for this hour's featured year ~ the only single credited to The Fab Four and a 'plus one'. Get Back was famously one of the songs played by The Beatles in their last  ever live performance, on the roof of the Apple Records building in London

Absolutely Lyricless ~ the instrumental break                                                                                                                                                              ... from a Commonwealth country to an English county

Maple Leaf Rag (Keith Emerson with the London Philharmonic Orchestra)
(1977) ... tune which takes its name from Canada's national emblem, included on the Emerson, Lake and Palmer album Works Volume 2. Ragtime piano meister Scott Joplin ~ probably best known for The Entertainer (aka The Sting film theme) wrote the tune back in 1899

The Lincolnshire Poacher (Brighouse & Rastrick Band) 
(1978) ... single released a few months after the huge, unexpected success of The Floral Dance. It would have been good to see the similarly cheery Lincolnshire Poacher do just as well but sadly it fell by the wayside

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Ooh Do U Fink UR (Suggs & Paul Weller)
(2022) ...  instantly hummable song by the newly-formed vintage duo who had long been awaiting a chance to work together ~ Madness frontman Suggs, 61, and Paul Weller, 63, were inspired by a phrase they remember from their schooldays in the 1970s (and possibly influenced by Slade's tongue-in-cheek mis-spelling of song titles in that same era?) . The track which has been described as a "gloriously sunny, optimistic and defiant Motown influenced stomper"  is available to stream digitally now and will also be released as a limited edition numbered 7” vinyl on 17th June, in time for Father's Day.

Read more here: https://www.music-news.com/news/UK/148397/Suggs-Paul-Weller-launch-new-single-based-on-their-schooldays

This House (Is Where Your Love Stands) (Big Sound Authority)
(1985) ... from Paul Weller;s latest side project to a band he mentored many years ago ~ Big Sound Authority's one and only hit, but what a corker! Weller apparently played a pivotal role in getting their career off the starting blocks

Newsround pre-Tameside: 53 years ago ~ 1969

Living In The Past (Jethro Tull)
... playing the flute had never been so cool... with its wide appeal to fans and non-fans alike, Living In The Past would become Jethro Tull's signature song

Dancing In The Street (Martha Reeves & The Vandellas) 
... one of several * Motown classics which made the UK chart around the same time and were later included on the silver-sleeved compilation LP, Motown Chartbusters Volume Three.... and here's another one....

My Cherie Amour (Stevie Wonder)
...  peaking at # 4 in the UK, one of his biggest hits to date in a year which started - and would end - with a song in the Top 3 (For Once In My Life, Yester Me Yester You Yesterday)

Hey Bulldog (The Beatles)
... very under-rated John Lennon song, tucked away on the soundtrack of the Fab Four's eagerly awaited feature length animation Yellow Submarine, which had its cinema and album release early in 1969  

The Windmills of Your Mind (Noel Harrison)
 from the film The Thomas Crown Affair. French composer Michel Legrand wrote the music inspired by Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante (second movement). Alan and Marilyn Bergman supplied the English lyrics

It's Getting Better (Mama Cass)
... prolific songwriting couple Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil came up with a dead cert Top 10 smash, giving Cass her biggest solo hit after leaving The Mamas and Papas

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SHOW THEME:
Rhapsody In Blue (Rick Wakeman)
written by George Gershwin, arranged by Tony Visconti
from the album Rhapsodies (A&M Records, 1979)

[W]: Source: Wikipedia

If you missed any of the show,  you can catch up online after 15:00 on Sunday 12/06/2022:

https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/on-demand/