Earlier, I wrote about radio station charts in the 50s-60s-70s when sales figures were randomly or casually collected, and stations were free to favour songs from their own playlists or, well, whatever they reckoned. (See my Toppermost of the poppermost: the charts.)
The chart from Melbourne's 3AWfor 28 June 1959 gives us a neat insight into the workings of both radio station charts and the retrospectively compiled charts we use for big cities or the whole country.
Denis Gibbons, a highly regarded folk singer-guitarist-composer, recorded several albums, mainly of Australian folk songs, some of them intended for use in schools, and he also released some singles.
Here is Denis with two recordson 3AW's Top 30. Not bad for someone who was never a big star, certainly not a teen idol, and probably more at the square end of the music market, as we might have said back then.
But as well as being a folk-singer, Denis Gibbons was an announcer at 3AW, where he'd landed a big city job after starting out on 3SR in Shepparton.
I think it's fair to say that Denis did well on the charts at 3AW, but not so well at the stations where he didn't work.
One of his 3AW hits, at #5, isa cover of the Everly Brothers'Take A Message to Mary which was still on the charts at other stations and doing well. Gavin Ryan's Melbourne chart book has the Everlys peaking at #1, with no mention of Denis's3AW hit.
When we say #1 in Melbourne in 1959, we are referring to a retrospective chart, in this case compiled by Gavin using radio charts available to him at some later time. In his Melbourne chart book for this period Gavin used charts from 3UZ and 3DB. Although I don't have those charts we can infer that the Everlys reached #1 or nearby at both stations, and it seems unlikely that Denis's recordwas even played on 3UZ and 3DB.
I'm no statistician but I believe that if Gavin had included 3AW's chart, Denis's #5 single would've earned a placing in his retrospective chart, maybe even in the Top 20.
Because the 3AW chart so obviously boosts Denis's records, it might be a good thing that it was omitted from Gavin's calculations, whether through editorial judgment or unavailability.
As I typed earlier, though, radio station surveys reflected station playlists. It's not surprising that Denis's records might be played on his employer's station, and the 3AW chart reflects that.
A few weeks earlier, Denis's colleague at 3AWRalphe Rickman made a prediction: Take A Message To Mary - Denis Gibbons.
So far I have found only Diana Trask's version, and I am confident it is the only release of the song. In the discography at Bacharach site A House Is Not A Homepage, for example, Diana Trask's is the only version listed.
Australian singer Diana Trask (b. 1940) moved to the US from Melbourne in 1959. She soon became known as a regular on Mitch Miller's TV show Sing Along with Mitch and in 1961 she releasedtwo albums, Diana Trask (later known as Vocal Jazz Classics) and Diana Trask On TV.
Her singles made the US Country chart eighteen times 1968-1981, peaking with Say When (1973, #15), It's A Man's World (If You Had A Man Like Mine) (1973, #20), When I Get My Hands On You (1973, #16) and Lean On Me (1974, #13).
On the pop charts, Trask's appearances were limited to two singles that under-bubbled just outsideBillboard's Hot 100, but back home Long Ago Last Summer was one of six singles that charted Top 40 for her in Melbourne 1959-1975.
The orchestra on Long Ago Last Summer is conducted by classically trained Glenn Osser(1914-2014) who would produce Trask's self-titled album (1961). Osser's experience went back to the Swing era when he arranged for many big names in music and played in Les Brown's Band of Renown. After the War he worked with Paul Whiteman's orchestra and as music director for the ABC network, and later became a house arranger for Mercury then Columbia Records. His array of credits is impressive.
Long Ago Last Summer (1960) came after Bacharachand David's earliest successes with Marty Robbins'sThe Story of My Life (1957 #15 USA) and Perry Como'sMagic Moments (1958, #4), but a couple of years before their hits for Gene Pitney,The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962, #4) and Only Love Can Break a Heart (1962, #2), as well as the hugely successful collaboration with Dionne Warwick, beginning with her first Top 40 chart entry, Don't Make Me Over (1962, #21).
Along the way, Bacharach often wrote with others, notably Bob Hilliard, his co-writer on The Drifters' Please Stay (1961, #14) and Gene McDaniels' Tower Of Strength (1961, #5). On The Shirelles'Baby It's You (1962, #8) his co-writers were Hal's brother Mack David and Barney Williams, an alias of Luther Dixon.
Similarly, lyricist Hal David had other collaborators, includingSherman EdwardsonSarah Vaughan's Broken Hearted Melody (1959, #7 USA) and Paul HamptononDon Gibson's Sea Of Heartbreak (1961, #21). (Hamptonalso wrote with Bacharach.)
Of 33 tracks from 1959-61 compiled on the Él label's Bacharach CD, 14 are by Bacharach with a writing partner other than Hal David.
US charts: #83 [Billboard] Australian charts: #4 [#6 Sydney, #2 Melbourne, #10 Brisbane, #10 Adelaide, #6 Perth] New Zealand charts: #9 [Freeman]
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Doctor Casey was the fictional neurosurgeon in Ben Casey, a popular TV seriesthat debuted in the US in October 1961 and ran until 1966. Callin' Doctor Casey was released in June 1962 during Ben Casey'speak ratings of 1961-1963.
This is not any kind of official tie-in with the series. The lovesick singer is calling on Dr Casey to mend his broken heart. The deep voice that answers, "Ye-e-es?" is a comical Ben Casey that sounds nothing like the character played by Vince Edwards. (Is it a parody of some old horror movie star? Boris Karloff maybe? Bela Lugosi?)
At least three Loudermilk compositions recorded by others also did better in Australia than in the US:
Mark Dinning - Top Forty, News, Weather And Sports1 (1961, #81 USA, #17 Australia)
Sue Thompson – James (Hold The Ladder Steady) (1962, #17 USA, #6 Australia, #15 NZ)
Sue Thompson- Paper Tiger (1964[USA]-1965, #23 USA, #3 Australia)2
Loudermilk's Midnight Bus was first recorded in the US by Billy Graves then by Loudermilkhimself,but the song became better known in Australia, thanks to a classic local version:
Betty McQuade- Midnight Bus (1961, #29 Australia [#6 Melbourne]; 1963 reissue, #69 Australia [#17 Brisbane, #1 Perth) See my history of Midnight Bus.
As well as Callin' Doctor Casey, another of Loudermilk's own records was popular down under (especially in New Zealand):
John D. Loudermilk – The Language Of Love (1961, #32 USA, #21 Australia, #8 NZ).
In fact, in a world where most songwriting credits went unnoticed, Loudermilk would have been known down here mainly as a singer. For connoisseurs of the fine print, he was an extraordinarily prolific and diversifying songwriter.
When he died in 2016, obituarists tried to summarise Loudermilk's huge songwriting repertoire in a few lines. Many started by mentioning two or three well-known and contrasting compositions, typicallyTobacco Road, Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye or Indian Reservation.
When I attempted a list of "better known recordings" of Loudermilk's songs I tried to keep it short but I ended up with 27. I wanted to convey the volume of familiar songs he had written, but I was also struck by the wide range of styles and ideas they took in.
An economical way of dramatising Loudermilk's versatility is to pair one of his songs with another that is markedly different from it. Like this:
Top Forty, News, Weather And Sport (Mark Dinning) Abilene(George Hamilton IV)
Talk Back Tremblin’ Lips (Johnny Tillotson) Tobacco Road (The Nashville Teens)
Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye (The Casinos) Norman (Sue Thompson)
The Language Of Love (John D. Loudermilk) Indian Reservation (The Lament Of The Cherokee Reservation Indian) (Raiders, Don Fardon, Marvin Rainwater: title varies)
Thou Shalt Not Steal (Dick & DeeDee) This Little Bird (Marianne Faithful)
Midnight Bus (Betty McQuade) Callin' Doctor Casey (John D. Loudermilk)
Listen to the list on this playlist:
Footnotes 1. Top Forty, News, Weather And Sports was on Volume 3 of Glenn A. Bakers Hard To Get Hits, aseries that includes the same premise as Only in Oz. 2. Two other Sue Thompsonrecords written by Loudermilk were hits both in the US and in Australasia: Sad Movies (Make Me Cry) (1961, #5 USA, #6 Australia, #2 NZ) and Norman (1961, #3 USA, #4 Australia, #1 NZ), later adapted in Australia as Norman-“Normie" (1966), a tribute to local pop idol Normie Rowe
Essential reading: Kees van der Hoeven's John D. Loudermilk site is the definitive, indispensable source where the ultimate aim is to document every Loudermilk song and recording. He must be getting close.
US Charts: #58 Billboard, #49 Cash Box Australian charts: #38 Sydney, #19 Melbourne (Ryan), #14 Melbourne (Guest), #37 Brisbane | #37 Australia
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Not a dramatic case of Only in Oz, butthe lower reaches of Australia's Top 40 do beat the lower reaches of Top 60 Billboard and Top 50 Cash Box.
Johnny Burnette
Johnny Burnette's three biggest hits Dreamin' (1960), You're Sixteen (1960), and Little Boy Sad (1961) all charted at least Top 20 in the US, the UK, Australia, and NZ but Australia is the only one where Big Big World made Top 40.
In 1961 I was listening to Melbourne radio, so I remember Big Big World as well as Burnette's better-known songs. Depending on the chart compiler, Big Big World charted in Melbourne at #19 (Gavin Ryan)or #14 (Tom Guest). (For a plunge into the metaphysics of retrospective charts see my post Toppermost of the poppermost: the charts.)
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Big Big World evokes the feeling of searching for one person among millions and being defeated by the vastness of the city.
In Snuff Garrett's production the elements meld perfectly, all contributing to the final effect: composition, arrangement, performances. There are no jarring distractions.1
I admire the way the story is told economically, in colloquial language, without any wasted words. It takes place in two locations, an apartment block - Nine one, 27th Avenue - and a phone box.
At the apartments, where the searcher tells them he is just looking for a friend living in Apartment 10, he has no luck: You say she's gone. Please, how long has it been?
In the phone box, the futility of his quest is brought home to him when he consults the telephone directory.
Joneses, Joneses Oh, I see,page 19 to 23
Big, big world can be unkind The phone just took my last dime
I love the sound of Joneses Joneses. Every "s" has a /z/ sound, setting up a nice percussive effect with the repetition.
This is a song of numbers: the address and the apartment number (Nine one, 27th Avenue... Apartment 10), the pages of Joneses (19 to 23).
I assume the numbers that open the song - Nine one, 27th- were carefully chosen, as they are perfect.
I am reminded of that much-repeated story about the comedy writers on Sid Caesar's TV show deciding which number on a roulette wheel would be funniest. (The final choice was thirty-two).
Big Big World isn't comedy, but I can imagine a similar process going on for Nine one, 27th, as well as for the numbers of the telephone directory pages 19 to 23.
Clearly, the rhythm of the words is a factor. And although the selection might have been intuitive, I wonder whether the result has something to do with the repeated sounds in nine one twenty-seven: the /n/, the short "e" (/e/) and the /w/?
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The composers of Big Big World areGerald Nelson (1935-2012), Fred Burch (c.1932- ) and Bobby "Red" West (1936-2017).
Red West was a long-time associate of Elvis Presley from high school days, and a member of Elvis's entourage. He worked successfully as a bodyguard, stuntman, movie extra, actor, songwriter and artists' agent. West would be the most visible of the three writers of Big Big World, partly through the Elvis Presley connection, but also through his many appearances in films, sometimes uncredited but also credited alongside some well-known names.
Nelson and Burch started writing together when Burch was at the University of Kentucky in 1958. Their composition Tragedy charted for Thomas Wayne (1959, #4 USA), The Fleetwoods (1961, #10 USA), and Bryan Hyland (1969, #56 USA). A version by Paul McCartney appeared as a bonus track on a later reissue of Red Rose Speedway.
Fred Burch
Fred Burch*was a prolific songwriter based inNashville where he was a staff writer for Cedarwood Publishing Co. He collaborated, for example, with Marijohn Wilkin on Jimmy Dean's P.T. 109 (1962, #8 USA, #29 Australia).
Jan Crutchfield was Burch's co-writer on Perry Como'sDream On Little Dreamer (1965, #25 USA). Crutchfieldwas also from Paducah, and he was in The Country Gentlemen-Escorts with Big Big World co-writer Gerald Nelson. (Jan Crutchfield's brother Jerry, also a notable songwriter, was also in the group.)
Strange, recorded by Patsy Cline(1962, #97 USA), was a Fred Burch -Mel Tillis composition. Tillis was also contracted to Cedarwood Publishing and they wrote several songs together.
It didn't surprise me to read in the archives that Burch wasa "student of journalism" whostudied English at university before turning to professional song writing. Clearly, at least one writer who knew their way around words had a hand in Big Big World, and as a songwriterBurch seems to have specialised in lyrics.
For example, it was Burch who started off Tragedy with some lines of verse.2 Local press in Paducah (1962) gives him credit for being the lyricist of P.T. 109 and numerous other songs including Big Big World,3 although in the Tennessee press Burch himself acknowledges co-composer Marijohn Wilkin's role in polishing the lyrics of P.T. 109.4
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Selected sources, further reading: 1. I wrote something similar about Snuff Garrett's production of Gene McDaniels - It's A Lonely Town (Lonely Without You). That post also has a list of some of Garrett's notable productions.
Item of interest: "Composers Take Cruise": songwriters Marijohn Wilkin and Fred Burch with Wilkin's husband and son on a cruise trip to Paducah on the Wilkins' houseboat, The Leaf-Chronicle, Clarksville, Tennessee, 7 August 1961.
*Don't confuse Fred Burch with Don Burch who wrote The Shields'hit "You Cheated" (1958) or John Burch who wroteGeorgie Fame's "Preach And Teach" (1964) and "In The Meantime" (1965).
Another in my series of posts about tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin. See also: Only in Melbourne.
*In this case, Only in Oz and NZ.
17.José Feliciano - Adios Amor (Goodbye, My Love) (Tom Springfield - Norman Newell) UK 1967, 1969 • RCA Victor single (UK) #1640, reissued on #1794 • RCA Victor single (Australia) #101806: 1967, reissued 1969 • RCA Victor single (New Zealand)#60474
UK charts: "Bubbled Under" Top 50 (= #51), Record Retailer, 22 Apr 69 Australian charts: #4 Australia (Kent and Go-Set); #2 Sydney #5 Melbourne, #26 Sydney, #2 Brisbane, #2 Adelaide, #7 Perth (Gavin Ryan) New Zealand chart: #3 (Scapolo and Freeman) USA charts: no single released
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Adios Amor (Goodbye, My Love): American artist, British record, Australasian hit.
It charted in Australia early in 1969 (mid-'69 in NZ), a few months after José Feliciano's breakthrough hit record Light My Fire (1968, #14 Australia, #16 NZ, #1 USA, #6 UK).
Adios Amor was probably seen as a follow-up recording to Light My Fire (1968)but in fact Adios Amor came first. It was initially released in 1967 then re-released in 1969, presumably in response to Light My Fire's success. An ad for Adios Amor's reissue in Britain's New Musical Expressin February 1969 overlooked its history and billed it as Feliciano'ssmash new single.
The two songs are quite different from each other. Light My Fire, released in July 1968, was a jazz-soul-flavoured reworking of The Doors' #1 US hit from the previous year. Adios Amor is a more conventional orchestration of an original ballad, but no less affecting for that, as Australasian audiences clearly found. Just read the heartfelt memories of the song from Australians at YouTube.
In spite of its Spanish title, Adios Amor has mainly English lyrics. (There are some spoken Spanish words at the very end, as the track fades out.)
It is a British composition, recorded in the UK during Feliciano's sojourn there in 1967, along with another singleMy Foolish Heart / Only Once.
Adios Amor was released in the UK (and in Australia, NZ, France, Germany and Spain) but there was no US single. As far as I can see, it has not been included on any American José Feliciano compilation, nor did it appear on any regular album at the time. It was on at least one compilation from Australia.
The entirely plausible story goes that producer and co-writer Tom Springfield firstproposed Adios Amor as a song for The Seekers but the group turned it down. In later years Seekers lead singer Judith Durham (1943-2022) did perform and release the song, as did a latter-day line-up The Original Seekers.
The José Feliciano we hear singing Adios Amor from a London studio in 1967 was yet to take off in mainstream markets, but he was already a popular Spanish-language artist amongst Latino audiences in the US and South America. He had also released three English-language albums of his own takes on standards, folk songs and pop hits on RCA Victor 1965-1966.
One of those songs, Hi-Heel Sneakers, on The Voice And Guitar Of José Feliciano (1966), was recorded again to become Feliciano's second Top 40 hit in the US (1968, #25 USA, #24 Australia). The B-side, a cover of Dunn & McCashen'sHitchcock Railway,co-charted in Australia and later had its arrangement openly borrowed by Chris Stainton for Joe Cocker'swell-known version (1971).1
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The composers of Adios Amor, Tom Springfield and Norman Newell, were both English. Springfield also produced the record.
Tom Springfield (Dion O'Brien 1934-2022) and his sister Dusty (Mary) had been in The Springfields who had hits with Silver Threads And Golden Needles and Island of Dreams. Tom produced and wrote hit songs for The Seekers includingThe Carnival Is Over, I'll Never Find Another You, and World Of Our Own.
Norman Newell (1919-2004) was a prominent record producer and songwriter from the post-war 1940s until his retirement in 1990. He worked mainly in the middle-of-the-road segment of the market, often collaborating with arranger and conductor Geoff Love, and often with such major names of post-war British show business as Shirley Bassey, Russ Conway, and Des O'Connor. He had a hand in numerous hits, for Petula Clark (Sailor), Laurie London(He's Got the Whole World in His Hands), Adam Faith(What Do You Want?),Matt Munro (Portrait of My Love) andKen Dodd (Tears). His obituary in The Independent gives a good overview of his varied career.
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British group The Casuals released a version of Adios Amor in February 1968 with an arrangement similar to the original. They would finally find success later in the year with Jesamine (#2 UK).
Thanks to Marc for clarification around British chart positions; details now edited to reflect his comments.
Footnote 1.Chris Stainton tells about how he got to play on The Who'sQuadrophenia [from RichieUnterberger.com]: "Pete (Townsend)… seemed to be very impressed by the piano riffs I was playing in (Joe Cocker's) 'Hitchcock Railway,' which I lifted from José Feliciano's version," says Stainton. "He never forgot it and years later asked me to play in that style on the Quadrophenia album."
José Feliciano - Adios Amor (Goodbye, My Love) (UK single 1967, 1969)
The Casuals - Adios Amor (Goodbye My Love)(UK single 1968)
Another in my series of posts about tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin. See also: Only in Melbourne.
16.Murry Kellum - Long Tall Texan (Henry Strzelecki) USA 1963 M.O.C. single (USA) #45-653 US Charts: #51 Billboard, #51 Cash Box London single (Australia 1964) #HL-2164 Australian charts: #7 Sydney, #7 Melbourne, #2 Brisbane, #45 Adelaide #6 Australia
On the B-side is Glenn Sutton - I Gotta Leave This Town.
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In February 1964, when Murry Kellum'sLong Tall Texan was peaking at #4 at Sydney station 2UE, twoBeatles songs were at #1, and there were three other Beatles songs in the Top 10 plus one by The Dave Clark Five.
The British Invasion was under way, but a lot of Australians were also going for a comical country song about a hick sheriff who sounds like a Wild West prototype for Private Gomer Pyle.
Long Tall Texan charted Top 10 in our three biggest cities (converting to a #6 Australia) but in the US it peaked outside the Top 40 at #51on Billboard's Hot 100 (21 Dec 1963), also at #51on Cash Box's Top 100 (4 & 11 Jan 1964).
There are examples in the US newspaper archives of locally published surveys that have Long Tall Texanin their Top 10. See also, at ARSA, a #1 at KMEN San Bernardino CA.
Murry Kellum was not the first to record Long Tall Texan. The original version was a 1959 B-side, recorded in Memphis by The Four Flickers with composer Henry Strzelecki on lead vocals.
According to Billboard, in 1957 the 17-year-old Strzelecki encountered country star Tex Ritter in a diner in Bessemer, Alabama and was inspired to write Long Tall Texan. A further version was released by Jerry Woodardin 1960.
In Definitive Country(1995), Barry McCloud suggests that in 1963 US radio stations declined to play Murry Kellum's record in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas. It is hard to judge how widespread that might have been, and it is easy to find examples of the song in record reviews or local surveys during the weeks after 22 November 1963. The story is certainly plausible when you consider that author John M. MacDonald changed the name of a major character from Dallas McGee to Travis McGee over similar concerns.
Even if it was never a big national chart hit, Long Tall Texan became a much performed and recorded song in the US.
A 1968 Billboardtribute to Tex Ritter noted that Long Tall Texan, the song he inspired,had already been recorded some 28 times and … included in some five million dollars' worth of singles and albums sold.
The website Cover.info lists about 15 examples from the 1960s and 70s, including those by The Kingsmen, The Chad Mitchell Trio and John Denver. It was included in live sets by The Beach Boys,as heard on their album Beach Boys Concert (1964) and on other collections.
Searches of old US newspapers from the months following Kellum's releaseshow examples of kids and other amateurs performing Long Tall Texan at local concerts and gatherings, a handy indicator of a song's familiarity in the community.
Lyall Lovett, Bob Luman and Conway Twitty allreleased versions of Long Tall Texan in the 1990s. It had clearly held its nostalgic appeal, probably amongst country music fans especially. As recently as 2011, Ben Folds included a live version from 2008 on his album The Best Imitation Of Myself: A Retrospective.
Country singer-guitarist-songwriter Murry Kellum (1942-1990) grew up in Plain, a locality near his birthplace Jackson, Mississippi.* His most successful single was Joy To The World (1971, #26 Billboard Country), produced by fellow Jackson musician Glenn Sutton who had occupied the B-side of Long Tall Texan. Kellum's best known composition, written with Dan Mitchell, is If You're Gonna Play in Texas (You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band), a country hit for Alabama (1984, #1 Billboard Hot Country Songs). Kellum was still touring in 1990 when he died in a small-plane crash en route to Nashville.
The composer of Long Tall Texan was Alabama-born bassistHenry Strzelecki (1939-2014). Strzelecki is heard on lead vocals on the original version by The Four Flickers, a group he formed with his brother Larry along with Jerry Adams and Leon Ethridge. Henry became a respected studio and touring musician in Nashville where he was based from 1960. His name is badly misspelt on the Murry Kellum single and others as Stegelecki. See his repertoire of recorded songs at 45cat.com.
*Some sources prefer Jackson, Tennessee or Plain, Texas or both. I suggest you pay them no attention.
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Musicological footnote:
Philippe (correspondent in France) detects similarities between She's About A Mover by Texas band Sir Douglas Quintet (February 1965, #13 USA) and Long Tall Texan, and by golly I think he's right.
This appears to be a particular use of a musical device called stop time, also known as a break. It is heard in ragtime, jazz and blues compositions, sometimes as a series of breaks throughout a verse as in Muddy Waters' Hoochie Coochie Man, and in Elvis Presley'sTrouble, another Leiber & Stoller composition.
It was much used by Leiber & Stoller as a punchline (their word) at the end of a verse, for example in Coasters hitsCharlie Brown, (1959, #3 USA) - Why is everybody always pickin' on me?- and Young Blood (1957 #8 USA, B-side of Searchin', written with Doc Pomus) - Look a-there Look a-there! Look a-there.
Michael Campbell, in Popular music in America : the beat goes on (2009), describes the phenomenon as it appears in Young Blood:
... breaks that showcase the Coasters' trademark humorous asides that drop down the vocal ladder, with bass singer Bobby Nunn getting in the last word ...
In an episode of John Gilliland's Pop Chronicles featuring Leiber & Stoller, they discuss their writing process including
... the breaks and so on, especially with the joke material, you know, where the timing and the punch lines were so critical.
Murry Kellum - Long Tall Texan (1963)
The Four Flickers - Long Tall Texan (1959) Song starts at 2:40 (second in a medley of two)
Not long before Christmas 1987 I read a review of Evan Eisenberg's new book The Recording Angel and resolved to look out for it. It is just the sort of book I like, a deep and insightful history of recorded music.
This was before instant online ordering and speedy delivery of books, before you could read a new book on your Kindle a few minutes after reading a review.
I was living in Toowoomba, a provincial city where there were a couple of good bookshops, but I would also look forward to browsing the bigger bookshops in Brisbane now and then.
This was not a bestseller, it probably appealed to a limited demographic, and my feeling was that I probably wouldn't come across it locally.
So, I would look out for The Recording Angel, but it was more likely to show up in one of the Brisbane bookshops like The American Bookstore.
A couple of days after Christmas Day I went into a local second-hand bookshop and looked through the old paperbacks with their bent covers and yellowed pages.
In amongst them I found The Recording Angel, fresh and unopened. As a second-hand bookseller would classify it, As New.
I was astounded - no - I was spooked by how unlikely and coincidental it was, but I contained myself and took it to the cash register.
Later I thought that it must have been an unwanted Christmas gift. Pretty quick to get down to the second-hand bookshop so soon after Christmas Day, but maybe they were desperate. --- I got the Internet at home 11 years later, in 1998, and some time after that I saw a forum comment about The Recording Angel by a woman from the Toowoomba area. That was coincidental itself, on the Worldwide Web.
She had bought a copy of the book when it first came out, but it had been stolen during a burglary, swooped up with some other things before she had time to read it.
I replied to her comment and told her the story and yes, it had been in late 1987. She agreed the timing was right. I offered to give her my (her?) copy but she declined.
As the song from Bye Bye Birdie went (1960), without the quotation marks.
I've never minded calling children "kids". It's a friendly sounding word with no historical baggage as an epithet. To my mind, its connotations are positive.
Over the years I've occasionally met someone who objected along the lines of, "They're not baby goats, they're children," but that's like chiding a French speaker for using the endearment mon chou: "He's not a green leafy vegetable..." There are many colloquialisms that sprang from figurative speech, and we don't insist on users being literal.
In many contexts, of course "children" sounds better. "Student" has replaced "pupil" which seems to have gone out of fashion, and it does suggest 1950s officialese. In Queensland, pupil-free days became student-free days at some point.
Teachers have various ways of addressing a class: "people", "guys", "folks". Some of these sound better coming from a teacher seated on a reversed chair. I once heard an able student referred to as a "good little unit" but the small-school principal who said that was a bit unhinged.
I used to slip facetiously into "peanuts", "bananas", "ladies and gentlemen", "ladles and jellybeans". Context was everything. When I first started teaching you would hear some old-timers using "youse" but that's rare these days.
Long before gender neutrality became the norm I gave up "girls and boys" and would say, "Good morning everyone," probably influenced by the broadcaster Karl Haas's "Hello everyone". (I hated hearing a class chanting "good morning" in reply so in later years I would dispense with a greeting and say something like, "Okay, let's get this show on the road," or just jump in and start talking about whatever needed our attention. The sky didn't fall in.)
One novel variation I heard came from a parent who worked for the RAAF. When he was President of the Parents & Citizens Association he talked to the school assembly one morning and referred throughout to children as "personnel". Force of habit.
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I found this 2011 draft for a proposed blog about my adventures in teaching. I've tweaked it a little.
Somebody has discovered an amazing song from the past that they missed in their youth. It's so good: why wasn't it all over the radio and racing up to the top of the charts? YouTube comments on Gwen Stacey's excellent Ain't Gonna Cry No More (1964) include Superb! Why wasn't this record huge? and Great song. This should have been a hit. YouTube
It could be down to how well a song was marketed (it's the music business1), or the quirks of radio programmers in your hometown at the time.
Often, though, it's to do with experiencing new music as it emerged, as it was heard at that point in musical history.
I love listening to newly-discovered oldies, but I'm listening to them out of historical context. One of my favourite non-hits, Margaret Mandolph's If You Ever Need Me, was released in December 1964. It was surrounded by a unique collection of current songs, and it followed whatever music was available to listeners up to that point.
When I enthusiastically commented on If You Ever Need Me at YouTube in 2022, I had heard it after listening to thousands of songs in countless genres over several decades, songs that were unimaginable when it was released.
I have no idea how I would have reacted to it if I'd heard it in December 1964. It's like tasting a wine when your palate has been prepared by different foods.
I tried to find some clues in the songs that were in or around Billboard's Top 20 in the month If You Ever Need Me was released.
British Invaders
• The Zombies -She's Not There: This innovative British record entered the Billboard chart in November 1964, only 10 months after the Beatles' first US hit. A lot had changed since then. • The Beatles-I Feel Fine and She's A Woman: I suspect that just the opening of I Feel Fine would have sounded unusual a year earlier when such Beatles songs as I Want To Hold Your Hand were taking off. • The Kinks -You Really Got Me: Again, would this new sound have made #7 at Billboard a year earlier, or would it have just sounded weird? • On Billboard's Hot 100 for 28 Dec 1963 there was one British act in the Top 20 (The Caravelles-You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry). A year later, 26 Dec 1964, there were nine. So, 5% British to 45% British in 12 months.
Brits doing American songs • The Rolling Stones - Time Is On My Side and • The Searchers - Love Potion Number 9: The Stonestook Time On My Side to #6 USA, but earlier US versions by Kai Winding (1963: the original) and Irma Thomas(aJuly 1964 B-side) never charted. The Clovers' original of Love Potion Number Nine (1959) charted #29 Billboard, The Searchers' version got to #3.
American groups • The Beach Boys - Dance, Dance Dance • Little Anthony & The Imperials - Goin' Out Of My Head • The Larks - The Jerk: Soul-r&b dance track. • The Impressions -Amen: Written by Jerry Goldsmith for a film, Lilies of the Field.
Women • The Supremes -Come See About Me and • The Shangri-Las - Leader Of The Pack: Both of these reflect a development from the pre-Beatles girl-groupsounds. Things were moving on quickly at this stage. • Marianne Faithful - As Tears Go By: Sedate but up-to-date Rolling Stones cover.
Survivors •Gene Pitney - I'm Gonna Be Strong and • Bobby Vinton - Mr Lonely: Pitney and Vinton resisting the British wave. Pitney managed to stay hip, helped along by his association with Andrew Loog-Oldham and The Rolling Stones. Vinton'sMr Lonely was a #1 hit, and he would keep having hits into the mid-70s.§ The aforementioned Beach Boys not only survived, they thrived, and became much more than, well, beach boys. And Little Anthony & The Imperials had their first Top 5 hit in 1958 and two in the Top 10 1964-65.
Squares • Julie Rogers - The Wedding and •Robert Goulet -My Love Forgive Me: It's easy to forget that there were always middle-of-the-road tracks on the charts of the 60s.I'm assuming they weren't put there by teenage pop fans.
Outlier • Lorne Greene - Ringo: The charts often included such curiosities as this Western-themed record, spoken by Lorne Greene over an instrumental and vocal track. The title didn't hurt, even though it has nothing to do with the Beatles.
Make of it all what you will! It's what the musical palate of December 1964 was savouring.
At this distance it is hard for me to imagine If You Ever Need Mebeing introduced into this mix.
As much as I love the song, I hear it as a continuation of the female pop sounds of 1962-63, the era of The Ronettes, The Crystals, The Chiffons, The Murmaids, The Raindrops and Lesley Gore. Fine by me, sitting up here in the 2020s when an overlooked, sophisticated development of the genre is like a gift. But in December 1964 it might have sounded too much like an echo of the past. In pop music, twelve months can be a long time ago.
Really, we will never know. You had to be there.
1. Al Hazan recalls producing a record by vanity artist Dora Hall, paid for by her wealthy husband: as far as I was concerned, her husband had hired me to do a job and I was doing it. That’s why it’s called the music business.
