The Everly Brothers: "All I Have to Do Is Dream"

May 5, 1958 (5 weeks)

It was during the month long reign at the top for "All I Have to Do Is Dream" that the CHUM chart celebrated its first birthday. Over the course of this first year, twenty different groups or solo artists managed to reach the summit but just two managed to do so more once: Elvis Presley with five number ones (needless to say with several more to come) and Don and Phil Everly with two. Once again, all hail the dominance of The King!

"All I Have to Do Is Dream" has been covered a lot over the years. As Fred Bronson points out, it managed to chart in the fifties by the Everlys, in the sixties as a solo by Richard Chamberlain, the seventies back in duet form by Glen Campbell and Bobbie Gentry and in the eighties once again as a duet by Andy Gibb and Victorial Principal. True, there was a clear downward trend in the chart placements but there's no question that the tune had legs. (The streak would be broken in the nineties because, let's face it, we Generation Xer's are dead inside; that said, Cliff Richard managed to have a Top 20 hit with it in his native UK in 1994) But my first exposure to this classic was in the musical-comedy-drama Rags to Riches in around 1987.

When the show first started there was talk of comparisons to Annie. But instead of one happy-go-lucky orphan girl being taken in by a wealthy old miser, this time five young ladies of varying ages had been adopted by a rich playboy trying to improve his image. Oh the hilarity! My sister was interested in watching it and I went along with her. We were already loyal fans of Our House with the late Shannen Doherty and Chad Allen and I'm pretty sure this new series either came on right before it or just after. Bloody hell, I really would watch anything, wouldn't I?

The songs used in Rags to Riches were from the late fifties and early sixties but they all seemed familiar. Exploiting a Baby Boomer nostalgia that the forthcoming series The Wonder Years and hit motion picture Dirty Dancing would be vastly more successful at, the show's creators weren't going for obscurities of the era. My sister and I both recognized "All I Have to Do Is Dream" but we couldn't have told you who had originally done it. I think we both scoffed at Rose singing it about her unrequited crush — especially in the way she altered the words (a common practice on this show) to fit around the plot: "only trouble is, gee wiz, I can't treat Diane this way" — but the actress, Kimiko Gelman, doesn't do such a bad job of it. To be sure, I was expecting a good deal worse.

But that's the thing: "All I Have to Do Is Dream" covers well. Most versions out there are pretty good and it doesn't seem any manage to mess it up. The Campbell/Gentry rendition is perhaps the finest. R.E.M.'s interpretation, as seen in the 1986 documentary Athens, GA: Inside/Out, is instructive: while the indie quartet's smattering of other covers ("Superman", "Love Is All Around") manage to sound like R.E.M. songs that happen to have been written by other people, Michael Stipe and Mike Mills can't help but sing like Don and Phil Everly. For someone with such a distinctive voice, Stipe has never sounded so much unlike himself.

With all due respect to Glen and Bobbie, Michael and Mike and even Rose from Rags to Riches, none of them can quite match the magic of the Everlys, which perhaps explains why everyone tries to copy them rather than trying something new. And what can possibly be done with "All I Have to Do Is Dream"? If not quite a masterpiece then it's near enough with Tom Ewing describing it as a "big step forward for pop". Quite right. If others had little difficulty replicating the Everlys, then Don and Phil would have a challenge ahead of them in trying to match their biggest hit to date. Credit to them that they managed it since it's doubtful many others would.

Score: 9

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Can Con

Here's a name that's new to me: Sheila Guthrie. She was a Toronto native who cut a few singles and a pair of albums over the fifties, sixties and seventies but, alas, she seems to have been largely forgotten with the passage of time. Her prospects must have seemed bright when debut solo "Love Is Universal" took her into the CHUM Top 40. It proved to be just a cup for coffee in the hit parade however. I would like to say a little more but I can't find seem to find any trace of it on YouTube. Some of her future recordings are up so I really ought to investigate. It's worth noting that she chose some good material for her first album Is That All There Is. Fingers crossed her name pops up before long on another old CHUM chart. Rest in power.