Connie Francis: "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" / "Jealous of You"

June 20, 1960 (2 weeks)

I'm not a huge fan of race car driving but I have long thought that the story of Mario Andretti is fascinating. While some would focus on open-wheel racing and try to move up to the prestigious Formula 1 and/or IndyCar circuits and others on stock cars in hopes of advancing to NASCAR, the Italian-born Andretti seemed happy to compete in races of all kinds. (I think I once heard that he even dabbled in drag racing but I can't confirm it) And while not quite the greatest of all time in any particular discipline, he was damn good in all of 'em. At various points he won the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500, the 1978 Formula 1 title and the 24 Hours of Le Mans — and plenty more at that, many of which in circuits I've never heard of.

A really good vocalist ought to be capable of being an Andretti of music: someone who tries out a variety of genres and can effortlessly bounce around from one to another. Not exactly a master of one but a still a stand out in many. Connie Francis had already been a major pop starlet in the late fifties but her success didn't lead to her pigeonholing herself; it only seemed to encourage her to spread herself out further. Not only did this involve her toying with styles like middle-of-the-road mainstream pop, vocal jazz and country but it also got her singing in a variety of languages including Italian and Yiddish. With the burgeoning West German market in mind, she even recorded a special polka version of "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" retitled as "Die Liebe ist ein seltsames Spiel" which promptly went to number one.

And yet, Tom Breihan describes her in 1960 as having "made the transition from pop to country". Uh, yeah, I suppose one might jump to that conclusion if they had only listened to the A-sides of her two biggest American hits that year, "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" and "My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own". But flip them over and you get the mostly Italian language "Jealous of You" on the former and the Latino-flavoured "Malaguena" — sung entirely in Spanish — on the latter. Neither of them has anything to do with country music. It would be like saying that Mario Andretti had become a NASCAR driver even though he was still racing the IndyCar and Formula 1 circuits.

Breihan concedes that Connie Francis was more in the country-pop realm which is reasonably close to describing "Everybody's Somebody's Fool". Yet it is the aforementioned German-language rendition that emphasizes that it is much more pop than country. It is a fine, catchy little number that could be adapted in a variety of genres and, indeed, languages. It was only with Loretta Lynn's version that the countryness really starts to stand out. Francis, meanwhile, was practically becoming a genre unto herself.

If anything, "Jealous of You" is even better than its more well known single companion. I don't know what it is but she sounds absolutely enchanting singing in Italian. Her German was kind of awkward but she's so effortless with the Romance languages that you'd think she had been a native speaker of Spanish and/or Italian, which, as it turns out, she had been. (For some reason, it doesn't appear she recorded a whole lot in French; she grew up in an Italian-American household with many Jewish neighbours and couldn't have been too far away from the Latino population of New York but I can't imagine she knew many Francophones as a girl)

Connie Francis had an extraordinary career of bouncing around from genre to genre — album titles such as Sings Italian Favorites, Rock 'n' Roll Million Sellers, Country & Western — Golden Hits and Sings Fun Songs for Children really displays the diversity of her range — and from language to language. At a time when it may not necessarily have looked like English was going to rule the world to the extent it does now, she pioneered the practice of catering to Europeans as a bilingual songstress which led to her having a huge following across Atlantic. But she experienced severe trauma in the seventies and eighties that many would not be able to come back from. Well done to her for her remarkable artistry and for being a survivor — and, of course, for her wide range and interest a multitude of styles. In fact, rather her than being the Andretti of music, Mario Andretti is the Connie Francis of auto racing.

Score: 7

Lonnie Donegan: "My Old Man's a Dustman"

June 6, 1960 (2 weeks)

And so the British Invasion begins. Well, not quite but it is notable that Lonnie Donegan would become the first UK act to top the CHUM charts. While the number one spot on the American Hot 100 would remain free of Brits — aside from a pair of flukes from Mr. Acker Bilk and The Tornadoes respectively — until the early part of 1964, Canadian music fans would prove to be a little more receptive to singles from the old country: at least one UK act would top the Canadian charts in each year from 1960 all the way to 1998 (and even then the holdover number one from '97 spent the first week of the new year at the top and it was by a British group).

What's significant as well was that this was an early indication that Canadians didn't necessarily need the heft of the American pop culture juggernaut in order to make a hit single. While the CHUM number ones up to this point don't completely align with the Hot 100's, there has been a fair amount of crossover; singles that failed to reach the top spot in the US still tended to perform fairly well. But not when it comes to "My Old Man's a Dustman" which appears to have missed the American charts altogether. Number one in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and, yes, Canada but apparently the Americans were just too good for it.

They may have had a point. While Donegan's influence on The Beatles and, in general, an entire generation of British beat groups is what he is best known for now, one mustn't forget that his early hits like "Rock Island Line" (which even managed to crack the US Top 10) and "Cumberland Gap" are outstanding. (Due to its use in the classic eighties documentary The Compleat Beatles, I had always assumed that "Jack o' Diamonds" was one of his biggest hits but it only peaked in the teens in Britain; needless to say, it's another one of his many first rate skiffle tunes) But "My Old Man's a Dustman" is not one of his classics. In fact, it is very much the sound of an individual whose creative roll has concluded but who is still clinging to the goodwill he has created at all costs.

Lonnie Donegan's cheeky smile and innate showmanship — not to mention having such a rubbery, old man face — would have made his shift from skiffle to English music hall a logical one. And he might have been able to pull it off with better material at his disposal. Recorded live at the Gaumont Cinema in Doncaster, England, his audience guffaws at some of his cracks (Lonnie: "My dustbin's full of toadstools"; Bandmate Les Bennetts: "How do you know it's full?"; Lonnie: "'Cause there's not mushroom inside!") while others aren't even acknowledged (a lengthy rant about finding a tiger's head that I won't bother attempting to transcribe here, suffice it to say it fully deserved the silence that greeted it).

Done by a singer with less charm and personality than Donegan, "Dustman" could have been an even bigger failure — while also being far less commercially successful. The only thing that saves it from the absolute bottom of the refuse pile of number ones is his obvious delight getting a crowd all riled up. While as I say they clearly didn't find everything humourous , the audience that night was still wrapped around his finger. A number of them were probably dead chuffed to be seeing him in person. A live recording could never do justice to the sort of good time that I'm sure the majority of them had. Seeing Donegan would have been a treat but only being able to listen does him no favours.

The British would be coming to North America but some had to stumble before others could walk and, indeed, run. (The Beatles painfully slow development allowed them to have their creative hiccups before anyone knew who they were) "My Old Man's a Dustman" is far from the only embarrassing and profoundly unfunny novelty record to cross the Atlantic — and, sadly, it will likely not even be the worst example. Nevertheless, the music hall tradition has been strong enough that bands like Madness and Blur have attempted to revive it. On the evidence of crap like this, however, it's clear why needed to fade away.

Score: 3

Jeanne Black: "He'll Have to Stay"

May 30, 1960 (1 week)

It was in February of 1960 that Jim Reeves hit the number one spot on the CHUM charts, staying there for an impressive six weeks. He couldn't quite match that level of success in his native United States as "He'll Have to Go" got stuck at number two behind the immovable "Theme from 'A Summer Place'". (As I have already said, Canadians got it right that time) Less than four months' later, it had already been answered with a reply song called "He'll Have to Stay". The world of pop moves fast, even back in more technologically modest times.

But maybe things were moving a little too fast. "He'll Have to Go" was still lingering about in the bottom of Canada's Top 50 when its feminist response landed at number one. But then you must consider who wrote these two songs: oh right, it was the same people! They probably finished off one and then immediately got to work on the other. Or they saw that the Reeves single was doing well and then dashed this off.

Reply songs always seem like a nice idea but they don't tend to work out. When I was sixteen, I was going through a big Beatles' period (I just couldn't get into Radiohead or Suede) and I figured I had a genius idea by re-writing "Paperback Writer" from the perspective of the publishing company rejecting Paul McCartney's lousy novel. When I first got the idea, I told some friends as well as my Fabs obsessed mum who all thought it sounded funny; then I wrote the damn thing and its reception wasn't nearly as warm. (It's just as well it never got recorded) Still, a gap of a few months is preferable to twenty-seven years.

The idea of "He'll Have to Stay" is a good one. The Jim Reeves original was done strictly from the man's perspective who we were being manipulated into siding with. Was he away on business or had he been drafted into the army and sent to some godforsaken base in the middle of Nebraska? It's easy to forget nowadays how expensive long distance calling used to be so he was probably at a diner on the other side of town. His girl is otherwise occupied by another gentleman caller but what isn't revealed is how he is similarly distracted by female companionship.

This isn't exactly a hardcore feminist statement but there is a commendable push for equality behind "He'll Have to Stay". Too many guys feel that a girl should be waiting for him but she's got just as much of a life to lead as he he does. If he's fooling around with someone else, then who the hell does he think he is demanding that she throw the bastard she's with out of her house? Centuries of men thinking they could expect loyalty from their wives and girlfriends while enjoying a big on the side being booted aside by a young woman who was more than willing to give as good as she got. You go girl!

The only problem is something I suggested above, that it's a little too dashed off. I understand striking while the iron is hot but I'm not sure this reply quite lives up to the original. Just the fact that "He'll Have to Go" has Reeves on it is a clear point in its favour; Jeanne Black does well enough but she isn't remotely in his league — though she may very well have been his superior as a romantic partner, the great big cad. And then there's my slight unease at the whole thing: am I supposed to find this funny? Again, the idea of it is amusing but Black is simply too earnest in her delivery for me to be convinced that there's as humourous aspect to what may well be a couple who are just piss-poor at communication. The Smiths' "Girl Afraid" is about a couple who can't talk to each other who then blame the other for their problems ("I'll never make that mistake again" is a vow they both make) and it's relatable and hilarious. Is it too much to expect something similar here?

Score: 5

Anita Bryant: "Paper Roses"

May 16, 1960 (2 weeks)

Had social medial existed back in the late seventies, conservatives would have no doubt told Anita Bryant to "shut up" and "stick to singing". What's that? They only say this to kind of thing to leftists and liberals who speak out on political matters? You mean they never scolded Ronald Reagan about voicing his opinions? They never told Dennis Miller to stick to comedy (if that is indeed what he used to do)? They never told a cartoonish rich buffoon to stick to reality TV drivel? Well, I never!

Anita Bryant's fame and, indeed, infamy as an outspoken anti-gay zealot is such that few even remember that she had previously been a well-known country singer. Perhaps this is down to the fact that her pop fame was achieved at an early age (despite the fact that she looks like housewife in her mid-thirties who volunteers at the church bake sale, she was no more than twenty when the photo of her on the cover of the single for "Paper Roses" was taken) and had long since been reduced to shilling for Floridian orange juice and the place where middle-of-the-road singing careers go to die, the gospel scene.

She was well on her way to her empty dotage even at the peak of her fame. There were plenty of milquetoast performers in American music during the fifties and sixties yet most of them had something to like. Pat Boone is less believable as a rock 'n' roller than when he'd speak in tongues (assuming he ever did so) but he had a more than good enough voice for slushy love songs. On the surface, Bryant has strong vocal chords in her own right but she seems to be incapable of knowing what to do with them. A Rosemary Clooney or a Peggy Lee could emote without tipping off listeners that it was all an act but this is a trick that Ms. Wholesome isn't up to replicating.

To be fair, she's hardly the only thing wrong with "Paper Roses". If anything, the production is worse with hideously gloopy strings and a chorus which outstays its welcome. Phil Spector on his worst day of farting out his remix of The Beatles' "The Long and Winding Road" or the mess he made of Leonard Cohen's Death of a Ladies Man would've heard this and sniffed something like "I think they've gone too far with this one". About the only thing that just about passes the sniff test is the song itself written by the team of Fred Spielman and Janice Torre. Luckily, there's a reasonably good version by the nearly as bland Marie Osmond from 1973 which would go on to be her best known solo hit. And when an Osmond is your creative superior there's really not a whole lot else to say.

Like a lot of bullies, Anita Bryant would end up playing the victim in the aftermath of her successful campaign against gay rights. Florida orange juice dumped her, as did other sponsors. Even some of her Christian allies objected to her outspoken stance while others turned their backs on her when she ended up getting a divorce from her fundamentalist husband. But I'm not so sure the decline in her singing career can be attributed to her activism. Rather, her talent was as minuscule as her integrity. She fluked a big hit in spite of it being an affront to taste but wasn't able to sustain much mainstream appeal for long after. No one told her to stick to music since no one wanted her to do that either.

Score: 1

~~~~~

Hey! Where's...?

I've been neglecting this feature in favour of the Can Con segment but I had to address the status of The Everly Brothers and arguably their finest single "Cathy's Clown". Five weeks at number one on the Hot 100 and seven more on the UK charts yet all it could manage was a peak in the runner up spot up in Canada — and only for one measly, stinking week at that. Lots of great songs just miss out on the top spot but having a respectable 45 blocking the way can soften the blow; having a great pop hit and sure fire 10 miss out in part to the godawful "Paper Roses" makes it an even bigger pop injustice. After all those wonderful hits written by the husband and wife team of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant (no relation to Anita that I can see though they may well have disowned her poisonous ass), this Don Everly original manages to surpass everything else they ever did. "Bye Bye Love" is often mentioned as being influential on The Beatles (particularly on the harmonies of Lennon and McCartney) but "Cathy's Clown" points the way forward to the more progressive Help album, particularly the on the single "Ticket to Ride", "You're Going to Lose to Lose That Girl" and, most obviously, the unreleased "That Means a Lot". In truth, it's far better than any other those though. An astonishing achievement and now I think I hate Anita Bryant even more than I already did.

The Browns: "The Old Lamplighter"

May 9, 1960 (1 week)

"The Old Lamplighter"? Could this be a tribute to Montreal Canadiens hall-of-famer Hector "Toe" Blake? The gritty and talented left winger was such a prolific goal scorer in his heyday that he made the goal light go on an awful lot. By the time this single by The Browns had come out in the spring of 1960, Blake had become the coach of his old team and had just led them to an unprecedented fifth consecutive Stanley Cup. If anyone from the world of hockey deserved to have a pop hit in their honour, it was the great Toe Blake — though I suppose most would opt for his old linemate Maurice "The Rocket" Richard, which, granted, wouldn't have been a bad choice either.

Had it come out at some point in the post-"Weird Al" Yankovic culture, there's a reasonably good chance that "The Old Lamplighter" would have been re-tooled in tribute to Blake, at least by some clever Montreal-area DJ. In fact, the song had already been the fodder for parody back in 1953 when the great polymath Tom Lehrer did it as "The Old Dope-Peddler" (the line "he gives the kids free samples because he knows full well / That today's innocent faces will be tomorrow's clientele" is what really makes it) but this should've just scratched the surface. "The Old Nailbiter"? "The Old Piss-taker"? "The Old Shit-disturber"? These comedy songs practically write themselves!

The last time The bloody Browns came up, I found myself listening and re-listening to "The Three Bells" in an effort to get myself to find some worth in it. Tom Breihan was so touched by it that he gave the damn record an 8 in his review so I figured there must have been something I was missing. I initially had a respectable score of 6 earmarked but as I kept playing it, the more I found myself hating it to the point in which I gave it a 2. (I stand by this score, as, indeed, I do with all of my reviews so far) If not quite irredeemably bad then close enough to it.

But what of "The Old Lamplighter"? Well, it's sort of the opposite scenario. I had been thinking that it would be just as piss-poor as its predecessor but it's now as if I'm searching for reasons to hate the thing and I'm coming up empty. The two songs are similarly sentimental but this one is far less sickly. Though I'm not particularly interested in paying tribute to gentlemen who would go about the town lighting kerosene lamps, the idea of The Browns doing so is lovely in its own way. And this time I don't even have to quibble over the supposedly tender plot.

And yet, "The Three Bells" set such a low bar that I can feel well-disposed towards its much better follow-up but still not really enjoy it all that much. It may not get on my nerves to the same extent but that doesn't prevent it from being rather boring. I only really like it compared to what The Browns managed to barf up previously; alongside the likes of recent entries by Johnny & The Hurricanes, Johnny Horton and Elvis Presley, it is roughly equal in terms of quality. In other words, passable at best. A tribute to Hector "Toe" Blake could easily have been just as good — if not better.

Score: 5

Elvis Presley: "Stuck on You" / "Fame and Fortune"

April 18, 1960 (3 weeks)

The Comeback Special. Officially, it was known as Singer Presents...Elvis! but it would come to be known as The '68 Comeback Special or simply The Comeback Special. Elvis Presley hadn't technically been away but he had certainly taken his eye off the ball, preferring starring roles in Blue Hawaii and Viva Las Vegas rather than working on what he was best at. The King's recorded output throughout the sixties wasn't completely bereft of quality singles but for sure the bad heavily outweighed the good. But then at the end of 1968 he was back, looking and singing better than ever. He then rode that wave into his finest studio album the following year and an extremely lucrative run as a concert attraction for the rest of his life.

But this hadn't even been Elvis' first comeback. In fact, the '68 Special ended up being in effect a redo of the 1960 Frank Sinatra Timex Show: It's Nice to Go Traveling, which itself would later come to be known as Welcome Home Elvis. Meant to re-introduce Presley to the American public following his two year stint in the American armed forces, it succeeded in moving The King more in the direction of being an all-around family entertainer which, in turn, sent him towards Hollywood. Had the '60 Special brought Elvis back as a straightforward rock 'n' roller, it likely would've negated him having to make a second comeback eight years later.

As the special's title indicates, this was a Frank Sinatra show with Elvis as a guest alongside Rat Pack cronies Sammy Davis Jr, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford, along with a young and emerging Nancy Sinatra. (How likely is it that Old Blue Eyes warned The King to "stay the f- away from my daughter"?) Having been a soldier for the last two years, Presley looks unsure of himself out there. The sideburns were now long gone but he did sport a great big wall of hair that made TV host Ed Sullivan observe that the top of his head "looked like a ski jump". Worse still, he was completely outclassed on stage by Sinatra as the pair performed a duet. Elvis may have been back but what the hell happened to The King?

Among the material Elvis did for that show was both sides of his comeback single, "Stuck on You" and "Fame and Fortune". Or it had been his latest single back when the show was taped at Miami's Fontainebleau Hotel in March of 1960. By the time the special had aired that May, "Stuck on You" was at the end of its four week reign at number one while its B-side was already falling from its Top 20 peak. Though Welcome Home Elvis was a ratings hit, it didn't do anything to prolong the single it was meant to promote. Whatsmore, its memorable follow-up, "It's Now or Never", wasn't performed at all. (It wouldn't be recorded until a couple weeks after the Sinatra show so it's impossible to say if it was considered; needless to say, this was a missed opportunity) Though very little was made of it at the time, this suggests subtle signs that Elvis the recording artist was soon to be supplanted by Elvis the entertainer and, naturally, Elvis the movie star.

On the other hand, the best thing he could have done if he wanted to still be a rock star would have been to record better stuff. There's nothing especially wrong with "Stuck on You" but it is uncharacteristically forgettable, especially considering it was his first post-army single. Anticipation must have been high and I suppose they managed to meet them to some extent. Though nowhere near as frenetic as his hits of old, there's still enough of the old Elvis present to have satisfied fans, even if it's easy to imagine many of them being somewhat let down. The distinctive vocal mannerisms are present and correct

"Fame and Fortune" though is poor and not simply because I'm not crazy about Elvis' slower numbers. Addressing the emptiness of pop stardom might have made more sense just as he was about to depart for that US military base in Germany back in '58 rather than at a moment when he would have been more than happy to re-embrace the spotlight. But bad timing aside, the song's just a nondescript bore.

Finally, I'd like to address the sleeve of this comeback single. While there will be many far more disturbing photos taken of Elvis from around 1970 until the end of his life, there's something unsettling about the two images of him. They almost look more like Madam Tussaud's wax images of him. The army had been when he was first introduced to barbiturates and perhaps that's why he appears so vacant but who's to say? In addition to his comment about the "ski jump" hair, Ed Sullivan had been critical of Elvis in the Sinatra show, even lamenting that those trademark sideburns were gone. He knew that this wasn't the same Elvis — and, despite the odd comeback, he would never be the same again.

Score: 4

Johnny Horton: "Sink the Bismark"

April 11, 1960 (1 week)

(Rolls eyes) Okay, let's get this over with. What? It's not that bad you say? Not great but definitely better than the giant pile of suck Johnny Horton did ten months earlier? All right, my hopes aren't high but at least I managed to fish them out of the sewer. They've brown gunk and an old condom hanging off of them but they remain hopes and it's not like I can be even more disappointed this time. Let's give it a listen.

(first listen)

Well, I didn't have the overwhelming urge to turn it the hell off or throw my iPad out the window after just a few seconds so that's something. I even managed to get through it and my nerves weren't shot. It's rather sad that's the best I can say for it but okay fine, "The Battle of New Orleans" didn't even have that going for it. I think I might even give it another spin!

(second listen)

Well, we're only two plays in and it hasn't quite grown on me but I'm not fed up with it either. I can almost imagine boys called Brian, Dennis, Gerrit and Sheldon all over North America liking "Sink the Bismark" so much that that they'd be happily marching around the family rumpus room in formation. It's impossible to picture "The Battle of New Orleans" triggering the imaginations of a generation of Baby Boom boys but I can see it here. Hopefully, it didn't lead any of them spiraling towards careers in the military that then led to them becoming creepy survivalists hording weapons in the Rocky Mountains. Those pro-war anthems do funny things to gentlemen of a certain age. Or so I hear.

(third listen)

So, I when I was in junior high school in Canada, my favourite teacher was Mr Harker. His Language Arts classes were great because of the freedom he gave us. His lectures weren't long (and were usually interesting, even if I never understood why he made such a fuss over Shelley's "Ozymandias"), he let us read whatever we wanted and we had seemingly full creative control over what we could hand in for writing assignments. At one point I began submitting the lyrics to songs which typically impressed him — until the day I handed in some verse about Canadians and Australians fighting in the war which he had no use for. He had nothing good to say about it which was jarring until it hit me later that day that fourteen year old boys have no business writing ballads about soldiers set to a military march. I had far more productive things to be getting on with like dealing with all my angst and fantasizing about Winnie Cooper.

(one more listen)

I still don't hate it but I'm done at this point. I will say that I appreciate Horton ditching the pro-American jingoism of "The Battle of New Orleans" and following it up with a much more Allies-friendly tune which tells you just how important those foreign markets were already becoming. They had the UK, Australia and New Zealand (and possibly Canada, though I very much doubt it) had to get an altered, less anti-British version of "...New Orleans" but there was no need to do something similar here. Johnny Horton is going to be coming up at least one more time in this space and in just a few weeks. If history is anything to go by, it'll embrace the NATO members in general, with an olive branch offered to the likes of France, West Germany, Italy and even Japan. Assuming Horton has years of country-flavoured military hits ahead of him, he'll be uniting with the entire world around a message of love and peace. He has seven years to become a full-fledged hippie and I think he can do it!

Score: 4

Johnny & The Hurricanes: "Beatnik Fly"

March 21, 1960 (3 weeks)

The advantage in putting out a double A-side is that it leaves the tough decisions to someone else. Band members may quarrel over which song gets the marquee side while management and/or record labels may have their own ideas. So, what's the harm then in leaving it to the public and the radio stations to decide? Sure, record sales might not give much away but airplay, requests and even spins on a jukebox can seal the deal.

The only problem is, they might still end up getting it wrong. "Penny Lane" would go on to top the US Hot 100 and — spoiler alert — the Canadian charts in 1967 largely because it was much more immediate than flip side "Strawberry Fields Forever", an extraordinary John Lennon composition which had to grow on teenage Beatles fans who may have initially thought that they had gone too far with their latest release. But at least there was a catchy pop song with a winning melody over on the flip that they could enjoy while the waiting out the slow burn over on the other side.

"Penny Lane" being more popular than "Strawberry Fields" is at least understandable — it's a misguided opinion I once had in the past myself — but no similar excuses can justify why anyone, under any circumstances would ever opt for "Beatnik Fly" over "Sand Storm" from the latest single release by Johnny & The Hurricanes. How not one DJ in North America or Europe ever scoffed at their take on "Jimmy Crack Corn" and ultimately decided that the song on the other side was a good deal better is beyond me. The only consolation is in knowing that fans who invested in a copy of the Hurricanes' fourth single were in for a pleasant surprise when they finally got round to flipping the record over.

This is not to say that "Beatnik Fly" is without merit. Instrumental acts had to be adept at variety and so it was beneficial to have fun little turns like this one to fall back on to get audiences on their feet or liven a dreary dance hall in Wales on a Tuesday night in November. Booker T & The MG's might have been the tightest foursome ever to record together but they weren't above putting out amusing trifles that were no doubt done just for shits and giggles. "Beatnik Fly" is a fun exercise which would have made a fine B-side to its more accomplished companion.

So, what makes "Sand Storm" so special then? For one thing, the listener can get a really good idea of just what made them such a live favourite, especially in Europe where they were slowly gathering a following. Guitarist David Yorko plays some superlative country-ish twang solos as well as some furious chugging while organist Paul Tesluk sounds like the forerunner to Booker T himself. Their playing is ably backed up by the syncopated drumming of Bill "Little Bo" Savich. But there is a Hurricane who seems to be absent: saxophonist Johnny Paris is nowhere to be heard which could not have helped its case as a potential radio hit. The other factor in its favour is that they sound like they're taking it seriously and taking their time with it. "Beatnik Fly" sounds rushed as though they're trying to get it over with while the only slightly longer "Sand Storm" has a much more relaxed quality about it. 

My preference for one over the other aside, the two work quite well as a double A-side. The lightness of "Beatnik Fly" is offset by the less gimmicky "Sand Storm" while the former supplies some relief after the darker latter. They aren't a whole lot different from "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" come to think of it. Not only did the public get it wrong when it came to which side to choose from but they went with the poppier bit of ear candy in both cases. We can only hope that "Sand Storm" was a similarly slow burn among fans that "Strawberry Fields" was.

Score: 5

Hypothetical Score for "Sand Storm": 8

~~~~~

Can Con

Just as journalists ought to avoid running for office (so as to maintain the integrity of the fourth estate, as that sex offender playing the newspaperman A.W. Merrick once said in an episode of Deadwood), so should DJ's stay out of cutting their own records. These guys typically have great taste in music but as a rule they can't sing. But if they must, at least make it a joke which is what CHUM personality Al Boliska chose to do with his "hit" "The Ballad of the Dying Cowboy". Or so I am going to guess. He would later cut a comedy album so it can't be much of a stretch to assume that his first single was of a similar vein. I like to think that it's a parody of tragic country music melodrama, something which would have been much needed at the time. But I can but speculate since Boliska's first try at pop stardom is currently unavailable on YouTube. No doubt it was scrubbed from the record because there's no need to keep the sound of a DJ singing for posterity.

Jim Reeves: "He'll Have to Go"

February 8, 1960 (6 weeks)

The great British music critic Stuart Maconie once stated that Emmylou Harris can only be country, much the same as Ray Charles could only be soul. No matter how much she tried to stretch out — which, honestly, never seemed like much — her music would inevitably still be classified as country. Maconie is correct but I don't think Harris is special in this regard, especially within her genre. Yes, there has been the odd k.d. lang or Taylor Swift (the former of which was a university performance artist who morphed into the second coming of Patsy Klein with next to no prior C&W background) but the vast majority remain tethered to country — even when they've ditched the pedal steel guitars, fiddles, cowboy hats and buxom lasses in bikinis and holsters. Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Buck Owens: they were never anything but country. Gram Parsons attempted to create a hybrid he called 'Cosmic American Music' and only ended up becoming more of a country artist. It took Wilco a decade before they were able to shake the 'alt-country' tag.

"He'll Have to Go" is indeed classified as a country number but what is especially country about it? I suppose Jim Reeves' chewy baritone had been the kind favoured by more mainstream types in Nashville at the time but otherwise? The relaxed pace, those classy vibes and the Anita Kerr Singers all give it a country-ish flavour but how are any of those prerequisites? That said, Elvis Presley couldn't transform it into a rock 'n' roll ballad (and, if anything, his recording manages to sound even more country than Reeves') so maybe there's something I'm missing. Nevertheless, I maintain that it's country because it's Jim Reeves and that's all there bloody is to it!

One thing that is indisputably country about it is the maudlin nature. But as opposed to your typical country song of tragic heartbreak, it's the premise of "He'll Have to Go" that depresses most. Jim is on the phone with his special lady friend trying to engage her in a little phone sex sweet talk her while fully aware that there's another gentleman there with her. He has a deal for her: he'll get them to lower the volume of the jukebox (even though that will surely allow others to listen in on said phone sex sweet talk) if she agrees to get her other beau to hit the bricks. A tempting offer, no doubt, but I don't see her going along with it.

Being a traditional man from the Greatest Generation, Gentleman Jim must have known that this scenario was nonsense in any case. If a couple — assuming these two talking on the telephone even are a couple — back then had indeed been separated for any length of time, it's obvious that the man would have been far more likely to have ended up in the company of other females. Indeed, Jeanne Black's reply song "He'll Have to Stay" — which we'll be getting to soon enough — suggests that good ol' Jim isn't as lonely and as lovelorn as  been letting on.

I've been pointing out a couple of minor problems but "He'll Have to Go" is a more than respectable CHUM number one and a good deal better than Reeves' posthumous UK chart topper, the horribly boring "Distant Drums". I'm beginning to see why my Grandpa Roy was such a big fan of Gentleman Jim. That voice is amazingly intimate and is probably justification enough for further investigation. On the other hand, the music backing him can be samey after a while. Had Reeves survived past the age of forty perhaps he would have gone in a more thrilling direction, away from the Nashville straightjacket and towards Austin or Bakersfield. He couldn't not be country but it wouldn't have killed him to have tried out the fun and lively side.

Score: 7

~~~~~

Can Con

Q: What do Paul Anka's "Lonely Boy", Bryan Adams' "Heaven", Alannah Myles' "Black Velvet" and Snows' "Informer" have in common?

A: They all suck?

Wrong! "Heaven" is awesome. Just because Bryan's music would quickly become unbearable doesn't mean it always was. (But, yeah, the rest are all a load of crap) No, the correct answer is that they are all Canadian singles that managed to make it to number one on the US Hot 100 but failed to do so north of the border. In the majority of cases, Canadians who manage to top the charts down in the States are able to do likewise back home. But none of them can compare with "Theme from 'A Summer Place'" which managed to spend a gargantuan nine weeks at the top spot but could get no higher than number four in Percy Faith's native Canada. It might as well have flopped. This memorable instrumental from a film very few people have seen (rather stupidly, I used to think it was taken from South Pacific in spite of the whole 'Theme from...' in the title) managed to hold off "He'll Have to Go" but it had no such luck up in Canada. For that I applaud my countrymen for making the right choice. "Summer Place" is okay but I'd never go out of my way to give it a listen but I might just do so when it comes to Gentleman Jim.

Mark Dinning: "Teen Angel"

February 1, 1960 (1 week)

I was at the height of my pop/rock 'me against the world' angst when I was thirteen. Hard to believe, I know. While I would quite like Nirvana in 1992 (though not enough to purchase a copy of Nevermind until several years later, long after I bought the posthumously released MTV Unplugged), had Kurt Cobain emerged roughly a year earlier, his music might have ended up striking a far greater chord with me. Instead, I relied mainly on the Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode and the still new to me Madchester scene of indie dance. Yet, my tastes were catholic enough to include Enigma, INXS, Madonna and even AC/DC — though not for long.

Then there was the stuff I couldn't stomach. Despite having a brief interest in the Aussie hard rockers, I had little use for metal and couldn't take hip hop that was in any way serious. (Unless you were the terrific Canadian duo The Dream Warriors, I wasn't going to go out of my way to listen to much rap) But my real bête noire at the time were the phony balladeers. Michael Bolton, Stevie B, Babyface (who, let's be fair, was a very talented songwriter and producer even if his own recordings were pitiful). Take a guy in who could sing reasonably well, instruct him to turn up the bluster to the max, put him in a suit and have him belt out a load of schmaltz with his eyes close and his hands cocked and watch the money roll in. God those people were the worst.

For a short stint at the start of the spring in 1991, I was particularly appalled by a Californian singer who very few remember anymore. Most had likely forgotten all about him by the start of the summer but his empty passion, gift for melodrama and overall piece of shit single ensured that I would retain the memory of one Timmy T. He looked like an actor in one of those horrible Highlander TV shows that were always on just prior to something that I actually wanted to watch. He sang like he was auditioning for an orange juice commercial. I remember hearing that T made "One More Try" in a recording booth at an amusement park — and even if that wasn't the case, it sure as shit sounded like it. He sucked something awful.

Having only reached number seven in Canada, "One More Try" will mercifully not be coming up in this blog. Yet, here I am discussing it and T's fifteen seconds of fame because (a) it reminds me of "Teen Angel" by Mark Dinning and (b) I've been struggling to come up with anything better and/or relevant for this entry. But there is an obvious parallel: both Dinning and T go way overboard with their singing. In some ways, it is the former who is even guiltier of this than latter, since I get the feeling that the twenty-six year old Dinning must have known better. Deliberately laying it on thick was certainly the style of the time though, as I have already noted above, it was also a popular artistic choice back in the early nineties. The difference is, Dinning could have chosen to sing it in a less gloopy manner; T did not have that option.

Bringing up "One More Try" is also a useful way of acknowledging that "Teen Angel" isn't so bad. With a more constrained vocalist, I might have given it a 6 or 7. True, there isn't much to the song itself but there have been simplistic entries on here before (and I daresay there will be a few more to come) and they managed to connect with me. The Fleetwoods' "Come Softly to Me" is no more complex a song but there's a sweetness and poignancy to it which Dinning isn't up to replicating. Still, I've gotten used to it. Plus, I'm no longer thirteen or fourteen: I'm no longer as enthused by my favourites as I once was and my dislikes no longer make my blood boil.

Finally, it's worth noting that Tom Breihan has far more charitable feelings towards both "Teen Angel" (he gave it a 9) and "One More Try" (an extremely generous 8; I would have given it a 2). He does not discuss the similarities between the two but I imagine that he was touched by the overabundance of sentimentality in both just as I was turned off by it. They say there's not accounting for taste but what if there is?

Score: 5

Jimmy Clanton: "Go, Jimmy, Go"

January 25, 1960 (1 week)

Welcome to another edition of Margach's Music. I'm your host Paul Margach. Playing some great music from the fifties all the way through to the nineties — and, as always, twenty-first century songs are strictly forbidden around here. We got a great show lined up for you tonight including tracks by Louis Armstrong, Chic, R.E.M., Burning Spear, Dusty Springfield, The Beautiful South, The Four Seasons and Emmylou Harris — among many others.

So, I was having a cup of coffee and a raisin muffin at the cafe down the street from where I live the other day. Everyone else who goes in there orders these "half-caff, double-shot, chai-berry, soy milk, pumpkin-spice cappuccino tea lattes" monstrosities but I always get a cup of black coffee. One girl working in there once asked me if I wanted something called an 'Americano' but I shot her a look and since then she gives me nothing but hot cup of good old Colombian. That's all I want. And a bran muffin with raisins is what I want to eat when I go there. I don't want a biscotti or a macaron or an egg tart. And while we're on the topic, whatever happened to macaroons and when did the macaron come into the picture? I feel like it wasn't a coincidence that one disappeared just as the other arrived.

So, I got a table over by the window. I had been hoping to do some reading but the loud conversation the guy and girl were having at the next table became distracting. I confess that I then spent the next several minutes listening in. You might say I shouldn't have been eavesdropping but that's the price a young couple pays for talking at full volume in a public place. If what you're talking about isn't any of my business then don't make it my business and either converse in a private place or keep your voices down.

This pair looked no older than high school students. Now back in my day, we had this thing called 'humility'. We didn't boast about getting good grades or our prowess on the baseball field or how fast we could drive or our skill with the ladies — and not just because I was a mediocre student, I sucked at baseball, I hate driving and girls wanted to have nothing to do with me. We let the things we did well speak for themselves. Even the jock from my high school who played quarterback knew the meaning of modesty. And I can't believe the girl he was with was able to take all this hot air. When I was a kid, you'd know better than to blow your own trumpet because the girls would immediately be turned off by such brash displays. They were smart enough to see who had the looks, who had the charm, who had the brains and who had the athletic prowess — and they certainly didn't need us young men to bragging about our strengths. If you have to go so far as to tell the world about your strengths then it becomes all too clear just what your weaknesses are.

First up is Jimmy Clanton, number one in January, 1960, "Go, Jimmy, Go"...

Score: 5

Johnny Preston: "Running Bear"

January 4, 1960 (3 weeks)

It couldn't last. The fifties drew to a close with Marty Robbins' "El Paso", a song which didn't try to hide its Mexican influence and managed to do so without being either insulting or thieving from the source — or, indeed, both. All the while being done by the very anti-progressive Robbins. It's as if a singer-songwriter could borrow from another culture's music and just leave everything else alone. The mind boggles.

Sadly, "Running Bear" wasn't able to accomplish something similar with native American culture. Instead we get a caricature. Of course, this was 1960 so of course that's what the public got. Mexican culture may have been treated condescendingly with the Looney Tunes character Speedy Gonzales but at least Robbins had been tasteful in his plundering and so, too, had Charlie Mingus on his masterful 1957 album Tijuana Moods (even though it would remain unreleased for five years). But Natives were never even given that level of respect. Everything played into gross stereotypes whether it be the mascot of the old Cleveland Indians, the Lone Ranger's sidekick Tonto or just lame "hello, white man" lines in movies. This is the world that Johnny Preston's first big hit came out of — and no attempt was made to do anything even remotely nuanced with it.

Problematic material is difficult to look past but a good-to-great song certainly helps. And in this regard, too, "Running Bear" falls flat. Whereas genuinely good bands may have a standout element that attracts fans while a secret weapon keeps them there (come for the sweetness of Paul McCartney, stay for the bitter humour of John Lennon), this is pretty much its opposite: turn it off because the song sucks, never return because of the racism. (Though you could certainly do it the other way round if you so desire) The chorus isn't quite as vile the verses which just about rescues it from the lowest of the low of pop and credit here should go to one Link Davis for providing a decent tenor sax that almost makes the rest of it, well, bearable.

It's worth pointing out that this was still the infancy of the rock 'n' roll era (in spite of the fact that the genre had already dried up...or so everyone thought) and the whole thing was based on novelty. Teenagers with disposable income? Novelty. Jukeboxes in burger joints and malt shops? Novelty. All this beat music noise everyone's been talking about? Novelty. As Tom Ewing says in his review of this monstrosity — in which he inexplicably gave it an extremely generous score of 5 — that it's a "neat demonstration of the classic record biz approach — release anything and see what works". And even though "Running Bear" very clearly doesn't work, it still managed to make it to number one in just about every English speaking country in the world.

But just who was buying this thing and who was sending in requests that their local DJ play it? I can't fathom a circumstance in which any intelligent adult would wish to play it and it's even more hard to believe that teens of the time were into it as well. That leaves kids playing Cowboys and Indians at their local park as the only logical answer. I'm not even completely convinced that little Bobby or Alice even wanted this song on 45 but that their parents and aunts and uncles went out and bought them because they liked watching Gunsmoke and dressed up as cowboys for Halloween and had toy six shooters. There was something to all of these childish pursuits but "Running Bear" does not deserve to be held alongside them. A fun and imaginative childhood deserves much better out of pop music than this piece of crap.

Score: 2

~~~~~

Con Can

There's a reason so many Canadian entertainers end up relocating down to the States: opportunities. Also money. Two reasons, in fact. Some Americans used to do much the same north of the border. And is it any wonder Ronnie Hawkins made metro Toronto his permanent home when everything he put out went Top 10 there? "Southern Love" is reasonably good — though it sounds like an absolute masterpiece when held up against bloody "Running Bear" — and something of a grower and even hints at being an influence on Kenny Rodgers' "Just Dropped in to See What Condition My Condition Was In" but its success on the CHUM charts suggests that it was Hawkins who people were fond of most of all. The records you give or take but to see him and The Hawks play some dingy bar in Guelph or North Bay at the time must have been something else indeed. His singles may never have gone to number one (barring a charity hit that we'll get to in good time) but I daresay he was at the top for many an Ontarian during the early sixties.

1959: When a Lovely Flame Dies

 9 — The Platters: "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"

 6 — Ritchie Valens: "Donna" / "La Bamba"

 1 — David Seville & The Chipmunks: "Alvin's Harmonica"

 5 — The Coasters: "Charlie Brown"

 4 — Frankie Avalon: "Venus"

 5 — Buddy Holly: "It Doesn't Matter Anymore"

 7 — The Fleetwoods: "Come Softy to Me"

 5 — Elvis Presley: "(Now and Then) There's a Fool Such as I" / "I Need Your Love Tonight"
 4 — Travis & Bob: "Tell Him No"

 4 — Wilbert Harrison: "Kansas City"

 3 — Johnny Horton: "The Battle of New Orleans"

 6 — Elvis Presley: "A Big Hunk o' Love" / "My Wish Came True"

 2 — The Browns: "The Three Bells"

 7 — Phil Phillips with The Twilights: "Sea of Love"

 4 — Ivo Robić: "Morgen"

10 — Bobby Darin: "Mack the Knife"

 7 — The Fleetwoods: "Mr. Blue"

 6 — Guy Mitchell: "Heartaches by the Number"

 8 — Marty Robbins: "El Paso"

Things picked up towards the end but on the whole 1959 proved to be a grim year for CHUM number ones. Beyond "Alvin's Harmonica", "The Battle of New Orleans" and "The Three Bells", nothing was truly awful but mediocrity reigned for much of the year.

It is in this context that I confess I had doubts about this year's finest number one, Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife". Is it only so great because the likes of Johnny Horton, The Browns and Ivo Robić set such a piss poor standard? Would it hold up against some half-decent competition? I wrestled with these questions for a little while before concluding that it's an absolutely astonishing recording no matter how you slice it. A well deserved 10 to rank right alongside the many that will eventually come from the sixties, seventies and eighties — hell, maybe I'll be in a good enough mood to hand out a few top marks to some nineties singles as well.

Looking ahead, 1960 doesn't look to be a whole lot better that the year preceding it — and, in fact, it may prove to be even worse when you consider that those who saved the day in '59 — The Platters, The Fleetwoods, Bobby "you magnificent bastard" Darin, Marty Robbins — aren't around a year later while a pair who clearly let the side down — The Browns, Johnny Horton — will be back for yet more number one action. Plus, there are a few others I'm not looking forward to reviewing. Here's hoping that someone like Jeanne Black, Hank Locklin or Lolita manages to give me a pleasant surprise. Otherwise it's looking like a pretty fun Johnny and the Hurricanes instrumental, Elvis making the most of his post-army balladeering and little else. 1964 cannot come fast enough.

Then again, hopefully this means we'll have a case of 'bad songs, awesome blog'. Fingers crossed, my friends...

Marty Robbins: "El Paso"

December 14, 1959 (3 weeks)

First, there was "Kansas City", then hot on its heels there was "The Battle of New Orleans" and now 1959 closes with "El Paso": the Canadian singles charts sure was awash in odes to American cities I've never been to. (Where are the songs in honour of Seattle, Honolulu and Hagatna? For that matter, where are singles with titles such as "Oh Montreal", "A Vancouver Tuesday" and "Charlottetown, Oh Charlottetown"?) Oh well, while the first two weren't up to much, it's nice to see some redemption in the form of Marty Robbin's Tex-Mex country classic "El Paso".

At a time when Elvis Presley could get to the number one spot with song that sometimes clocked in at under a hundred and twenty seconds, it's incredible to think that Robbins insisted that his self-penned narrative "El Paso" come out with a running time north of the four-and-a-half minute mark. Though they initially resisted, record label Columbia worked out a compromise in which an edited down version on the B-side could be offered up to radio stations and fans who weren't keen to sit through the full thing. Most opted for the much longer A-side. In a few years' time, both Bob Dylan and The Beatles will end up doing their part in dismantling the values of pop music brevity but a NASCAR enthusiast and hardcore conservative from the American south would beat them to it. That said, he was hardly alone in the mid to late fifties for pushing the boundaries of length in recorded music: both Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington had already stretched out their material on the newly popular 12" L.P. format.

Like "St. Louis Blues" and "Sophisticated Lady" before it and "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Hey Jude" much later, "El Paso" got away with being longer than your average recording by being utterly marvelous. The shortened version on the flip side cut an entire verse which sort of neutered the song's storyline which people clearly seemed interested in hearing in its entirety. And why wouldn't they? As Tom Breihan points out, it's actually pretty amazing he managed to cram so much storytelling into less than five minutes. (Just imagine how long his first few drafts must have been)

Nice as the gunfighter falls in love with a beautiful girl from south of the border then commits murder plot is, I return to it for the overall sound. Robbin's voice is so smooth and warm. He could easily sound like a giant creep if he chose to lay it on thick but he was too skilled as a vocalist to fall into that trap. The music is similarly seductive, scarcely country music at all beyond the fact that it's by a country singer. This contributes to the curious state in which it becomes this form of progressive country long before the days of country rock, the bluegrass revival and alt country. Not because it is meant to dazzle the ears with skilled playing dynamics but because Marty Robbins had chosen to dip into Mexican music which almost seems to swallow the song whole. Had it been more obviously country it wouldn't ring true but by moving it away from the orthodoxy it becomes a far greater example of country and western music.

"El Paso" ended up being the final number one of the fifties on Canada's CHUM chart but it didn't end up hitting the top spot on the American Hot 100 until the new year when it ushered in the sixties. It sort of works as a hit to bring the curtain down on one decade and/or to bring on a new one, especially since its every bit as forward thinking as many of the groundbreaking chart toppers we'll be seeing in the weeks and months ahead. The conservative country music industry wouldn't be looking to change things up but, luckily, there were forces both from within and without that were going to guide the genre into the future. Robbins may seem like an unlikely figure to do so but that's the thing with those country stars: they're a lot more open-minded than you might expect; indeed, they're often more open-minded that they'd expect.

The only thing is, I can't give "El Paso" anything above an 8. When I don't have it on, I find myself pondering this great song and I begin to convince myself that is indeed a 9 or maybe even a 10. Then I put it on again and my enthusiasm is curbed and it ends up dropping back down a point or two. It's great, I admire it and I really enjoy listening to it but I just wish it made me think, "bloody hell, this is incredible". It's like a painting in a museum or gallery that I can appreciate then walk away from and move on. The sort of thing to really, really like but loving it is a whole other thing.

Score: 8

Guy Mitchell: "Heartaches by the Number"

November 23, 1959 (3 weeks)

It's easy to forget - or not even be aware of - but there's a great deal of humour in country music. Hank Williams lived nearly his entire life in pain, battled drug and alcohol addictions and died at the age of twenty-nine in spite of the fact that he appeared to be around forty-five in virtually every photo taken of him yet many of his songs are funny. Johnny Cash was not without wit himself, even if the crowd at the trendy Viper Room in LA back in 1993 seemed to chortle and holler a little too much. Buck Owens may have had more than a little Ned Flanders in him but his cornball jokes could sometimes land.

The cliche of country being about woeful human tragedy came about for a reason but the "dog died, woman left, car broke down" laments aren't as commonplace as one might think. Nevertheless, though irony dominated nineties' pop and rock, no one told the likes of Garth Brooks, Vince Gill and Shania Twain as mainstream country-pop went through its very earnest peak, which coincided with a fall off in popularity of the more tongue-in-cheek types like Dwight Yoakam. Is it any wonder the overlooked and largely forgotten band BR549 seemed so out of place in 1996?

Country music was less polarized between seriousness and irony back in the fifties. One could be a melodramatic crooner of heartbreak one minute and then be gently taking the piss the next. I hear "Heartaches by the Number" as a comedy song with more than a grain of grim reality to it. (Either that or its an anthem of despair with sly wink) It isn't that Guy Mitchell is uncaring in his sorrow, he's just so utterly resigned to it. If you experienced this many heartaches, you might be similarly callous in your attitude.

The comedy only really comes out by the way Mitchell nonchalantly sings this Harlan Howard composition. Roseanne Cash's cover version from her celebrated 2009 album The List is much more conventional, at least in part due to her beginning with the song's first verse rather than starting with the chorus. Mitchell cuts right to the chase by letting it slip that this is all a bit of a game ("But the day that I stop counting, that's the day my world will end") and the fact that he sounds so happy-go-lucky doesn't help. Or it helps a great deal, if you're anything like me and think that Mitchell is the best thing about this otherwise so-so piece of work.

That's the thing with what until now has been a largely positive review: I like the idea of "Heartaches by the Number" a good deal more than in practice. I prefer my half-baked interpretation of it to the way others might just hear it as yet another pitiful country music tale. (I mentioned him above as someone who could add humour to his recordings but Dwight Yoakam's version from his debut album is just as straight as Cash's) I'd rather be bull-headed than accept the reality that maybe it's just another competent country song and not what the Pet Shop Boys would've been like had they cut their teeth in Nashville.

I could simply being giving him far too much credit and that he was simply a cheerful fella who was building himself up for a career in Hollywood. That's very possibly true. But whatever, at worst he took a by-numbers (see what I did there?) country song and made it fun to listen to. He didn't bring a tear to my eye, didn't allow me to see a part of myself in his music and nothing about spoke to me. But neither did he make me want to roll my eyes, scoff or, heaven forbid, turn the sonofabitch off. I'm not a huge country fan beyond four or five big names so just the fact that I listened can be considered a victory.

Score: 6

The Fleetwoods: "Mr. Blue"

October 26, 1959 (4 weeks)

Even though I deplore our culture's obsession with it, I like to think that there was a small contingent in Olympia, Washington who accused The Fleetwoods of selling out with their second number one hit. Hey, for all I know it was far from 'small' and extended well beyond the Pacific Northwest. But somehow I doubt it.

Coming off of a an out-of-nowhere number one smash, Getchen Christopher, Barbara Ellis and Gary Troxel were faced with an issue that was probably even age old at the time: how would we follow it? This tends to be more of a problem for groups who had to rely on the songwriting skills of others so it shouldn't have been as much of a worry for The Fleetwoods. They had, after-all, written their previous number one "Come Softly to Me" while they were still in high school. At this point it's easy to imagine their manager and/or producer in a Seattle or Los Angeles studio turning to them and asking the logical question, "so, what else do you have?"

Like a lot of people who enjoy writing about music, I was once a hopeless musician. I was in a junior high band that couldn't get its act together. Our jam sessions were always a mess and we seemed incapable of playing in unison. We did, however, have a knack for songwriting. We never wrote anything decent but we made up for it by being prolific with what we churned out. Our songs were rarely played; instead we would scribble them out for the others to inspect. We would've called these works 'poems' but two things got in our way: (1) poems don't usually have choruses and (2) we wanted to be rock stars and we wrote songs! At around the same time there was a group in the Toronto neighbourhood of DeGrassi called The Zit Remedy (later simplified to The Zits) who had one song and one song only, the immortal "Everybody Wants Something", a song that band members Joseph Jeremiah, Archie Simpson and Derek Wheeler tinkered on for years. As a teen looking on at a rival band, I could only shake my head: 

The Fleetwoods seemed to operate along The Zit Remedy model, which is fair enough. I would've auctioned off vital organs to have had one song be as big as a fictional high school hit, let alone a full on international number one so I'm not about to judge their approach. So, when their manager/producer inquired about further self-composed material and they admitted that they had nothing in their collective back pocket, the search began for something by a professional songwriter. Thus, "Mr. Blue" by DeWayne Blackwell came into their orbit. Did it constitute having 'sold out'? Probably not but facts never stopped bitter fans and jealous rivals before so why should it in this instance?

Comparing it with "Come Softly to Me" is probably inevitable since this was The Fleetwoods' second number one in both Canada and the US in a short period of time. Their breakthrough hit is a little more spirited but there's no escaping the fact that "Mr. Blue" is a stronger composition and is better recorded. Whereas I praised "Come Softly..." for its simplicity, this one sticks to much the same blueprint but with some added touches. The gentle country-jazz guitar playing of Roy Lanham is lovely as is the delicate trombone parts played by Si Zentner. It doesn't quite stick with you the way their last big hit did but its yet another more than satisfying listen.

The two number ones by The Fleetwoods present a choice between writing your own songs and doing other people's, without quite being able to take a side in the matter. On the one hand, they had the opportunity to express more of their real selves in their first major hit though it's a relatively weak self-composed song; on the other hand, they a decent song to work with and a bigger budget though their individuality ended up being compromised a little. Either way, they did all right which is more than can be said for either The Zit Remedy or my feeble (but prolific) attempts at songwriting.

Score: 7