Chris Andrews: "Yesterday Man"

January 31, 1966 (1 week)

Had "We Can Work It Out' been credited together with "Day Tripper" as it was supposed to be, it's possible that the pair could have remained on top of the RPM chart for more than a week. I wouldn't have placed money on it but I would have liked its chances more. Had it done so, it would have ended the run of single week number ones at seven; instead, this trend would continue into May, covering twenty-one straight weeks.

Thus, after just seven days at the top, the Fab Four were gone completely (RPM would stick to their bizarre 'singles-are-removed-from-the-charts-when-they-start-to-fall' policy until that March) and someone had to take their place. While seven entries on that week's Top 10 were taken by acts who'd already been to the top of Canada's pop charts (in order of chart position from highest to lowest you've got: The Rolling Stones, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, The Toys, Johnny Rivers, Elvis Presley, Petula Clark and Gerry and the Pacemakers) with an eighth (The Lovin' Spoonful) soon to be hitting the number one spot themselves. Taking the remaining spots were Canadian country singer Wes Dakus (see below) and Chris Andrews, Canada's number one vocalist — for one week, at any rate.

Who??? Yeah, I don't know much about him either. He had been toiling in the British music scene for a number of years and had already started to make a decent living as a songwriter, composing hits for the likes of Adam Faith and Sandie Shaw. Not, mind you, any of the hits people remember them for but never mind the trivial details. He was a young and respected songwriter who, like many of his contemporaries, wanted to make the jump towards cutting records of his own.

Many tried to do it before him and a lot more would continue to do so in the future but not many did it like Chris Andrews who actually pulled off the 'professional-songwriter-turned-pop-star' trick pretty well. Barry Mann only managed it because he wisely went the novelty song route but there was no similar approach with "Yesterday Man". Or was there? While it is a pretty standard song for its time, the dual use of both Jamican ska and German oom-pah meant that there was not going to be anything else like it on the charts, so its uniqueness made it a kind of novelty song in its own right. While it has been credited as a forerunner to the white-bred ska-pop of The Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", you might say the circus-like atmosphere makes it almost a dry run for the Fab Four's "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" as well.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney may very well have been listening but I prefer to think of how youngsters at the time reacted to "Yesterday Man". Future members of pop outfit and minor British national treasures Madness (who will, I am happy to report, will eventually be coming up in this space) would have been under the age of ten when it hit the UK Top 5 and something tells me this is just the sort of thing that would have been the germ of pop classics like "My Girl", "Baggy Trousers" and "Night Boat to Cairo". Schoolkids have better things to do than to ruminate on influences and styles of music and songwriters generally having a tough time making it as performers. What would have concerned them was the relentless beat and party vibes. Madness themselves would carry on the tradition of producing mainstream pop that catered to children without patronizing them. And though coming from their creatively fruitful but commercially lackluster melancholy period, it's significant that Camden's finest had a single called "Yesterday's Men".

Score: 7

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Can Con

Spoiler alert: after having two chart toppers in 1965, Canadian artists would end coming up short in '66. Not a single home-grown number one. It wasn't the first time this has happened and I imagine it won't be the last either. Still, Canadians were becoming more prominent on the hit parade. At number four this week is Alberta's Wes Dakus with "Hoochi Coochi Coo" which is nowhere to be found online while Nova Scotia's Patrician-Anne was at thirteen with "Blue Lipstick". Previous entry in this space Guess Who? — who seem to have decided to go along with what had at first seemed to be a temporary name change — also appear with a single called "Hurting Each Other" so acts from the Great White North were doing well. Patrician-Anne (real name Patrician McKinnon, sister of singer and actress Catherine McKinnon) sounds like she's trying to show off the fullest extent of her range which doesn't always suit the material but at least the end result isn't as much of a mess as it ought to be. The opening sounds like bubblegum pop goth which she really should've tapped into further. (For that matter, anyone should've gone in that direction) Not spectacular but a nice little single all the same.