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

Bobby Darin: "Mack the Knife"

October 12, 1959 (2 weeks)

One of my favourite films of all time is Quiz Show, the 1994 Robert Redford picture about the game show fixing scandal of the late fifties which stars Rob Morrow, Ralph Fiennes and John Tuturro. Not only does it have masterful performances by everyone involved, including the unfairly overlooked character actor David Paymer, but it also tells a bleak tale of American might laying waste to everyone who attempts to challenge it — as well as anyone who even tries to cozy up to the establishment. None of its main characters — Morrow's Richard Goodwin, Fiennes' Charles Van Doren and Tuturro's Herb Stempel — are conventional losers, all are highly intelligent and ought to be thriving in Eisenhower's America. Some of them eventually do okay for themselves but by movie's end all three have been chewed up and spat out by the system.

Quiz Show opens with Goodwin in a Cadillac dealership where he can't help but be impressed in spite of his wry cynicism ("it used to be the man drove the car, now the car drives the man"). Turning on the automobile's radio, he and the salesman are taken aback by the beeping sound that greets them. A voice comes over announcing that "this is the sound of Sputnik" and concluding that "all is not well with America". Modern viewers may shrug this moment off but it acts as a portents of things to come. Then, the opening credits begin, soundtracked by the bouncy and dramatic "Mack the Knife" by Bobby Darin.

Taken from the Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill "play with music" (gosh, I could've sworn there's a word for that) The Threepenny Opera, the song originally known as "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" in German is sometimes described as a murder ballad. Others dispute this since the character of Macheath is meant to be a gangster who only kills out of revenge. (Murder is still murder) Since Brecht was of the left, though, there's every chance that it's in fact about capitalism leaving its victims for dead. While I'm not so sure that's how Darin approached for his 1959 recording, perhaps this was one of the reasons this German tune from the thirties suddenly became relevant in fifties' America.

Bobby Darin had started out as a jobbing songwriter but he had ambitions to record himself. After numerous unsuccessful singles, he finally struck gold with the novelty pop number "Splish Splash". If anyone's maiden hit suggested a flash in the pan, it was this one. Yet, he kept it up with further Top 10 hits "Queen of the Hop" and "Dream Lover", the latter of which climbed all the way to number one in the UK. It also happens to be a perfectly fine pop song, one that made it clear there was far more to him than a silly little comedy hit. All that said, no one could have anticipated what would be coming next.

The mid-to-late fifties and the arrival of rock 'n' roll led to changes for some in the jazz world. Artists with an already sufficient following like Miles Davis and Chet Baker were in the clear but others chose to embrace some of the new sounds. Darin, however, seemed to be operating in a parallel universe in which rock was fading and jazz was on the rise once he'd shaken off his earlier hits. "What the hell is this nutcase thinking," wondered DJ's like Dick Clark at the time, "he's squandering his promise in order to sound old fashioned!" But somehow Darin knew he was on to something.

There are many superb versions of "Mack the Knife" out there. Louis Armstrong's cover which made the US Top 20 in 1956 set the standard and Satchmo became so fond of it that it remained a part of his incomparable concert setlist for the remainder of his life. (I am unable to find them on YouTube but I am especially fond of recordings from his remarkable Live at the 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival CD and one from a January, 1959 show in Stockholm on the four disc In Scandinavia compilation) Ella Fitzgerald's live recording in Berlin from 1960 is also a delight, in spite of (or perhaps because of) her forgetting everything beyond the first verse; even though she's just improving, her name-dropping of both Armstrong and Darin seems to match the part of the song in which some of Macheath's victims are listed which really shows you how she knew what she was doing even on those rare occasions when everything could come undone.

But with all due love and respect to Satchmo and Ella (oh, why didn't they try it out on one of their amazing duet albums?), no one has ever come close to Darin's version. The young singer clearly took a page from Frank Sinatra's book but added a heretofore unheard ferocity (Tom Breihan says "he comes across as a motherfucker" which is hard to argue with). This isn't Satchmo having a bit of fun, this is serious stuff. I'm not convinced the muderousness is especially important, more the tough as nails ambition from the sort of person who would kick his mother into the dirt and steal gruel from orphans if it helped him get to the top. In the beginning, he's simply a confident young go-getter but by song's end he'd tearing everything down, ripping the whole of Manhattan to shreds. It's the American Dream, brother!

Musically it's as jazzy as possible with no acknowledgement of rock whatsoever. I'm tempted here to discuss Quiz Show further with some commentary about how jazz was by then the establishment's music while rock 'n' roll was a teenage pursuit. There may be some truth in this assertion but these blog posts of mine are already far too anecdote heavy. More importantly, a big band setting just suited Darin's voice and the song itself far better than anything a fifties' beat group could get out of it. Just as significantly as their refusal to bend to hip trends, Darin, along with famed Atlantic Records producers/executives Jerry Wexler and Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, was uncompromising in meeting the then-popular easy listening genre halfway as well. Between the fierce vocals and a sub-Ellingtonian arrangement, "Mack the Knife" became as hardcore as eighties' LA punk.

Quiz Show concludes with Goodwin's investigation being hailed as a success even though it becomes clear to him that his aims were only achieved because they ended up crushing two individuals ("we thought we were going to get television," he glumly observes to a colleague, "but television's going to get us") while the network and advertisers got away scot-free. Van Doren and Stempel exchange a glance for a fleeting moment, the two adversaries at last having empathy for one another. It is at this point that the end credits roll, along with a song called "Moritat" by country crooner Lyle Lovett. Not that this is in any way a country song; it's more like an atmospheric, slow-paced Blue Nile tune from the eighties though it does build from there. It is in fact a reworking of "Mack the Knife" done as a pitiful lament. And bloody hell, it's gorgeous. It even rivals those earlier recordings by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald which, granted, makes it an also-ran compared to Bobby Darin.

Score: 10

Ivo Robić: "Morgen"

September 28, 1959 (2 weeks)

So, 1959 is beginning to wind down and it is time to start taking stock of what the year has had to offer in terms of Canadian number ones. Not much as it turns out. Things got off to a very good start with The Platters and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" before it all seemed to fall apart with The Chipmunks and their travesty "Alvin's Harmonica". Only three number ones up to this point would I say are especially good: the afformentioned "Smoke...", The Fleetwoods' "Come Softly to Me" and recent entry Phil Phillips' "Sea of Love", a song which I liked very much but admitted to not really wanting to hear again — and this is meant to be one of my favourites. What a sad state of affairs.

Well, I have good news and bad news to share at this time. Let's start with the good news. I'm happy to say that things will soon turn around somewhat, with one monster of a banger right around the corner, a strong one to finish the year off and two that are both more than good enough. Yes, four of the last five CHUM chart toppers of 1959 are better than average which is encouraging considering what a grim year it has been. Which brings us to the bad news: there's still one more rough one we've got to get through first.

Let me first cop to the fact that I like that "Morgen" managed to become an international hit at all. Ivo Robić hailed from Croatia in the former Yugoslavia, an Iron Curtain-adjacent country whose cultural imprint on the West had otherwise been minimal. But while he spoke Croatian (as well as, presumably, the Yugoslav lingua-franca Serbo-Croat), he sung his breakthrough hit in the rather less exotic language of German. This being a time when it was still possible to have an international hit recorded in an European dialect that wasn't English, "Morgen" stood a chance, especially since Robić was aided by easy listening giant and future CHUM number one artist Bert Kaempfert.

These facts are all nice and interesting but I can't get into the song itself. I was unimpressed at first but figured it would grow on me eventually but I am still waiting for that to happen. It isn't exactly boring — though it's hardly thrilling — and there is something moving about Robić's vocal delivery but there's little to say about anything else. It seems to combine the worst elements of fifties' easy listening — a patently unnecessary chorus to accompany Robić, syrupy arrangements — with traces of country and western — and the hokey kind at that.

"Morgen" ended up doing respectable business in both the US (number thirteen) and UK (number twenty-three) but Canada proved to the market which was most receptive to it, which is why I'm having to deal with it now. I imagine my homeland's many emigrants from Europe liked it a lot but it must have had more widespread appeal for it to end up topping the charts for two weeks. Maybe you had to be there to fully appreciate it but since I can't go back to investigate, its appeal will remain a mystery to me.

So, that does it for mediocre-to-lousy CHUM chart toppers (at least until we get to 1960). The rest from '59 should all get scores of a least a 6. I think it's time for something special: a great tune, beautifully sung, an earworm that doesn't drive you nuts, the sort of think you could listen to on a perpetual loop and never tire of. I think I've got just the thing.

Score: 4

Phil Phillips with the Twilights: "Sea of Love"

September 7, 1959 (3 weeks)

I've had the tendency to look down upon music YouTubers who make 'Top One-Hit Wonders' lists. These people are almost always Americans who seem obsessed with Dexys Midnight Runners and a-ha and they all seem to have this horribly snide smugness about them. "Look at these clowns who fluked a big hit. What a bunch of clowns." Illuminating.

Recently, however, I have begun watching a series on the YouTube channel Todd in the Shadows, hosted by a guy called Todd who sits in the dark (the name of his show is pretty self-explanatory in spite of my attempt to explain it) and talks music. Recently he seems to be focusing on Trainwreckors about disastrous albums which pretty much ruined careers but his One-Hit Wonderland series is also well worth checking out. One of its key aspects is how he examines an artist or group's overall career and ponders if they deserved better than their sole hit single. Turns out, quite a few of them did!

He hasn't come up yet on One-Hit Wonderland but Phil Phillips is a great example of someone who deserved a lot more than one memorable single. For one thing, the man born John Philip Baptiste deserved to make a great deal more more out of "Sea of Love" than the 6,000 bucks he got out of it for writing and recording a single which sold over a million copies and would go on to be covered by hundreds of bands. (It will even come up again in this space once we finally get to the eighties) Certainly there have been singers who've been ripped off by shady managers and/or record labels and plenty of songwriters have been duped into handing over publishing rights for next to nothing but for both to happen to the same guy with the same smash hit is a major kick in the teeth.

The other reason Phillips deserved better is because there's no way he could have composed what would one day become a standard in isolation. Even if his career in music was destined to rapidly go tits up — as it unfortunately would — he must have had at least half-a-dozen potential hits in his back pocket. Perhaps not quite to the lofty standards of "Sea of Love" but potentially sizable enough as further chart bait either for himself or others. And he did have such material, only very few people got the chance to hear them due to his decision to fight against the harsh terms of his record contract. His sacrifice ensured that others would eventually benefit.

Having been overexposed to John Mayer's excruciating "Your Body Is a Wonderland" for over twenty years now, it's tempting to have a go at "Sea of Love" just for setting such a bad precedent. Yet, it would be wrong to do so. Even if there is a link from one to the other, it still took over forty years to get there and there no doubt would have been several twists and turns en route. (Getting from "Sea of Love" to a "sea of blankets" might seem trivial but that's why snowballs have effects) Material may or may not be tasteful but it's important that a singer's delivery not be vomit inducing. As a song that has probably been covered hundreds of times, there are bound to be vocalists who choose to lay the sexed up vibes on thick — I wouldn't do so myself (not unless I somehow enjoy the taste of throwing up in my mouth) but I do understand why someone would make that choice. But Phillips wisely chose to approach it as if it was any love song, with the perfect blend of desire and restraint.

For all the praise I seem to be lavishing on it, however, the score below is in the 'above-average-but-doesn't-quite-slap' range which may seem a tad confusing. And I'm not even sure I can fully justify it except to say that I've been enjoying listening to it the last few days but now it's starting to grate and that I don't plan to play it again until I get to 1984 or '85 the next time it comes up which in real time probably won't be until the middle of 2026. I imagine I'll be into again at that point, especially since his original surely pisses all over the one to come, but I have little doubt I'll once again be done with it not long after.

Phil Phillips never had the opportunity to record an album and was never able to cash in on having a worldwide hit single. Hopefully he earned a few bucks here and there from tours and meet and greets during his later years. By all accounts he managed to live a full life, working as a DJ, marrying and having seven children. There are far worse rock 'n' roll casualty stories out there, which is not to say we shouldn't shake our heads at how he was mistreated but such a brutal industry. In a just world, "Sea of Love" should have set him up for life with it paying for his grandkids and great-grandkids' university education. One-hit wonders deserve at least that much.

Score: 7

The Browns: "The Three Bells"

August 17, 1959 (3 weeks)

"The Three Bells" is also sometimes known as "The Jimmy Brown Song" or "Little Jimmy Brown" or simply "Jimmy Brown" nicknamed for a character in the song, who in the original French language version had been known as Jean-Francois Nicot. By lucky chance, the lead singer of a trio of sibling vocalists was known as Jim (Ed) Brown. This seems almost too perfect, as if he'd had his name changed from Harold or Horace to fit around it or if the English translation had been done with him in mind. But nothing of the sort occurred: Jim Brown was simply singing about Jimmy Brown. (I wonder if American football great Jim Brown had been a fan)

I like to think that Christian music wasn't always so naff. There must surely been a time when devotion to Christ could be expressed more elegantly than simply "Jesus Is a Friend of Mine". or "I Found a Friend in Jesus" and "Jesus Is Just All Right" (don't go overboard with the praise there, pal). There was once a time when Gregorian Chants and Handel's Messiah made praising the Lord something you might want to listen to but clearly today's finest creative minds in music have better things to be getting on with.

"The Three Bells" isn't a Christian song per se — or, if I'm being super generous, it doesn't necessarily have to be one. Jesus isn't mentioned so I guess there's that. Still, the village chapel sure plays an important part in the song's narrative. It begins with the infant Little Jimmy's baptism in which we are reminded that we shouldn't be "led into temptation". We are then escorted ahead a few years to his wedding in which we are once again instructed to not be "led into temptation". Finally, there's Jim's funeral where the congregation is told not to (you guessed it!) be "led into temptation". Babies, don't be tempted by all that breast milk; newlyweds, don't be tempted by that dildo in your wife's goody drawer; corpses, don't be tempted to shag all those sexy angels up in heaven. You know what? I'm starting to think this is a Christian song after all — and it necessarily has to be one at that!

Simplistic music can often work. There isn't much to fellow CHUM chart number one "Come Softly to Me" by The Fleetwoods (who operated in a not dissimilar two-girls-and-a-guy trio setup, albeit one composed of high school friends rather than siblings) but it's so lovely and delicate that it's virtually impossible to dislike. You can hear real teenage angst and longing in it, even if they are just barely hinted at. By contrast, there's competence to "The Three Bells" but not a whole lot else. Simplistic in this instance is just code for "deeply boring".

This Jimmy Brown guy seems miserable — either that or I'm projecting how I'd be feeling if the only things worth noting about my life revolved around those three times my name got mentioned in church. Think of all the things that happened in his life that weren't even glossed over in this account: taking his first steps, going to school, learning to ride a bike, his first crush, getting a job, having children of his own, trips that he may have taken outside of his peaceful valley town. The title character from The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" accomplished no less in her sad life than Jim did, the difference is that Paul McCartney had the decency to depict her as tragically as possible; The Browns as well as its many songwriters and translators (it was originally a Swiss-French tune called "Les trois cloches", a fact that I ought to have brought up by now but for the fact that (a) I forgot to do so and (b) I don't give a shit) seem to want us to revere old Jim his seemingly pointless, temptationless, church going existence.

Am I too cynical for something like "The Three Bells"? Possibly but there are a number of songs which I consider to be poignant which you may look down upon. I have long been a sucker for noted Bible-thumper Cliff Richard and his 1990 yuletide hit "Saviour's Day", a single despised by many individuals with taste in music nearly as good as mine. It has never done anything to convince me of God's existence but I buy Cliff's conviction and can kind of see why some might dig the kind of Christianity he peddles. Not so with The Browns and "The Three Bells". Fair dos if a life of prayer and devotion meant everything to Jimmy Brown but it means squat to me.

Score: 2

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

July 20, 1959 (4 weeks)

I was born in May, 1977, just a few months before Elvis Presley's death so naturally I don't have any memories of him; I don't really have any to speak of of John Lennon either but I am aware that he had died recently. As far as I was concerned, Elvis had always been gone. Because of this, my initial encounters with The King were based on how others remembered him. (The differentiation between Presley and Lennon may have also been down to being from a Beatles family, one that had next to nothing to do with Elvis)

The chief image that seemed to last the longest was more than a little curious. The images on TV of Elvis performing at his famed 1973 Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite shows had him in his trademark white jumpsuit, not quite as bloated as he would soon become but no longer the svelte sex demon of his youth either. If you were going by how he appeared just four years earlier at his Comeback Special, then you'd probably say he looked awful; judging by how he'd balloon in his last years, he doesn't look so bad. Either way, he's not looking his best. Yet, this is the look that seemed to have the tightest grip on his fanbase and the public in general. You don't tend to see Elvis impersonators and animatronic lions at Chuck E. Cheese franchises in fifties' Hillbilly Cat gear.

"A Big Hunk o' Love" is a song that I tend to associate with this caricature of Presley. I suppose this is down in large part to the song's distinctive "hunk-a, hunk-a" which Elvis wannabes the world over have tried (and failed) to perfect in the years since his death. (A charming aspect of the Elvis impersonator phenomenon is that they're universally bad at it) They have exaggerated the emphasis placed on the "hunk-a's" that it's actually startling to hear the original being so, well, normal and, seemingly, so unlike Elvis. (I don't know if this is something these guys hear on a regular basis but if they're ever told that they "sound more Elvis than Elvis" they shouldn't take it as a compliment)

It's quite refreshing hearing it in its original context of The King still clinging to rock 'n' roll while he still had the chance. While earlier singles since his induction into the United States Military had been recorded well in advance of being posted to Germany, this one was made during a brief leave of absence back in the States at a studio in Nashville. The process was so hasty that his regular guitarist and bassist — Scotty Moore and Bill Black — aren't even on it. Nevertheless, the ace sessioners, led by Chet Atkins and Hank Garland, were more than up to the task, handing in a thrilling performance that easily puts it well above recent standards.

The weak link may well be Elvis himself who, in the words of Tom Breihan, "seems to be coasting more on persona than on actual vocals", a trait that would become all-too familiar in the years ahead. In places he sounds like he's straining, as if a year of soldiering had set him back, which it no doubt did. At other times, he's veering into Elvis impersonator territory — though not on the "hunk-a's" — with a few too many vocal gimmicks. This all makes perfect sense: the musicians backing him were all on their game but he clearly wasn't. Pretty simple really.

Having the best of the best alongside him was something Elvis only sometimes enjoyed. It's no wonder, then, that he chose to revive "A Big Hunk o' Love" while dawning that silly jumpsuit in the early seventies as a showcase for his outstanding TCB Band featuring James Burton and Glen Hardin. Thirtysomething housewives may have been there to see him do "My Way" and "Always on My Mind" but hopefully they got to have a glimpse of The King of old when they got round to this one. The only thing was, they were there to see Elvis who plays to the audience and doesn't appear to take what he's doing too seriously. Too bad no one paid any attention to the people in the background.

Oh, and as for "My Wish Came True", I think I'll offer up one more nugget of advice to his nibs that I wish someone had given him.

9) Cease and Desist with the Ballads, They Suck. You've got a rock 'n' roll voice, you're not a crooner like Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra. You know how the pairing of "Don't Be Cruel" and "Hound Dog" made for such a great single? It's because they're both done at a brisk pace which suits you. I'd love to listen to one of your A side rockers, flip it over (or click on the YouTube link since I don't actually own anything of yours on vinyl) and find myself hearing something equally frenetic. Trot out "Love Me Tender" and maybe one or two more for your jumpsuit shows but keep the setlist tilted towards the livelier stuff. What do you think you're paying Burton and Hardin for anyway?

Score: 6

Johnny Horton: "The Battle of New Orleans"

June 1, 1959 (7 weeks)

The Clash's "I'm So Bored with the U.S.A." deals with some serious issues surrounding some of the rotten aspects of the American way of life. From the country's piss-poor treatment of soldiers back from Vietnam to propping up dictatorial regimes around the world, the Mick Jones-Joe Strummer composition makes it clear that the American Dream is a giant lie. Yet, I heard it first in the early nineties as a sullen Canadian teenager and none of those topics clicked in my mind. For all it mattered to me, it was an anthem about being sick to death of American TV, music, movies, news and trash culture. 

With the rise of Jerry Springer and tabloid news coverage, this would only get worse as the decade progressed. Lorena Bobbitt slicing off her husband's dick, Tonya Harding's goons taking a lead pipe to Nancy Carrigan's legs, that stain on Monica Lewinsky's dress, the O.J. Simpson arrest and trial, any time some total nutjob picked up a gun and fired: my brain is stuffed with freak show media circus nonsense that seemed to dominate the news in that era. Even genuine tragedies — the Waco siege, Columbine, 9/11, O.J.'s victims — ended up becoming trivialized by my own sense of fatigue

It was only in the post-9/11 period that conservatives in Canada began to express concern over anti-Americanism, as if it was something that had only just begun following George Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq or something. But in my family at least a part of being Canadian meant making everyone know how much we weren't like the U.S.A, even if at the same time we couldn't do without it.

Somehow or other Canadians back in the fifties didn't get the memo. With Hollywood's continued domination, TV shows coming from American networks ABC, CBS and NBC and virtually every musical genre coming out of the States, it's perhaps understandable why there wasn't yet a backlash. Still, didn't Canadians ever just get tired of hearing about these people all the time? It's one thing for a third-rate country singer like Johnny Horton to tap into jingoism and have it catch on in a big way in the States but elsewhere? What the hell was wrong with Canadians back then? (And we weren't the only ones: the Australians also took this ghastly record to number one; at least the British were far less convinced, taking it to only sixteen)

Given that Paul Anka wasn't all that good while the likes of Elvis, The Everlys, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and Frank Sinatra were, I can certainly see why the majority of my countrymen opted for American music back in the day. But did they really have to go for this crap to the tune of seven agonizing weeks at number one? A march about a battle with the British in which the good guys were armed with just nail clippers and old peach pits against the might of the Red Coats and their muskets?

Interestingly, "The Battle of New Orleans" ended up being altered for Great Britain and members of the Commonwealth, presumably so listeners wouldn't be turned off by tales of their ancestors getting their arses so thoroughly handed to them. Naturally, this would have included Canada, though I'm skeptical that this took place. For the love of god, we're the only nation in the world that shares a country code so of course we were just going to get the same version of a song that Ed Sullivan and Dick Clark and the like had been hyping.

In the end, anti-Americanism is something Canadians bring upon themselves. Find other TV shows to watch if you're sick of the crap from the U.S. Listen to artists from your own country or elsewhere if the music from down south is a load of shite. In fact, this seemed to occur seven years later when Sgt. Barry Sadler's giant U.S. number one "The Ballad of the Green Berets" (incidentally, a much worse song than "The Battle of New Orleans") only ended up being a modest Top 30 hit in Canada. The public would have been exposed to this pile of crap on TV and radio and most of them wisely decided to take a pass. The best way to be anti-American is to embrace Stevie Wonder and Magic Johnson and Seinfeld and the first two Godfather films while discarding all of its junk. Start with with Trump and celeb culture but don't forget to rid yourself of useless singles like "The Battle of New Orleans" while you're at it.

Score: 3

~~~~~

Can Con

He wouldn't be a permanent resident for a few more years but I think we can include Ronnie Hawkins at this early stage since he was already making mint from tours in Toronto and around Ontario. Plus, why not include an American who came to embrace everything about his adopted homeland, especially in a review dealing with being sick to death of our neighbours to the south? "Forty Days" is an enjoyable enough little rockabilly bopper, one that I was pleasantly surprised to see got all the way up to number four. If only it had been able to push Johnny bloody Horton out of the top spot. Rompin' Ronnie would, sadly, only ever have a number one as part of a charity single but I'll still try to celebrate him as much as possible until we get to 1985. Hopefully there will be many more opportunities. Until then, bask in the effortless vocals and just try to imagine how kick ass it must have been at one of Mr. Dynamo's show with a group of young Canadians and a drummer from Arkansas who were then known as The Hawks. Oh to have seen them tear up the bars of Sarnia and Sault Ste Marie back in the day.