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Post by jk on Mar 25, 2024 20:49:57 GMT
Another very cool mini-essay, Cap'n. I regard your potted descriptions of songs and their history as a stand-out feature of this forum. The Shirelles... I recall seeing a picture of them in an early '60s glossy. Thinking back, I believe it was at the time of their US top-five follow-up, "Mama Said", which I never heard at the time. I do recall hearing "Baby It's You", which I loved, and the even more successful "Soldier Boy", which didn't really grab me. Perhaps it was because the extra-musical content outweighed the musical. Love the strings in "WYSLMT"! Crikey, did I post that? Oops -- I wasn't finished yet!! OK, so here's the rest: I'd say this song was a major help in giving African-American girl groups the status they hadn't enjoyed before. Just two years earlier, The Chantels of "Maybe" fame had seen the album cover originally bearing their picture swiftly replaced with one featuring a white boy and girl choosing songs on a jukebox. The chart-topping clout of "Tomorrow" helped bring such reprehensible practices to an end. I have a soft spot for The Shirelles and probably most of all for "I Met Him On A Sunday", which I most certainly didn't hear at the time. That song has such an innocent, unaffected air about it. And the alternation of the girls' voices makes it even more beguiling:
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 25, 2024 20:58:09 GMT
Another very cool mini-essay, Cap'n. I regard your potted descriptions of songs and their history as a stand-out feature of this forum. The Shirelles... I recall seeing a picture of them in an early '60s glossy. Thinking back, I believe it was at the time of their US top-five follow-up, "Mama Said", which I never heard at the time. I do recall hearing "Baby It's You", which I loved, and the even more successful "Soldier Boy", which didn't really grab me. Perhaps it was because the extra-musical content outweighed the musical. Love the strings in "WYSLMT"! Crikey, did I post that? Oops -- I wasn't finished yet!! OK, so here's the rest: I'd say this song was a major help in giving African-American girl groups the status they hadn't enjoyed before. Just two years earlier, The Chantels of "Maybe" fame had seen the album cover originally bearing their picture swiftly replaced with one featuring a white boy and girl choosing songs on a jukebox. The chart-topping clout of "Tomorrow" helped bring such reprehensible practices to an end. I have a soft spot for The Shirelles and probably most of all for "I Met Him On A Sunday", which I most certainly didn't hear at the time. That song has such an innocent, unaffected air about it. And the alternation of the girls' voices makes it even more beguiling: According to what I read this morning, "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" was the first all-black girl-group's single to top the U.S. Hot 100 or equivalent charts (and possibly the first girl-group single to top them, though I didn't dig into the suggestion).
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Post by jk on Mar 25, 2024 22:54:52 GMT
According to what I read this morning, "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" was the first all-black girl-group's single to top the U.S. Hot 100 or equivalent charts (and possibly the first girl-group single to top them, though I didn't dig into the suggestion). Yes, I read something to that effect too. After reading the above post, I looked around and discovered The Boswell Sisters hit the US number one spot in 1935 with "The Object Of My Affection", beating The Andrews Sisters' first of eight (!) number ones, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön", by three years. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boswell_Sisters#Hit_singles
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 25, 2024 23:03:15 GMT
According to what I read this morning, "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" was the first all-black girl-group's single to top the U.S. Hot 100 or equivalent charts (and possibly the first girl-group single to top them, though I didn't dig into the suggestion). Yes, I read something to that effect too. After reading the above post, I looked around and discovered The Boswell Sisters hit the US number one spot in 1935 with "The Object Of My Affection", beating The Andrews Sisters' first of eight (!) number ones, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön", by three years. Minneapolis's own!
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Post by lonelysummer on Mar 26, 2024 19:25:37 GMT
Another very cool mini-essay, Cap'n. I regard your potted descriptions of songs and their history as a stand-out feature of this forum. The Shirelles... I recall seeing a picture of them in an early '60s glossy. Thinking back, I believe it was at the time of their US top-five follow-up, "Mama Said", which I never heard at the time. I do recall hearing "Baby It's You", which I loved, and the even more successful "Soldier Boy", which didn't really grab me. Perhaps it was because the extra-musical content outweighed the musical. Love the strings in "WYSLMT"! Crikey, did I post that? Oops -- I wasn't finished yet!! OK, so here's the rest: I'd say this song was a major help in giving African-American girl groups the status they hadn't enjoyed before. Just two years earlier, The Chantels of "Maybe" fame had seen the album cover originally bearing their picture swiftly replaced with one featuring a white boy and girl choosing songs on a jukebox. The chart-topping clout of "Tomorrow" helped bring such reprehensible practices to an end. I have a soft spot for The Shirelles and probably most of all for "I Met Him On A Sunday", which I most certainly didn't hear at the time. That song has such an innocent, unaffected air about it. And the alternation of the girls' voices makes it even more beguiling: I met him on a Sunday and my heart stood still, duh doo run run...no, I don't know this one, will have to listen.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Mar 26, 2024 20:14:52 GMT
"Will You Love Me Tomorrow"...a great song by an important group. Who woulda thought The Shirelles, out of Passaic, New Jersey would be so influential, but they were. And, what a breakthrough single for the Carole King/Gerry Goffin songwriting team. Things were starting to pick up on AM radio. Big time. I love this record. Confession: I always thought it was called "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow".
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 26, 2024 20:34:42 GMT
Confession: I always thought it was called "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow". So did I. And what's more, I learned in reading up for this thread that the single's first pressing actually was just titled "Tomorrow"!
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Post by jk on Mar 30, 2024 11:40:09 GMT
I have a soft spot for The Shirelles and probably most of all for "I Met Him On A Sunday", which I most certainly didn't hear at the time. That song has such an innocent, unaffected air about it. And the alternation of the girls' voices makes it even more beguiling: I met him on a Sunday and my heart stood still, duh doo run run...no, I don't know this one, will have to listen. Ha yes. And it's likely one of the sources of the doo woppy backing vocals on "In The Parkin' Lot"...
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 2, 2024 17:31:48 GMT
”Calcutta,” by Lawrence Welk February 13-20, 1961 (2 weeks)
In 1958, a middle-aged, German film composer named Heino Gaze wrote a tune initially titled “Tivoli Melody,” retitled several times before landing on “Kalkutta liegt am Ganges” (“Calcutta is on the Ganges,” an unexciting but fact-based title if ever there was one). Hans Bradke wrote German lyrics.
Later, an American songwriting team—Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss—wrote a set of English lyrics about “ladies of Calcutta” under the Anglicized name “Calcutta.” You may recall them as the composers of a 1960 No. 1 hit, “Teenie Weenie Itsy Bitsy Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.” Alas, their songwriting credit is irrelevant to this No. 1. That’s because we’re not leveraging a version of the song leaning on the Americanized lyrics, but rather staying closer to its German origins.
Lawrence Welk was born in 1903 to ethnically German parents who fled the Russian Empire city of Odessa (now Odesa, Ukraine) in 1892 for the region of the German-speaking city of Strasburg, North Dakota. Or rather, town. Or village. This Strasburg numbered only a few hundred people around the turn of the century, and never quite reached 1,000 residents before dropping back to less than half that in 2024.
Welk dropped out of school in fourth grade to work on the family’s farm. But while Welk was a (young) farmer, he had ambitions to become a musician. He made a deal with his father that in return for his father purchasing a mail-order accordion for $400 (over $6,000 in today’s money), Welk would remain on the farm and return any money he made—whether by music, manual labor, or other means—back to the family through his 21st birthday.
Also delayed until his 21st year was speaking English: as was (and is) true of many immigrants and the first generations of their children, Welk grew up speaking his family’s and community’s native German until finally learning English at 21. This allowed him to work more broadly, of course, though he was uncomfortable speaking in public in English throughout his life, and never lost his German accent.
First he performed across the Dakotas, then the broader Midwest. Welk also graduated from Minneapolis’s MacPhail School of Music in 1927, when he was 24. He toured with, led, and recorded with dance and “sweet jazz” (in contrast to the more rhythmic “hot jazz” of Duke Ellington and the like) to increasing audiences and fame throughout the latter ‘20s and onward. Decades later, Welk described his band’s approach like this (to the Ellensburg Daily Record in 1960): "We still play music with the champagne style, which means light and rhythmic. We place the stress on melody; the chords are played pretty much the way the composer wrote them. We play with a steady beat so dancers can follow it.”
In 1951, resettled in Los Angeles, Welk brought The Lawrence Welk Show to a local station; in 1955 it was picked up by ABC; and the subsequent year it was broadcast nationally via radio.
In 1960, Welk’s musical director George Cates brought “Calcutta” to Welk, but the bandleader was indifferent to it. Cates said if Welk didn’t record it, Cates would record it himself. Welk reportedly replied—though no citation is given—"Well, if it's good enough for you, George, I guess it's good enough for me.” The band recorded it in a single take with an arrangement leaning heavily on harpsichord and accordion atop a stronger beat than those for which he was known.
The Lawrence Welk Orchestra released “Calcutta” in December 1960, and sat atop the charts for two weeks about six weeks later. The album Calcutta! was released in January 1961 and was also a chart-topper, topping the Billboard 200 for 11 weeks. (The album contained another song that had topped the Hot 100, “Save the Last Dance For Me,” which the Drifters had taken to No. 1 in 1960.)
While Welk’s career began decades before “Calcutta” and continued for decades after, it was his only No. 1 hit single. He retired from his television program and the road in 1982, although the show continued in reruns on public television beginning in the mid-80s. He died of pneumonia in 1992 at the age of 89.
A licensed version of Welk’s band continues to perform to this day in Branson, Missouri, and his television show continues to run on some PBS stations.
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Post by jk on Apr 2, 2024 17:49:54 GMT
”Calcutta,” by Lawrence Welk February 13-20, 1961 (2 weeks) I think it's really cool how instrumentals keep hitting the top slot in this thread, not least because they all have memorable tunes! I know the tune "Calcutta" (although I would never have known that was its name), but I can't swear to hearing that version at the time (although I probably did). The LW track I do remember well from early on is "Baby Elephant Walk", written by Hank Mancini (as JH calls him) but taken into the top fifty in 1962 by Lawrence (or maybe Larry) Welk and His Orchestra: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Elephant_Walk
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Post by lonelysummer on Apr 3, 2024 2:13:44 GMT
”Calcutta,” by Lawrence Welk February 13-20, 1961 (2 weeks) I think it's really cool how instrumentals keep hitting the top slot in this thread, not least because they all have memorable tunes! I know the tune "Calcutta" (although I would never have known that was its name), but I can't swear to hearing that version at the time (although I probably did). The LW track I do remember well from early on is "Baby Elephant Walk", written by Hank Mancini (as JH calls him) but taken into the top fifty in 1962 by Lawrence (or maybe Larry) Welk and His Orchestra: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Elephant_Walk The only reason I know "Calcutta" is because I heard it on a rerun of American Top 40. I don't remember what the question was; probably something about #1 instrumentals. I do "Baby Elephant Walk". We had a "variety" station in my home town that played everything from Lawrence Welk to Badfinger. As a kid, I thought of Welk as the epitome of old fogie, square music. I still don't own any Lawrence Welk records, but I can appreciate the music now.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 3, 2024 11:15:58 GMT
Yet another song I have to admit I'd never heard (or at least don't recall hearing) before. I thought I was pretty well informed with music, even before my time. After all, these are exclusively #1 records we're talking about. But nope. Never heard it. Of course I did know of Lawrence Welk ... although, like lonelysummer said, basically just as old-people music.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Apr 3, 2024 11:39:15 GMT
I heard of the song, "Calcutta", and upon hearing it above, I'm familiar with it. But, I'll be darned if I knew Lawrence Welk recorded the hit version, and that it went to #1. And, yes, it does show (prove to the record companies?) that adults/older people could still have an impact on the record-buying market. I can't imagine the kids were driving this one.
The song? The melody is what stands out. It could've been an earworm. The arrangement or instrumental track isn't my cup of tea, but it's not off-putting, either. However, I have to say or ask again...#1? For two weeks? In addition to the great Christmas music, "Calcutta" was being played and heard extensively in the department stores and homes over the 1960-61 holiday season.
Lawrence Welk had a connection to The Beach Boys. Apparently, Lawrence Welk recorded Murry Wilson's "Two Step, Side Step" and performed it on his radio show in the 1950s.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 10, 2024 15:23:46 GMT
”Pony Time,” by Chubby Checker Feb. 27 - March 13, 1961 (3 weeks)“Don’t fuck with the formula.” That’s what the apocryphal story says Mike Love told Brian Wilson as the latter expanded the group’s musical palette. After all, it was surfing, cars, and girls that got them where they were. Why ruin a good thing with a the iron horse, columnated ruins, and Margaritas? “Fucking with the formula” can work: Bob Dylan did it by plugging in his guitar and rode that mid-‘60s burst of creativity that many—most?—consider the peak of his career. The Beatles stopped touring, and the second half of their career featured a handful of albums that landed in debates about not just whether they were the Beatles’ best, but rock music’s best. But “fucking with the formula” can be ruinous. Ask any fun-loving, so-called “hair metal” band whether the decision to go grunge in the early-mid ‘90s was a good decision: they alienated their original fan bases without being accepted into the new ones they were seeking. Chasing success is difficult; maintaining it is no picnic, either. In 1960, Chubby Checker had massive success with his fourth single, “The Twist.” The song, written by Hank Ballard, was an R&B song about a popular dance trend. Checker’s version went to #1, taking him from a modestly successful Philadelphia night club performer to an international star. So what was his next single? “The Hucklebuck,” an R&B song first released by its composer, jazz and blues saxophonist and bandleader Paul Williams, in 1949. (The song was originally known as “D’Natural Blues” until Williams saw audience members dancing the Hucklebuck to it.) Checker’s version hit #14 on the Hot 100 in 1960. Checker’s first single of 1961? That would be Don Covay’s “Pony Time,” released in January of that year. And yes, it is another R&B song about a dance. Covay’s version, released in 1960, was a modest hit that peaked at #60 on the Hot 100. (He went on to write and record “Mercy, Mercy,” which the Rolling Stones included on their 1965 album Out of Our Heads, and “Chain of Fools,” a #2 hit for Aretha Franklin in 1967.) Checker, still riding the wave of “The Twist,” didn’t need long to bring “Pony Time” to the top of the charts. It hit #1 less than two months after it was released. It stayed there for three weeks. And while “Pony Time” was a different dance, Checker certainly had not fucked with the formula: you can even sing “The Twist” to it. Chubby Checker continued to follow the formula for years, on and off: the Fly, the Limbo, the Freddie, the Rub, and yes, of course, the Twist. Checker would ask America to Twist again, slow Twist, Twist around the clock, not to knock the Twist, Twistin’ USA, La Paloma Twist, teach me to Twist, Twist this and Twist that, again and again, for years. Decades, even. Depending on how one looks at it, Chubby Checker never hit No. 1 again—at least, he never hit No. 1 with any song other than “The Twist” and “Pony Time”—and he seemed to go back and forth through the years about whether he was proud of those dance-themed songs as his legacy or was imprisoned by them. It’s not obvious when or how Chubby Checker might have successfully “fucked with the formula.” But he did have quite a career regardless, with over 20 Top 40 hits and a handful more just outside that mark. He performed for decades, and even had a No. 1 on Billboard’s dance chart in 2008 with “Knock Down the Walls.” Checker is now 82. He will forever be best known for his recordings about teenage dance trends, including “The Twist” and “Pony Time.”
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Post by lonelysummer on Apr 10, 2024 19:54:41 GMT
”Pony Time,” by Chubby Checker Feb. 27 - March 13, 1961 (3 weeks)“Don’t fuck with the formula.” That’s what the apocryphal story says Mike Love told Brian Wilson as the latter expanded the group’s musical palette. After all, it was surfing, cars, and girls that got them where they were. Why ruin a good thing with a the iron horse, columnated ruins, and Margaritas? “Fucking with the formula” can work: Bob Dylan did it by plugging in his guitar and rode that mid-‘60s burst of creativity that many—most?—consider the peak of his career. The Beatles stopped touring, and the second half of their career featured a handful of albums that landed in debates about not just whether they were the Beatles’ best, but rock music’s best. But “fucking with the formula” can be ruinous. Ask any fun-loving, so-called “hair metal” band whether the decision to go grunge in the early-mid ‘90s was a good decision: they alienated their original fan bases without being accepted into the new ones they were seeking. Chasing success is difficult; maintaining it is no picnic, either. In 1960, Chubby Checker had massive success with his fourth single, “The Twist.” The song, written by Hank Ballard, was an R&B song about a popular dance trend. Checker’s version went to #1, taking him from a modestly successful Philadelphia night club performer to an international star. So what was his next single? “The Hucklebuck,” an R&B song first released by its composer, jazz and blues saxophonist and bandleader Paul Williams, in 1949. (The song was originally known as “D’Natural Blues” until Williams saw audience members dancing the Hucklebuck to it.) Checker’s version hit #14 on the Hot 100 in 1960. Checker’s first single of 1961? That would be Don Covay’s “Pony Time,” released in January of that year. And yes, it is another R&B song about a dance. Covay’s version, released in 1960, was a modest hit that peaked at #60 on the Hot 100. (He went on to write and record “Mercy, Mercy,” which the Rolling Stones included on their 1965 album Out of Our Heads, and “Chain of Fools,” a #2 hit for Aretha Franklin in 1967.) Checker, still riding the wave of “The Twist,” didn’t need long to bring “Pony Time” to the top of the charts. It hit #1 less than two months after it was released. It stayed there for three weeks. And while “Pony Time” was a different dance, Checker certainly had not fucked with the formula: you can even sing “The Twist” to it. Chubby Checker continued to follow the formula for years, on and off: the Fly, the Limbo, the Freddie, the Rub, and yes, of course, the Twist. Checker would ask America to Twist again, slow Twist, Twist around the clock, not to knock the Twist, Twistin’ USA, La Paloma Twist, teach me to Twist, Twist this and Twist that, again and again, for years. Decades, even. Depending on how one looks at it, Chubby Checker never hit No. 1 again—at least, he never hit No. 1 with any song other than “The Twist” and “Pony Time”—and he seemed to go back and forth through the years about whether he was proud of those dance-themed songs as his legacy or was imprisoned by them. It’s not obvious when or how Chubby Checker might have successfully “fucked with the formula.” But he did have quite a career regardless, with over 20 Top 40 hits and a handful more just outside that mark. He performed for decades, and even had a No. 1 on Billboard’s dance chart in 2008 with “Knock Down the Walls.” Checker is now 82. He will forever be best known for his recordings about teenage dance trends, including “The Twist” and “Pony Time.” This is a not I'm not familiar with, but it immediately reminds me of another Hank Ballard song, "Finger Poppin' Time".
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