Well, well, well we are so close to that annual visitation from the bearded weirdie aren’t we? It’s December 12th and time to pull open another little cardboard door on my UK Christmas Number Ones Advent Calendar, unless of course you’re a ripper and simply rip that poor little cardboard flap right off its perforations. Anyway today’s delight comes from Christmas 1961 and only managed a fortnight at the top.
This is a proper record, do you young folks remember them?
It is Danny Williams‘ version of the timeless classic “Moon River”. The song was originally written for the film ‘Breakfast At Tiffanys’ released earlier that year. The song was performed by Audrey Hepburn, playing the role of Holly Golightly in the movie. Danny was South African and to many people his version remains the definitive one, although many have recorded it since. In fact it became somewhat of a theme song for Andy Williams who sang it on many of his TV shows. Which is your favourite version? Mine is the 70s reggae version from Greyhound which you will find at the end of this post.
Danny had quite an up and down career and suffered a nervous breakdown as well as bankruptcy. However he had another big top 30 hit in 1977 with “Dancin’ Easy” which was the song used in the Martini advertising campaign at the time
It’s December 1986 and a song that was recorded nearly 30 years before makes it to the top of the chart and also 3 years after it’s singer died. Can you guess what we’ll find when we open the December 11th Cardboard flap on my UK Christmas Number Ones Advent Calendar? It’s the truly stupendous Jackie Wilson with “Reet Petite”. Back in the 70s this was always one of the favourite songs of my mate Glen’s Dad Bill Voisey.
Jackie meets Elvis
Jackie Wilson was a truly gifted vocalist. How can people not be moved by “Your Love Has Lifted Me Higher And Higher” and “I Get The Sweetest Feeling“. In 1985 Wilson was mentioned in the post Lionel Richie Commodores hit “Night Shift” along with the likes of Marvin Gaye. Wilson was mentioned in quite a few songs and in fact “Reet Petite” was given reference in David Bowie’s “Red Money” from the 1979 album ‘The Lodger’. “Reet Petite” was number one for 4 weeks including the Christmas of 1986. Jackie’s cousin was Levi Stubbs Jr off of the Four Tops, probably one of my favourite vocalists of all time and very sadly missed.
The song also made the top slot in Ireland and Holland, enjoy the video below, after some other Jackie Wilson classics
Into double figures now as we reach December 10th and after yesterdays advent door from my UK Christmas Number Ones Advent Calendar taking you back to Christmas 1958 today’s brings you much more up to date to Christmas 1996. This was the first of three Christmas number ones in a row for this band. A feat only previously achieved by the Beatles. Can you guess who it is? You really couldn’t get away from them in 96/97 as they loomed over the planet like a ten legged Godzilla pop monster, it’s the Spice Girls of course with “2 Become 1”. Yes it was Scary, Sporty, Baby, Ginger and Posh scored their third UK number one with this song and they went on to have a further six UK number ones. That figure equals the UK number ones of Abba, but is less than Westlife sadly!
They sold in the region of 80 million records in total and in 1998 earned just shy of £50 million. All of the girls went on to reach the top of the charts in their own right as solo acts, except of course for Posh Spice aka Victoria Beckham. The group actually co wrote the song along with Matt Rowe and Richard Stannard. The song reached number 4 in the US charts where they were also a phenomenal success and number one in Ireland. The Spice Girls also recorded a version of the song in Spanish, which presumably helped them get to number one in Spain with the song as well.
The video for the song is Victoria Beckham’s favourite of all the Spice Girls videos, watch it below
December 9th is where we are, almost into double figures! Todays little chocolate delight (well ok chocolate substitute then) behind the cardboard on my UK Christmas Number Ones Advent Calendar is the song that was number one in the UK on the day I was born and was also the UK Christmas number one at Christmas 1958. For those of you that are curious I was born on Thursday January 1st 1959 and as I said this very song was the UK number one. It is Conway Twitty‘s “It’s Only Make Believe”. Considering what might have been number one when I was born I have never been too disappointed with this. What was number one the day you were born?
This is me with my Grandfather mere weeks after Conway Twitty held the UK number one spot!
Conway was born Harold Lloyd Jenkins in 1933, he died aged just 59 in 1993. He was turned on to rock n roll after hearing Elvis Presley’s “Mystery Train“. He made his way to Sun Studios in Memphis and actually recorded with head honcho Sam Phillips. Twitty resided near Nashville and built his own country music entertainment complex, as many country stars seem to do, his was called in a mildly amusing kind of way, Twitty City.
Conway on stage with Loretta Lynn. Any man who can openly wear a suit like that can only deserve our admiration and respect!
Chubby Checker teaches Conway Twitty and Dick Clark how to do the Twist
As with many big hits the song started out as a B Side to “I’ll Try” but radio stations just flipped the disc and played “It’s Only Make Believe” instead, which just goes to prove what poor judgement record companies often have! The song has been covered by many acts including Billy Fury, Glen Campbell, Gary Glitter and the Misfits. Twitty also rerecorded it as a duet with Loretta Lynn in 1970. You can check out the original and some of those covers below.
Incredibly you can actually purchase a Conway Twitty tribute pistol. It includes 5 portraits of him etched into the 24 carat gold!
Today is December 8th 2010, the 30th anniversary of John Lennon. There will be millions more words written about him today, so I won’t add many to that. But I will give you a few Lennon covers, a cover from Lennon and a Beatles song. Enjoy these while you reflect on the life of a great man.
So here we are then ready to reveal what’s behind the cardboard door of my UKChristmas Number Ones Advent Calendar for December 8th. Where the hell does the time go? Anyway today’s choice whizzes you way back through the sands of time to the Christmas of 1968 when “Lily The Pink” was number one for the Scaffold. It held sway at the top for three weeks. There were supported by some big stars although to be fair one of them hadn’t become a star at that point. Backing vocals on the song were provided by our stars and those stars were Elton John, who was not much more than a small stone in the celebrity universe at that time and Graham Nash off of the Hollies and later Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. In fact it is thanks to Mr Nash that the line “Jennifer Eccles had terrible freckles” was added to the song. In reference to the Hollies smash “Jennifer Eccles”
The song was based on a traditional folk song “The Ballad Of Lydia Pinkham” although the band provided most of the new lyrics. The band was from Liverpool and counted Mike McGear, Paul McCartney‘s brother among their members along with Roger McGough and John Gorman. The Scaffold performed a lot of McGough’s poetry in their live shows and they also had two other top 10 UK hits with “Thank U Very Much” in 1967 and “Liverpool Lou” in 1974. The latter was recorded with Paul McCartney and Wings.
Not the Scaffold at all, just an excuse for me to show another picture of the delightful Lily Allen........ Lily In Pink!
The band broke up in the late 70s but have reformed on a few occasions, often for charity and most recently to record a special song to commemorate Liverpool’s year as UK City Of Culture in 2008. Enjoy the band performing the song below.
December 7th and just 18 days to go now until the big bearded bloke in red arrives on your roof. It’s strange isn’t it that we spend much of our lives telling our children not to speak to strangers but come Christmas we effectively tell them a fat, old, loudly dressed bloke is going to break into their house and leave them presents. It seems a bit strange when you look at it that way doesn’t it? Anyway enough of that nonsense, let’s open the door for december 7th on my UK Christmas Number Ones Advent Calender. Forgive me but this one really is a steaming pile of number twos, but I bet if you listen to it just once you won’t get it out of your head for ages.
Little Jimmy
It still holds the record for the youngest artist ever to have a UK number one, he was just 9 years and 8 months. Laydeez and Gennermen I give you….. LITTLE…… JIMMY……..OSMOND!!! Yes it is time to dust off that bloody awful song (well in my opinion anyway) “Long Haired Lover From Liverpool”. The song was number one at Christmas 1972 and stayed there for 5 weeks and sold just short of 1 million copies. I hope all 998,000 of you still feel guilty! Sadly it went to number one on December 23rd 1972 thus preventing Chuck Berry‘s “My Ding-A-Ling” from staying on top for Christmas!
Big Jimmy
Little Jimmy rode the successful wave of his siblings success, along with the Jackson 5 the Osmonds were one of the biggest pop bands on the planet in the early part of the 70s. In fact the Osmonds first big hit in the UK was “One Bad Apple” which is a very good song, but in my opinion is very much identikit Jackson 5. What do you think?
See You Jimmy
James Arthur Osmond, (for that is Little Jimmy’s real name) went on to become quite a good friend of Michael Jackson. He went on to work for the King Of Pop during the ‘Bad’ Tour in the 80s. The Japanese leg of the tour was sponsored by Pepsi and the Japanese TV Company Nippon TV. It was Jimmy that negotiated the sponsorship deal with Nippon TV.
Here is Master Osmond with that bloody song!
And if you thought that was annoying how about his cover of the Connie Francis song “Tweedle Dee”?
OK people after last year you know exactly how to stop the X Factor winner making it to the UK number one spot over Christmas this year. Last time around pop muppet Joe McElderry was beaten to the Christmas number one by the brilliant “Killing In The Name Of” by Rage Against The Machine. This year there is another opportunity to prevent the X Factor lording over the charts once again.
This time it is going to be ” 4’33” ” a recreation of John Cage’s most famous avant-garde work. Well ok Emperor’s New Clothes time here, it is in fact 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. This may sound somewhat mental, however by downloading the piece you will be helping a number of charities including, Calm, a service for young men at risk of suicide, the British Tinnitus Association, Youth Music, Nordoff RobbinsMusic Therapy and Sound & Music, a charity promoting challenging new music and sound art. On top of that you will dent the next X Factor Muppets progress.
If only he'd been clearer about his wish. He hadn't really wished for a 12 inch pianist had he?
Many artists have participated by errr….. recording their silence. Those include; Fyfe Dangerfield off of the Guillemots, Unkle’s James Lavelle, Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip, some Kooks, Heaven 17, Matty off of the Infadels, Suggs off of Madness, Orbital, Pendulum and Billy Bragg. Pete Doherty apparently failed to turn up. Read the story here on the BBC News site. Join the Facebook campaign here and let’s make Cage Against The Machine the Christmas Number One this year!
By the way, I realise there is no real title to this post, but what did you expect?
Well aren’t those December days just rushing past, this is the sixth day of my UK Christmas Number Ones Advent Calendar and therefore it must be (a bit of an easy one this) December 6th. So go ahead put your fingernail in the frame of the little cardboard door and pull it open carefully. Todays song takes us back to Christmas 1981. It’s those good Sheffield folk, the Human League with a little ditty called “Don’t You Want Me”. It was number one for five weeks in total and became the 30th different UK Christmas number one.
The hair and make-up artist left the country after this job
It was the band’s only UK number one and also reached the top in the US charts as well. They went on to have a further number one in the US with the excellent “Human” in 1986. “Don’t You Want Me” has become a bit af a party staple, I certainly play it at pretty much every mobile DJ gig I ever do. Yet another 80s song that I like, what’s up with me? The 80s was generally crap, wasn’t it?
In the early days Phil could only afford half a haircut
The band released their first single, “Being Boiled” in June 1978. The NME review was quite positive, although guest reviewer John Lydon dismissed the band as trendy hippies. Apparently David Bowie saw them play live at the end of 1978 and allegedly claimed that he had ‘seen the future of Pop Music’. They were even name checked in the Undertones song “My Perfect Cousin” with the line; ‘His mother bought him a synthesiser/Got the Human League in to advise her/Now he’s making lots of noise/Playing along with the art school boys’ An obvious dig at arty music too.
Nowadays Phil (like me) doesn't have any hair to cut
The band originally included Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh who both left in 1980 following a big bust up with Phil Oakey. They went on to form Heaven 17 and thanks to the Human League’s Virgin contract Marsh and Ware also received 1% of royalties from the next League album, which was ‘Dare’ home of “Don’t You Want Me”
The song has been covered a few times, including versions by Alcazar, Mandy Smith and the Farm. Click on the artist names to see and hear those versions.
Enjoy the original Human league video for the song below.
And finally here they are performing the song on Top Of The Pops
It’s already December 5th, just less than three weeks before the bearded weirdie arrives on his sleigh, and those little cardboards doors on my UK Christmas Number Ones Advent Calendar a falling like dominoes. Today brings you a veritable treat from the 80s and regular readers will know that’s a decade that is my least favourite in musical terms!
Chris and Neil make a blatant bid for a hit in Russia, either that or they were on the FIFA committee that just awarded the 2018 World Cup to them
Ladies and gentlemen and those gender or species uncertains amongst you I give you the Pet Shop Boys. Their cover of the classic “Always On My Mind” was number one at Christmas 1987 where it stayed for four weeks. Incidentally my daughter Lauren was born that year so that was her first Christmas and just like then she is always on my mind now, even though she may not think so.
Initially the Pet Shop Boys bricked it when asked to cover an Elvis song, but once they had 'Lego' of their anxieties they were fine!
The duo first played the song earlier in the year as part of a TV show to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. It was so well liked that they decided to record it and release it as a single and the rest as they say, is history! Elvis recorded his version in 1972 shortly after the song had been released as an US single by Brenda Lee. She was one of my Dad’s all time favourite singers. It is believed that the song has been recorded by at least 300 different acts. In addition to Elvis, Brenda Lee and the Pet Shop Boys, my favourite version is probably that by Willie Nelson. His cover was released in 1982 and reached the top spot on the US Country Chart that year.
Th boys prepare, rather badly in fact, for their cover of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers"
The Pet Shop Boys version was the third of their four UK number ones, they only reached number one in the US chart once. That was with “West End Girls” which was their first UK number one. They did however reach the summit of the US Dance Charts some nine times between 1984 and 2009. Finally, for the record, the group’s name has absolutely nothing to do with hamsters, guinea pigs, cardboard tubes and insertion into bodily orifices. They were originally known as West End and Chris and Neil felt that the nickname of their two friends who worked in a pet shop would work better than that!
Enjoy the Pet Shop Boys video for the song from 1987 below
