Did you hear Mr Bowie‘s Elvis impersonating Christmas message on 6 Music‘s ‘This Is Radio Clash’ show presented by Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon this yuletide? I didn’t when it was broadcast but I have now! (Click here to hear it on the Rolling Stone magazine website). I know that Bowie was an Elvis fan and that he shares a birthday with the King, January 8th albeit 12 years apart. But I have never heard him do the voice before. It has been said that Bowie was trying to get Elvis to record “Golden Years” but it never happened because Elvis went and died on us.
It’s December 16th and therefore day 16 of the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem advent posts. I’m enjoying the music in these advent posts and I hope that you are too. So on to two songs with the number sixteen in their title.
The first song for today is from Ernest Jennings Ford who was better known as Tennessee Ernie Ford. The song is about working in a coal mine and it is called “Sixteen Tons” it reached number 1 in the US charts in 1955. The song has been recorded by many artists; including Stevie Wonder, the Redskins, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Bo Diddley, Robbie Williams, Dandy Warhols, Tom Morello and the Eels. Whilst Elvis Presley never recorded the song he did play it live when touring the US in 1955. The Clash had the Ford version of the song played just before they came on stage during their ‘Sixteen Tons’ US tour in 1980.
The second for today features an artist that appeared as part of one of his earlier bands on day 7 of my advent posts. It’s Jack White with a track taken from his first solo album, ‘Blunderbuss’ released in 2012. White says that the inspiration for the song came from his daughter. When Jack asked her what she would like as a snack she said sixteen saltine crackers, he said she could have three. The singles B Side was a cover of U2’s “Love Is Blindness“. The single was sadly largely ignored in the UK reaching only number 129 in the UK singles chart. The album went to number one in the UK though and also reached the top in Belgium, Canada, Switzerland and the USA.
Fifty seven years ago in 1956 Frank Sinatra had the honour of becoming the first artist to have a UK number one album with ‘Songs For Swingin Lovers‘. Since then there have now been 1,000 number ones; sadly the thousandth is Robbie Williams‘ second swing album, ‘Swings Both Ways’. It’s such a shame that it couldn’t have been Jake Bugg with his new album, ‘Shangri La’. But I suppose it might have been worse given that Lady Gaga’s ‘ARTPOP‘ was 999th.
I thought I’d check out which rock ‘n’ roll gods had the 666th UK number one album and it wasn’t any kind of god or devil just Nickleback with ‘Silver Side Up’
Robbie has now had eleven solo number one albums, equalling Elvis Presley. If you count his number ones with Take That it’s fifteen which is the same number as the Beatles. However Robbie is way behind on the weeks spent at number one in the UK albums chart list. The Beatles top that at 174 weeks with Robbie languishing in sixth place with just 31 weeks. The acts between him and the Beatles are Elvis Presley (63 weeks), Abba (57), Rolling Stones (45) and Simon and Garfunkel (40). I suspect Gary Barlow will have the 1,001st number one next week with his new album, which from what I have heard might rate as the dullest UK number one album for some time! Click here to read more about Robbie on the BBC.
I’m a bit late with this but I thought the 2013 YouTube awards deserved a mention. (Thanks for the reminder Mr H). The highest profile awards went to Eminem who was artist of the year and Girl’s Generation a South Korean K-Pop group won the video of the year for their song “I Got A Boy”. Other winners were;
Response of the Year:Lindsey Stirling & Pentatonix, “Radioactive”
I felt that it was a nice surprise that Lady Gaga, who played a new song “Dope” at the awards show, won no awards. Eminem has also been in the news a lot recently. His recent UK number one single “The Monster” featuring Rihanna was the seventh consecutive year that Rihanna has had a UK number one. Only Elvis Presley and the Beatles have managed that before. In a two sevens clash numerical coincidence Eminem’s new album ‘The Marshall Mathers LP 2″ became his seventh consecutive UK number one album. He is the first US artist to acheive this feat.
This is apparently the 666th post on this blog, so I thought I’d celebrate that with devilishly beastly top 13 Satan songs. I’d also love to hear what other songs you might have chosen. Given that we are days away from Halloween I suppose that this borders on being a topical post too 🙂
It’s now day 5 of my 12 days of Christmas series and that can only mean one thing right? Well five things actually and all of those are gold rings. Yes, on the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me five gold rings. Go on admit it you sang that line in your head just like it goes in the tune didn’t you? Had you bought your five gold rings in 1970 they would now be worth considerably more. In December 1970 gold was valued at £15.64 an ounce, earlier this month its value was £1,060.95 an ounce. Some interpretations of the 12 days of Christmas suggest that the gold rings are in fact goldspinks which as old name for a goldfinch. However I have based my choice of songs on the gold rings and I have two great songs for you.
Firstly we go to the King, kind of appropriate for Christmas don’t you think? Yes it’s Elvis Aaron Presley with “Wear My Ring (Around Your Neck)”. The song was written by Bert Carroll and Russell Moody and was released in 1958. Up to that point Elvis had achieved a string of ten consecutive number ones on the Billboard Hot 100, but this song stalled at number two. It made it to number three in the UK. Did you know that Elvis’ father Vernon’s middle name was Elvis or that his mother Gladys’ middle name was Love? You didn’t? Well you do now. It has been said that Elvis once entered an Elvis lookalike contest and only came third. However whilst this is a great story that is probably all it is. It was an item printed in the Weekly World News which is about as reliable in the truth department as the National Enquirer or perhaps the Sunday Sport in the UK.
The second of this posts songs is the soul classic “Band Of Gold” by Freda Payne. It was a million seller in 1970 where it reached number one in the UK but only number three in the US. It was also her biggest hit on both sides of the Atlantic. It was released on the Invictus label which had been set up by the Holland Dozier Holland team after they left Motown. “Band Of Gold” was written by Edythe Wayne and Ron Dunbar but it was produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier. The lead guitar on the song comes from Ray Parker Jr and two former Motown backing vocalists provided vocal backing for Freda. Those backing vocalists were Joyce Vincent Wilson and Telma Hopkins, both later went on to join Tony Orland as part of Tony Orlando and Dawn. Did you know that Freda’s sister Scherrie was a member of the post Diana Ross Supremes for a while? When I began as a mobile DJ back in the 70s some of the advice I received from an old sage of a DJ was to never play this song at a wedding reception as it is all about break up. That’s true but hell it’s a great dance track isn’t it. So I must confess to the world that I have indeed played the song at wedding receptions.
Two Goldfinches, the whereabouts of the other three are currently unknown!
This month, November 2012, marks the 60th anniversary of the UK singles chart which began in the NME in 1952. We’ve come a long way from crooner Al Martino‘s “Here In My Heart” all those years ago to the current resident of the number one spot in the UK singles chart; Robbie Williams with “Candy”. Maybe we haven’t come too far though as Robbie does fancy himself as a crooner doesn’t he. I must confess that Robbie’s current number 1 is one of the few songs of his that I like.
The chart now includes downloads which have helped to boost sales of singles considerably. Apparently there have been 3.7 billion singles sold in that 60 year period in all formats. But the peak for the physical format was the 80s which recorded 640 million singles sales. The biggest selling UK single ever was Elton John’s “Candle In The Wind ’97” which was the singers dedication to Princess Diana. It sold 4.9 million copies and therefore raised millions for charity. Personally I prefer the original version. Does anyone ever play the Diana version these days? Incidentally do you know what the biggest selling single never to top the charts is? It’s Wham! with “Last Christmas/ Everything She Wants” which lost out to Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas” which is the second best-selling single ever back in 1984.
There have been more than 1,200 number ones in the chart’s history. The artists with most number one singles in the UK are;
As a teenager I can still recall lining up my cassette recorder microphone near the transistor radio to record my favourite songs from the Radio 1 chart rundown back in the 70s. How many of you did the same? I know of at least one fellow blogger who did. You can check out his excellent post on this chart milestone on his Every Record tells A Story blog by clicking here. You’ll even be able to see him on the chart history documentary on the Beeb! Recording the charts now seems almost pointless given the availability of music on-line, which I think is a real shame. But hey that’s progress right? Talking of progress, the first ever UK number one single based on download sales alone was as far back as 2006. It was the excellent “Crazy” from Gnarls Barkley.
There are also a number of chart records an artist probably wouldn’t want though, like;
Most Top 75 hits (97 of them) without a number one. That one is the honour of the Glee Cast. I hope they keep that one forever
Most Top 40 hits without a number one is easily won by Depeche Mode with 40 of them.
But perhaps the one you really should feel sorry for is Sash! A record of five number 2 singles and no number 1.
But let me finish on a better note. The first single I ever bought was a classic UK number one in my opinion. It was “Sugar Sugar” by the Archies and stayed at the top for 8 weeks at the tail end of 1969. Personally I fell that the charts will stay with us for many years yet, albeit very much adapted from the old days of purely physical sales. I would love to hear your thoughts on this fabulous UK Charts anniversary.
According to the Mail OnLine (so let’s treat the information cautiously) dogs prefer classical music to heavy metal and they don’t seem to like those cheap relaxing music for your canine friend CDs either. I wonder if that has anything to do with the location of their sub woofer? Click here to read the full article.
Anyway I thought that I’d like to try a little experiment about how true this is. So here are a few dog related songs that I would like you to play to your mutt and tell me what reaction you get. Unfortunately I can’t do that as I only have cats.
I always get a bit of a good feeling when a favourite song, or even one that I recognise is mentioned in a story, do you? My favourite author Stephen King does it quite often. Now there is a regularly updated site called Small Demons that have compiled a list of the songs mentioned most often in works of fiction. Click here to read about it in the NME. Here is the top 20;
1. The Beatles – ‘Hey Jude’
2. Elvis Presley – ‘Heartbreak Hotel’
3. Led Zeppelin – ‘Stairway To Heaven’
4. USA For Africa – ‘We Are The World’
5. Abba – ‘Dancing Queen’
6. Carl Perkins – ‘Blue Suede Shoes‘
7. The Beatles – ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds‘
8. The Beatles – ‘Eleanor Rigby’
9. Nirvana – ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’
10. Queen – ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
11. Los Del Rio – ‘The Macarena’
12. Michael Jackson – ‘Beat it’
13. Creedence Clearwater Revival – ‘Proud Mary’
14. OneRepublic – ‘Apologize’
15. The Beatles – ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’
16. The Beatles – ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’
17. ‘Lili Marleen’ (first recorded by Lale Andersen)
18. Michael Jackson – ‘Billie Jean’
19. Bob Dylan – ‘Like A Rolling Stone’
20. Rolling Stones – ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’
I get why some of these would appear, but USA For Africa, “Macarena” and “Apologize”? What’s that all about? “Hey Jude” has been mentioned in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. The Beatles have a probably unsurprising five titles in the top 20 with Michael Jackson the only other artist with more than one with his two entries. I suppose an entry for the Fab Four‘s “Paperback Writer” would have been quite apt wouldn’t it? Click here to see a longer and nicely pictorial list.
I guess most of you have already heard of the sad passing of the great Andy Williams. I can remember watching his show when I was a kid; he introduced the Osmonds to the world and who from my generation can forget the Cookie Monster? I went through a period in my teens where I told myself I didn’t like Andy Williams’ music because it was classed as Easy Listening and my Mum and Dad liked it. As a teenager, certainly in those days, it was just really uncool to like the music your parents liked, although I did let Elvis through that cool versus uncool sieve.
But as I got older I began to realise just how talented a singer Mr Williams was. He could take a song that was completely identifiable with another artist and make it his own. Notably “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” the Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons classic. (I do still love Frankie’s version as well). He could take a song and sing it so well that any cover would pale into insignificance, I’m mostly talking of “Can’t Get Used To Losing You” here. Then of course there is his truly sublime version of the beautiful “Moon River“.
People will say that to leave this mortal coil at 84 is a good innings and maybe it is, compared to many, but Andy Williams will be sadly missed. So my feelings go out to his family, friends and his legions of fans across the world. RIP Andy Williams, you were a true icon.
Did you hear Mr Bowie‘s Elvis impersonating Christmas message on 6 Music‘s ‘This Is Radio Clash’ show presented by Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon this yuletide? I didn’t when it was broadcast but I have now! (Click here to hear it on the Rolling Stone magazine website). I know that Bowie was an Elvis fan and that he shares a birthday with the King, January 8th albeit 12 years apart. But I have never heard him do the voice before. It has been said that Bowie was trying to get Elvis to record “Golden Years” but it never happened because Elvis went and died on us.
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 