On 23rd March 1967 at a ceremony held at the Playhouse Theatre in London, The Beatles were awarded three Ivor Novello awards. These were for 1966: Best-selling British single “Yellow Submarine”,(Effectively the ‘A’ Side of the Record Issued in 1966 Which Achieved the Highest Certified British Sales) most-performed song “Michelle”, and next-most-performed song “Yesterday”. Incidentally fact fans, the most covered Beatles song is “Yesterday,” with over 2,200 covers, according to Guinness World Records, and is also considered the most covered song of all time. Meanwhile the band’s most played song is “Here Comes the Sun” it has racked up over a billion streams on Spotify, making it the only Beatles track to reach that milestone.
None of the Beatles attended the Ivor Novello ceremony back in ’67 and the winning songs were played by Joe Loss and his Orchestra. The lead vocal for “Michelle” was sung by Ross MacManus, whose son would go on to become the professional musician Elvis Costello. In 1970, Ross MacManus recorded a version of The Beatles’ song “The Long And Winding Road” under the pseudonym of Day Costello, which spent 17 weeks in the Australian chart, peaking at number 16. He was also the man responsible for the music and vocals from the R. White’s Lemonade television advertisement theme song “Secret Lemonade Drinker”, on which MacManus Junior (a.k.a. Elvis Costello) sang backing vocals.
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