1964 - Britain Invades the US Music Charts

The British Invasion - That time in 1964, when the US began to be flooded with acts from the UK, acts that didn't just come over, test the water, and then retreat to their little island off of continental Europe, but who came, saw, and conquered the hearts and minds of the American listening public. Who brought with them music that started appearing on the charts, even reaching the coveted number one spot on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 Singles chart. Who changed the face of popular music forever.

Nine singles by British acts hit number one during the first year of the British Invasion, out of 23 songs that reached the top of the chart in 1964 (if I counted correctly). Among those 23 chart-toppers were a variety of musical styles by a variety of artists. Dean Martin had a number one that year with "Everybody Loves Somebody", on the week of August 15. So did Louis Armstrong and the All Stars, when "Hello, Dolly!" reached to top spot during the week of May 9. "Chapel of Love", by the Dixie Cups, spent three weeks at number one in June. The Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack" was the number one song in the US during the week of November 28. A mostly spoken-word single by actor Lorne Greene, something called "Ringo" but having nothing to do with The Beatles' drummer, spent a week at number one at the beginning of December. The Supremes got to number one twice during the year, with "Baby Love", which spent the last week of October and the first three weeks of November at number one, and with "Come See About Me", which was the number one song in the US for the week of December 19. Bobby Vinton charted twice in 1964, at the beginning of the year, when "There! I've Said It Again" spent all of January at number one, and again near the end of the year, when "Mr. Lonely" hit number one during the week of December 12. The Beach Boys spent the first to weeks of July at number one with "I Get Around". You can look here for the full list of number one singles from 1964.

Here is just a sampling of the US-based artists who managed to get a song to number one in 1964:

This is Dean Martin and "Everybody Loves Somebody". This is a real indication, compared to some of the other music released in 1964, of how music was changing at the time:



Here is "Leader of the Pack", by The Shangri-Las:



And, The Beach Boys, in a live performance of "I Get Around":



Of the nine singles by British artists that rose to the top of the charts in the US in 1964, six of them were by The Beatles. It's difficult not to add "of course" to that statement. It was the Fab Four, after all, who led the invasion of UK acts into the United States and around the world. The songs the Beatles took all the way to number one were "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "She Loves You", "Can't Buy Me Love", "Love Me Do", "A Hard Day's Night", and "I Feel Fine". It was the beginning of a track record that saw 20 singles by the band hitting number one in their career, the most of any artist in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" stayed at the top the longest of any of The Beatles' 1964 number ones, topped only by "Hey, Jude", with a 9-week run at number one in 1968. In order, "She Loves You" was at number one for two weeks, while "Can't Buy Me Love" was number one for five weeks, "Love Me Do" for one week, "A Hard Day's Night" for two weeks, and "I Feel Fine" for three weeks".

This live performance of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" comes along with some British humor at the end:



And this is one of my favorite Beatles' songs:



Of the three other singles by British artists that hit number one in 1964, "A World Without Love", by Peter and Gordon, spent a week at number one in June, The Animals' "House of the Rising Sun" spent three weeks at number one in September, and "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", by Manfred Mann, spent two weeks at the top of the chart in October.

Peter and Gordon's "A World Without Love" was billed as a Lennon/McCartney composition, but it was McCartney's song:



As a bit of trivia, "A World Without Love" was one of only two Lennon/McCartney compositions taken to number one by other artists on the US charts. The other was Elton John's cover of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds", in 1974.

"House of the Rising Sun" is a traditional folk song that had been recorded as early as 1934, but The Animals' version was the most successful of many covers and went to number one not only in the UK and the US, but also in Canada, Sweden, and Finland:



The version of "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy" by Manfred Mann that went to the top of the charts in the US and in the UK is a cover of a song first recorded in 1963 by The Exciters, an American band:



It is interesting, I think that, while non-UK artists' singles spent much more time that did British Invasion artists at the top of the US charts in 1964, four of the five top-charting singles of the year, the songs that reached the highest point on charts worldwide, were from British Invasion artists. The only artist and song in that top five was Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman", at number two. The Beatles held the number one spot with "I Want to Hold Your Hand", the number four spot with "A Hard Day's Night", and the number five spot with "I Feel Fine". The Animals had the third-highest charting single worldwide in 1964 with "The House of the Rising Sun".

By 1968, British influence at the top of the US singles charts had fallen back to pre-Invasion levels, with The Beatles' "Hey, Jude" being the only single by a British act to reach number one, although it did manage to stay at number one from the week of September 28 through the week of November 23, the longest run at the top for any of The Beatles' singles. British influence on the US singles charts had peaked in 1965 with twelve number ones from British artists, four of them by The Beatles and two each from The Rolling Stones and Herman's Hermits. The only other act that hit number one in both 1964 and 1968, as a side note, was The Supremes, by then billed as Diana Ross & The Supremes, an indication of how much turnover there had been in popular musical acts, no matter where they were from, between 1964 and 1968. Further indication of the changes that had come about in such a short time is that in 1964, The Beatles had been singing about holding hands, while The Supremes' song that hit number one in 1968 was "Love Child".

Music Sunday: The Boss Radio Edition

I've been waiting until about the time I went on hiatus here to write this Music Sunday blog post.

Unless you grew up in the 1960s and early 1970s, you might not have any idea about what I want to share today and why I'm so happy about it. It could be a matter of "you had to be there" to really appreciate it. Nevertheless, I'm going to share anyway.

A few weeks ago, having nothing better to do with my time (or, at least, being bored with the things I should have been doing), I sat down to see what was on the radio. Except for one FM oldies station and the local NPR outlet, I've sort of given up on radio the past few years because the stations we have around here are pretty drab. I don't like the formats of the FM stations, or they just play music that I'm not particularly enthusiastic about, and all I can find on AM has been right-wing talk radio and sports-talk stations. So I'd just gotten to where I don't even go there anymore.

However, on this particular evening, looking on the AM dial, I discovered that my town has a station that has reinstituted the "Boss Radio" AM Top 40 format that was so popular around the time I was first getting into music in the Sixties. I say "reinstituted" because the station, KYNO, was apparently one of the first stations to adopt the format back in the day. Another of the first stations to adopt the format was KHJ in Los Angeles, the station I grew up listening to before FM radio was a thing. Sadly, the station I discovered is not really true Boss Radio because it isn't really local, but more a syndicated robo-station. But it still plays the old music, tunes you aren't likely to run into on most classic rock stations. Oh, they play the Beatles and the Stones and so forth, but they also play the songs that are, perhaps, a little too much of their time to have remained as popular as the classics.

For example, there is "Love is Blue", from 1968 and a French bandleader named Paul Mauriat. This is an instrumental that is one of my favorite pieces of music from the time. Apparently there were also versions with lyrics, but I like this, as I first heard it, just fine:



And then there's this, from 1964 - The Dave Clark Five and "Glad All Over":



It's kind of funny to me that in the comments section where I found this clip on YouTube, there's an argument over whether this kind of music, and this song in particular is good or "crap", or whether what is crap is what passes for pop music now. While I will admit that I'm more in the corner of 60s pop over some of the music that is more current, I've never really understood why people will argue over this sort of thing. I don't see music, most of the time, as bad or good, but rather in terms of whether or not I like it personally. The same thing was true back in the day, and there were arguments like this then, as well. Probably will be, as long as music exists, and while I generally tend to share the music that I like here, I'm never going to insist that everyone should like it or that people who don't like the same kind of music I like are wrong.

But, I digress.

And, anyway, music in the Sixties wasn't just mindless pop. Some songs were topical, and some were fairly controversial. There was, for example, "Love Child", by Diana Ross (although the song was billed as by Diana Ross and the Supremes, session singers rather than the other members of the group sang the background vocals). In 1968, when this song came out, it was still not considered polite to discuss the subject of children born out of wedlock, no matter which side of the argument was being aired. But, it was and is a great song:



Another song, not especially controversial in itself, although it takes on fairly gritty subject matter, but which became an anthem for US forces fighting in Vietnam, was "We Gotta Get Out of This Place", by Eric Burdon and the Animals. This live performance of the song is from the Richmond Jazz Festival in England in 1965:



But, the truth is that the Sixties were also the time of "bubblegum" pop, and one wonders how songs like this one, "Simple Simon Says", by the 1910 Fruitgum Company, ever reached the charts, much less hit #4 in the US and #2 in the UK and sold five million copies after it was released in 1967:



I guess a catchy tune will get you a long way, and I kind of think of this as the Sixties version of "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go", which also has a catchy tune and pretty much no substance to it.

But, like I said, for me music comes in two flavors, music I like and music I don't like as much, and I really do like a lot of 60s pop and rock, and it is fun hearing some of these songs again. Even the ones, like "Simple Simon Says" and "Elenor", by the Turtles (who seem to have had a talent for taking just about any song and making it silly - not necessarily a criticism, but just an observation):

Music Sunday: The 1964 Edition

1964 was an important year for me, musically speaking.

It was the year I became aware of rock and roll, at the tender age of seven. I think I've probably written about that here before, about how I watched The Beatles the first time they were on The Ed Sullivan Show, peeking from around the piano because I was supposed to be in bed. It was a school day the next day, after all. It was quite an awakening for me, and after that, when my friends from second grade were running home after school to watch cartoons, I was running home to watch the local music/dance shows, mostly in the same tradition as American Bandstand.

I was a sickeningly precocious child, I suppose. But it was good music.

The Beatles, of course, hit the charts with several records that year. There was "She Loves You" and "I Want To Hold Your Hand", of course, as well as "Can't Buy Me Love", "I Feel Fine", and "Twist and Shout". My favorite from that year, though, was "A Hard Day's Night", from their first film:



The Animals released "House of the Rising Sun" in 1964. Here they perform the song for a television show in the UK in July of '64:



Meanwhile, on the US side of the Atlantic, The Beach Boys released "I Get Around". In this clip, from November 6,1964, the band performs both "I Get Around" and "When I Grow Up", on Ready Steady Go. It was their first television appearance in the UK:



It wasn't just the men who were making the charts in 1964. Here is Mary Wells, singing "My Guy", in a promotional clip from that year:



Also released in 1964 was "Dancing in the Street", co-written by Marvin Gaye and performed by Martha and the Vandellas, here in a performance on Ready Steady Go:



Rock and roll wasn't the only music that was popular in 1964, though. For example, Shirley Bassey had a big hit with the title song from the James Bond film "Goldfinger". Here is how it appears over the opening credits in the film:



1964 was a good year for music, and there are a lot more songs I would have liked to share, but I think these are enough for now. Enjoy.

Music Sunday, Part Two

Well, it looks like YouTube is working again, and so here is the rest of this week's installment.

As I said, The Animals are one of my favorite British Invasion groups. This is one of their first songs, released in 1965, "We Gotta Get Out of This Place". I'm not sure where this live performance comes from, but it must be from right around the time the song came out:



There were actually two versions of the song, and this is the UK version, with the words, "Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin'...", rather than the "See my daddy in bed a-dyin'", as it appears in the US version. The source I was reading wasn't really clear on why there are two versions, but I think it is an interesting bit of trivia.

Also from 1965 is "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood". This is a cover, as the song was first recorded by Nina Simone in 1964. This is another live performance clip, this time from an actual concert rather than from a TV appearance, in which Eric Burdon gets a little dramatic mid-song:



This early line-up of the band had broken up by fall of 1966, but by the end of the year, a second incarnation of the band, still fronted by Eric Burdon, had formed. Besides the changes in personnel, the music was a bit different, as well.

In 1967, this new line-up produced a couple of songs very much influenced by Burdon's time in California. First, this live performance on a CBC television show of "San Franciscan Nights". This is a really interesting performance in that it is clearly truly live, and not lip-synced. I like this song a lot anyway, and I really like this performance of it:



Also in 1967, came "Monterey". The Animals performed at the Monterey Pop Festival, and this song came directly from that experience. This live performance looks like it came from the same CBC TV broadcast as the previous one:



And, just because I can...

In 1970, Eric Burdon recorded a song with War called "Spill the Wine". It is a surrealistic song that I loved when it came out when I was in the eighth grade and that I still have a huge amount of fondness for today. And so, here it is, in all it's glory:

Music Sunday - The Late Sixties/Early Seventies Edition

I like new music, old music, most kinds of music. It seems to me, however, that the period between 1967 and 1973 or so produced an amazing variety of good music - or at least a lot of music I liked when it came out and still like listening to today.

The thing that got me thinking about this this week was a surprise re-hearing of a song from 1969, "Ruby (Don't Take Your Love to Town)", by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. It was a song I liked when it was released, but I had nearly forgotten about it in the intervening years and it kind of surprised me to discover how glad I was to hear it again after so long. When it came on, I cranked the volume on the radio in the car and sang along - for some reason I tend to remember the lyrics of songs that I haven't heard in years - and despite the content of the song, just having heard it seemed to put me in a much better mood simply because I'd heard it.

Not that this is a song with fun, upbeat lyrics. Released during the height of US involvement in Vietnam, it tells the story of a man who was injured in the war, something that wsn't talked about a lot at the time, even with protests against the war heating up across the country and around the world. But it is a good song, and a good song is always a good thing.



Looking around for other songs from the time, I found a couple of others that are just as good, and just as good today as they were when they were recorded, also in 1969, even though they are much different than "Ruby". I found this 1989 performance by B. B. King of his 1969 hit "The Thrill Is Gone":



And then, for something completely different from either "Ruby" or "The Thrill Is Gone", there is "Come Together", the last song the Beatles ever recorded with all four of the band's members in the studio at the same time.



I think it is only appropriate to also include this song, from the following year, while the Beatles were in the process of breaking up. This is one of the first of Paul McCartney's songs as a solo artist, "Maybe I'm Amazed" which, for my money, is one of the most interesting love songs I've ever heard, and far from his later "silly love songs" period.



And, because I can, I'm going to include this song from a little earlier, The Animals' "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", from 1965. I've never been able to figure out if this is a song of rationalization or apology, but I've always liked it.



From a little later than the first songs this week, this is a live performance of "Heart of Gold", by Neil Young, from 1971 or 1972. I was lucky enough to see Young perform this song live in 1973. You'll have to bear with the first minute or two of the video, with Young searching for the right harmonica before he performs the song, but its worth the wait. And, really, it's kind of amusing watching him pull boxes out of various pockets before he finds the instrument he wants.



That's what? Six songs? I could post quite a few more, but this is probably enough for one Sunday. Enjoy.

Oh, and I'd love it if you'd drop a comment telling me about your favorte songs from the late 1960s and early 1970s.