Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Feeling like a number one!...

I like a nice tune now and again don't you. Soon, is it this weekend? the Tonbridge Festival of Music and Fireworks is on at the Castle. (Obviously we couldn't do without the fireworks now could we?!) If you're not around this weekend then you'll probable miss the strains of a bootleg Beatles or a Mama Mia Abba trubute band or perhaps a seventies specialist band called the Funking Bar Stewards (they're out there I promise you!) Freddie Mercury lookalikes, maybe that Michael Jackson lookylikey fellow. They may even throw in some classical numbers to make us all feel more high brow and cultural; and speaking of music, in an idle moment this morning, listening to some programme on radio 4, as I occasionally do, I suddenly realised that I didn't know what the number one hit record was when I was born. I can tell you that my daughter's was Barbie Girl, by Aqua and my son's was Boom Boom Shake the Room by DJ Jaffy and the Fresh Prince. I know this because I went out and bought the cds just so they'd have them to listen in stunned silence to when they're middle aged! But incredibly I never been bothered to find out my own. Now if I'd been born a week earlier the first number one song I'd have ever heard would have been "Wonderful Land" by The Shadows , which wouldn't have been so bad. A week later would have been really cool as The King, Elvis Presley was top of the charts with "Good Luck Charm" now that would have been something. Around at the time in May 1962 were a whole host of now famous blues singers like John Lee Hooker, the Beatles were just getting started, as were the Rolling Stones. So what was the number one, selling probably a million records, as you had to in those days to be the top selling single in the UK? It was "Nut Rocker" by B. Bumble and the Stingers (well all bands had stupid names in those days!) I'm afraid I can't say I'd ever heard of it either! I've listened to it on Spotify.com (which, by the way if you don't know, is a brilliant way of getting free music online, and it's legal!) and actually it's not that bad but an instrumental, so not even a few catchy lines to quote to you....

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whats so funny about the names of these artists who were the top 40 for may 62?
Now if you mentioned later groups like Half Man Half Biscuit,Kajagoogoo

Elvis Presley, B Bumble, The Shadows, Cliff Richard,
Ketty Lester, Brenda Lee, Adam Faith, Del Shannon,
Bruce Channel, Jimmy Justice, Billy Fury, Danny Williams,
Acker Bilk, Karl Denver, Lonnie Donegan, Roy Orbison,
Brian Hyland, Mike Sarne, Eden Kane, Sam Cooke,
Craig Douglas, Ricky Nelson, John Leyton,
Frank Sinatra, Helen Shapiro, Johnny Keating, Neil Sedaka,
Kenny Ball, Johnny Spence, Vernons, Everly Brothers,
Joe Brown, Dave Brubeck, Paul Anka, Joe Loss,
Johnny Burnette, Patti Lynn, Jet Harris

Anonymous said...

Oh you are having us on Tonbridge Blogger - more like 1950 when Max Bygraves topped the charts for weeks.

Tonbridge blogger said...

....You need haands to 'old a little baby!...

Sunny_Tonny said...

Don't pretend you weren't secretly thrilled to have an excuse to buy Barbie Girl!

Tonbridge blogger said...

Sunny Tony: Yeah you got me there!