English Musical Hits Vol-1

History :
             Suffice it to say that the British experience of pop music was quite different from the American. There were more holdovers from the music- hall era of pre-War entertainment (rather like vaudeville). Pop crooners and bands tried for all the world to imitate American songsmiths. Sometimes you got a flash of inspiration, and then it was exclusive to British teens alone (like skiffle music---America had none of this!) Then there was the wireless (American English: radio). There were no top-40 AM stations in England, all pounding a pop message to youngsters throughout the States, but rather the benevolent BBC ("The Beeb"), which only gradually allowed rock and roll to transgress its airwaves. Most of the really good stuff came creeping across the channel via clandestine "pirate" stations aboard stationary ships like Radio Caroline, or continental stalwarts like Radio Luxembourg---now *they* had the music-lover in mind!

            What the teenage Beatles grew up with, in their own pop music culture, was substantially different from the American experience...so much so that this note was created for your enjoyment and edification. In it you'll find a list of groups and singers who entered and exited the pop charts of the UK from the fifties through the end of the sixties--- the singers who influenced several generations of music listeners. It's not an all-inclusive list; it stops roughly when the British Invasion ceased to have an effect on the US, about 1968. There were groups aplenty after this, but the wave had slowed, and it's the wave, and its imperceptible precursors, that interest us. What was the Beatles' milieu? What might they have heard? And while we know what American music did for them, what did British music *fail* to do? Why did they retreat from skiffle, the Shadows, Adam Faith, and create a whole new world of harmonic complexity and beauty, just for them and us? Maybe by reading about that background---the styles the Beatles abandoned---you'll be inspired to seek out some of it, and hear for yourself.

WINIFRED ATWELL (a.k.a. "Wonderful Winnie")

- Songs include:
Britannia Rag (1952 *and* 1953)
Coronation Rag (1953)
Let's Have A Party (1953)
Let's Have Another Party (1954)
Poor People of Paris (1956)
Piano Party (1959)
- Winifred Atwell was of West Indian descent and made a big name for
herself as a rollicking pianist in the early fifties. Her act included
two pianos, between which Wonderful Winnie would whirl, as the mood
and music suited her. Most of her chart hits were medleys of other
popular songs of earlier eras, such as (I kid you not) "Knees Up, Mother
Brown", "Sheik of Araby", "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles", "Meet Me Tonight
in Dreamland", and "I Belong to Glasgow."

THE BACHELORS

- Songs include:
Charmaine (1963)
Faraway Places (1963)
Whispering (1963)
Diane (1964)
I Believe (1964)
Marie (1965)
etc.
- The Bachelors were a hit, it has been suggested, just by virtue of
their thick Irish accents, and were most popular with the mums and dads
who enjoyed regular, predictable, "clean" television and radio. They
managed to enter the American hit parade with several songs after the
British Invasion, but had little staying power.

KENNY BALL'S BAND

- Songs include: Teddy Bear's Picnic (1961) Samantha (1961) Someday (1961) Midnight in Moscow (1961) March of the Siamese Children (1962) So Do I (1962) Green Leaves of Summer (1962) Sukiyaki (1963) etc. - Kenny Ball was a trumpet player in the Terry Lightfoot's trad band when he decided to strike out on his own. His band was one of the Mighty Triumvirate of Trad Bands in England---the other two being Mr. Acker Bilk's and Chris Barber's. Like his cohorts, Ball was able to trade on the British public's incessant thirst for American musical forms, and his biggest hit, "Midnight in Moscow" (a trad reworking of a well-known Russian folk ballad), not only became a hit in Britain, but also in the States. 

CHRIS BARBER'S JAZZ BAND

- Songs include:
Petite Fleur (1959)
Lonesome (1959)
Revival (1962)
- Chris Barber's vision was less commercial and more "ethnic" than
his trad cohorts, with the result that he had very little chart
action during trad's heyday, though he had his dedicated followers. He
also refused to dress up in fin-de-siecle costumes, a la Mr. Bilk & Co.
Lonnie Donegan, who singlehandedly started the skiffle craze, had
been a banjo player in Chris Barber's band; and the band's one major
success (in America too) was their "Petite Fleur" (an old Sidney
Bechet tune), on which the lead clarinetist was Monty Sunshine
(I wonder if Larry Parnes gave him his name? :-) Chris Barber and his
ilk got lots of airtime from the BBC, but eventually overexposure
and a relentless new sound from Merseyside drowned out the rhythms

DAVE BERRY

- Songs include:
Memphis (1963)
My Baby Left Me (1964)
Baby It's You (1964)
The Crying Game (1964)
One Heart Between Two (1964)
Little Things (1964)
This Strange Effect (1965)
Mama (1966)
- Mr. Berry (who changed his name from David Holgate Grundy) started
out in a duo, a la the Everly Bros., and teamed up with a backing group
called the Cruisers in 1961. After being introduced to the band by producer
Mickie Most (whose stable included Herman's Hermits), the dreaded Mike
Smith at Decca allowed Dave and the Cruisers to record "Memphis", then
insisted that subsequent recordings include a studio band in back of
Mr. Berry. He had a few hits, including a cover of Bobby Goldsboro's
"Little Things"; and a weird stage act which emphasized Mr. Berry's
penchant for black clothing and odd hand and microphone "ballets". In
the eighties, he rerecorded several of his hits, to no success.

CLIFF BENNETT AND THE REBEL ROUSERS

- Cliff Bennett, Sid Phillips, Ricky Winters, Frank Allen [later moved to the Searchers], Chas Hodges, Maurice Groves. - Songs: You Got What I Like (1961) That's What I Said (1961) Poor Joe (1962) One Way Love (1964) I'll Take You Home (1965) Got to Get You Into My Life (1966) Drivin' You Wild (1966) - A group from West Drayton near London, Bennett and friends produced a string of Parlophone non-hits from 1961; were booked to Hamburg's Star Club; intrigued Brian Epstein, who added them to his stable of Nems stars; and then began to see real chart action in the UK in 1964. Their biggest success was a cover of the Beatles' "Got to Get You Into My Life" in 1966, but by 1967 they were yesterday's papers. The group broke up; Bennett has appeared briefly (in 1974 and 1982) for revivals, but when last encountered was an aviation sales executive. 

JOE BROWN

- Songs include:
People Gotta Talk (1959)
Darktown Strutter's Ball
Jellied Eels (1960)
I'm Henry the Eighth I Am (1961)
What a Crazy World We're Living In (1962)
Picture of You (1962)
It Only Took a Minute (1962)
That's What Love Will Do (1963)
etc.
- Joe Brown was a talented East Ender whose visual signature, even more
than the toothy Tommy Steele, was a bright, shaggy blond crew cut. He
had been a guitarist who favored instrumentals and songs about Cockney
life (Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits covered several Joe Brown hits
in the mid-sixties) but hit the big time with "Picture of You" in
1962, a haunting, charming song about a lost love. His backing group,
the Bruvvers (renamed from The Spacemen), were jetisoned after the big
hits and Brown explored musical comedy in the mid- to late-sixties.
Brown headlined a tour in 1962 in which the Beatles took part; there
exists a photo of George rapturously holding Brown's guitar, and George(clearly the fan) sings "Picture of You" during the BBC sessions.

MAX BYGRAVES

- Songs include (1953-1959):
Cowpuncher's Cantata
Tulips from Amsterdam
Meet Me on the Corner
You Need Hands
- Mr. Bygraves had made his career as a comedian in London's East
End and turned to a recording career in 1953, after his personality-
filled act was already well established. He was a predecessor of other
comedians and groups (like the Goons) who turned to music to further
their popularity; remarkably (or perhaps not so), he was one of several
singers to reach the charts ahead of established balladeers like Dickie
Valentine of the early fifties.

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