Studying the charts of 1969 closely, as I was recently, made me think it was a funny old time for music.
Take '69, for example. More Motown than you can shake a stick at, Jimmy Ruffin, Stevie Wonder, the Supremes, Marv Johnson, Marvin Gaye, everyone teaming up with everyone else.
Then there's Creedence Clearwater Revival, with their bayou rock, and the heavier Fleetwood Mac, Delaney and Bonnie, The Move, Humble Pie, Cream, Canned Heat, Chicken Shack, the Stones, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Joe Cocker, Donovan (rockin' out with Jeff Beck) and Jethro Tull making it big.
On the pop side it's pure heaven: The Tremeloes, going through a faux-psychedilc phase, country tinged Bobbie Gentry, Glen Campbell and Kenny Rogers, the pure but more grown up by now pop of Herman's Hermits, as well as classics by Cliff Richard, Cliff and Hank, Clodagh Rogers, Lou Christie, Cilla Black, Mama Cass, Lulu, the Cufflinks and other bubblegum like The Archies, and let's not forget the social conscience of Blue Mink.
Also jostling for position is all that great skinhead reaggae stuff like Liquidator Long Shot Kick De Bucket, Israelites, Dollar In The Teeth and Wet Dream etc.
All this is a good mix that had a wide appeal to the Radio 1 audience and went on this way forever, more or less. But what puzzles me are the crooners. They're so incongruous among the aforementioned, and not what you'd call pin-up material, but they were huge: Joe Dolan, Donald Peers, Englebert Humperdink, Malcolm Roberts, Roger Whittaker, Des O'Connor - who was buying these records? Mums? Did mums buy records back then? My mum was an albums woman, but to this day she remembers Donald Peers' Top Ten smash 10 Please Don't Go. Radio 2 did not have the influence it has today.
That's not to say these songs aren't good. I downloaded Malcolm and Donald, already had the rest. They're good, proper adult crooner hits. Des O'Connor's rather late in the day paean to Swinging London Dick-A-Dum-Dum (King's Road) ticks along like a jolly bike ride down Carnaby Street. It's great. The lyrics must have been laughed at then. But it was a big hit. So who bought it? I'd love to know. Perhaps 13-year-old record buyers, before becoming a judgemental teenager and loathing anything not 'all the rage', were keeping Engleburt and co. at the top of the charts. It's intriguing.
3 comments:
This post reminds me of how much I like Dale's Pick of the Pops on R2 on Sunday afternoons. It's one of the few oldies shows that picks out records you don't hear very much, and Dale Winton is such a fan. Aaaah...
In response to your plaintive pleas for comments, I'll happily join in your theorising.
Theory 1: Anyone who was in their mid-teens when rock'n'roll broke through in the mid-50s would be approaching 30 by 1969, and for everyone who is still keeping the faith to this day, there must have been plenty whose musical tastes quickly mellowed.
Theory 2: Yes, mums almost certainly played a part; I think there's something in the genes that predisposes them to like a bit of crooning. (My very own mother asked me to buy her a copy of Spandau Ballet's 'True' when it came out!)
Theory 3: I think crooning was still pretty mainstream in 1969, and there was plenty of crossover between that world and rock and pop. Think how quickly Tom Jones went from belting out blues songs to singing cabaret-style numbers. Frank Sinatra was still packing them in in Vegas (probably in the next-door venue to Elvis), and there were plenty of people who weren't that old who'd grown up on him, Mel Torme, Dean Martin and the rest of them.
Combine all these and you've probably got some sort of explanation for the sales of Des O'Connor and co. But I'm only guessing.
I like your thinking TT. Those theories all make sense.
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