First a straightforward use of the tune with love song lyrics. I did not know until I looked this up that it had first been recorded by Nancy Sinatra in 1962. In the UK Maureen Evans had a hit with it a year later.
I know it’s not Friday but 1960s record producer Shel Talmy died earlier last week; I saw the notice a bit too late for my posting. A Chicagoan, he moved to Britain in 1962. After blagging his way into a job in the record business in London he was in charge of the mixing desk for the first hits of both the Kinks and The Who. He also produced early David Bowie tracks and Friday on my Mind for the Easybeats, the song after which my category is named, plus Mike D’Abo’s debut as lead singer for Manfred Mann, Just Like a Woman.
The Kinks: You Really Got Me
The Who: Can’t Explain
Sheldon (Shel) Talmy: 11/8/1937-13/1120/24. So it goes.
Another of the most successful songwriters of the 60s, Ken Howard, has died. Together with his songwriting partner Alan Blaikley (whose death I noted here) he wrote hits for The Honeycombs, The Herd and, most notably, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich. Their songwriting list is impressive.
This was a no 4 for the latter band in 1965.
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich: Hold Tight!
Later in their career Howard and Blaikley went into writing TV Themes and musicals.
This is perhaps the most familiar of those tunes.
Vejle Symfoniorkester: Miss Marple TV Theme
Kenneth Charles (Ken) Howard: 26/12/1939 – 24/12/2024. So it goes.
From the sublimely named LP Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake (don’t take up smoking kids). As I recall it came in a circular cardboard sleeve (and when released as a CD years later in a cylindrical tin resembling those tobacco was once sold in.)*
The Small Faces: Song of a Baker
*Looking it up it seems that the very first release was also in a tin but quickly replaced by the circular cardboard as the tin was too expensive and rolled off record shelves!
I saw in Tuesday’s Guardian that Zoot Money has died. He was one of the most celebrated performers of Rhythm and Blues in the early to mid 60s and a staple of the music press at the time.
His band had only the one real hit, though, Big Time Operator, which I featured here.
This is Zoot and his band playing what was in effect his signature tune
Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band: Barefootin’
George Bruno (Zoot) Money: 17/7 1942 – 8/10/2024. So it goes.
Sérgio Mendes, who popularised Bossa Nova in the 1960s, has died.
I remember this very familiar tune as getting a lot of airplay at the time but it wasn’t a hit in the UK. (Only Never Gonna Let You Go was, and it only got to no. 45 in 1983.) It is however probably the one for which he will be most remembered.
Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66: Mas Que Nada
Sérgio Santos Mendes: 11/2/1941 – 5/9/2024. So it goes.
In the 60s French artists didn’t usually reach the British charts. The yé-yé generation was kind of looked down on as I recall.
Françoise Hardy was an exception. (So too was The Singing Nun, but she was Belgian and really a novelty act.)
Hardy actually managed a minor hit in the UK in 1962, with her first recording, Tous les garçons et les filles. It reached no 36. The reason it sticks in my mind is because it was occasionally played during French lessons when I was in Secondary School.
Hardy, who had a sweet vocie, had three other ‘hits’ in the UK. Et même reached no 31 in 1964, All Over the World no 16 in 1965 and Autumn Rendezvous no 51 in 1966.
Françoise Hardy: Tous les garçons et les filles
Françoise Hardy: All Over the World
Françoise Madeleine Hardy: 17/1/1944 – 11/6/2024. So it goes.
His yodelling style was not really to my taste but he certainly sounded distinctive.
In a commemoration like this, for this particular singer, there is only one song which is appropriate. The first of three consecutive UK No. 1s for him.
Frank Ifield: I Remember You
Frank (Francis Edward) Ifield: 30/11/1937 – 18/5/2024. So it goes.
