The Guess Who were Canadian and had a first success with a cover of the Johnny Kidd and the Pirates hit Shakin’ All Over released by their record label under the name Guess Who, which effectively forced them to accept the new name. Their biggest hit in the UK (at no. 19 apparently equal to its follow-up No Sugar Tonight – which I confess I cannot remember at all) was, though, this song.
I’m spoiled for choice with this one. It was written in 1960 by Boudleaux Bryant and recorded by the Everly Brothers the next year but not as a single. It was an accidental hit for Roy Orbison in Australia when it became part of a double A-side but not a hit in the UK till Nazareth took it into the charts in 1975.
Dan McCafferty’s voice was perfect to bring out the song’s angst.
The title of the book I’m reading just now* (if you’re looking at this later than 26/1/2019 just put The Driver’s Seat into my search bar.) naturally put me in mind of this song, the only hit in the UK – another single in the Netherlands apart, their only hit anywhere – for the unforgettably named band Sniff ‘n’ the Tears. I doubt the book and the song will have anything in common.
From the band’s first album rather heavy-handedly called Very ‘Eavy…. Very ‘Umble (but perhaps they thought it as well to acknowledge their name’s origin) and which appeared in 1970, their treatment of the anti-war song Come Away Melinda (first sung in public by The Weavers shortly before Harry Belafonte released his version) is reminiscent of early Barclay James Harvest and also features the mellotron.
Charles Aznavour, who died earlier this week, was dubbed the French Frank Sinatra which does him an injustice. He was a much, much better singer – and he could write songs too.
He was probably the last of the old guard, brought up in the French tradition, undoubtedly one of the greats.
This is a typical French chanson, fitting to mark his passing.
Charles Aznavour: Yesterday When I Was Young
His biggest hit in the UK, though, was She. So successful was it outside France in comparison to in his homeland that in later days he apparently refused to sing the song in any language other than English.
Charles Aznavour: She
Charles Aznavour (Shahnour Vaghinag Aznavourian): 22/5/1924 – 1/10/2018. So it goes.
Again speaking of Stuart Henry, he must have had a soft spot for Barclay James Harvest. In his Saturday morning show on Radio 1 he later began to use the, “So goodbye, pleased to know you. We had some laughs along the way. But I have to be leaving and there’s nothing you can do to make me stay,” refrain from this song – in its second iteration at 2.23 to 2.48 minutes in – as a jingle when he was about to hand over to the next broadcaster.
An odd one this; record producer Norman Smith taking the mike (yes that’s the abbreviation for microphone used back in the day) himself – apparently as a demo for John Lennon to consider but fellow record producer Mickie Most said he should release it as he’d recorded it.
A plea for wildlife conservation sadly still appropriate nigh on fifty years later.
For all its rough and ready qualities there’s something oddly haunting about Smith’s singing voice.
