The 1960s. The alluring decade where so many legends started their climb to musical divinity. When Yuri Gagarin became the first man to float around in space and Neil Armstrong took “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.
The 60’s had everything. Not necessarily just good things. But, man, was it packed with some life defining moments. John F. Kennedy became the youngest (elected) American president ever. The Vietnam war raged on through the entire decade. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. Both John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated! And, Rolling Stone published its first magazine issue.
However, this is supposed to be about music. And it will probably fill at least 90% of this segment. But some of these months may not have a lot of musical highlights and for that reason I will add some random facts as well. This section, the Time Machine, will take me and the reader through time, starting in the 1960’s and probably ending when i manage to catch up with the present; or the future. My plan is to write about music, month by month, selecting some favourite releases, reviewing the charts from the specified time and generally just write about whatever I feel like writing about.
Mel Tormé did not release his single ‘Swingin’ On The Moon’ in January 1960. But as I was looking for pictures of the moon I realised that i felt like a teenage girl trying to find the perfect picture for her Twilight blog, and decided to search for a song (released in 1960) with the word ‘moon’ in it instead. I chose the first one that popped up. Mel Tormé is not a favourite of mine, and i’ve probably never played any of his songs on purpose, but I just thought: “Fuck it”.
I’ve not yet figured out exactly how to do this, so there will be some back and forth between me, myself and I probably. But I reckon that in the near future I will have ended up with the result and style that I like. So just give me some time, please.
Bo Diddley released one of the few albums this month that peaked my interest a bit.
Actually, it’s the only one that was interesting. Out of all the endless searching I’ve done. On the internet, books and asking some experts (self-proclaimed). I can’t find any other album that drew my interest even the slightest. So yeah, this was a great month to start with. But I have made my choice and I’m sticking with it. Could be that the slow start is good anyway. I’m gonna write down my thoughts on this album a bit later, cause i’d like to get into some events that happened during this musically dry period. First of all; Cameroon gained it’s independence from France on January 1st. This is kinda what i’d like to call a random fun fact, cause i’m not gonna elaborate any further. There might a lot of these by the way. I’ll probably write a lot more about occurrences that is closer to my heart. Then again, I might rant on about something stupid as well.
On January 20, ‘The King‘ Elvis Presley was promoted to sergeant by the US Army. He was stationed in Germany at the time and a couple of months later he would be discharged. Honourably. Elvis spent around two years in the army. When he was drafted he managed to anger quite a few because he got to postpone his draft date owing to the fact that he had to finish the filming of ‘King Creole’. People were angry thinking he got this special treatment because he was a superstar, and i guess that’s fair. According to the man i charge though; Elvis “would have automatically gotten the extension [anyway] if he hadn’t been Elvis Presley the superstar”.
I have also read a couple of places that at this point in time, the Fab Four acquired their band name. That is obviously The Beatles. It was Stu Sutcliffe, John Lennon’s best friend, who thought of The Beetles, but John thought of changing the spelling to The Beatles.
THE CHARTS
Billboard TOP 10 Singles Charts
Week 1 (January 4, 1960)
Week 2 (January 11, 1960)
Week 3 (January 18, 1960)
Week 4 (January 25, 1960)
My fascination with charts comes from my father. He was a vivid writer of his own charts, sitting in the attic, listening to the radio and listing up his weekly charts with the same keen eye for detail as Billboard. He had his own point system (which I haven’t deciphered yet), he wrote them by hand and kept track of previous chart positions, how many weeks the songs stayed on the chart, and so on. And he was only fourteen(!) years old when he started doing this. Later he would also write a book called Listomania, so he took this obsession with him to grave. At some point i might add some of his charts here as well, but he didn’t start this project until 1967, so it’s not gonna happen any time too soon.
Out of the five songs that make up the top three in the Billboard charts this month I’ve come to the conclusion that Freddie Cannon‘s Way Down Yonder In New Orleans and Marty Robbins‘ El Paso are my favourites. None of these song are instant classics in my mind (even though El Paso actually is, and Way Down Yonder In New Orleans became a gold record and reached number three in both US and the UK), but they are ok. Freddy Cannon offers up a Rock and Roll/Rhythm and Blues song which is bound to keep you dancing; if you’re in to that sort of thing. While Marty Robbins soothes us with a purdy country and western tune. Marty, with El Paso, actually won the Grammy Award in 1961 in for Best Country and Western Recording.
ALBUM OF THE MONTH
As I mentioned earlier, there wasn’t a lot going on musically in January 1960. Bo Diddley‘s Have Guitar, Will Travel is the only recording released this month that has peaked my interest. Keep in mind that I have not gone through all the singles, and there is a big chance that I haven’t found all the albums that actually did get released this month. But that really doesn’t matter.
Have Guitar, Will Travel is Bo Diddley’s third studio album and has the trademark sound of rock & roll and blues. While none of the songs did very well in the charts back in 1960 doesn’t mean that there aren’t any good ones on here. Songs like I Love You So, Nursery Rhyme and I Need You Baby are really cool. And of course, there’s the classic Cops And Robbers. This song is such an awesome piece of work and Bo’s enthusiasm in the lyrics really makes the song. I can’t help but smile, and thoroughly enjoy myself while listening to this tune. The Rolling Stones covers this song in a couple of years and probably takes a lot of the credit for its popularity. But if you’ve only heard The Rolling Stones version, then don’t waste another second sitting around in your easy chair. Put that shit on right now!
But let me rant for a second as well. I didn’t like this album the first time I listened to it. It actually took me a while. After the third round it still just sounded like one song over and over. And I couldn’t fathom how I could write anything positive about it. But, because I am a stubborn bastard, I powered through it even more and all of a sudden the album kind of opened up to me. Don’t get me wrong. There’s at least four songs i don’t care for at all on this record, and a couple more that is just ok. My point being; I went from not liking it at all to actually discovering four, maybe five songs that are really great, so it just goes to show that you…me…I shouldn’t judge anything too quickly.
I would actually recommend Say Man, Back Again as well. It’s a weird little ditty.
Until next month…
Petter Milde
This Band Could Be Your Life
This Band Could Be Your Life 