Jason’s Jukebox Volume 17

Jason Maloney reviews

JASON’S JUKEBOX
V o l u m e # 1 7 Chart Date: Week Ending 14th May 1969 Online Date: 13th May 2004

Mary Hopkin:
Those Were The Days Get Back, the penultimate UK chart-topper for The Beatles, was enjoying the fourth of its six weeks at #1 some 35 years ago this week. The single was notable for a number of reasons; it was the only time a Fab Four hit went straight in at #1 (they usually hit the summit on their second or third week of release), it took their tally of British number ones to a then-record of sixteen, and it was also the only one of their official singles to have an outsider given shared billing; Get Back was credited to The Beatles with Billy Preston. Three weeks later another Beatles single would appear, The Ballad Of John & Yoko.

Beatles protege Mary Hopkin, the first signing to the band’s Apple label, had just spent three weeks at #2 with Goodbye. Initially, it was Desmond Dekker & The Aces‘ The Israelites which denied it top billing. Goodbye now dropped to #5 – swapping places with My Sentimental Friend by Herman’s Hermits, while The Israelites was still in the top 10, falling gently from #6 to #8.

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The Very Best Of
Fleetwood Mac In 1969, Fleetwood Mac were still a British blues-based pop act led by Peter Green who were notching up a succession of Top 10 hit singles in the UK, including the instrumental #1 Albatross which had topped the listings in February of that year. The follow-up single, Man Of The World, was up 4 places to #3 on the chart of May 14th.

At #6 was the single which continues to hold the title for most weeks on the UK chart of all-time. My Way by Frank Sinatra, up 3 places from #9, would soon peak at #5 but eventually registered an incredible 124 appearances on the chart before bowing out.

Not averse to holding a few longevity records of their own, Simon & Garfunkel‘s latest opus The Boxer was climbing from #15 to #9. Throughout the first half of the 1970s, their Greatest Hits set would dominate the UK album chart while Bridge Over Troubled Water clocked up in excess of 300 weeks on the Top 100.

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The Who: Then & Now Other big names charting were The Who with Pinball Wizard (down from its high of #4 to #10), Cream with the George Harrison co-write Badge (falling 7 to #25) and Stevie Wonder with his former #16 hit I Don’t Know Why.

Classics-in-the-making included I Heard It Through The Grapevine by Marvin Gaye (still charting after 14 weeks), Smokey Robinson & The Miracles’ Tracks Of My Tears (advancing to #30 on its second week; it would ultimately reach the Top 10), and Jackie Wilson‘s Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher And Higher (new at #39).

Harlem Shuffle, at #13 and on its way down the chart for Bob and Earl, would return to the top 40 in 1986 thanks to the Rolling Stones. The song at #11 – Dizzy by Tommy Roe – went on to top the chart for a solitary week inbetween The Beatles‘ Get Back and The Ballad Of John & Yoko. It also became a UK #1 in 1994 for Vic Reeves & The Wonder Stuff.

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Des O’Connor:
Back to Back Lulu‘s Boom Bang-A-Bang, the UK’s entry for Eurovision in 1969, was still on the top 40 (rebounding 5 places to #17 on its 10th week), Tom Jones had the week’s highest entry at #19 courtesy of Love Me Tonight, and Des O’Connor was in at #28 with the bizarrely-titled Dick-A-Dum-Dum.

(DVDfever.co.uk Dom adds: “How come all the people reviewing Des’ album (right) are talking about Oasis?!”)

Page Content copyright © Jason Maloney, 2004.