The Early Radio London Fab Forties
Sunday 9th January 1966 – The week the Galaxy went walkabout!
(see news item below chart)
The Pretty Things may have leapt up to #12 in the Fab Forty with Midnight to Six Man, (note the typo on the sleeve, where 'man' is misprinted as 'men'), but they climbed no higher than #46 in the Nationals.
Last
This
 
Week
Week
18
1
Till The End Of The Day Kinks
5
2
Mirror Mirror Pinkerton's Assorted Colours
2
3
The Little Girl I Once Knew Beach Boys
6
4
The Water Is Over My Head Rockin' Berries
4
5
We Can Work It Out / Day Tripper Beatles
1
6
A Must To Avoid Herman's Hermits
10
7
Don't Push Me Hedgehoppers Anonymous
3
8
England Swings Roger Miller
8
9
Keep On Running Spencer Davis Group
14
10
My Girl Otis Redding
26
11
Michelle Overlanders / David & Jonathan
19
12
Midnight To Six Man Pretty Things
9
13
The Long Cigarette Roulettes
7
14
Spanish Flea Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
17
15
May The Bird Of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose Little Jimmy Dickens
15
16
A Sweet Woman Like You Joe Tex
20
17
Can't Nobody Love You David Essex
21
18
Witches' Brew Janie Jones
13
19
Hello Dolly Bachelors
16
20
Tchaikovsky One Second City Sound
29
21
Apple Of My Eye Roy Head & the Traits
31
22
It Was Easier To Hurt Her Wayne Fontana
34
23
A Young Girl Of Sixteen Noel Harrison
35
24
Like A Baby Len Barry
39
25
Take Me For A Little While Koobas / Stevie Lewis
11
26
Eight Days A Week/Help! Alma Cogan
12
27
You Make It Move Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Tich
33
28
That's My Life (My Love And My Home) Freddie Lennon
29
Love's Just A Broken Heart Cilla Black
32
30
Five O'Clock World Vogues
31
Recovery Fontella Bass
32
Sunday And Me Jay & the Americans
33
Wait Frankie Vaughan
28
34
Second Hand Rose Barbra Streisand
35
The Hard Way Nashville Teens
36
I Can't Express It David Ballantyne
37
Another Year, Another Love, Another Heartache Julie Rogers
25
38
Take Me For What I'm Worth Searchers
39
I Can Never Go Home Anymore Shangri-Las
40
Lies Knickerbockers

NOTE FROM ALAN FIELD, JANUARY 2021

This is the first chart to benefit from additional information provided by a new source Roy Taylor. As a 14 year old living in South London in 1966, Roy wrote down the Fab Forties and climbers on a weekly basis from 9th January '66 until the end of the year. He contacted us in 2020 and generously provided scans of his original handwritten notes. We will be updating our lists throughout 2021 in tandem with the Fab 40 shows for 1966 aired each week on the Oldies Project (click anywhere on "mp312844" in the red box). There is a wealth of new information, covering the months January to April in particular (before the start of Field's Fab 40s), and we're extremely grateful to Roy for his help and co-operation sharing it all with us. The additions in PURPLE are those contributed by Roy.

Eight Days A Week/Help! Alma Cogan Columbia DB 7786

Alan Field: "In this, the record's final week on the fab 40, we see Alma Cogan's ballad and swing version of the Beatles' Eight Days A Week joined by its B-side: a swing version of the Fab Four's Help! as a double-sided hit. It had been a long time coming. During Christmas week 1965, with Eight Days A Week already in its 4th week on the chart, Help! was being featured quite heavily on Radio London, but the djs were taking care at the time to point out that it was the flip-side of the record, not a fab 40 hit in its own right. On the Christmas Day breakfast show Dave Cash expressed his own hope that Help! would take off, and it seems he got his wish. We can't say exactly when this happened, and we're making no assumptions about the charts for 26th December '65 and 2nd January '66, but we do know from Roy Taylor's first list dated 9th January '66, that the two songs were sharing the honours this week."
Webmaster: Alma's version of Yesterday had been destined for a 1965 single, but remained unreleased, perhaps because Columbia felt that too many other artists had flooded the singles market with their recordings of the Lennon/McCartney song.

34
23
A Young Girl Of Sixteen Noel Harrison Decca F12314

A Young Girl of Sixteen will be recalled by Radio London listeners as a Dave Dennis favourite. The Jaques Brel-style death-song, would invariably have appealed to the DD's own theatrical nature. ("A young girl of sixteen, child of springtime, still green, lying here by the road – DEAD!") The UK B-side was Tomorrow It's My Turn, but in the Netherlands it was Noel Harrison's own arrangement of the folk song Barbara Allen. A Young Girl of Sixteen failed to chart in the Nationals, but had already made #51 in the US Hot Hundred, where the title was shortened to A Young Girl.

In 1969, the single saw a reissue, backed with the Beatles' She's a Woman. This was around the time of Noel's biggest hit Windmills of Your Mind (the Oscar-winning theme from the film The Thomas Crown Affair) which found international success. At the height of Sixties spy-mania, Noel Harrison co-starred with Stefanie Powers in the Man from U.N.C.L.E. spin-off, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.. In October 2013, he was living in Devon and still performing locally, when he died of a heart attack.

Noel's Fan site

Une enfant de seize ans, to give the song its original title, was co-written by French star, Charles Aznavour and Oscar Brown Jnr. Noel Harrison recorded the song in French for the Canadian market, where it made the Top Ten, but he had serious competition on the continent. Performer/composer Boudewijn de Groot recorded the song as Een meisje van zestien – also on the Decca label. His version entered the Dutch charts on October 16, 1965, where it remained for 13 weeks.

The real fun comes when you allow the Google automatic translator facility to battle with converting the lyrics into English. Aznavour could never have improved upon, "She had left her parents to follow a boy, Bohemian, who could sign and say: I love you, and without that becoming upsetting" or "He told her coils demanded space, so they grinds from place to place."

The Untamed, the band championed by the Double D, also recorded the song. Although the Untamed's version was not released as a single, it is available on their CD 'Gimme Gimme'.

Climbers:  
Can't Help Thinking About Me David Bowie & the Lower Third
Have Pity on the Boy Paul & Barry Ryan
Don't Make Me Over Swinging Blue Jeans
Attack Toys
Girl Truth
Cryin' time Ray Charles
I-I-I (Want Your Lovin') Sons of Fred
Disc of the week:  
This Golden Ring Fortunes

The climbers in RED have been added as a supplement to Brian Long's original listing, and have kindly been contributed by Holger Postelmann who says:

"When I had a look at the notes that I made when I was listening to the Fab 40 shows on Radio London in the sixties (I still have this notebook, which is a bit worn now but it is a big treasure to me) I found out that I also noted down six climbers of the Fab 40 show of January 9th, 1966. I usually didn't do that, so I don't know why I did it that Sunday. Five of them got into the Fab 40 one week later whereas one (Sons of Fred) didn't succeed in this."

Webmasters note: The first Sons of Fred single Sweet Love was also a climber.

See the Fab for 13th June 1965 for more info about the band and their highly-collectable singles. (I-I-I (Want Your Lovin') can fetch £70+). Click on the picture for an Amazon link to more information about the Record Collector Rare Record Price Guide. However, despite the Price Guide linking the band with one called Odyessy, Sons Of Fred's bass player Pete Sears (later of Jefferson Starship) has confirmed that there never was any connection with a band of that name.


Dateline, Wednesday, January 12th, 1966 – Aboard the Galaxy, London After Midnight with a Difference!

At 1.30am during a force nine gale, the Galaxy lost her anchors and drifted into territorial waters, forcing Radio London to cease broadcasting. Captain Buninga discovered that the engines had not been used for so long that they no longer functioned.

The ship was towed by the tug Kent and the station resumed broadcasting at 1300 hours with a special news bulletin about the overnight adventure, as soon as she returned to International Waters. The Galaxy was fully back in position by 1500 hours.

Many quips were made about the unscheduled voyage, and DJs sang the words, "The station with the very loose anchor" over the PAMS jingle "The Station with the happy difference"! The first record played after Radio London's return to the airwaves was appropriately the #5 in the Fab Forty – Day Tripper!

Press adverts appeared the following day:
"To our audience of ten million listeners, we extend 266 apologies for being a little 'adrift' yesterday morning. Listen today to what you missed yesterday on 266 metres." (thanks to Brian Long)

To view a legible copy of this newspaper clipping, click on the picture.

See MD Phillip Birch's letter of thanks to Captain Bill Buninga here.

Only eight days later, Caroline's ship Mi Amigo ran aground at Frinton.


The Caroline 'Countdown Sixty' chart (south ship) for this week is here


Tune in next week for another Big L Fab 40!


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