Radio London - Big L Fab Forty 13th March 1966

Sunday 13th March 1966

We are pleased to include this rare Dutch pic sleeve, which has kindly been scanned for us by Rob Messander from the Netherlands.

After climbing twenty places in one week, Kiki Dee is down one place, to #19. That's the Fab Forty for you. On March 17th, Record Retailer magazine commenced publication of the Fab Forties. This is somewhat ironic, considering that the Big L charts were never compiled from figures supplied by retailers!

Last	This
Week	Week
10	1	Shapes Of Things	Yardbirds
15	2	Dedicated Follower Of Fashion	Kinks
8	3	The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore	Walker Brothers
1	4	I Can't Let Go	Hollies
11	5	Elusive Butterfly	Bob Lind / Val Doonican
5	6	Woman	Peter & Gordon
7	7	Make The World Go Away	Eddy Arnold
12	8	Nowhere Man	Settlers / Three Good Reasons
24	9	What Now My Love	Sonny & Cher
2	10	Lightnin' Strikes	Lou Christie
37	11	Super Girl	Graham Bonney
23	12	Hide And Seek	Sheep
3	13	Backstage	Gene Pitney
28	14	Working My Way Back To You	Four Seasons
16	15	I Met A Girl	Shadows
21	16	Norwegian Wood	Frugal Sound
9	17	Barbara Ann	Beach Boys
32	18	I Got You (I Feel Good)	James Brown & the Famous Flames
18	19	Why Don't I Run Away From You?	Kiki Dee
25	20	Invitation	A Band Of Angels
–	21	That's Nice	Neil Christian
27	22	Pop-Art Goes Mozart	Tornados
–	23	Blue Turns To Grey	Cliff Richard & the Shadows
30	24	Love Me With All Your Heart/The Sound Of Silence	Bachelors
34	25	There'll Be Another Spring	Frank Ifield
–	26	Try Too Hard	Dave Clark Five
–	27	Up And Down	McCoys
–	28	Call My Name	Them
6	29	Jenny Take A Ride	Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels
4	30	Hold Tight	Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Tich
–	31	Like A Man	New Faces
14	32	Me And You	Diane Ferraz & Nicky Scott
29	33	Homeward Bound	Simon & Garfunkel / Quiet Five
–	34	Ballad Of The Green Berets	Staff Sgt Barry Sadler / Alan Moorhouse Orchestra
38	35	So Much In Love	Herd
40	36	Baby Never Say Goodbye	Unit 4 + 2
–	37	It's Too Late	Bobby Goldsboro
–	38	You Won't Be Leaving	Herman's Hermits
–	39	If You've Got A Minute Baby	Freddie & the Dreamers
13	40	Sha La La La Lee	Small Faces

Following the five 'double-ups' in last week's playlist, we have another five this week with Nowhere Man, Elusive Butterfly, Ballad of the Green Berets and Homeward Bound joined by I/ He Fought the Law.

Another song called Call My Name (#28) was on the Big L playlist in January and February of 1967, recorded by James Royal.

DJ Climbers:
King Of The Whole Wide World	Leapy Lee	Dave Cash
We Wanna Stay Home	Perpetual Langley	Dave Dennis
It's Up To You	Valerie Masters	John Edward
Someday, One Day	Seekers	Duncan Johnson
Shake Me, Wake Me (When It's Over)	Four Tops	Paul Kaye
Somewhere	Len Barry	Earl Richmond
Long Live Our Love	Shangri-Las	Mark Roman
A Legal Matter	Who	Ed Stewart
Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)	Cher	Tony Windsor

Climbers:
Alfie	Cilla Black
He Fought The Law	She Trinity
I Fought The Law	Bobby Fuller Four
Walk Away Like A Winner	Robert Henry
The Entertainer	News
Just A Minute Or Two	Gene Latter
Grieg One	Second City Sound
Night Train	James Brown & the Famous Flames
Disc of the Week:
Somebody Help Me	Spencer Davis Group

Album of the Week:
Boots	Nancy Sinatra

Walk Away Like A Winner

Robert Henry

Philips BF 1476

Because Walk Away Like A Winner (released 18/03/66) later became popular in Northern Soul circles, a mint-condition copy can command a high price tag of £40 or more. In January 2021, a copy was auctioned for £70. The music papers of the time were divided in their opinions of the single. Record Mirror said it was very good, while Disc Weekly thought it 'didn't work'. Henry penned That's All I Want, the B-side of Walk Away Like A Winner, which was one of three of his compositions assigned to the Radio London-associated publisher, Pall Mall Music, all under different composer names.

Texan Robert Henry's full name was Robert Henry Hensley. Between August '57 and February '66, he had released ten USA singles as Jericho Brown and appeared in many western films. In November 1965, he issued one of his UK Pall Mall singles I Need Me Someone (Philips BF 1450) as Bob Henry. It's listed in the Record Collector Rare Record Price Guide as 'I Need Someone'). It failed to appear in the Fab Forty.

(Click on the picture for a link to information about the Record Collector Rare Record Price Guide)

After he moved to the UK, the singer became friendly with Radio London's original Programme Director Ben Toney (see Ben's Memoirs, Part 15). By 1967, after failing to set the UK charts alight, Henry had retreated to Italy to try and make his name in spaghetti westerns. He arranged Ben's accommodation in Rome when Ben was also pursuing a celluloid career.

On their Raresoulman website in February 2011 John Manship Records offered for sale a 1965 Advision studio acetate (i.e. A-side only) of Walk Like a Winner (sic) by Robert Henry for £100. The webmaster speculated that Gene McDaniels' song and Henry's are so similar musically, that Henry's wais probably based on McDaniels'. He described the valuable find (right) as: "British 60s power-ballad at its outermost brilliant. Inspired by Gene McDaniels' 'Walk With A Winner' this is Bob Henry's WALK AWAY LIKE A WINNER mistitled in the studio. Pre-Philips BF 1476 [pressing]."

The label's typist seems to have suffered from misinformation and/or a pre-release change of plan. Henry can clearly be heard singing 'walk away like a winner' and that is undoubtedly the correct title of the song. It's hard to decipher the original typing of the artist's name, which has subsequently been scratched out and replaced by a handwritten 'Robert Henry', but if it was simply a change of 'Bob' to 'Robert' it seems unnecessary for the entire name to have been obscured.

In the late Seventies, a singer/songwriter called 'Bobby Henry' released singles on Charlie Gillett's Oval label, but this was a different artist who came from Glasgow.

Many thanks to Brian Long for additional information

Night Train

James Brown & the Famous Flames

Night Train had been included as a Fab 40 climber ever since Brian Long published his book The London Sound in 1994, containing the first-ever published Fab Forty charts. The Oldies Project team spotted that this was rather strange, because James Brown was still riding high in this this week's Big L chart at #18, with I Got You (I Feel Good). None of the Fab Forty contributors had ever been able to explain this, as there was no indication of Night Train having been rereleased in '66.

Brian Long confirmed that the climber list he used in The London Sound for March 13, which included the unexpected James Brown title, came from Record Retailer and that this information was derived from the Curzon Street list, but he acknowledged that mistakes could arise. Because initially, we were unable to discover any evidence of the record being released in March '66, we withdrew Night Train from the climbers, concluding that an error had been made.

Some time later, however, Kees Brinkerink discovered that in the Record Mirror of March 19, 1966, Night Train is shown as entering the R & B singles top 20 at #14, reaching #5 on April 2.

When originally released in '62, Night Train was on the US King label and in the UK it came out on Parlophone. The Record Collector Price Guide has it listed as being on Parlophone R4922 b/w Why Does Everything Happen to Me (with mint copies fetching around £40). Sue first released the single two years later at the end of '64 (Sue WI-360) (note that the label is undated) with Record Mirror reviewing it on December 9th.

Although in 1966, JB was currently releasing records through Pye International, Night Train seems to have been reactivated by Sue. Kees points out that most record companies, when re-releasing a single, gave it a new catalogue number and often a different B-side, but this was not the case with Island/ Sue Records. (Perhaps a deliberate reason for not dating their labels.) Reissues which retain the same catalogue number also are often omitted from the Record Collector Price Guide, making them even harder to verify.

Kees cites another example of a Sue single that was not 'officially' re-released – Harlem Shuffle by Bob & Earl. Originally, this came out in the UK on Sue WI-374 in July 1965. On 8 January, 1966 it appeared in the Record Mirror R&B top 20 and stayed there until mid-March, reaching #3. It was #56 in the Radio City Sixty for April 9th - 16th. In May 1968, it was announced as a reissue, but with the same catalogue number as in 1965. Then, finally Harlem Shuffle became a hit after Island re-released it in January 1969, as Island WIP-6053, by which time UK Sue no longer existed.

On March 11 '66, Ready Steady Go! devoted an entire programme to 'The James Brown Revue'. The set was based on their current stage show and included club favourite, Night Train. James Brown and his Famous Flames had arrived in the UK on Wednesday, March 9, spent the next day rehearsing for their RSG special on Friday 11 and on Saturday 12 played the Walthamstow Granada. An intended gig in Newcastle the following day was replaced by one at a different venue, then the band flew to Paris to play the Olympia on March 15 (See Black and Proud: the Life of James Brown by Geoff Brown)

Ready Steady Go! was an influential programme with record-buyers and a major publicity platform. The RSG special and UK stage performances around that date undoubtedly influenced a decision by Sue to reactivate the single

Alan Field comments:
"If there were plans to re-issue Night Train (in response to whatever new interest sent it back into the Record Mirror R&B charts) it may well have been picked as a Big L climber, even if the re-release never actually happened. We have reliable examples of other records being listed as climbers without an official release e.g. Sharon Tandy's Uphill Climb to the Bottom, the first appearance of It Tears Me Up by Percy Sledge in October '66 and Tony Brandon's Just Leave It To Me.

We could speculate on whether Night Train would have been officially designated as a climber if people were only able to buy up old copies, but while we might think twice about adding such a record to the climber list if we weren't sure of its status, the further research indicates we're no longer justified in dismissing Night Train's appearance in the Record Retailer/Curzon Street climber list as a mistake."

Night Train is included on UK Sue Label Story Vol.3: the Soul of Sue [Cd]

Many thanks to Kees Brinkerink, Alan Field, Alan Hardy and Peter Young for their assistance with tracking down the above information.