for Sunday 11th December 1966

Alan Field comments on the three singles placed jointly at #31

It's unique to have three unrelated records in the same position in the same week, but I heard and listed all three. Call Her Your Sweetheart by Frank Ifield was definitely played at joint #31 on the Fab 40 show. I've got it listed at that position first and so had (past tense) chart contributor Hans Peters. Contributors Wolfgang Buchholz and Hans Evers also have it at #31, though the record isn't in Brian Long's Curzon Street list. Hans Peters later crossed out Call Her Your Sweetheart and replaced it with the third record Missy Missy, which Brian and I have both listed but Wolfgang and Hans Evers haven't. The Zoot Money record appears at #31 in all five lists.

Call Her Your Sweetheart was actually in the Family Forty which debuted on 11th December 1966 to cover the whole of the Christmas period, so it may have been included in the Fab 40 by mistake, but it was included nonetheless. It wasn't in the chart the following week, but appeared as a re-entry at #33 on 25th December.

Please see footnote to FF for 4th December regarding the Troggs' #12 entry this week, Any Way That You Want Me.

WPTR Good Guys
Over in Albany, New York this week, WPTR 1540 had its own Top 40.
If the name sounds familiar, WPTR is the station where Larry Dean worked prior to joining Radio England. Many SRE jocks - including Chuck Blair and Johnnie Walker - took their names from the WPTR jingle package that Larry brought with him to his new job in watery wireless.

This was the home of original WPTR Good Guys – Boom Boom Brannigan, Bruce Wayne and Charlie Brown.

The chart has a number of tracks in common with the Fab Forty. Mark Roman's climber Sugartown was already in the Albany Top 40, having been a previous WPTR DJ Hitpick. One or two tracks are unknown in this country and were probably local hits, while a different version of UK success Born Free was on the WPTR listings.

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Sitting In A Ring

Ebony Keyes

Piccadilly 35378

Ebony Keyes, whose real name was Kenrick Des-Etages, has a full feature in the Fab Forty for April 2nd 1967, where his follow-up single Cupid's House reached #17. There's a video clip of Ebony miming to Sitting in a Ring from a German show called Beat Beat Beat here – although the song is mistitled Sitting in the Rain.

Help Me (Get Myself Back Together Again) – was the Spellbinders' first UK release. It just scraped into the US Hot Hundred at #100. The band returned to the Big L playlist on March 12th 1967 with Paul Kaye's climber Chain Reaction, written by Van McCoy.

Besides climbers that were played at the time of the broadcast of the Sunday Fab Forty, Alan kept a note of others he heard later in the week and incorporated them into his list.

DJ Climbers:
Listen To My Heart	Bats	Tony Blackburn
Listen To The River Roll Along	Wee Willie Harris	Chuck Blair
Tick Tock	Corduroys	Pete Drummond
My Girl, The Month Of May	Dion & the Belmonts	Kenny Everett
A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues	Clyde McPhatter	Paul Kaye
Baby Do The Philly Dog	Olympics	Mike Lennox
Sugar Town	Nancy Sinatra	Mark Roman
Lookin' For Love	Ray Conniff & the Singers	Keith Skues
Bad Misunderstanding	Critters	Ed Stewart
Single Girl	Sandy Posey	Norman St John
Baby Tomorrow	Paul Jones	Tony Windsor

My Girl, The Month Of May

Dion & the Belmonts

HMV POP1565

Kenny's Everett climber did indeed climb the Fab Forty and took the Christmas #9 slot. The single, as released in the US was A-side Berimbau B-side My Girl the Month of May. However, a slightly different story is associated with the UK release on HMV. There is no evidence to suggest that Radio London ever played Berimbau, even though we know it went into the shops as the record's A-side. Released on December 8th 1966, the single does have indications of having been a double A-side. HMV did not differentiate between A-and B-sides by giving them separate numbers, so no clues there.

Possibly, an acetate of My Girl the Month of May got sent to the Galaxy in error by the record company, but it seems unlikely, considering that it reached the Fab Forty and was played on Big L for several weeks. Had there been an admin error, there would have been plenty of time for HMV to have supplied Radio London with a copy of Berimbau. It's also possible that Alan Keen considered Dion's own composition My Girl the Month of May, to be the stronger offering and made his own decision about which side to play.

The 25-track CD Together Again and More contains both tracks

In 1967, Dion and the Belmonts, previously known as the most successful white doo-wop group, had just re-formed and recorded their album Together Again, from which the two tracks on HMV Pop1565 were taken.

Berimbau is a popular Brazilian samba, the name referring to a wooden single-string percussion instrument. Dion and the Belmonts do not attempt to sing the Portuguese lyrics, but turn the tune into a virtual instrumental, using their voices as musical instruments. It comes close to a return to their original doo-wop style.

Dion and the Belmonts' version of Berimbau. The Sergo Mendes and Brasil 66 version

My Girl the Month of May Dion and the Belmonts

Cover versions include Knees Club members The Alan Bown (after they dropped the word 'Set') and went psychedelic, and The Bunch

Climbers:
Oh What A Fool	Peter Lee Stirling
Make Believe	Jason Deane
Sitting In The Park	Georgie Fame
Too Many Fish In The Sea	Young Rascals
Can't Stop Around	Human Instinct
Progress	Pretty Things
You'd Better Run	Listen
You Better Run	N' Betweens
Disc of the Week:
Behind The Door	Cher
Album of the Week: (courtesy of Brian Long)
A Quick One	The Who

You'd Better Run

Listen

CBS 202456

A climber for two weeks running, You'd Better Run had been a summer Top Twenty hit in the USA for the Young Rascals - who coincidentally have their own Big L climber this week. Last week's Fab revealed that because of the connection between the N' Betweens and Slade, mint condition copies of their version can fetch £225. Pristine copies of the other version by a second Brummie band, Listen are also pretty collectable, exchanging hands for £165. The group line-up reveals all: Roger Beamer, (bass), John Crutchley, (lead), Geoff Thompson (drums) with one Robert Plant on vocals. Robert also released solo singles in 1966, but was to find his fame a far cry from the Young Rascals, with Led Zeppelin.

The Caroline 'Countdown Sixty' chart (south ship) for this week is here
This week's Radio City 'City Sixty' on the Pirate Radio Hall of Fame is here

Tune in next week for another Field's Fab Forty!