for Sunday 19th June 1966
Last
This
Presented by Tony Blackburn
Week
Week
10
1
Sunny Afternoon Kinks
7
2
River Deep Mountain High Ike & Tina Turner
2
3
Don't Bring Me Down Animals
1
4
Paperback Writer Beatles
5
5
Opus 17 (Don't You Worry 'Bout Me) Four Seasons
4
6
Don't Answer Me Cilla Black
14
7
Nobody Needs Your Love Gene Pitney
13
8
Hideaway Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Tich
12
9
Sweet Talkin' Guy Chiffons
18
10
Sittin' On A Fence Twice As Much
28
11
Along Comes Mary Association
15
12
Lady Jane David Garrick
6
13
Over Under Sideways Down Yardbirds
24
14
Younger Girl Critters
25
15
I Need You (EP) Walker Brothers
37
16
Merci Cherie Vince Hill
29
17
Runaway/Come On Let's Go McCoys
23
18
Club Of Lights Oscar
38
19
The Music Goes Round Jeeps
17
20
I Am A Rock Simon & Garfunkel
11
21
Stop Her On Sight (SOS) Edwin Starr
26
22
Stop! Before You Get Me Going Knack
8
23
Nothing Comes Easy Sandie Shaw
34
24
Beggars Parade Falling Leaves
3
25
Not Responsible Tom Jones
19
26
When A Man Loves A Woman Percy Sledge
32
26
Just Like Him David Wilcox
27
Get Away Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames
9
28
Twinkie-Lee Gary Walker
29
Indication Zombies
30
Livin' Above Your Head Jay & the Americans
31
Excuse Me Baby Magic Lanterns
33
32
Glendora Downliners Sect
33
Pinocchio Boz
33
The More I See You Chris Montez
34
I Ain't Gonna Eat My Heart Out Any More New York Public Library
27
35
You've Made Your Choice Rothchilds
36
You Gave Me Somebody To Love Fortunes/Manfred Mann
37
I Can Go Down Jimmy Powell & the Dimensions
37
Friday Night Red Hawkes
38
Bus Stop Hollies
39
It's A Man's Man's Man's World James Brown & the Famous Flames
40
I Love Onions Laurie
22
40
Strangers In The Night Frank Sinatra

This was Tony Blackburn's first presentation of the Big L Fab Forty. Tony had declined the invitation to change his name to Mark Roman when he left Caroline and joined Big L, but someone else was happy to rule the Empire!

23
18
Club Of Lights Oscar Reaction 591 002

Oscar first began his musical career under the name of Paul Dean, and was pianist in two of the many line-ups of Lord Sutch's Savages. He is often to be seen in TV documentaries about the '2 IIs Coffee Bar', where the band played regularly. Paul played on the 1963 Sutch single, I'm A Hog For You Baby and was with the band in 1964, when His Lordship was running Radio Sutch from the Shivering Sands fort. Two singles were issued as Paul Dean in 1965 and '66. She Can Build a Mountain is credited in Brian Long's book, 'The London Sound', as a Fab Forty entry for Paul Dean and the Thoughts, which had climbed to #26 in the Fab for 24th April '66. Elsewhere, the single is credited to Paul Dean and the Soul Savages. Its B-side, A Day Gone By, was written by Dean, under his real name of Paul Beuselinck. The Thoughts were a Liverpool backing band featuring Pete Beckett on guitar and vocals, Phil Boardman on lead, Alan Hornby on bass and Dave Croft on drums. The Thoughts also issued their own single in 1966.

According to the Record Collector Rare Record Price Guide, the single She Can Build a Mountain/A Day Gone By, credited to Paul Dean and the Soul Savages, first appeared on Polydor (NH 59102) in 1964, and is thought to have remained unreleased. The sharp-eyed viewer will notice that this matrix number is almost identical to the later Reaction number, 591002. Whether there is a connection between Sutch's Savages and the Soul Savages, is unknown.

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

Paul Beuselinck also penned the flip of Club of Lights, Waking Up, which was produced by Robert Stigwood. Oscar named his new stage persona after his father, Oscar Beuselinck, a music business lawyer whose clients included The Who. (The follow-up Oscar single was a Pete Townshend composition, Join My Gang.) A promotional device used by the record company was a cartoon Oscar 'statuette' (presumably a likeness of the singer), which allowed the Reaction record company to issue advertisements alluding to the Hollywood Oscars: 'Reaction now award you... Oscar – Club of Light'. A shame nobody noticed the missing 's' from both 'award' and 'Light'!

It was novelty disc, Over The Wall We Go, that brought notoriety to Oscar in 1967.(see Fab Forty for 12th February 1967) The single has a Knees Club connection, with member #127, David Bowie, having written, produced and even sung on it. Bowie's tongue-in-cheek lyrics concerning escaped prisoners and incompetent cops, were considered controversial and naturally attracted publicity. This was aided by Radio City's Ian MacRae, who started a spoof spot called 'Breakaway Club'.

Ian says:

"At the time, there were almost daily breakouts from the jails. So, just for a stunt, I played appropriate records for the escapees, along with personal (made up) messages for them. Plus I'd give the results of the escapes from the various prisons as if it were a competition.

So we'd have such stuff as Keep on Running, Catch Us if You Can, My Boyfriend's Back, Jailhouse Rock, Day Tripper, Nowhere Man etc, and there'd be songs for the coppers such as Keep Searching. The theme must have been Getaway and I think we also would have played Runaway/Come on Let's Go. "

The 'prison escape' disc was also chosen as a Kenny Everett climber in Jan '67, and would have probably have appealed to his sense of humour. It did not enter the Fab till the following month, peaking at #30 on February 19th. Again, 'Oscar' wrote the single's flip side, Every Day of My Life.

Over The Wall We Go was reissued in 1978, with a different B-side, and credited to 'Ivor Bird'.

Oscar eventually settled on the stage name Paul Nicholas in the late-Sixties, when he appeared in West End musicals, including Hair and the lead in Jesus Christ Superstar. In the Seventies, Paul appeared in films, renewing his Who connection with appearances in Tommy and Lisztomania. Chart success eluded him until 1976, when a return to releasing novelty songs brought four UK chart entries over two years.

Paul's best-remembered TV role is probably in John Sullivan's sitcom, Just Good Friends. He played Vince, a man who had jilted his fiancee, Penny (played by Jan Francis) at the altar, then five years later reappeared to disrupt her life.

Just Good Friends has its own website, which includes a Paul Nicholas Biography. www.whom.co.uk


Paul, Brian, Topper and Gearie
26
22
Stop! Before You Get Me Going Knack Piccadilly 7N 35322

The Knack (not to be confused with the American group who had the hit in 1978), joined the Knees Club at the Radio London Club Afternoon at London's Marquee Club on Saturday, April 9th 1966. Band members whose knees were recruited were Paul Curtis, gtr, (#185), Brian Morris, gtr, (#187), (Graham) Topper Clay, drms, (#184) and Mick Palmer, bs, (#186). The band was originally called the Londoners, and in 1964 they were backing rocker Gene Vincent.

The change of name to the Knack occurred on the boys' return to London after a six-month residency at the Star Club, Hamburg. Presumably the name was taken from Dick Lester's 1965 'Swingin' London' film, The Knack... And How to Get It.

The sleeve notes for PYE/Piccadilly compilation Ripples Vol 1, and other sources, list the group members who recorded Stop/Younger Girl as Adrian and Paul Gurvitz, Louis Farrell and Tim Mycroft. It had long been a source of confusion as to whether there had actually been two groups called The Knack.

In January 2002, the two missing pieces of the Knack jigsaw puzzle were finally unearthed. Read the full story here.

We heard from Paul Gurvitz on 22nd March 2002, via knee-mail:

I was blown away by the Knack Page! I have not had a chance to take it all in yet, but I will go over it. Maybe I can add to your page, if there is anything you might want to add. It's been quite a while and a few things are a little blurry.
Love Paul, 2002

A terrific collection of photographs of The Knack and later band incarnations Gun and Baker-Gurvitz Army, can be viewed on Paul's website, including some great shots of Gun wearing teeshirts depicting characters from the cult TV show, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in.

Another Knack connection arrives with a new Fab entry from New York Public Library...

34
I Ain't Gonna Eat My Heart Out Any More New York Public Library Columbia DB 7948

Dave Bower, rthm, John Kirby Wollard, vcls and Terry Stokes, ld gtr, Mike Sweeney, bs, and Jim Green, drms came from Yorkshire and were formerly called the Cherokees. Not to be confused with the US group of the same name, the Cherokees had hit #33 in the Nationals of 1964 with Seven Daffodils. Mickey Most renamed the group New York Public Library when he produced this, their first single, as the band were from York.

Copies of I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore are quite collectable, changing hands at around £20. The Rascals had achieved a minor US hit (#52) with this song penned by Pam Sawyer and Lori Burton back in January.

The Knack's Topper Clay joined New York Public Library in 1967, followed by ex-Knack-colleague Brian Morris, in 1968. In response to my email, Topper says:

I didn't know that anybody out there would still remember us. My daughter was impressed that someone on the web was interested in bands that I've been in. When I talk about the 60s and gigs I've done I'm afraid I come under the heading of 'boring old fart'!

Today NYPL are still together playing small gigs in the south around the Farnham area. It's now a six-piece line-up with emphasis on vocals, as ever. We currently have two CDs out and are working on a third. The line-up includes the original NYPL singer John Kirby Woollard, and 1970 lead singer Peter Morrison.

The current NYPL is John Kirby Woollard, Peter Morrison, Karl Rylander, Topper Clay, Dave 'Lofty' Reng and Bob Doughty. Topper was kind enough to send the Webmasters copies of the NYPL CDs Take Some Music and Keep a Clear Head and this is a really great-sounding band. Take Some Music includes terrific covers of the Showmen's It Will Stand and Curtis Mayfield's Monkey Time. The 17-track CD Keep A Clear Head has original compositions by band members alongside the likes of Goffin and King's Going Back and Bob Dylan's Chimes of Freedom. The CD sleeve-notes were written by a musician who recorded some drop-ins for Big L 2001, long-term admirer of the band, Jackie Lynton. (click here to purchase Keep A Clear Head)

For a photo of Topper taken in 2000 see our Knack Story feature.

Visit the NYPL website here . Original band member Terry 'Tez' Stokes and his wife Mo have their own website.

37
Friday Night Red Hawkes ALP 595001

Scottish band Red Hawkes contained Manny Charlton, who went on to become a member of Nazareth in 1969.

Nazareth's third album, Razamanaz ('73), containing two hit singles, Broken Down Angel and Bad Bad Boy, was produced by Deep Purple bassist and KC member, #305, Roger Glover. Glover also produced Nazareth's Loud And Proud album in '73, which brought them success in European and US charts.

The producer on the next two Nazareth albums Rampant and Hair Of The Dog, was Manny himself. A cover of My White Bicycle taken from Rampant, became the band's fifth UK chart entry in 1975. The original, by Tomorrow, was co-written by Keith Hopkins, better known on Big L as Keith West, who enjoyed a massive hit in August '67, with Excerpt From A Teenage Opera.

Two photos of Manny during his Nazareth days, courtesy of Pincy's World of Manny Charlton. Click on the small images to view a larger version. All Sixties photos gratefully received!

Manny has an entire website all to himself: Pincy's World of Manny Charlton www.geocities.com/pincy2/ via the site, we were able to contact him and ask him to fill in the gaps about Red Hawkes, which he has very kindly done. Manny says:

"Ah yes, now we go back a few years talkin' bout the Red Hawkes! I joined them around 65/66. At that point they were the resident house band at the Kinema ballroom doing covers of Top 40 songs. The original line up at that point was Alan Jordan, vocals, Tommy Wallace, drums Ian Burns, bass Alex Smith, sax, Billy Hunter, trumpet, myself on guitar. I was with them until they folded around 66/67 and they reformed as Marshmallow 400 adding Brian Sheridan on vocals and Gerry MacPherson on bass We recorded one single (Friday Night ) They were basically a soul band and in 1967 I wanted to be in a power trio so in 1968 I joined the Shadettes and the rest is history.

Manny Charlton "

Manny's information leads me to an entirely different notion. Could the drummer Tommy Wallace possibly be the man who had toured with the Beatles in 1963 as one half of novelty act, Tommy Wallis and Beryl? This was in the days when the Fabs took top billing in what was called 'The Beatles Show' a strange cocktail of current pop and elements of the old-fashioned summer variety show. Wallis (that's the spelling in the tour programme) was indeed a drummer. His act also featured "xylophone, tap dancing and a charleston spot", which the audience was promised would "make a lasting impression" on us – not to mentiion Beryl in her spangled costume! While Tommy Wallis and Beryl is not the act listed as appearing directly before the Beatles, the programme, it says, was 'subject to change'.

My mother took myself and my brother to The Beatles Show while we were on holiday in Bournemouth. I distinctly recall the foolhardy drummer from whichever act had drawn the short straw in the thankless task of preceding the Fab. I suppose a certain amount of admiration is due for having the audacity to persist in performing a lengthy solo! The teen screamers, desperate for the arrival of their idols, did their utmost to boo the man off, pelting the stage with any handy missiles. He failed to take the hint and drummed on, enraging Beatle fans into an even greater frenzy than normal! Whatever the identity of that sticksman, he certainly made a 'lasting impression' on me!

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:    
Wigglin' And Gigglin' Roy Head Tony Blackburn
Midnight Mary Rockin' Berries Chris Denning
Wiedersehn Al Martino Dave Dennis
The Sweet And Tender Hold Of Your Love Peter Lee Stirling John Edward
I'm A Nut Leroy Pullins Kenny Everett
Let's Go Get Stoned Ray Charles Paul Kaye
I Couldn't Live Without Your Love Petula Clark Mike Lennox
Out Of Time Chris Farlowe Mark Roman
Dum-De-Da Bobby Vinton Keith Skues
It's That Time Of The Year Len Barry Ed Stewart
Honey On The Vine Matt Monro Willy Walker
Aggravation Chris Curtis Tony Windsor


Dum-De-Da Bobby Vinton Columbia DB 7922

40
I Love Onions Laurie Decca F12424

A curious connection can be made between Cardbaord Shoes' climber Dum-de-Dah and new Fab Forty entry I Love Onions!

Bobby Vinton (left)'s Dum-de-Dah had been in the lower end of the US Hot Hundred for six weeks, peaking at #40 on April 30th, but faring better in Canada, reaching #28. Laurie (found at this week's #40, with I Love Onions) had released her UK cover on March 4th, as He Understands Me (Decca F12347).

Dum-de-Dah (He Understands Me) was written by Merle Kilgore and Margie Singleton. Johnny ('Poetry in Motion')Tillotson had first taken the song (as She Understands Me) into the lower reaches for the US Hot Hundred in 1964. Laurie's single was produced by Decca's renowned Noel Walker, the man who in '67 whistled I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman into the charts.

Laurie's follow-up release, novelty song I Love Onions, was only played on Big L for two weeks, (having been chosen as Kenny Everett's climber last week). However, as a 'turntable hit' it is as well-remembered as many big-sellers. This time, Laurie had covered a US chart entry by Susan Christie. Susan's version of I Love Onions only reached #63 in the US, but it climbed to #6 in the Canadian charts in July 66.

Information on both Laurie and Susan Christie, is scant. Some sources claim Susan was the sister of Lightning Strikes singer, Lou, but it seems unlikely, as her name does not appear to be mentioned on his official website. I Love Onions appears to have been Susan's only release, while Laurie recorded only the two singles mentioned.

I Love Onions penned by Donald Cochrane & John Hill featured on a popular regional US Children's TV programme called Lunch With Casey, but it is not clear whether the TV show's popularity prompted demand for a release of the song, or if the song was featured on the kids' show because it was already popular.

Out Of Time Chris Farlowe Immediate IM 035

The Roman Emperor picked a huge hit for his birthday week climber. Chris Farlowe's Jagger and Richards-penned release was destined for #1. On shore on June 19th, he appeared alongside Chris Farlowe, Tom Jones, The Small Faces (with their eponymous LP chosen as the current Big L Album of the Week), David Garrick, and the Walker Brothers all appeared at the first Radio London Trophy Meeting at the Brands Hatch motor racing track. The Walkers were there to present the winner's trophy, which went to Peter Gethin. Mark was also in attendance, along with Keith Skues, Duncan Johnson and Mike Lennox. Pop personalities and motorsport proved strange bedfellows and racing had to be suspended twice, when fans of both the stars and the star DJs invaded the track!

Back on the Galaxy, according to my diary, Monday, June 20th was designated Kenny Everett Orange Juice Day. I also noted that Dave Dennis and Kenny Everett were "having a riot at about 8.45." Unfortunately, I added no further enlightenment about either of these events!


Midnight Mary Rockin' Berries Piccadilly 7N 35327

The Rockin' Berries, a harmony group from Birmingham, evolved, like so many bands, from an r 'n' b outfit. After achieving six national chart successes, including two Top Ten hits, between 1964 and early '66, the band failed to make the Nationals again. Midnight Mary had been a #10 hit in the States for Joey Powers in December '63.

The Berries joined the Knees Club on September 7th. I met them, not at midnight, but during the afternoon, in a park in Blackpool, having seen them appearing in a Summer Season variety show the previous evening, (probably on the pier!). The Berries played a game of table tennis against my 58-year-old Dad (who won!), and then experienced the privilege of having their photos taken with a copy of the famous Knees Monthly.

(The defeated ping-pong players:"We have in our hands the piece of paper!")

The line-up in September '66 was Bobby Thomson (#345), Chuck Botfield (#346), Clive Lea (#347), Terry Bond (#348) and Geoff Turton (#349), who later pursued a solo career as Jefferson.

The 57-track double CD, They're in Town, contains pre-Radio London chart success, He's in Town (1964), plus Fab Forty hits What in the World's Come over You (Jan/Feb 65) Poor Man's Son (#1 May '65), You're My Girl (Aug '65) Water is Over My Head (Dec 65), I Could Make You Fall in Love (May 66) and Sometimes (April 67).

Click on the sleeve to see full track listing and purchase information from Amazon.

Climbers:  
Heart's Desire Billy Joe Royal
A Place In The Sun Shadows
Will I Never Learn Kathy Kirby
Can I Trust You Bachelors
Have I Stayed Too Long Sonny & Cher
Breakout Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels
Black Is Black Los Bravos
Either Way I Lose Robbie Porter
One By One Mockingbirds
Shades Of Blue Pirates
Crazy Stockings Marva Josie
Disc of the Week:  
Lovers Of The World Unite David & Jonathan
Album of the Week:  
The Small Faces Small Faces

The Small Faces: Steve Marriott, Ronald Frederick Lane, Kenneth Jones and James Langwith, to give them their formal names, were rechristened 'The Minuscule Mooshes' by Kenny Everett!

The band had been promoted via the Radio London film 'Dateline Diamonds', released in April '66, (see our 2-page feature) where they performed the songs I've Got Mine, It's Too Late, Come on Children and Don't Stop What You're Doing.

(All these tracks are available on 'The Ultimate Collection'. Click photo to buy.)

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

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