for Sunday 26th June 1966

Alan Field says:

My brother and I used to have the Walker Brothers EP. Apart from I Need You, I think there was also Looking For Me, Young Man Cried and Everything's Gonna Be Alright. Unfortunately, it was my brother who kept the record when we left home, and he got rid of it years ago.

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.

Pastel Shades of Love Lesley Dawson Mercury MF924 Willy Walker's climber is marked in green as it is an addition to Field's Fab Forty, because Alan's charts are based on what he heard played at the time. However, Harm Koenders of the Restoring Department of offshoreradio.org has discovered a recording from June 27th, of Willy anouncing Pastel Shades of Love as his climber. This is also the title under which it appears in the Record Collector Price Guide, but in The London Sound, Brian Long has the single listed as 'Pastel Shades of Blue'. It is quite easy to speculate that the title may have been mis-typed at the Curzon Street offices and that with 42 singles in the Fab 42 plus 21 climbers, Willy's hit pick may simply have been accidentally omitted.

Winston G's third release, which failed to reach the Fab Forty, was a Les Reed and Barry Mason composition enhanced by funky horns. The 1967 follow-up was called, intriguingly, Mother Ferguson's Love Dust. Winston also recorded as Winston G and the Wicked.

Graham Gouldman formed the Mockingbirds in February 1965 with fellow members of The Whirlwinds, Steve Jacobson and Bernard Basso. Drummer Kevin Godley joined the line-up from The Sabres. They were managed by Kennedy Street Artistes (aka Kennedy Street Enterprises) who also represented Herman's Hermits (new in this week at #30), Freddy and the Dreamers and Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders.

Ironically, the songs Gouldman penned for the Mockingbirds (they released five singles between 1965 and 66 on three different labels) failed to meet with any success. However, even while his own band was spending just two weeks on the Big L climber list with this Decca release, this week's #8, Bus Stop, is a Gouldman composition. His songs brought fame to many other bands, including the Yardbirds, Herman's Hermits and Hollies.

The Mockingbirds' entry on Manchesterbeat includes a music paper advert for their first release That's How (It's Gonna Stay), describing their music as 'The Bottle Sound' and depicts three of the four band members 'inside' a bottle. The advert gives no explanation, but site visitor Bill Tobelman informs us that the sound of a bottle being struck with a drumstick can be heard on the record.

The Graham Gouldman website is here.

Roger Waters writes: "I was a Radio London Club disc winner of the week – I won Dusty Springfield's Going Back. I still have the single, my membership card and the badge – but best of all the memories!" Big Rog.

How lovely to hear from a Big L winner – and to know that Rog still has his prize! There were an awful lot of winners during Lil's lifetime, and we would love to hear from more of you.