for Sunday 26th June 1966
Last
This
Presented by Ed Stewart
Week
Week
2
1
River Deep Mountain High Ike & Tina Turner
7
2
Nobody Needs Your Love Gene Pitney
8
3
Hideaway Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Tich
10
4
Sittin' On A Fence Twice As Much
15
5
I Need You (EP) Walker Brothers
1
6
Sunny Afternoon Kinks
11
7
Along Comes Mary Association
38
8
Bus Stop Hollies
4
9
Paperback Writer Beatles
27
10
Get Away Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames
5
11
Opus 17 (Don't You Worry 'Bout Me) Four Seasons
16
12
Merci Cherie Vince Hill
19
13
The Music Goes Round Jeeps
13
14
Over Under Sideways Down Yardbirds
20
15
I Am A Rock Simon & Garfunkel
12
16
Lady Jane David Garrick
3
17
Don't Bring Me Down Animals
39
18
It's A Man's Man's Man's World James Brown & the Famous Flames
6
19
Don't Answer Me Cilla Black
9
20
Sweet Talkin' Guy Chiffons
26
21
Just Like Him David Wilcox
36
22
You Gave Me Somebody To Love Fortunes/Manfred Mann
23
Out Of Time Chris Farlowe
29
24
Indication Zombies
25
I Couldn't Live Without Your Love Petula Clark
31
26
Excuse Me Baby Magic Lanterns
32
27
Glendora Downliners Sect
28
Have I Stayed Too Long Sonny & Cher
34
29
I Ain't Gonna Eat My Heart Out Any More New York Public Library
30
This Door Swings Both Ways Herman's Hermits
31
Crazy Stockings Marva Josie
32
Lovers Of The World Unite David & Jonathan
37
33
Friday Night Red Hawkes
34
Can I Trust You Bachelors
34
To Show I Love You Peter & Gordon
14
35
Younger Girl Critters
36
When You're In Love With A Girl Tony Barry
37
Black Is Black Los Bravos
38
Shades Of Blue Pirates
33
39
The More I See You Chris Montez
40
Aggravation Chris Curtis
40
Makin' Time Creation


1966 advertisement for Making Time from The London Sound, courtesy of Brian Long



10
4
Sittin' On A Fence Twice As Much Immediate IM033

Twice As Much joined the Knees Club on July 9th 1966, at the Marquee Club.(Signatures and birth dates from the Knees Club book below). The duo also to visited the Galaxy in July.

Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham signed them to his Immediate label and they received the gift of a Jagger/Richards composition for their debut single. Sittin' On A Fence, made #25 in the Nationals, but four subsequent Immediate singles failed to impress.

What David Skinner did between the issue of the last Twice As Much single in 1966 and his next known project in 1972, remains a mystery.

In 1972, David Skinner joined Uncle Dog, a group including vocalist Carol Grimes. He penned most of the tracks on their album Old Hat. In 1977/8, David toured as keyboard player with Roxy Music.

About Andrew's subsequent career, no information so far.


Twice As Much. We believe it's David Skinner (#314) on the left of the picture and Andrew Rose (#313) on the right.




15
5
I Need You (EP) Walker Brothers Philips BE 12596

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.

Webmaster's note:
Moral of story: never trust siblings with record collections!

26
21
Just Like Him David Wilcox

David Wilcox was the singer with Liverpool band the Nocturns, and had co-written songs for the group. They were the first band to appear in a musical – Alun Owen and Lionel Bart's Maggie May, in 1963.

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:    
Follow Me Mark Leeman Five Tony Blackburn
Cloud Nine Winston G Chris Denning
Oops Neil Christian Dave Dennis
Turning Around Wishful Thinking John Edward
A House In The Country Pretty Things Kenny Everett
My Lover's Prayer Otis Redding Paul Kaye
I Never Loved Her Anyway/You've Got Too Much Going For You Jimmy Beaumont Mike Lennox
Don't Come Running To Me Madeline Bell Keith Skues
He Righteous Brothers Ed Stewart
Love Letters Elvis Presley Tony Windsor
Pastel Shades of Love Lesley Dawson Willy Walker
Just Outside The Door Frugal Sound Duncan Johnson
Send The People Away Loose Ends Mark Roman

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.

Cloud Nine Winston G Decca F12444, released 8/7/66

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.

Turning Around Wishful Thinking Decca F12438

Another DJ climber that never made the Fab Forty, listed in The Record Collector Price Guide as Turning Round. The single was recorded by the band's original line-up of Roy Daniels (vcls), Terry New (lead gtr), Roger Charles (bass) and Brian Allen (drms). Wishful Thinking had two further excursions on the Big L playlists for October 9th '66, and April 16th, 1967, (the second band line-up) but they made no musical impression till 1969, when their forth line-up achieved an overseas hit, Hiroshima. Taken from their album of the same name, the single was a huge hit in Germany. Full Wishful Thinking profile is on the Fab for April 16th, 1967.

Aboard the Galaxy

June 29th
Paul Kay (#18) and Mich (Michel Philistin) (#275) said "Hello" to the Knees Club on the Coffee Break spot.

Mich the Haitian Steward was one of the original crew who had sailed with the Galaxy from Miami. Concerned that he must be feeling homesick, TW had introduced Mich to the Big L audience as a Coffee Break guest and encouraged listeners to write to him to help him to learn English. Mich proved so popular that he went on to make regular Coffee Break appearances and was to become as much a star as the DJs. The letter to me (Mary) arrived from him a few days later.

Mich was to remain on board till the end of Big L, making lifelong friends with DJs and members of the crew. After the demise of Radio London, he would adopt England as his new home, obtaining British citizenship with the assistance of Tommy Vance and Duncan Johnson, who remained lifelong friends.

(Right) Mich at Duncan Johnson's 70th birthday party, 2008

I always included 'Kneeland' at the bottom of my address when I wrote to people on Knees Club business and many perpetuated the joke by including it in the address when they replied. With his limited knowledge of English, Mich might well have thought that 'Kneeland' was a genuine place! I suspect any letter so addressed these days would be returned by the snail as 'unkneeliverable.'

Mich's letter begins: "Thank you so much for being so nice to write to me. It is always nice to hear from people who listening to Radio London and to find out more about their lives. I receive your member Knees Club card and could you send me a photograph of you please, if you don't mind."

Ashore:
June 30th
– I noted in my diary that I sunbathed in the garden, using TW's special recipe for suntan lotion – a vinegar and olive oil mixture. It might have been popular Down Under, but I doubt it, as it not only made me smell like a bag of chips, it attracted flies!

Climbers:  
A Little Lovin' Somethin' Shapes & Sizes
It's All Over But the Crying Jimmy Witherspoon
Something's Going On In There Behind My Back Dick Jordan
Nothing In The World Geneveve
The Sweet And Tender Hold Of Your Love Peter Lee Stirling
It's That Time Of The Year Len Barry
One By One Mockingbirds
Let's Go Get Stoned Ray Charles
Midnight Mary Rockin' Berries
Disc of the Week:  
Going Back Dusty Springfield
Album of the Week:  
Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Tich Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Tich

One By One Mockingbirds Decca F12438

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.

Disc of the Week:
Going Back Dusty Springfield

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.


The red additions to the climbers indicate singles listed in Brian Long's book 'The London Sound' based on information typed in the Curzon Street offices or other sources.
Alan Field did not hear them played or announced as climbers.


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

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


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