for Sunday 25th September 1966
The Stones – straight in at #21 (but rather strangely, being obliged to share the slot with Chris Montez) – commenced their Rolling Stones 66 tour at The Royal Albert Hall on Sept 23rd. They were supported by Ike and Tina Turner, who have this week's Big L Album of the Week, and The Yardbirds.
Guantanamera has risen to #9, but Digno Garcia's version, which appeared from nowhere to share last week's #18 with the Sandpipers, has vanished.

Strictly Come Bending
There's an amusing story on the fascinating site So Many Records, So Little Time, concerning Bend It.

Howard Blaikley's lyrics were deemed too sexually explicit for tender American ears, so the record label US Fontana made a desperate attempt to convince listeners that the song concerned nothing more than a new dance craze called 'The Bend'. Somehow, they'd got away with this ruse in the UK, by employing Ready Steady Go's resident twinkletoes, Patrick Kerr (sadly, he passed away in 2009) to devise a dance specifically to fit the record.

Yes, OK, a cinema promotion shot by Pathé News does show Patrick demonstrating 'The Bend' with a troupe of trendy dolly birds and a Playboy bunny thrown in for good measure, but in it, Dave Dee (also sadly no longer with us) still has a saucy look on his face that tells you he's singing about something else altogether. Even in his later years, Dave (right) had a knack for innuendo. The dance demonstration sequence was shot at London's Cromwellian Club and a newspaper cutting is shown in the club archive. Further down the page there's a shot of the Searchers' Frank Allen doing a bit of 'bending' with Adrienne Posta and Twinkle.

With amended lyrics and Dave's rerecorded vocals, the single was pronounced suitable for issue on the 'delicate' side of the Pond and came complete with a six-step instruction leaflet by Patrick Kerr on how to go about 'bending' on the dance floor. (More on the story, complete with the dance instruction leaflet here.)

According to a post by 'Senor XREY', accompanying the sanitised version of the song on You Tube, it was #1 on a station very familiar to Radio London fans - the 50,000 watt KLIF 1190 in Dallas. An even smuttier version is rumoured to have been recorded, but never released.

The So Many Records, So Little Time webmaster Kevin says:

"Luckily, this was a hit in the northeast {of America}, including my hometown Syracuse, where it went to #1 on the WOLF chart. Unfortunately, I don’t have a copy from that particular week’s survey, but do have one from two weeks prior."

was #1 on 50,000 watt KLIF 1190 in Dallas

Left, the band (known as 'The Dozies' for short) on stage

In the WOLF All-American Survey dated December 10th 1966, DDDBM & T are at #12, on their way up.

Another feature concerning the Cromwellian includes a picture sleeve of a record by Gaylord Parry's Carnival Band (identities unknown) who released the EP Let's Bend in Italy and Germany bearing a photo of the same dancers. This was approximately six months after DDDBM & T had their hit in the UK and several months after their watered-down Stateside success.

After we speculated about how the US record company would have coped with promoting the Dozies' 1967 release Touch Me, Touch Me, Kevin wrote another page on the subject to explain. He suspects that a major factor in the band's lack of American promotion was that US DJs couldn't be bothered to learn the long name.

Those who have good memories will recall that WOLF 1490 in Syracuse, New York is the station where Howie Castle, aka Bud Ballou worked after the closure of Radio Caroline.

Our WOLF 1490 feature and memories of Howie by 'Brother Vic' is here. Bob Mitchell's WOLF tribute site to the station is here.

Somewhere My Love, the vocal version of Lara's Theme from the film Dr Zhivago, did unusually badly in the Fab, compared to the Nationals, where it reached #22 in the autumn of '66 re-entering in the summer of '67, this time to make #14.

The Mike Sammes Singers were back in the charts incognito in March '67. They were the genuine recording artistes on I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman, (see Fab 26th February) with producer Noel Walker providing the whistling. Billy Moeller, who later made live appearances as Whistling Jack Smith did not participate in the recording.

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.

Two of this week's DJ climbers, End of the Season and Oh What A Day It's Going To Be were penned by Ray Davies

Climbers:
Everything I Touch Turns To Tears	Brian Poole
Someone's In The Kitchen With Dinah	Wee Willie Harris
San Francisco Woman	Bob Lind
Join My Gang	Oscar
Bad News Feeling	Vikings
No One Knows	Graham Bonney
Flamingo	Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
I Can't Control Myself	Troggs
Stop Stop Stop	Hollies
Happy New Year	Beverley
Disc of the Week:
A Fool Am I	Cilla Black
Album of the Week:
River Deep Mountain High	Ike & Tina Turner

Ashore:
Sept 24th saw the arrival in the UK of the unknown Jimi Hendrix.

October 1st, Georgie Fame made his final appearance with the Blue Flames at the Grand Gala du Disque in Amsterdam.

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!