It’s a lovely sunny spring Easter weekend here in London 2021 as we reach the midpoint of July, 1952 in our journey through time.
The songs of July, 1952
As it happens, the previous month’s popular songs start to multiply and we have a number of versions of “Kiss of Fire” and “Auf Wiederseh’n Sweetheart” hitting the charts:
July, 1952 Top 20 Hits
“A Guy Is A Guy” – Doris Day
“Auf Wiederseh’n Sweetheart” – Eddy Howard
“Auf Wiederseh’n Sweetheart” – Vera Lynn
“Be Anything” – Eddy Howard
“Blue Tango” – Leroy Anderson
“Botch-A-Me” – Rosemary Clooney
“Carioca” – Les Paul
“Delicado” – Percy Faith
“Forgive Me” – Eddie Fisher
“Half As Much” – Rosemary Clooney
“Here In My Heart” – Al Martino
“Here In My Heart” – Tony Bennett
“High Noon” – Frankie Laine
“I’ll Walk Alone” – Don Cornell
“I’ll Walk Alone” – Jane Froman
“I’m Yours” – Don Cornell
“I’m Yours” – Eddie Fisher
“Kiss Of Fire” – Billy Eckstine
“Kiss Of Fire” – Georgia Gibbs
“Kiss Of Fire” – Tony Martin
“Lover” – Peggy Lee
“Maybe” – Perry Como / Eddie Fisher
“Smoke Rings” – Les Paul & Mary Ford
“Somewhere Along The Way” – Nat King Cole
“Sugarbush” – Doris Day And Frankie Laine
“Take My Heart” – Al Martino
“Vanessa” – Hugo Winterhalter
“Walkin’ My Baby Back Home” – Johnnie Ray
“Walkin’ My Baby Back Home” – Nat King Cole
“Wish You Were Here” – Eddie Fisher
so we’ll supplement the pop charts with a top 10 country & western chart from the month:
You can listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link or embedded below:
This month in history
Shortly before midnight on Saturday, July 19, 1952, air-traffic controller Edward Nugent at Washington National Airport spotted seven slow-moving objects on his radar screen far from any known civilian or military flight paths. He called over his supervisor and joked about a “fleet of flying saucers.”
And so began a flurry of sightings and interest in UFOs in July, 1952. You can read more at the History channel or see a film about it below:
What’d Sadie think?
As alluded to last week, Vera Lynn’s “Auf Wiederseh’n Sweetheart” makes it to number 1 for three weeks this month, with Percy Faith’s “Delicado” peaking for the other.
Tony Bennett enters the charts with the second version of “Here In My Heart” to hit the top twenty. Turns out ’52 was early in Bennett’s career and I’m quite the fan of his version.
Not a lot else new in the pop charts but a nice duet, “Sugarbush”, by Doris Day And Frankie Laine is well worth a listen.
A bunch of great, new to us, songs on the Country chart. Though we have to acknowledge the lack of diversity, I mean really….Hank Thompson, Williams and Snow is a lot of Hank for one chart.
Our Hank of the week goes to Hank Thompson though. “Wild side of life” and “Waiting in the lobby of your heart” are both excellent tunes.
The idea of Honky Tonk “Angels” seem to be a theme in the charts currently. “Wild side of life” sings about them and “It wasn’t God who made…” by Kitty Wells has them right up there in the title.
The latter is great too and notable in the playlist for its video. I don’t normally pay much attention to the videos associated with the playlist songs as they’re typically static images or lyrics, but this video is of someone filming the record playing which just struck me as odd and interesting enough not search out a better quality audio version.
“Full time job” by Eddy Arnold is another great tune, which is just one of the 147 he apparently had on the charts over his long and very productive life.
Finally, Hank Snow’s “Married by the Bible, Divorced by the Law” closes out this week’s playlist and a great tune to end on it is. Now go listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.