We’re nearly in month synchronicity as we find ourselves listening to the sounds of February, 1956 on the last day of January back here in 2022. Let’s see what it sounds like…
The songs of February, 1956
“A Woman In Love” – Frankie Laine
“Angels In The Sky” – Crew-Cuts
“April In Paris” – Count Basie
“Are You Satisfied” – Rusty Draper
“Autumn Leaves” – Roger Williams
“Band Of Gold” – Kit Carson
“Band Of Gold” – Don Cherry
“Chain Gang” – Bobby Scott
“Cry Me A River” – Julie London
“Dungaree Doll” – Eddie Fisher
“Go On With The Wedding” – Patti Page
“Great Pretender” – Platters
“He” – Al Hibbler
“He” – Mcguire Sisters
“I Hear You Knocking” – Gale Storm
“I’ll Be Home” – Pat Boone
“It’s Almost Tomorrow” – Dream Weavers
“It’s Almost Tomorrow” – Jo Stafford
“Lisbon Antigua” – Nelson Riddle
“Love And Marriage” – Frank Sinatra
“Lullaby Of Birdland” – Blue Stars
“Memories Are Made Of This” – Dean Martin
“Memories Are Made Of This” – Gale Storm
“Moments To Remember” – Four Lads
“Moritat” – Dick Hyman Trio
“Ninety Nine Years” – Guy Mitchell
“No Not Much” – Four Lads
“Only You” – Hilltoppers
“Only You” – Platters
“Poor People Of Paris” – Les Baxter
“Rock & Roll Waltz” – Kay Starr
“See You Later Alligator” – Bill Haley & The Comets
“Seven Days” – Crew-Cuts
“Seven Days” – Dorothy Collins
“Sixteen Tons” – Tennessee Ernie Ford
“Speedoo” – Cadillacs
“Teenage Prayer” – Gale Storm
“Teenage Prayer” – Gloria Mann
“The Great Pretender” – Platters
“The Tender Trap” – Frank Sinatra
“Tutti Frutti” – Little Richard
“Tutti Frutti” – Pat Boone
“Why Do Fools Fall In Love” – Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers
* = New to the chart this week.
You can listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link or embedded below:
This month in history
On February 11, 1956 British spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean appear in the Soviet Union, five years after vanishing from the UK. The “Cambridge Five” spies would live on in infamy for the next half century and more…
Not yet high enough for it to appear on our playlists but this was also the month that Elvis Presley enters the United States music charts for the first time, with “Heartbreak Hotel”.
It’s a literary kind of month with one of my favourite authors, Michel Houellebecq, being born on the 26th of February.
And then on the 27th Poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath meet for the first time, in Cambridge, UK at the St. Botolph’s Review launch party. It was held in the meeting-room of the University’s Women’s Union, a venue which had assured the magazine editors a large female attendance and was described by Hughes thus: “all drank, more women than men, we left the place smashed, windows out, polished floor like a dirt-track.” Quite the party then!
And at the Golden Globes, “Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical” went to the musical, “Guys and Dolls”.
What’d Sadie think?
Two weeks at the top for Dean Martin’s excellent “Memories Are Made Of This” before two weeks for the truly great, “The Great Pretender” by the Platters.
“April In Paris” is a great jazz classic from the album of the same name by Count Basie.
“Chain Gang” by Bobby Scott is not the song of the same name, from 1960, that most people will know. It’s kind of weirdly catchy but nothing as good as the latter.
“Go On With The Wedding” is a classic Patti Page and has a nice sway to it.
“Lullaby Of Birdland” by the Blue Stars is one of those, fairly rare, songs with nothing about them online. It’s a nice jazzy number to ‘baddum baddum’ along to.
“Moritat” by Dick Hyman Trio is apparently, the “Theme from The Threepenny Opera” and is a whistled “mack the knife”? It’s a nice listen.
“Ninety Nine Years” by Guy Mitchell is mostly notable for the lyrics,
“Ninety nine years in the penitentiary
Ninety nine years, baby, baby, wait for me
Around twenty fifty five
Well get together dead or alive”
We’ll take another listen in 2055. Actually maybe a few times before as its rather catchy in a weird James Bond-esque way.
“No Not Much” by the Four Lads is an ironic love song. Apparently it was subsequently frequently covered, including in 1969 when in the Vogues’ version the lyric line: “Like a ten-cent soda doesn’t cost a dime”, was replaced by the lyric: “Like the song I’m singing doesn’t mean a rhyme,” because the former lyric line was considered outdated. Inflation… something 2022 knows about. It’s a bit dull in this version.
“Poor People Of Paris” is the english language version of a french song by Les Baxter, that was popularised originally by Edith Piaf. It’s yet another song with a whistle in it.
“See You Later Alligator” by Bill Haley & The Comets is a rock ‘n’ roll version of an R&B song originally by Bobby Charles. It is is what it is, quite fun of course.
“Haley’s arrangement of the song is faster-paced than Guidry’s original, and in particular the addition of a two-four beat changed the song from a rhythm and blues “shuffle” to rock and roll. “
“Seven Days” by the Crew-Cuts is one of two versions charting and its a another nice cut from the Crew.
Oh gosh, Pat Boone what did you do to Little Richard’s classic “Tutti Frutti”? Well what he did was introduce it to mainstream USA in a very insipid form. Pass! His other song on the charts is “I’ll Be Home”
“Why Do Fools Fall In Love” by Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers is the original and reached number 1 on the R&B charts before it charted in the pop charts, and yeah its great. The origin story is interesting, though the original name (still a lyric in the song) wouldn’t have aged as well,
“In late 1955, The Teenagers (at that time calling themselves The Premiers) auditioned a song called “Why do Birds Sing So Gay?” for George Goldner, recording producer and owner of Gee Records. Herman Santiago, tenor of the group, had written the song based on a line from some love letters given to the guys by a tenant in bassist Sherman Garnes’ apartment building.“
Now go listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.