Retired army captain Tom Moore becomes the oldest ever chart-topper with a number one in time for his 100th birthday. Gerry Cinnamon has his first number one album.

Fund-raising captain Tom Moore gets a number one single just in time for his 100th birthday. Gerry Cinnamon tops the albums chart with his second release.

Any crisis throws up examples of both the best and the worst of human behaviour. Among the examples of the best behaviour will be valiant efforts by people to raise money to help. Most of those efforts will receive scant attention but, just occasionally, one will get noticed by the national press and will achieve more than anyone dreamed possible.

That, of course, brings us to former Army captain Tom Moore. He wanted to raise money for the NHS by completing 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday at the end of April. His initial target was to raise £1,000. Given the lack of opportunity to use the usual tactic of sending people round to gather sponsors, that target could have been difficult to achieve. Thanks in part to social media, that target was soon exceeded and, as the amount raised grew steadily, the national media started to take notice. The campaign has now raised a staggering £28 million.

It would be very easy to say that a vital service such as the NHS should not need to rely on charity donations. However, the current situation is entirely unprecedented in the over 70-year history of the service. Much of the money raised is being used to help the staff who have made so many sacrifices over the past few weeks. Even the best-funded health service in the world could use extra money right now.

Inevitably, the campaign has now spawned a charity single. Actor and singer Michael Ball, best-known for his work in musical theatre has recorded a version of You’ll Never Walk Alone and, by the magic of technology, vocals from Tom Moore and a choir of NHS workers have been added into the mix. The song is easily the best-selling single of the week. The only question was whether The Weeknd’s superior streaming performance would keep You’ll Never Walk Alone off the top.

In the week’s first update, Moore and Ball had a healthy lead but The Weeknd steadily reduced the gap as the week went on as he enjoyed a massive advantage on streaming sites. On Thursday, the Official Charts Company (OCC) put out a press release saying that the gap was still narrowing and that The Weeknd was likely to catch up and hold on to the number one spot. As the OCC rarely issue press releases on a Thursday, it was reasonable to conclude that they were aiming both to increase interest in the chart (that, after all, is part of their job) and to give a boost to the charity campaign. The Weeknd himself played ball (no pun intended) and tweeted his support for The Captain and Theball. [You may need to be quite old to get that reference].

It worked. When all the numbers were added up at the end of the week, Michael Ball, Tom Moore and the NHS Voices Of Care Choir finished at the top of the chart and Moore will celebrate his 100th birthday next Thursday (30 April) with the number one song to his name. To put that into context, he was almost fifteen when Elvis Presley was born.

Amid all the understandable excitement surrounding Moore’s fantastic fund-raising efforts, it is easy to overlook the fact that Ball gets his first number one single 31 years after his first chart hit. He entered the chart with Love Changes Everything in January 1989, just over a year before Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd) was born.

In England, You’ll Never Walk Alone is, of course, synonymous with Liverpool Football Club although the song was originally written by legendary songwriters Richarwd Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein for the musical Carousel in 1945. The song was recorded and released as a single by Gerry and the Pacemakers in 1963 and it went to number one, The Liverpool band thus became the first band to reach number one with their first three singles. At the time, Liverpool supporters frequently started singing various current chart hits at matches. For reasons which remain unexplained, they didn’t stop singing You’ll Never Walk Alone when it dropped out of the chart and it became the club’s anthem.

In 1985, a group of musicians led by Gerry Marsden (the Gerry of Pacemakers fame) and Paul McCartney recorded a version of the song to raise funds for the victims of the fire at Bradford City’s stadium which killed 56 people. That version became the second version of the song to top the chart. Eleven years later, it was one of the songs (along with What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted and Saturday Night At The Movies) on Robson & Jerome’s third single. By one of those quirks beloved of many chart fans, it went to number one, thereby matching Gerry & The Pacemakers’ feat of three number ones from the first three singles. As a further curiosity, Robson & Jerome’s first number one was a version of Unchained Melody. When that got to the top, it was also the third version of the song to top the chart.

Unchained Melody became the first song to top the chart in four separate versions in 2002 when Gareth Gates went to number one with his debut single. If you include the duet with Will Young, he too had three number ones with his first three singles. Four versions of Do They Know It’s Christmas have also topped the chart for various line-ups of Band Aid. Now You’ll Never Walk Alone joins that exclusive club.

The links to this week’s chart do not end there. The other song on Robson & Jerome’s debut single was White Cliffs Of Dover. The definitive version of that song was recorded by Vera Lynn in 1942. Last week, that same Vera Lynn (at the age of 103) had a new entry at number 72 with a version of her signature song We’ll Meet Again, featuring added vocals from Katherine Jenkins. We’ll Meet Again had climbed as high as number twenty in Sunday’s update but finishes the week outside the top forty. However, the song’s status as a wartime favourite could yet see it break into the top forty following the 75th anniversary of VE Day next month.

This means that Tom Moore is not the oldest living artist to have had a hit single in the UK although he is the oldest credited artist measured at the time the vocals were recorded. The gap of 63 years between successive hits (Travellin’ Home reached number 20 in 1957) is also a record. I believe the last hit by a person who was in the very first chart in 1952 was Nat ‘King’ Cole who reached number 30 with Let’s Face The Music And Dance in 1994. Vera Lynn now also picks up that particular baton.

Returning, briefly, to You’ll Never Walk Alone. There is one more slightly obtuse football connection with this latest version. The two named performers share their surnames with two members of the England team that won the World Cup in 1966 - team captain Bobby Moore (yes, another captain Moore) and Alan Ball.

The second highest new entry of the week is also raising funds for NHS-linked charities and its success is, in a way, even more remarkable than that of the number one. Last night (Thursday), BBC1 devoted its whole peak-time schedule to a joint fund-raising effort by its two long-running charity strands Children In Need and Comic Relief with all funds raised specifically going to coronavirus-related causes. As part of the evening’s entertainment, a group of singers recorded a version of the Foo Fighters song Times Like These. In true Band Aid style, the individual contributions were edited together to create a coherent whole. The difference, of course, is that the current restrictions on movement meant that each person had to record their version in their own home.

The collective have used the name Live Lounge All Stars to reflect the fact that the recording is very much in the style of Radio 1’s popular music strand the Live Lounge in which singers generally record a version of one of their own songs plus a cover of a well-known song. The line-up includes Dua Lipa (who gets to sing the first line), Dan Smith of Bastille, Chris martin of Coldplay, Ellie Goulding, Paloma Faith and Rag ‘n’ Bone Man among many others. Despite only being on sale for a matter of hours yesterday, the song enters at number five. It is worth noting that every sale for this song is a genuine sale. Thursday’s streams are always estimated based on performance in the previous six days. As the song was not available before yesterday, the estimated number of streams for the song will have been zero.

A third new entry is adding to the fund-raising effort although that was not its original intention. Beth Porch is a nurse from Devon who auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent earlier this year, performing her own song You Taught Me What Love Is. That audition was shown on ITV last weekend and the song was immediately made available to download. Boosted no doubt by the fact that proceeds would be going to NHS charities, it enters at number 25.

Following the new entry at number one, last week’s top four have all fallen one place. The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights is back down to number two with Saint Jhn’s Roses at number three and Drake at number four with Toosie Slide.

Not even Sam Smith’s biggest fans would claim that they are known for their upbeat songs. However, the latest release from Smith - a duet with Demi Lovato called I’m Ready - is a welcome exception and it enters at number twenty.

After two songs that made the top 100 but missed out on the top forty, DaBaby broke into the broadcast part of the chart as the featured artist on Camila Cabello’s My Oh My. This week, the rapper born Jonathan Kirk has his first top forty hit as the lead artist with Rockstar at number 29. Until 2005, there had been a precise total of zero hit singles called Rockstar. Now there have been five.

While many singers sing in what can only be described as a mid-Atlantic accent, there is no mistaking the fact that Gerry Cinnamon hails from Scotland. He makes no attempt to hide his Glaswegian accent - and why should he? His debut album, Erratic Cinematic, was a classic slow-burner. Released in September 2017, it finally entered the top 100 in July the following year. It took a further year to enter the top forty for the first time and climbed to number seventeen a few weeks later. Its current spell in the top 100 has now lasted for a little over a year.

As can often happen after that slow-burning success, Gerry Cinnamon’s second album, The Bonny, has become a much more instant hit. Even so, the scale of its success will have surprised many. Not only has it entered at number one, it has trounced all opposition to do so. Erratic Cinematic returns to the top forty at number 36.

The first single from The Bonny, Canter, was released last summer and made little impact on the chart. Subsequent singles have also performed only moderately but this week Gerry Cinnamon adds to his number one album success by gaining a well-deserved first top forty single with Where We’re Going at number 39.

One of Top Of The Pops’ most amusing moments came when Chris Eubank. Famous for his lisp, had to announce that Suggs was at number six with Cecilia. For someone with rhotacism, a request to introduce the members of Enter Shikari might present a problem. The name of the band and the singer’s name are a little tricky but the other members - Rou Reynolds, Rob Rolfe and Rory Clewlow - might force our would-be announcer to insist they were doing something else that night. The band get their fifth top ten album - and their highest ever chart position - with Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible at number two.

Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia falls to number three after a fortnight at number one. Lewis Capaldi also falls two places, to number four, with Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent and Harry Styles is back up to number five with Fine Lines. Styles still has two singles in the top twenty with Falling at number sixteen and Adore You one place lower.

As mentioned above, the man born Jonathan Kirk now goes by the name DaBaby. Whether he was ever aware that kirk is a word frequently used in Scotland for a church, I know not but I can safely say that his original choice of alias, Baby Jesus, may not have been terribly popular with American churchgoers. After releasing two albums last year, he has already put out album number three and Blame It On Baby enters at number eight.

Rapper Nafe Smallz - who hails from that major centre of the UK rap scene, Luton - enters at number twelve with his debut album Goat World. A track from the album, Part Of The Plan (which features M Huncjo), is at number 38 in the singles chart.

If you’re looking for an album of pop bangers, you probably wouldn’t expect to find it in a solo album by a member of Radiohead. You certainly won’t find it in Earth, the solo album from Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, or EOB as he has styled himself for this project. If he has spent his thirty years as a member of the band desperate to do something completely different, the only hint is in the final track Cloak Of The Night which features vocals from Laura Marling (whose own album has left the top forty after one week). The album is a new entry at number thirteen.

If asked where a symphonic metal band were likely to come from, many people would probably answer “Somewhere in Scandinavia”. In the case of Nightwish, they would, technically, be wrong as Finland is not part of Scandinavia. However, it remains true that the northernmost parts of Europe tend to be the most likely to spawn bands with slightly eccentric descriptions. They enter at number 28 with Human :II: Nature to give them a third top forty hit from nine releases. The second CD concentrates more on the symphonic part of their genre description, eschewing the metal bit.

A constant theme in these notes has been the long presence of two albums with fairly lengthy titles in the top ten - Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent and When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Both these titles are paragons of brevity compared with the title of Fiona Apple’s second studio album released in 1999. That gloried in the title When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing 'fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right, a full 90 words. Some current albums can be played in full in the time it takes to say that. Twenty-one years after that album she has now released her fifth album, Fetch The Bolt Cutters. It gives her a first top forty appearance at number 33.

It has been mentioned here before that certain quiz questions turn up regularly until they have been used so often that it has to be assumed that every quizzer will know the answer, thereby rendering the question useless. One of those questions, and one guaranteed to raise a titter, used the fact that Marillion singer Fish’s real name was Derek Dick. The question continued to be asked long after he left the band in 1988. Their first album, Script For A Jester’s Tear, reached number seven in 1983. A deluxe edition enters this week at number 35.

Stay well. Stay home. Stay safe.