Needles And Pins was a hit for The Searchers although that was a cover version of a song by Jackie DeShannon who was a guest on Jools Holland recently.

 

Black Is Black was originally a hit for Los Bravos.

 

Interesting to see Giorgio Moroder even if From Here To Eternity was rather poor by his standard. His work was seen recently on TOTP with Donna Summer's I Feel Love. I hadn't been too keen on her previous work but that was a terrific song. He was responsible for three other number ones - Son Of My Father (Chicory Tip, 1972), Call Me (Blondie, 1980) and Take My Breath Away (Berlin, 1986). The latter were from film soundtracks (American Gigolo and Top Gun). He was also responsible for the soundtrack of Midnight Express and wrote a new soundtrack for one of the greatest films of all time, Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

 

He also worked with Sparks which is always a good thing. As I've said before, Moroder was the David Guetta of his day and probably the most identifiable producer since Phil SPector.

 

Thanks to the TOTP thread on Haven for the list of number ones.

Ah yes, Mr Moroder - invented dance music by mistake!

 

Pretty nasty to liken him to David Guetta though.

 

Fans should check out his 'Looky Looky' single - a weird synthy version of 'Pa Pa Oo Mow Mow' from the very early 70s (I think).

I'm comparing him to Guetta in the sense that they both have a dsitinctive style which means their work is often easy to detect. The same applies to Phil Spector.

Correct in all aspects, suedehead - as usual - as regarding the best known versions of Black Is Black and Needles & Pins.

 

For a bonus, do you know which famous sixties pop singer co-wrote Needles & Pins? (Er, without looking it up, of course).

 

He was only famous from the point of view of being one member of a very well known male and female duo, who were very successful indeed in the 1960's.

I didn't know who wrote Needles And Pins so I looked it up. I won't say who it was in case anyone else wants to demonstrate their knowledge.

I didn't know who wrote Needles And Pins so I looked it up. I won't say who it was in case anyone else wants to demonstrate their knowledge.

 

 

Fair enough! Are you surprised by the answer, though?

 

Again, perhaps a better and relevant song writer than most people give him credit for.

I'm surprised in the sense that I didnt know it before. However, it's not as if Needles And Pins is completely different from the songs he recorded himself as part of a duo. I assume the same applies to you too (not too subtle hint).

I think Sonny Bono wrote Needles & Pins, if I remember right.

 

 

Edited November 4, 201212 yr by fiesta

Correct Feista, the late great Mr. Bono wrote Needles & Pins.

 

He also worked with Phil Spector before writing most of the songs for the highly successful partnership he had with Cher.

 

He also eventually became very successful in American politics. Tragically he was killed in a bizarre skiiing accident in 1998.

B-) Thanks again for all your contributions, and welcome to Season One to this thread.

 

Varied programme this week, reasonable soul offerings from The Emotions and Denise Williams, punk from The Stranglers, some prog rock from Yes, a slightly better than average tribute record from Danny Mirror (I think he was Dutch as well, was he not?)

 

Baccara with a future number one, straightforward cover version of Needles And Pins by Smokie, a new but rather bland number one from David Soul.

 

Trivia for this week - there were two sixties cover versions on this week's show, one of which was Needles And Pins, the other a version of Black is Black, which kick started the show.

 

Name the two sixties artists who did the original versions. I reckon Needles And Pins should be easy, not so sure if the average modern day pop fan could name the original artist who did Black Is Black so easily without reference to the search engine, though.

 

All the best,

 

BC B-)

 

Thats been rather generous to Danny Mirror! I don't often hate records, but that has remained fairly consistent in my opinion for 35 years now! OK it was well-intentioned.....

 

Sonny Bono was a good songwriter, apart from the famous songs he wrote some little gems. Best Sonny & Cher tracks are "Little Man" and the MOR fab "All I Ever Need Is You".

 

:)

Thank you to popcharfreak for his Sony Bono input, this week's edition was advertised as being presented by Dave Lee Travis, but was actually presented by David Jensen. I can only assume that the original DLT presentation was shelved in view of the latest current events.

 

Pretty soon there won't be any editions to show at this rate! Let's hope that Peter Powell, due to present the next edition, is not arrested within the next week or so. :w00t:

 

Liked this week's edition, good rock records from Ram Jam and Tom Robinson, bit of fun from Darts, reasonable ballad from Rod The Mod, a slightly more sophisticated sound from ABBA, and a novel number one from those Baccara Spanish beauties. It has been argued that Yazz's "The Only Way Is Up" is a rip off of Baccara's "I Can Boogie". There is certainly a similiar vibe there.

 

And play out music from the Sex Pistols. Great stuff.

 

Other highlights included a reasonable soul song from Smokey Robinson, who presumably was on a tour of the UK at the time, hence a rare appearance from the great man in the Top Of The Pops studio.

 

And then there was a political song from Boney M! :cry: Who would ever have guessed such a thing occurring.

 

So trivia question for this week, inspired by Boney M's Belfast - let's have a few songs which either mention big cities around the world in their titles, or which are about big cities.

 

So, for example, I would cite London Calling by The Clash, but also Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks, as both are fundamentally about London.

 

I reckon lots of records should come into the equation here.

 

All the best,

 

BC B-)

Edited November 16, 201212 yr by blackcat

For the moment let's start with this gem

 

To start with:

 

Adam & the Ants - Young Parisians

Mobiles - Drowning in Berlin

Editors - Munich

Scott McKenzie - San Francisco

Doors - L.A. Woman

 

There are some obvious once such as

 

Pogues & Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale Of New York

Mike Oldfield - Portsmouth

Ultravox - Vienna

Special AKA - Ghost Town (about Coventry)

Frank Sinatra -Chicago

Simple Minds - Belfast Child

Darts - Boy From New York City

Pet Shop Boys - New York City Boy

Hello - New York Groove

 

I'll post some of the more obscure ones later.

Supergrass- St Petersburg

Paloma Faith - New York

Bee Gees - Massachusetts

Beautiful South - Rotterdam

Infernal - From Paris To Berlin

Thanks Grebo, Robbie, Suedehead, great suggestions so far.

 

I note that there is quite a debate on the equivalent of this thread on the Haven site. Don't know if anyone wants to start such a debate on here.

 

Over there some people are suggesting that maybe the BBC might indeed be taking top of the pops 1977 off the screens, in view of two ex-presenters now being alledgedly involved in scandal, the late Jimmy Savile, and Dave Lee Travis (DLT has just been released on bail).

 

My point of view is that such an action would be unnecessary, I only watch the old top of the pops for the music and the way that music is presented by the artists concerned, I certainly don't watch these old shows because of the presenters.

 

As far as I am concerned a modern day Adolf Hitler could be presenting these shows, I could not care less. All I care about is the music show cased by them.

 

One BBC solution would be to phase out all clips of presenters, and just show the music from the programmes, a bit like on Top Of The Pops 2.

 

That would mean that the programmes would not be going out in their exact original forms, but that's life. I keep watching remastered editions of the old Star Trek series, and no one has complained about those old sixties programmes being altered to cater for a modern audience. So why not do the same with these old top of the pops shows.

 

But that's just my point of view. Obviously I would not wish distress on any relative of a person who was alledgedly abused by Savile, and if showing his face on the box causes such distress, then yes, don't show his face.

 

But there must be other ways around this than what I view as the highly drastic step of taking the programmes completely off the air.

 

Any opinions, this is the place!

 

 

Thanks,

 

BC B-)

I doubt we'll ever see the Savile editions now (unless they edit him out). However, from what I know so far, the allegations against Travis probably wouldn't have been seen as an offence when the alleged events happened. So they may be able to show his programmes before long. If they can't then I can see them abandoning the reruns. The number of 1978 shows they would have to miss is more than the 12 slots missed for Sky At Night.

Good show this week. Ram Jam, Slade, Darts, Tom Robinson.

 

Ok trvia question Mary Mason was on with her version of Angel Of The Morning, but does anyone know who took a sample of that song to number one in 2001?

 

little Fact: Angel Of The Morning was written by the same bloke who wrote Wild Thing for the Troggs, Chip Taylor. A US hit for Merilee Rush and the Turnabouts in the 60's, The Turnanbouts Guitarist Carl was brother of Wilson Sisters from Heart! I was just reading about it yesterday, something I didnt know.

Edited November 17, 201212 yr by fiesta

Time for another city

 

I doubt we'll ever see the Savile editions now (unless they edit him out). However, from what I know so far, the allegations against Travis probably wouldn't have been seen as an offence when the alleged events happened. So they may be able to show his programmes before long. If they can't then I can see them abandoning the reruns. The number of 1978 shows they would have to miss is more than the 12 slots missed for Sky At Night.

 

I think you're right. The BBC seem to have gone a bit mad lately, and gone the route of the gutter press, accusing innocent people and paying the price, not accusing apparently-guilty people and paying the price, and now not taking a chance and just banning anything that might cause flack. DLT is not a child molester nor murderer, and accusations are alleged, he hasn't yet been found guilty of anything. I don't recall the BBC banning Michael Jackson records during his trial, or Phil Spector (convicted murderer) Jerry Lee Lewis (married a 14 year old cousin, perfectly legally - albeit unbelievably these days - and there's been no retrospective application of current laws). R Kelly? Chris Brown? They seem to blow whichever way the opinion of the press forces them to (Jonathan King and Gary Glitter never played these days)