I loved Move Any Mountain (topped my chart, but tragically a band member drowned after they'd filmed the video in the Canaries, as so many do every year thinking the Atlantic Ocean is safe when you can be swept out and drowned just walking on the beach!), less keen on this one as it had a whiff of novelty about it (naughty naughty veeery naughty, e's are good e's are good).

 

I bought Boss Drum, though.

 

So your number one could be 68 or 69. By all rights it should be 68 as that's when my charting days started with a certain record getting to number one. Or 81. Or 65. Less keen on 66 m'self. And 86. How exciting!

1992 the year I was born!

 

Wasn't expecting Ebenezzer Goode to be so high

 

Yes double meaning, high on your list, and high as in until quite recently not knowing about the drug references in the song. Obviously don't condone them but production wise, overall, a very good dance tune.

 

Move Any Mountain is more indie/Madchester sounding than Ebenezzer Goode. Phorever People is a good tune too, that one was a bit more 90s Eurodance sounding with the structure of the rap/spoken word verses and big chorus although still had some of their signature indie dance instrumentation.

 

Dr Alban's It's My Life I do really like though, its a bit of an epic especially towards the end and Tasmin Archer's Sleeping Satellite is a really nice song. There were a few dance covers of old songs too in the charts in 1992. Rage's cover of Run To You is better than Undercover - Baker Street imo.

 

So your number one could be 68 or 69. By all rights it should be 68 as that's when my charting days started with a certain record getting to number one. Or 81. Or 65. Less keen on 66 m'self. And 86. How exciting!

 

Oh just remembered what was #1 in September 1986 which kept Jermaine Stewart and his clothes from #1 and yes I wasn't expecting it to be this high on your list but I am a fan of it. Although I look at OCC chart archives a lot I can't remember what was #1 in September 1981, will have to look that one up.

Edited September 20, 20204 yr by Garden Snake

At number six we finally get to the number one on the day I was born. Most avid chart-watchers will, at some point, have wanted to know what topped the chart on the day they were born. For some of us, it took some time to be able to find out. The internet didn’t exist and there were no chart books. It wasn’t really until a book listing the top twenty charts came out at some point in the 1970s that my interest in historical charts began, simply because the information hadn’t been readily available before that.

 

Naturally, once I had got a copy of the book, I wanted to find out what my birth-date number one was and soon discovered that it was Apache by The Shadows. At the time, The Shadows were known as Cliff RIchard’s backing band. They had started life as The Drifters but had to change their name because of the American group of the same name.

 

The American Drifters formed before the UK version although they didn’t have any UK chart success until after Cliff Richard and The Drifters had notched up a few hits. The US band went on to enjoy many hits over here through the sixties and into the seventies. At least, then, this dispute over nomenclature involved a genuinely successful band challenging another. Some subsequent naming disputes involved people so obscure that they were barely a household name in their own household. Solo singers who named themselves Suede and Oasis spring to mind.

 

The Shadows’ (or Drifters’) twangy guitar sound was a major feature of early Cliff Richard hits so perhaps it was not a surprise when they started to record music of their own. Their first single without Cliff (and, indeed, without vocals) was Apache, released in July 1960 and which entered the chart that month. By the time they climbed to number two, they found themselves stuck behind one of their songs with Cliff Richard, Please Don’t Tease. A week later, the positions were reversed and The Shadows had (sort of) replaced themselves at number one.

 

Apache stayed at the top for five weeks meaning that it was still there when I entered this world. In the early weeks of The Shadows’ chart run, guitarist Bert Weedon was also in the chart with a version of Apache but that left the top forty in the week that Hank Marvin and co climbed to the top. Among the other songs in the top forty for Apache’s fifth week at the summit were Roy Orbison’s Only The Lonely, Shakin’ All Over by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates and, erm, TIe Me Kangaroo Down Sport by the then popular entertainer Rolf Harris.

 

The Shadows’ five weeks at number one was ended by Tell Laura I Love Her by Ricky Valance who died earlier this year. It was a story of a teenager who was killed in a stock car race, trying to win enough money to get engaged to his girlfriend. It was one of several “death records” that were popular at the time.

 

The Shadows had a further four number one hits as a standalone band. By the 1970s, they were largely recording cover versions of hit songs. Cliff Richard and the Shadows are (I believe) the only British chart act to have split into two acts who each represented the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest. Richard came second in 1968 with Congratulations and third five years later with Power To All Our Friends. The Shadows came second in 1975 with one of their few vocal numbers Let Me Be The One.

 

Earlier this year (before you-know-what made it impossible), The Shadows reassembled to recreate the song and to talk about their bid to knock Cliff off the top.

 

Bruce Welch of the Shadows produced some of Cliff’s later singles including Devil Woman. He also had a decent hit single himself with Ebony Eyes (not the song by the Everly Brothers who had two entries in my birth-date chart).

 

Obviously, I never had listened to this before, but my first impression is not negative. Good to see an instrumental only doing this well, but I would never had put this ahead of Ebeneezer Goode and so many others good songs I've seen in this countdown. :P

Apache does have a special nostalgia value as my first ever birthday number one :P

Apache is brilliant, still charming, and topped my chart in 2005, a mere 45 years old. Until The Beatles came along there was only one British group that mattered, and that was 'dem. I loved them when I went to see Cliff & The Shads in Summer Holiday at the cinema, and I don't remember them ever not existing :lol:

 

I'd put it ahead of 3 in your top 5. Maybe. :lol: My birth day number one is about a birth day for a special baby (no, not me, surprisingly :lol: )

It is definitely iconic, although I always seem to get it mixed up with “Telstar” by The Tornados who may I point out for the 94th time containes the Dad of Muse's Matt Bellamy (though Muse never quite managed a number 1 hit, they came close though - with “Supermassive Black Hole” which makes a nice celestial link).

I first heard part of this song from an advert for sausages a while ago. It is a very good instrumental. It also sounds to me like what you would expect in a soundtrack to a Western film.

 

Apache is brilliant, still charming, and topped my chart in 2005, a mere 45 years old.

 

Was the aforementioned sausage advert on TV in 2005 and that was what led you to rechart it? :unsure:

 

Edited September 21, 20204 yr by Garden Snake

Apache is enjoyable whoever does it, but the best version is definitely the Incredible Bongo Band's one, with Sugarhill Gang's sample of it also being a classic.

 

It is definitely iconic, although I always seem to get it mixed up with “Telstar” by The Tornados who may I point out for the 94th time containes the Dad of Muse's Matt Bellamy (though Muse never quite managed a number 1 hit, they came close though - with “Supermassive Black Hole” which makes a nice celestial link).

Matt Bellamy's dad was mentioned in my piece about She's Not You!

I've added a bit about the song that replaced Apache which I managed to miss out :mellow:

Apache is enjoyable whoever does it, but the best version is definitely the Incredible Bongo Band's one, with Sugarhill Gang's sample of it also being a classic.

 

Thanks for that :dance:

I first heard part of this song from an advert for sausages a while ago. It is a very good instrumental. It also sounds to me like what you would expect in a soundtrack to a Western film.

Was the aforementioned sausage advert on TV in 2005 and that was what led you to rechart it? :unsure:

 

I'm not sure TBH, though I don't think I allowed songs in adverts at that time unless they had sales reasons too :lol: It may have got the Shadows Hits into the album charts, and that may have given me the excuse to chart it, or it might have popped up in the oldies chart that was published then (for tracks older than 2 years that were selling well that week)

From one end of the 1960s we go to the other end for the song at number five. It comes from a band who had four top ten singles in the space of a year but it’s the one which topped the chart in 1969 for which they are best remembered.

 

The band that was to become Creedence Clearwater Revival had their musical careers rudely interrupted when they were called up for military service in the mid-1960s. They picked up again in 1967 and settled on their name at the beginning of the following year. They had their first UK hit single in the summer of ‘69 (maybe that would make a good song title) with Proud Mary and followed that up with the classic-to-be Bad Moon Rising.

 

Bad Moon Rising took three weeks to reach the top ten and then, three weeks later in mid-September, it climbed to number one, ending the three week run of the decidedly odd In The Year 2525 by Zager And Evans. It was still there the following week, allowing it to qualify for this list. Other songs in the chart at the time included Bob Dylan’s Lay Lady Lay, Johnny Cash’s A Boy Named Sue and the original release of David Bowie’s Space Oddity, inspired by the moon landing a couple months earlier.

 

The song that replaced Bad Moon Rising was part of one of the weirdest episodes in chart history. We know that there have been times when it was commonplace to have two or more different versions of the same song in the chart. It even happens occasionally in the 21st century. It is rather more unusual to have the same recording of the same song charting twice.

 

Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg’s Je T’Aime… Moi Non Plus entered the chart in late July and, initially, climbed fairly slowly. As it grew in popularity, it also grew in notoriety and, due to it’s somewhat questionable content, was banned by radio stations in the UK and elsewhere. Naturally, that notoriety merely served to increase its popularity and, by the time of the chart that qualifies for this thread, it had reached number two behind Bad Moon Rising.

 

At this point, the record company panicked and announced that it was deleting the single and, therefore, would not be pressing any more copies. An aggrieved Gainsbourg immediately did a deal with another record company, allowing the new company to produce new copies, thereby allowing the song to continue to sell. The result was that the original release crashed to number sixteen the following week as the remaining copies were sold while the “new” release entered at number three. It may well be that the combined sales would have seen it top the chart that week. By the following week sales of the original release were still enough to keep it in the top forty while the “new” release climbed to the top to replace Bad Moon Rising after a three-week-run. Je T’Aime thus became the first number one to be banned by the BBC.

 

Bad Moon Rising remains a classic song and was used to great effect in John Landis’s 1981 film An American Werewolf In London.

 

At number four it is a song from the 1970s. To be more accurate, it is a 1986 cover of a song from the 1970s. In the early months of 1977 two versions of Don’t Leave Me This Way - one by Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, the other by Thelma Houston - were in the top forty. I wasn’t a fan of either of them. The song was co-written by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff whose other compositions include When Will I See You Again, Me And Mrs Jones and Love Train.

 

Nine years later, then, my hopes were not high when I discovered that Communards were releasing a version of the song as their third single. Then I heard it and thought it was terrific. It was notable for the fact that Jimmy Somerville’s vocals were higher than those of the guest vocalist, Sarah Jane Morris. A few plays later (by which time it had entered the chart at number 28), I was convinced it would go to number one. Three weeks later it replaced Boris Gardiner’s I Want To Wake Up With You to prove me right. The best thing that can be said about I Want To Wake Up With You is that it was a distinct improvement on the song it replaced, Chris de Burgh’s Lady In Red.

 

Two weeks further on, it was still at number one, making it instantly one of my favourite birthday chart-toppers. A couple years before the first two versions of Don’t Leave Me This Way were in the chart, one of the people in the year above me at school was a lad called Nicky Eede (also sometimes known as Nick van Eede). By the time Communards were at number one, the same Nicky Eede was the lead member of Cutting Crew who were in the top five with (I Just) Died In Your Arms. Also in the chart that week were a re-recorded version of Psychedelic Furs’ wonderful Pretty In Pink, Eurythmics’ Thorn In My Side, (Forever) Live And Die by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark and Paul Simon’s You Can Call Me Al, his first hit for six years taken from the Graceland album which had been released that month.

 

Don’t Leave Me This Way spent another fortnight at number one before its run was ended by Madonna’s True Blue.

 

Communards were formed by Jimmy Somerville and Richard Coles (now a vicar and broadcaster) when they left Bronski beat. Somerville had been openly gay from the start of his musical career and Bronski Beat’s first hit, Smalltown Boy, was about his experience as a young gay man leaving his native Scotland for London. Bronski Beat also had a hit, along with Marc Almond, with a brilliant mash-up of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love and John Leyton’s Johnny Remember Me, the song whose four weeks at number one were interrupted for a week by Shirley Bassey (see number 25).

 

One of Communards’ final hits, in 1988, was For A Friend, a deeply moving song about a friend of Somerville and Coles who had died of Aids.

 

Jimmy Somerville ended Communards to pursue a solo career. The original version of I Feel Love was produced by the great Giorgio Moroder. In 1997 Moroder worked with Sparks on their Plagiarism album on which the Mael brothers reworked some of their biggest hits. Somerville joined them as a guest vocalist on Number One Song In Heaven and even turned up in 2008 when Sparks played Plagiarism in full as part of their 20-night Sparks Spectacular. It remains the only time I have ever seen Somerville perform live although I did once walk past him in Old Compton Street, Soho.

 

Don't Leave Me This Way is certainly a very good dance song at a time when there were lots of ballads but few upbeat dance songs in the charts. The production is great in it and yes the high toned male and lower toned female vocal certainly makes it different. There was also another very good dance song in the charts at the same time; Love Can't Turn Around by Farley Jackmaster Funk which was the first house music hit.

 

Its a pity that the Communards split up, they could have continued on to the early 90s when there were other dance/dance-pop music bands around such as D:Ream. I didn't know Somerville has worked with Sparks but it makes sense given that Sparks also utilise quite high-tonal male vocals.

 

I Want To Wake Up With You is better than Lady In Red, I agree. Thorn In My Side by Eurythmics I actually prefer to There Must Be An Angel from the year before. The Cutting Crew track is very good too. I am surprised there was not a Call On Me style remix of that song in the mid 00s making the charts. Forever Live And Die is one of the best OMD singles I think. You Can Call me Al is great I have liked that song for a long time and Fun. - Some Nights from the 2012 did remind me in terms of music style of that song.

Edited September 22, 20204 yr by Garden Snake

Apache is great. Got the Shadows 20 Golden Greats CD.

Sorry but I prefer the Thelma Houston and Harold Melvin ( Real vocalist Teddy Pendergrast) versions of Don't Leave Me This Way.

Don't Leave Me This Way is certainly a very good dance song at a time when there were lots of ballads but few upbeat dance songs in the charts. The production is great in it and yes the high toned male and lower toned female vocal certainly makes it different. There

 

I Want To Wake Up With You is better than Lady In Red, I agree. Thorn In My Side by Eurythmics I actually prefer to There Must Be An Angel from the year before.

 

 

Wow I agree with you on both points. Several other Euryhthmics tracks that I prefer to their only UK nO.1.

Bad Moon Rising has followed me around over the years - I was the new boy at RAF Seletar Secondary Modern in Singapore, and when I wasn't playing British Bulldog in the mid-day equatorial heat I would be in the library taking out Just William books, or The Bobbsey twins. In one of them someone had kindly written out the lyrics to Bad Moon Rising, which I liked, at a time when I collected lyrics to pop songs. Jump almost 30 years later, I loved the song, bought a 12 inch vinyl of it, and was in the car with my parents in the Florida Keys at night, looking for some motel to stay in, the moon was out as I drove down the highway, and up popped Bad Moon Rising on oldies radio. Most appropriate.

 

I had this down as your potential number one!

 

I'm with Chris, the original version (Harold Melvin) is way better then the more-annoying Somerville shrieks. When he reigns it in a bit he's fab, but this one sucked-out all the soul and passion and replaced it with a jolly playful dance beat that I liked a lot but got fed-up with after the novelty had worn off. I never went to school with a pop star, but does sharing a room in Paris with a future West End musicals impressario while on a Uni Art course spree count for anything? My lips are sealed at what I saw, just in case I want to blackmail some day and star in a West End play :lol:

 

I've never walked past Jimmy Somerville, but Marc Almond stuck his head round the door of a bar I was sitting in in Gran Canaria, saw me and then carried on walking. I mean, how rude! It's as if he knew I would have given him a list of 60's classic torch songs to cover (some of which he did anyway some years later)! Then there was the time Neil Tenant walked right by me in London Ku Bar, no thank you for going to see him many times at all those concerts, just swanned on downstairs to the club as if he had better things to do than chat to a fanboy in a packed bar! My mate got him back though, while he was eating in a restaurant across from their current ballet, and got him to sign a programme for me. :lol: