blackcat

Really? Surprises me, working from memory I always remember that particular record as being a short lived number one. But the human memory is a fickle thing, at times! Still an incredible list of number ones. There were rumours at the beginning of this year that ABBA might reform. Don't know if anyone has any info. on that............

Yes, Grebo, correct. That is how I remember it anyway, if anybody has a different list, then please post here! But I remember it as Waterloo first, then Mama Mia, Fernando, Dancing Queen, Knowing Me Knowing You, The Name Of The Game, Take A Chance On Me, The Winner Takes It All, and Super Trouper. Money Money Money never got to number one, and surprisingly, nor did some of the late seventies records you mentioned Suedehead, such as SOS, for example. Arguably The Name Of The Game was their "luckiest" number one, only topped the charts for one week. My favourite ABBA song? Summer Night City, a great track. Check it out on youtube if you have not heard it. Great song.

Great attempt, Grebo, as was suedehead's earlier. Unfortunately, neither of you are quite there yet! Suedehead, I would advise you to look to the early eighties as well as the seventies, they definately had number ones at the beginning of the the 1980's, and grebo, you are almost there, just need to take one out of the list that involves finance, and put another one in that involves Spanish sounding things!!! B-)

Thanks for your input, Grebo, Judas Priest, in particular, were a glaring omission from the Brum list. I found this week's edition more interesting. Always considered RED LIGHT as Billy Ocean's best record, much more interesting than his other stuff. A rare chance to hear an Elvis Presley record on Top Of The Pops. No one knew at that stage that he only had about 5 months left to live, sadly. And a very rare performance on Top Of The Pops 1977 from Barclay James Harvest! With a very hippy sounding number, that could have belonged to 10 years previously. Trivia question for this week concerns the return of ABBA, with one of their more complex offerings, Knowing Me Knowing You. The song eventually got to number one in the UK, and I can, off the top of my head, think of the other eight UK number one records they had, all of which would, of course, have appeared on Top Of The Pops over the years. So that's the question - apart from Knowing Me Knowing You, what were Abba's eight number ones here in Britain. All the best until next week. B-)

Yes, although for this one, I did look at Wikipaedia! Spencer Davis himself is a Welshman, but the band were formed in Birmingham. Stevie Winwood, the best known member of the band, went on to success with Traffic, and as a solo artist. And Winwood was born in Birmingham, according to Wiki. That must be all the main artists from Birmingham mentioned now, certainly the main chart artists. Have enjoyed this trivia question, might set another one like this at some point. So the next time, say, a Welsh artist is on....................... :D

Just realised something - there is one very important Birmingham group, again from the sixties, missing from the above list. You will have to keep on running to find the name of this group. B-)

Well done again suedehead, that's six acts mentioned now from Birmingham. Might be more, the only other one I can think of is Jaspar Carrott! LOL! Strangely, can't think of any punk act from Birmingham, which is somewhat surprising. Still, a lot of talent from Birmingham over the years.

No more entries on this, so I will give a clue or two. Black Sabbath have been mentioned as a brum act. Well, there was another Birmingham based act, formed in the mid sixties, who, like Sabbath, also had a colour mentioned in their name......................... Also, in the early eighties, a very talented young lady from that part of the World had hits in the UK. Bit of a mystery that one, though................. :rolleyes:

Have not seen it yet, jules! Will do as soon as I get the chance. There are things in the anthology documentaries which state George's point of view, if you like. The general consensus these days is that George, not to put too fine a point on it, was shat on somewhat by the other two songwriters in the band! Pity that the Beatles did not last a few years longer, because George was coming into his best ever form as a songwriter just as the band was breaking up. The two best songs on Abbey Road are Here Comes The Sun, and Something, in my view, and they were both written by George. The man was an excellent songwriter by the end of the Beatles career, and later an important figure to the British film industry as well. And a great guitarist to boot. I disagree with Lennon's later assertion that it was him and Paul who were the Beatles really, because they wrote the bulk of the songs. George and Ringo added elements that helped make the band the phenomenon that they were. No doubt that George was a very important member of the biggest band of them all.

Yes, I am the same blackcat, and I do still post at ukmix, under a different username or two. Don't post under the blackcat username anymore, for various unsavoury reasons which I won't go into on here! :w00t: I would certainly have used the link you mentioned, but alas not recently, so I have no idea what would have happened to the website you mentioned. The number one record from last Thursday's edition, by Manhattan Transfer, would not have been out of place as an early 1950's number one! :D The edition really was that bad! As for Brum acts, well done all so far, UB40, The Move, Wizzard, Duran Duran, Black Sabbath all rightly mentioned. There are one or two more I can think of off the top of my head, though.........................

Thank you for your input regarding Rod Temperton, Robbie. Disappointed with this week's programme, far too middle of the road and too many smiling faces for me! Barely a highlight to be picked out. ELO perhaps were the nearest act to my kind of taste in music, which is hard but tuneful rock. Does not seem to be as much interest in these top of the pops repeats as there used to be in any case - or is everyone waiting for punk to come along?! B-) Hard to think of a decent trivia question this week as well. Well, since the last one was tricky, let's go for an easier one. ELO were from Birmingham, of course, can anyone, off the top of their heads, name at least four other successful chart acts from arguably England's second city? Remember, Brum acts only, please. Roll on the next edition, let's hope for better stuff next time around.

Yes, well done all, including those who cheated! :lol: Rod Temperton was Heatwave's main keyboard player, and later wrote a number of songs for different artists, the ones he wrote for Michael Jackson being perhaps the most successful. These did indeed include the song "Thriller", from the most successful album of all-time, which has sold around 10 billion million copies Worldwide or something!!!!!! :o What I don't know is how the two came to work together. Presumably Michael heard Heatwave, liked their songs, and took it from there. A highly successful collaboration. Full credit to Rod Temperton, perhaps the unsung, hero of the creation that was the Thriller project...............

RIP Davy Jones.

It was Heatwave's keyboardist, well done Richie. Now I just need his name, and the name of the megastar he later wrote some songs for. Additional clue - the megastar concerned really was a big, big star, especially in the eighties and nineties. In fact, in terms of record sales in the eighties, in particular, maybe you could not get much bigger..................

Thanks for your last entry, suedehead, and fo the chart info. on Les Gray. I rarely ever look at wikipaedia myself when setting these trivia questions, by the way, most I make up from my own knowledge of pop music, limited as it is! I have just seen this week's edition on the iplayer, the best record is the one they played out with, in my view, David Bowie's Sound And Vision, although they did not exactly play a lot of it! Other highlights included Boogie Nights by Heatwave, Earth Wind And Fire - with a particularly hormone stimulating sequence from Legs & Co, I thought! - and another Evita track from Barbara Dickson. Messrs Rice and Webber certainly looked young in those days! You don't often hear that ELO Rockario song these days either. All in all, not a bad edition. Trivia question for this week, then. Boogie Nights by Heatwave was written by a particular member of the band, and that same heatwave member later wrote songs for a huge 1980's megastar. Can you name that member, and can you also name the megastar who later had hits with some of that Heatwave members compositions? All the best until next week, then. B-)

Correct, suedehead, Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders had the first hit, Phil Collins had the big number one with it. Not sure if Les Gray's version was a hit. If memory serves me correctly, the mindbenders later evolved into 10 c.c. Don't quote me on that though, I might be wrong!!

Yes, one of my better trivia questions, I think, this one, trying to work out the earlier version is a bit of a mindbending problem I think. ;)

Only just got around to watching this week's edition, bit soft and slushy in places, and lots of early to mid seventies glam acts still hanging about! Suzy Quatro, Les Gray, The Rubettes all represented in this week's edition. Thelma Houston looked way too cheerful given the subject matter of her song! Lots of Bohemian Rhapsody type effects for Mr. Big's single, even some for Leo Sayer's. I think that The Rubettes record was just as good a country sound as any record that came out of Nashville at the time. Must have been their last big hit, as well. Trivia question for this week relates to the showing of Mud's lead singer Les Gray's version of A Groovy Kind Of Love. About 11 years before the 1977 edition, that same song had been a hit for one of the lesser known sixties beat acts. And about 11 years after the 1977 edition, A Groovy Kind of Love became a hit again, for one of the better known eighties acts! Can you name both the sixties act that hit the charts with the song, and the eighties act that did the same? So I want the names of both acts, please, that had hits with A Groovy Kind Of Love, both around 11 years before and around 11 years after Les Gray's 1977 version of the song. No looking it up, now! :o

I always thought that it was Huey Lewis And The News that Parker plagiarised, their song "I Want A New Drug" sounding very much like Ray Parker Jnr's Ghostbusters.

No one is innocent, as the Sex Pistols said. Lots of talk about Gary Glitter and David Soul on this topic recently. We all know about Glitter's misdemeanors, of course, but let's not forget that David Soul is an ex-alcoholic, and his actions, amongst other things, included assaulting his wife at the time when she was seven months pregnant. In short, Soul was a woman beater. Maybe that makes the lyrics of Don't Give Up On Us slightly more pertinent to the singer who sang them.............. :unsure:

You are right, his biggest Uk hit in terms of unit sales. There will be very few future UK sales of Glitter records, I would suggest.........................

I was never that big of fan, to be honest, but her music was always around, always being played, during my main nightclubbing period of the late eighties/early nineties. Whitney was 48 when she passed away - Born August 1963, passed away less than 24 hours ago, February 12th 2012. Her life was not a happy one for a singer who had had such huge amounts of success, with drug problems, problems of husband abuse from Bobby Brown, it has been alledged, although she did have one daughter by Brown. Her mother was Cissy Houston, her cousin was Dionne Warwick, her Godmother was Aretha Franklin. With a pedigree like that, it is perhaps not surprising that Whitney had such great success, with a superb singing voice, and a professional presentation of her records. Whitney is the most "awarded" female act in history, with Emmy awards, multiple grammy awards, Billboard awards of all kinds for her high sales in the late eighties and early nineties, in particular. The Bodyguard soundtrack is one of the best selling flim soundtracks in history, her version of Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You is one of the best selling singles ever. She is probably about third or fourth in terms of the list of best selling female artists of all-time, certainly behind Madonna, Celine Dion, and Mariah Carey, (in my own sales estimation) but still in front of so many others. Among her many achievements salewise was a record seven consecutive number one singles in a row on the American Billboard charts, which is even more impressive than the Beatles and The Bee Gees, both of whom only managed six number ones in a row. Her best record? Always a question of personal taste, but this one brings back lots of happy eighties memories for me: nsHcZiTSaBI RIP Whitney Houston.

As danchartfan says, there is some difference between the picture quality of the British clips and the American clips. David Soul's clip looks about 100 years old! Just watched this week's repeat on iplayer, slightly better stuff, I have always liked Harold Melvin And The Bluenotes classic Don't Leave Me This Way, and liked it even more seeing Legs & Co dancing to it! :D Thin Lizzy always good, Boz Scaggs had a good song out at the time, and believe it or not, I vaguely remember buying the Rubettes record at the time! Would never buy a record like that now. But that's life, tastes change. Bit surprised to see Glitter on this edition, no editing out this time. I wonder if Gary Glitter fans had protested to the BBC about his editing out of other editions? A possibility. Later I also saw the "How The Brits Rocked America" documentary, and I have always been puzzled as to why none of the big British glam rock acts - like Gary Glitter, Slade, T-Rex, The Sweet - never made it big in America. Afterall, their immediate British predecessors from the sixties had been huge in the States. Trivia question this week - off the top of your head, can anyone recall Gary Glitter's only UK million selling single? I bet suedehead knows the answer, as usual! ;)

Money's Too Tight To Mention by Simply Red - not sure if that has been mentioned yet. Original by The Valentine Brothers.

Well done suedehead, the orginal Welsh rockers, were Amen Corner. Soul also had a number two hit in between Don't Give Up On Us and Silver Lady, with a track called Going In with My Eyes Wide Open. Basically a reworking of Don't Give up On Us is how it sounded to me. Last time I heard David Soul was living in London, and supporting Arsenal! He must be a pleased man today then. :o