THIS IS THE FIRST in a series of ten articles listing and addressing the #1 records of the year as they appeared on Cash Box magazine’s Top 100 chart from 1960 through 1969. It was originally published as “Save The Last Twist For Me” on my publication Tell It Like It Was on Medium on January 1, 2019. The article below is identical to that one.
Please read “Introduction To The #1 Records On The Cash Box Pop Chart of the 1960s” before reading this article. It will explain the nature of this project, introduce you to the writers whose opinions follow, and will make everything easier to understand.
The opinions expressed below are those of John Ross, Lew Shiner, and me. John is the talent behind the Round Place In The Middle website where he opines about rock & roll, western movies, and detective novels. John is my favorite writer writing about rock & roll. He is currently working on his first novel.
Lew is one of the finest novelists in America. Since you’re reading his name here, start with his novel Glimpses, which combines time-travel with fantasy and the milieu of ’60s rock music. Follow that with Deserted Cities Of The Heart (time-travel and psychedelic mushrooms!) and then his latest, Outside The Gates Of Heaven, which also takes place in the ’60s.
If you want to skim through this article and skip around from record to record or comment to comment, that works and you’ll have fun. But this article will make more sense if you read it from beginning to end.
One of the first things you will notice is that each of the articles opens with a calendar of events that reflect the zeitgeist of the era. Hopefully, these will give you some background and some context in which the #1 records of that were made.
FEATURED ARTIST: In March 1960, Sgt. Elvis Presley was discharged from the US Army and was greeted by a press conference (above). He headed straight into RCA’s studios, where he cut three massive-selling singles (Stuck On You, It’s Now Or Never, and Are You Lonesome To-night?) and one of the best rock & roll albums of all time, ELVIS IS BACK!
He also recorded three other hits in 1960: Surrender would top charts all over the world in 1961 while Wooden Heart and Crying In The Chapel would top the charts in the UK and most of Europe in 1961 and 1965, respectively. But by 1962, he was more an actor who starred in increasingly insipid movies than he was the King of Rock & Roll.
1960
January
In the so-called “payola scandal,” the National Association of Broadcasters threatened to levy fines against any disc-jockey who accepted money from a record company or their representatives for playing a particular record.
February
In Greensboro, North Carolina, four black students began a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter at a Woolworth’s store. This triggered protests throughout the South. Five months later, those four students were served lunch at that Woolworth’s counter.
March
Elvis Presley received an honorable discharge from the US Army and returned home from Germany after being away for almost two years.
April
Bye Bye Birdie opened on Broadway in New York City and was the first big musical to feature anything resembling rock & roll music as part of its score.
May
President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1960 into law.
June
The first FDA-approved contraceptive drug, Enovid (“the pill”), became available at pharmacies throughout the United States.
July
The new 50-star flag of the United States acknowledging two new states, Alaska and Hawaii, was officially flown for the first time at 12:01 AM (EDT) on July 4, 1960, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC.
August
The Beatles began a 48-night residency at the Indra club in Hamburg, West Germany.
September
Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy spoke to a group of Protestant ministers to address their concerns that a Roman Catholic President might not be able to operate independently of the Vatican. Kennedy told them, “I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic.”
October
In South Africa, white citizens voted 52-48% to make the country a republic independent of the English throne.
November
John Kennedy was elected President of the United States, causing rightwingers nationwide to begin plotting his political and personal demise.
December
In Boynton v. Virginia, the US Supreme Court declared segregation in public transportation to be illegal in the United States.
From 1957 through 1962, Connie Francis was the top female rock & roll and pop artist on the singles charts. With a slew of albums and several starring roles in Hollywood movies, she may have been the first female rock “superstar,” a term that didn’t exist in the ’60s. While she should have been one of the first women inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, she hasn’t even been nominated!
Felina, fantods, fame, and fortune
Despite what pop culture historians would have you believe, rock & roll did not dominate the top of the Cash Box or Billboard charts in the second half of the ’50s. In fact, take away Elvis and you need a very flexible definition of rock & roll to count more than a handful of genuine rock & roll records that made it to #1 on those charts.
While it was certainly a presence that had to be recognized, many of the best-selling records were the kind of pop music that could have existed prior to the rock & roll revolution of 1955-1956. The records that were chart-topping hits in the first few years of the ’60s echo the records that were hits in the last few years of the ’50s: a combination of adult-oriented easy-listening music and teen-oriented pop music with some rock & roll and rhythm & blues.
The biggest hit record of 1958 was Domenico Modugno’s Volare while the biggest hit of 1959 was Johnny Horton’s The Battle Of New Orleans. And then there were the silly novelty hits with witch doctors, purple people eaters, and chipmunks all over the place! There was still plenty of music at the top of the chart that was safe to play for your parents.
As 1960 began, the major record companies were filling the airwaves with bland pop music and ersatz rock & roll. In a comment below, Lew Shiner refers to 1960 as “the height of the reactionary response to rock & roll.”
There was lots of rock & roll being recorded, it just wasn’t topping the charts. Many of the best-selling records were the kind of pop music that could have existed prior to the rock & roll revolution of 1956.
The continued popularity of adult-oriented instrumentals and lightweight pop vocals in the first few years of the ’60s meant that our parents were probably still buying a lot of 45s.
So when you hear the hokey cha-cha-cha rhythm of Elvis Presley’s It’s Now Or Never or the almost surreal roller-rink organ that opens Connie Francis’s Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool, remember that they were trying to sell records to parents as well as to teenagers!
1960
January 2–January 16
Frankie Avalon
Why
Chancellor C-1045
(3 weeks)
Frankie Avalon first recorded as a middle-of-the-road trumpet player before recording as a pop singer in the new field of rock & roll. It’s doubtful that Frankie could have pulled off a believable rock & roll performance if he tried. Fortunately, he didn’t try, but he did put Venus at the top of the charts for five weeks in 1959.
Apparently aimed at pre-adolescent girls, Venus bore no resemblance to anything Elvis or Fats or Little Richard would have recorded, yet it was a damn near perfect pop record and almost irresistibly catchy!
Which brings us to Why, the first #1 record of the new decade: It bore even less resemblance to rock & roll than Frankie’s first chart-topper and while Venus was charming, Why was rather noxious.
Nonetheless, it was Frankie’s sixth Top 10 record in three years, but he never came close to that part of the chart again. This despite the fact that be became a better singer with better material.
Lew: 1960 was the height of the reactionary response to rock & roll. Starting in 1955 with the release of the movies Rebel Without A Cause and Blackboard Jungle (the latter featuring Rock Around The Clock in the opening credits), rural America was reeling in fear of juvenile delinquency, hot rods, and music with a beat.
Whether by coincidence or conspiracy, at the end of 1959 Elvis was in the Army, Little Richard was in a seminary, and Chuck Berry was in jail under the Mann Act. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper were dead. Into this pop culture vacuum poured the white-bread, harmless likes of Frankie Avalon.
I honestly don’t remember if I’d heard this before or not. I just listened to it on YouTube, and I’m not sure I’ll remember it tomorrow.
Neal: As Lew said, the decision-makers at such major record companies as Columbia, RCA Victor, and Decca (who never liked rock & roll) had taken back control of Top 40 radio from the hordes of barbarian rockers from independent companies like Chess, RPM, and Sun.
They’d keep it for a few more years until a horde of barbarian rockers from the other side of the Atlantic invaded and changed everything—at least for a while.
John: I’m generally a fierce defender of this period but I confess the charm of this one escapes me. Billboard started the decade with Marty Robbins’ El Paso at #1. That seems more appropriate, especially since the next record was a western as well.
Neal: Unlike John, I was never a fan of Marty Robbins or his western sagas. Given a choice between El Paso and Why, I will (gasp!) go with the latter. (On the Billboard Hot 100, Why had been the last #1 record of the ’50s.)
Lew: I stand with John on this one. El Paso is a classic story song, full of strong emotions and vivid characters. As just one example, even though the narrator is obsessed with Felina, we the audience realize that she’s a faithless gold-digger, unworthy of his love.
When I listen to the song now, the final verse, as the posse closes in on the narrator, has the dark inevitability of Greek tragedy, and the line where he sings, “I feel the bullet go deep in my chest,” gives me the screaming fantods.
Neal: I had to learn a new word here: fantods is a heightened state of irritability and tension. “It seems one can’t have just the one fantod—they always arrive in multiples. Modern writers may speak of somebody having a case of the fantods, or hyperbolically the flaming fantods or the swiveling fantods.” (World Wide Words)
To link each of the entries in this article to the appropriate record on YouTube, I had to listen to each record. So I just listened to El Paso for the first time in a long time and realized how much its faux western sound and feel influenced the faux Mexican sound and feel of Elvis Presley’s FUN IN ACAPULCO soundtrack album from 1963!
Finally, I have three observations about this first entry in our series of articles on the #1 records of the ’60s:
1. Listening to the demo versions of El Paso that were available on YouTube did not give me a case of the hunka hunka burnin’ fantods.
2. If I was in my car and either Why or El Paso came on the radio, I’d probably change stations.
3. It’s hard to believe we found this much to say about a Frankie Avalon record.
• Billboard Hot 100 #1: Yes (1 week)
• Million-seller: No
• RIAA Gold Record: No
• Accumulated sales: Unknown
• 500 Songs That Shaped Rock: No
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: No
But do you like it?
John: ✯
Lew: ✯
Neal: ✯
January 23–February 6
Johnny Preston
Running Bear
Mercury 71474x45
(3 weeks)
Running Bear is basically a country record with a chorus that nods toward rock & roll. It retells the story of Romeo and Juliet with the young Indian brave Running Bear in love with the Indian maid Little White Dove. “But their tribes fought with each other so their love could never be.”
As the song ends with the two star-crossed lovers drowning together (“Now they’ll always be together in that happy hunting ground”) it’s also a teen tragedy record, although I have never seen it listed as such.
While technically not a novelty record, a young listener in the 21st century hearing this for the first time might think it was a satirical take on silly teen records of the ’50s, if not an outright joke of some sort. Nonetheless, the people who bought 45 rpm records in 1959-1960 liked it enough to make it #1.
Lew: In those days, outside of the big cities, kids generally had one AM radio station to listen to on their transistor radios. That one station played pop, doo-wop, easy-listening, rhythm & blues—and country music like this. If you ate at the diner or the soda fountain, you’d hear the same mixture on the jukebox.
As a result, we got great cross-pollination like Ray Charles’s MODERN SOUNDS IN COUNTRY & WESTERN MUSIC album (1962). I know if I had to live with the incredibly tight playlists today, I would go out of my mind, but I admire the idea of that diversity of music that everybody listened to back then.
John: I first heard this on one of those K-Tel type television commercials for oldies packages in the late ’70s. (Me first hearing things in the late ’70s will be a running theme here.) They would typically play a line or two from each song so what I heard was “Running Bear, loves a little white girl.” By the late ’70s, I didn’t even think that was odd. It was years before I heard the actual record.
Frankly, it was kind of a letdown . . . because I had been convinced this story record had a much more interesting story than a two-and-a-half-minute remake of The Song Of Hiawatha. I do, however, admire its concision. Longfellow did tend to go on a bit.
Neal: While Johnny Preston is only remembered for this one big hit, he was not a one-hit-wonder. In 1960, he had two more Top 20 hits, the pop-flavored rock & roll Cradle Of Love, and Feel So Fine, a reworking of Shirley & Lee’s 1955 R&B hit Feel So Good. After this amazingly promising start, he was ignored by Top 40 radio.
• Billboard Hot 100 #1: Yes (3 weeks)
• Million-seller: Yes
• RIAA Gold Record: No
• Accumulated sales: Unknown
• 500 Songs That Shaped Rock: No
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: No
But do you like it?
John: ✯ ✯
Lew: ✯ ✯
Neal: ✯
February 13–February 20
Mark Dinning
Teen Angel
MGM K-12845
(2 weeks)
Teen Angel is pop music for the then relatively new teenager market with nary a nod in the direction of rock & roll. It is perhaps the quintessential teen tragedy record, a genre that we probably could have lived comfortably without. Like Running Bear above, this is technically not a novelty record, but it certainly has a novelty-like sound and feel and a young listener in the 21st century might think it was a satirical take on silly teen records of the ’50s.
If you do enough research on the Internet, you will eventually come upon one of its great maxims, Poe’s Law. Coined by Nathan Poe in response to readers who took his blatantly satirical poke at Creationism as a sincere expression of belief, he concluded, “Without a clear indication of the author’s intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism.”
Perhaps we need something along this line to address the fact that when apparently sincere expressions of emotion such as those found in teen tragedy records (or in movies, novels, humor, etc.) are removed from the context of their time and culture, they appear insincere and satirical.
Lew: I used to be in a band that did this song, and when the lead singer got to the line that says, “Just sweet sixteen, and now you’re gone. They’ve taken you away,” the backup singer would somberly intone, “Five separate ambulances.” Sick, I know, but it always cracked me up and provided a nice antidote to the syrupy sentiment of the song.
John: I like what Lew’s band did with Teen Angel, and Teen Angel was pretty lame. But if it took a lame record to create the space where Leader Of The Pack and a bunch of lesser-known Shangri-Las records could be made, then I’m not gonna rag too much on it (see November 28, 1964, entry).
As to why teen tragedies—or “death discs,” as I call them—were so popular in the early ’60s, and with teenagers no less, that’s probably a book. (There have actually been some books, but I never saw one that looked good enough to buy.)
Neal: If we think of these records not as a sub-genre of teen-pop but simply as novelty records, then they fit in with all the other types of novelties that were making it big at the time. That may be a more accurate interpretation of these records than seeing them as some adolescent infatuation with Ballardesque, automobile-related tragedies.
Of course, there was a concurrent fascination with death in the renewal of interest in old monster movies among teens at this time that lasted through the decade. In 1956, Universal Pictures released its classic monster movies from the 1930s and ’40s to local television stations, allowing millions of kids to see movies that had been sitting on warehouse shelves for decades.
In 1959, Forrest J. Ackerman published the first issue of the Famous Monsters Of Filmland magazine, which found a very profitable and long-running place on the newsstands.
In the early ’60s, those old monster movies and the more recent Hammer horror films from England were staples of the Saturday matinees we were brought up on.
These introduced us to Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, etc., making many of us lifelong fans of a then defunct genre. So maybe those kids were the first of a long line that most recently manifested itself among teens with an obsession about sexy vampires.
John: This is the year I was born. Apparently, tragedy was everywhere.
Neal: Mark Dinning recorded and released records through the end of the decade but never came close to the Top 40 again. This would seem to qualify him as a one-hit-wonder.
• Billboard Hot 100 #1: Yes (2 weeks)
• Million-seller: Yes
• RIAA Gold Record: No
• Accumulated sales: Unknown
• 500 Songs That Shaped Rock: No
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: No
But do you like it?
John: ✯
Lew: ✯ ✯
Neal: ✯
February 27–April 16
Percy Faith & Orchestra
The Theme From “A Summer Place”
Columbia 4-41490
(8 weeks)
Every time I hear this theme song from the 1959 movie A Summer Place, I see June Cleaver in a dress and make-up, preparing dinner for Ward and the boys, Wally and the Beaver. They are in the living room watching the Old Ranger hawk Borax soap on Death Valley Days. And all is right with the world.
Which is ironic as that is far from the nature of the story that was told in the movie. Nonetheless, just hearing the melody while previewing versions of this record on YouTube for this entry made me feel Cleaverish all over.
Lew: This song was so ubiquitous that it functions for me as one of those time-travel records that Neal talks about on one of his blogs. The melody is saccharine, but boy does it get the job done.
John: The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, even in the ’60s. The only way I can explain the immense popularity of this song is that it must have made a good soundtrack for people who had their minds on other things.
If it was the specific “other thing” I’m thinking of, this certainly wouldn’t have caused any unwanted distractions. The only danger would be going to sleep in the middle of a smooch.
Neal: Songwriter Mack Discant added lyrics to Max Steiner’s music and a vocal version of Theme From “A Summer Place” was recorded by many singers. In 1965, the Lettermen (who had influenced the sound of the Beach Boys’ harmonies) recorded Theme From “A Summer Place” that sounded rather Beach Boys-ish, especially the Brian Wilson-like high part. This may have helped it into the Top 20.
John: And how did Percy Faith not end up being the name of a gospel-drenched soul singer? The Cosmos was asleep at the wheel on that one.
Neal: While Percy Faith never came close to having another hit the size of Theme From “A Summer Place,” he was one of the most successful easy-listening instrumental artists of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. He released over a hundred albums, selling tens of millions of records. Nonetheless, as a Top 40 artist, he can be argued to be a one-hit-wonder.
• Billboard Hot 100 #1: Yes (9 weeks)
• Million-seller: Yes
• RIAA Gold Record: Yes (August 31, 1962)
• Accumulated sales: 2,000,000
• 500 Songs That Shaped Rock: No
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: No
• Grammy Award: Record of the Year 1960
But do you like it?
John: ✯
Lew: ✯ ✯ ✯
Neal: ✯ ✯
April 23–May 14
Elvis Presley
Stuck On You
RCA Victor 47-7740
(4 weeks)
On March 5, Sgt. Elvis Presley was discharged from the US Army.
On March 20, singer extraordinaire Elvis Presley entered RCA’s Studio B in Nashville and cut both sides of his first “new” single in almost two years, Stuck On You / Fame And Fortune.
On March 23, RCA Victor shipped 1,300,000 copies of the record to wholesalers and retailers around the country.
On April 9, Stuck On You debuted on the Cash Box Top 100 at #53 while Fame And Fortune entered at #67.
On April 23, Stuck On You was the #1 record in the country. While critics often point out that it didn’t rock out like his ’50s hits, it is nonetheless a great rock & roll record!
Fame And Fortune was one of Presley’s best beat ballads of the decade, and one of my all-time favorite Presley platters. It reached #40 on Cash Box but was a much bigger hit on Billboard, where it reached #17 due to airplay and the millions of nickels dropped into jukeboxes to play that side.
Had Fame And Fortune been issued as an A-side, it probably would have made #1 on its own. I wish that he had done an entire album in this vein, but the sound and feel of this recording would be gone by the next year.
Lew: Elvis is back—but he’s not the same. As Neal said, he’s now mostly singing pop songs and not rock & roll.
John: Stuck On You was an important record since it laid to rest any doubts that Elvis’s stint in the Army had eroded his popularity. It’s the kind of record neither Little Richard nor Pat Boone could have pulled off. That’s why he was Elvis and nobody else came close.
Neal: RCA Victor did not seek immediate RIAA certification for an official Gold Record Award for Stuck On You. This was rectified on March 27, 1992, when it received a Gold Record Award for 500,000 sales and a Platinum Record Award for 1,000,000 sales.
Elvis kicked back into high gear as a hit-maker in 1960 with three singles spending fourteen weeks at the toppermost of the poppermost. Presley’s other two #1 hits in 1960 were plainly not rock & roll but both were huge #1 records, as you will see as you keep reading on.
• Billboard Hot 100 #1: Yes (4 weeks)
• Million-seller: Yes
• RIAA Gold Record: No
• Accumulated sales: Unknown
• 500 Songs That Shaped Rock: No
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Yes
But do you like it?
John: ✯ ✯ ✯
Lew: ✯ ✯ ✯
Neal: ✯ ✯ ✯
May 21–June 18
The Everly Brothers
Cathy’s Clown
Warner Brothers 5151
(5 weeks)
As much pop as rock & roll, Cathy’s Clown may be the Everly Brothers’ best single—and a damn near perfect record it is! Listen and hear the genesis of the harmonizing that such great English twosomes as John Lennon and Paul McCartney (you know, the Beatles) or Alan Clarke and Graham Nash (you should know the Hollies) would repeatedly take to the top of the UK and US charts a few years down the line.
Lew: When I first heard this, it seemed too much—those piercing harmonies, like lemon juice on an open wound. But soon enough I was seduced by the great melody and rhythm changes. The Everlys have held up amazingly well over the years due to great songwriting (in this case by the brothers themselves), great backup musicians (including Floyd Cramer), and those incredible harmonies.
John: A few hundred years of Appalachian harmony filtered through a high school melodrama—and that was the Everly Brothers.
• Billboard Hot 100 #1: Yes (5 weeks)
• Million-seller: Yes
• RIAA Gold Record: No
• Accumulated sales: Unknown
• 500 Songs That Shaped Rock: No
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Yes
But do you like it?
John: ✯ ✯ ✯
Lew: ✯ ✯ ✯
Neal: ✯ ✯ ✯
June 25–July 9
Connie Francis
Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool
MGM K-12899
(3 weeks)
Only one of Connie Francis’s first ten singles made the Top 40, but MGM stuck with her! Then she broke through in 1957 with Who’s Sorry Now? which almost topped the charts. Four more Top 10 hits followed before she finally reached #1 with Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool.
It may be old age, but I think I remember that everybody liked Connie Francis back then, including other singers.
Lew: I always loved Connie Francis. She sometimes gets lumped in with the Italian-American male purveyors of puerile pop like Fabian and Frankie Avalon, but to me, she had a warmth and feeling in her voice that transcended the material.
Neal: From this period, there were three white female pop singers who had unique voices and enjoyed years of success on the charts: Patsy Cline was the most country of the three and has been the most lionized by fans and historians. Brenda Lee was also countryish but the one that rocked the most; while nowhere near as deified as Cline, she enjoys some level of critical popularity.
Then there’s Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, easily the most versatile of the three: Who’s Sorry Now? is worthy of Patsy or Brenda and while Stupid Cupid may be kind of, you know, stupid, Connie sang it like one of the obscure rockabilly queens that collectors love to ramble on about. Hell, she sang it like Jerry Lee!
She also sang folk and big band and country and shlock and she sang them in English, in Spanish, in German, she sang them in Yiddish even! Unfortunately, Connie doesn’t get much respect these days. As Lew mentions, historians tend to include her among the slew of modestly talented male teen idols of the era, and she is just so much more than that.
During her heyday (1957-1964), Connie had more hit records than any other female artist and more than most male singers. To give that some perspective, let’s look at another top hit-maker whose heyday was during the same eight-year period:
Top 40 Top 10 #1
Connie Francis 32 14 2
Ricky Nelson 30 13 1
For this comparison, I used the Billboard chart as it gives each of these artists more sides in the Top 40. Connie placed thirty-two sides in the Top 40, of which fourteen reached the Top 10, and of those, two made it to #1.
Most historians know that Ricky had more significant hits in that period than any male singer but Elvis, but do those same historians realize that Connie had more hits than Ricky?
John: While I don’t rate Connie quite as highly as Patsy Cline or Brenda Lee (that’s some very tall cotton), all the nice things Neal and Lew say are true and she certainly deserves more respect than she’s received.
Neal: From 1957 through 1962, Connie Francis was the top female rock & roll and pop artist on the singles charts. With a slew of albums and several starring roles in Hollywood movies, she may have been the first female rock “superstar,” a term that didn’t exist in the ’60s. While she should have been one of the first women inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, she hasn’t even been nominated!
• Billboard Hot 100 #1: Yes (2 weeks)
• Million-seller: Yes
• RIAA Gold Record: No
• Accumulated sales: Unknown
• 500 Songs That Shaped Rock: No
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: No
But do you like it?
John: ✯ ✯
Lew: ✯ ✯ ✯
Neal: ✯ ✯ ✯
July 16
The Hollywood Argyles
Lute L-5905
Alley-Oop
Dante & the Evergreens
Alley Oop
Madison M-301
(1 week)
No arguing with Alley Oop as a novelty record as it’s a comic song about a comic strip, here a brilliant, sophisticated prehistoric man. Perhaps the funniest part for a modern listener is that it’s better than any theme song associated with a Marvel superhero:
He rides through the jungle tearing limbs off trees,
knocking great big monsters dead on their knees.
The cats don’t bug him because they know better,
because he’s a mean motor scooter and a bad go-getter.
And as much as I’d like to put an exclamation mark at the end of that line, the drawling delivery of the singers on both records is the antithesis of exclamatory. Still, it easily trumps the insipid “Spider-Man, Spider-Man does whatever a spider can.”
‘Nuff said?
Lew: Inspired, of course, by the comic strip Alley Oop, the song was written by Dallas Frazier, who would have a hit with Elvira in 1966. There were no Hollywood Argyles, just studio musicians with producer Kim Fowley and lead singer-producer Gary Paxton. Cash Box shows the Dante & the Evergreens version tied with the Argyles for #1, but on Billboard, the Evergreens record only made it to #15.
Neal: As much as I respect Cash Box and prefer their charts to Billboard’s, I don’t know how they could have kept the Dante & the Evergreens record (with the title correctly lacking a hyphen) paired with the Hollywood Argyles record (with the title incorrectly including a hyphen) for so long when it was obvious the latter was the bigger seller and the bigger hit.
John: I confess I never heard of Dante & the Evergreens. You learn something every day.
Neal: I don’t intend this platform to be a place where we provide background information on obscure groups, but Dante & the Evergreens deserve a little attention. Putting their biography together using the few sources on the Internet that address them wasn’t easy and what I have is sketchy.
The members were Donald “Dante” Drowty with Tony Moon, Frank Rosenthal, and Bill Young, none a household name in rock & roll. In 1960, they signed with Madison Records, who rushed them into the studio to cover Alley Oop, which was then rush-released to compete with the Hollywood Argyles’ original version.
Reputedly, the Evergreens’ version outsold the original on the East Coast, then the biggest market in the country. It’s possible that the Evergreens’ record outsold the Argyles’ record but with two companies as tiny as itsy-bitsy Lute and teenie weenie Madison, accurate accounting was probably something only the owners, their accountants, and the Devil were privy to! Hence their record charting high on both Billboard and Cash Box.
The current obscurity of the Evergreens relative to the Argyles is no doubt due to just about every writer under the sun—including just about every blogger on the Internet (except, of course, Tell It Like It Was)—referencing Billboard instead of Cash Box.
Dante & the Evergreens were one of the first all-white vocal groups to play such high-profile black venues as the Apollo in Harlem, the Paramount in Brooklyn, and the Uptown in Philadelphia. They managed a few more flop singles and Madison even sprung for an LP but they were destined to be a one-hit-wonder and broke up in 1961.
Donald Drowty went on to write songs and produce records for artists such as the Isley Brothers, the McCoys, and Herb Alpert. After that, he devoted his life to working with disadvantaged youths, underprivileged children, and Southwestern Native American tribes.
Tony Moon moved to Nashville and was hired on as the guitar player and conductor for Brenda Lee’s road band. He became known as a successful songwriter and music publisher. He wasn’t as well known as a producer, despite being responsible for the killer instrumental track to 5 O’ Clock World by the Vogues, an under-appreciated gem from 1965 (and another one of my time-travel records).
There are countless stories like this in the history of rock & roll and I chose this one simply to illustrate the point that writing artists off as one-hit-wonders often leaves interesting stories on the shelf. One last thing, Moon was the first Nashville producer to use Duane Allman as a sideman!
Lew, has anyone pointed out that Frazier’s Elvira sounds like a Coasters record by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller?
Lew: Not that I know of, but I totally agree.
Neal: There are two other versions of this song that need our attention: Within days of the release of the Hollywood Argyles and Dante & the Evergreens’ records, the Dyna-Sores also released the same song on Rendezvous Records. They were an ad hoc group of black singers under the direction of Los Angeles session musician-singer Rene Hall.
The Dyna-Sores’ version of Alley Oop is a little funkier, something you could actually dance to! Unfortunately, it received far less attention than the other two and failed to make the Cash Box Top 100, although it reached #59 on the Billboard Hot 100, no doubt due to airplay and jukebox play.
In 1965, the Beach Boys did a won-won-wonderfully goofy version of Alley Oop on their album THE BEACH BOYS PARTY! As I loathed the Hawthorne Hotshots at the time, I may over-compensate these days by calling anyone and everyone’s attention to this and other great records by them.
Note that the claim for million-seller status applies to the Hollywood Argyles record, which Murrells lists in his book—not the Evergreens version, which is not listed.
Neither the Hollywood Argyles nor Dante & the Evergreens ever came close to the Top 40 again, making them both one-hit-wonders.
Finally, I think it’s only fair to point out to younger readers that Lew and I are so old we used to ride dinosaurs to school back in the day. And no, we didn’t ride velociraptors! Be serious—we rode slow but reliable herbivores, the kind that makes for uninteresting watching on movie screens.
• Billboard Hot 100 #1: Yes (1 week)
• Million-seller: Yes
• RIAA Gold Record: No
• Accumulated sales: Unknown
• 500 Songs That Shaped Rock: No
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: No
But do you like it?
John: ✯ ✯ ✯
Lew: ✯ ✯ ✯
Neal: ✯ ✯
July 23–July 30
Brenda Lee
I’m Sorry
Decca 9-31093
(2 weeks)
As I mentioned above, Brenda Lee is one of three outstanding female pop singers from this period. During 1960-1963, she placed eleven sides in the national Top 10 but by 1967 was a has-been on Top 40 radio. Here’s the comparison chart between Connie Francis and Ricky Nelson from above with Brenda Lee added for those years:
Top 40 Top 10 #1
Connie Francis 35 16 3
Ricky Nelson 30 13 1
Brenda Lee 25 11 1
Little Brenda’s performance on the charts was, as they say, none too shabby.
Lew: Four foot nine and 15 years old when she recorded this, yet what a voice.
John: I’m holding my powder on this one a little because I have strong feelings about what I call the “Ballad Revolution” that stretched back to the Platters’ Tony Williams and Elvis in the mid-’50s, but kicked into high gear in 1960 with this record playing a prominent role.
I hope to do an article on it soon. Suffice it to say this was both huge and magnificent in 1960, but five or six years earlier it would have been revolutionary. That’s how much rock & roll had changed the musical landscape.
• Billboard Hot 100 #1: Yes (3 weeks)
• Million-seller: Yes
• RIAA Gold Record: No
• Accumulated sales: Unknown
• 500 Songs That Shaped Rock: No
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Yes
But do you like it?
John: ✯ ✯ ✯
Lew: ✯ ✯ ✯
Neal: ✯ ✯ ✯
August 6
Brian Hyland
Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini
Kapp K-342X
(1 week)
In 1960, the bikini was just making its way from the beaches of the Old World to the beaches of the New. On this side of the Atlantic, 2-piece suits were scandalous to many people and young ladies who opted to wear them at Atlantic City or Jones Beach would draw what used to be called “baleful glares” from older women. Hence the opening lines:
She was afraid to come out of the locker,
she was as nervous as she could be.
She was afraid to come out of the locker,
she was afraid that somebody would see.
Brian Hyland was 16 years old when he recorded Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini for Leader Records, a subsidiary of Kapp Records. It immediately started attracting attention and was picked up by the parent company for national exposure.
Like Running Bear and Teen Angel above, this is technically not a novelty record. But it certainly has a novelty-like sound and feel and a young listener in the 21st century might think it was a satirical take on silly teen records of the ’50s.
Hyland wasn’t a one-hit-wonder, reaching the Top 10 with two fine recordings: Sealed With A Kiss was a kind of Beach Boys-lite (1962) while Gypsy Woman was a kind of Virtis Mayfield-lite (1970). Both of these statements are compliments.
Finally, I want to apologize for the two stars below but I loved this record when it came out! Of course, I was not quite nine years old then. I’ll betcha a lot of not-quite-9-year-olds would still love it today! Has anyone considered a hip-hop version?
• Billboard Hot 100 #1: Yes (1 week)
• Million-seller: Yes
• RIAA Gold Record: No
• Accumulated sales: Unknown
• 500 Songs That Shaped Rock: No
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: No
But do you like it?
John: ✯ ✯
Lew: ✯
Neal: ✯ ✯
August 13–September 3
Elvis Presley
It’s Now Or Never
RCA Victor 47-7777
(4 weeks)
Yes, It’s Now Or Never is not rock & roll of any category or stripe, and yet it bears little resemblance to any kind of middle-of-the-road pop that came before it. Like everything else he did up to this point, Presley tossed aside irony, absurdity, whatever, and sang it like there was no tomorrow and nailing this song was all that mattered. In some respects, he never sounded better, nor did the Jordanaires.
The flip-side, A Mess Of Blues, was the opposite of the A-side: a bouncing, bluesy rocker. But like its A-side, the song ends with Elvis repeating the title four times, each repetition more dramatic than the previous.
Lew: This, of course, is the classic Neapolitan song O Sole Mio, but what I didn’t know is that (according to Wikipedia), Elvis got the idea of doing it not from the original, but from the 1949 adaptation by US singer Tony Martin. Also notable here is the cha-cha-cha rhythm, which was hugely popular in the US throughout the 1950s.
John: Another key entry in the Ballad Revolution, as is Are You Lonesome To-night? (see November 26, 1960, entry). Both were recorded within days of I’m Sorry (see July 23, 1960, entry) as was Roy Orbison’s first big hit, Only The Lonely (Know How I Feel).
All in Nashville.
Neal: I love a good coincidence: I wrote the line “sang it like there was no tomorrow” above before I looked up the Tony Martin song which Lew mentioned. And Martin’s 1949 adaptation of O Sole Mio was titled There’s No Tomorrow.
John: And there’s a good story with this one: Elvis had a little trouble nailing the whole song (especially the high notes at the climax) in a single take. After a while, someone came over and assured him that it was alright. They had a full recording, they would just splice a few takes together.
E’s response was: Hoss, I’m gonna do it one take or not at all. As the story goes, he nailed it on the next take. That’s another reason why he was Elvis.
Neal: Due to copyright issues, the release of It’s Now Or Never was held up in the UK so RCA issued A Mess Of Blues as Presley’s new single. It sold 600,000 copies, making it one of the biggest selling records of the year in the UK.
RCA Victor did not seek immediate RIAA certification for an official Gold Record Award for It’s Now Or Never. This was rectified on March 27, 1992, when it received a Gold Record Award for 500,000 sales and a Platinum Record Award for 1,000,000 sales.
• Billboard Hot 100 #1: Yes (5 weeks)
• Million-seller: Yes
• RIAA Gold Record: No
• Accumulated sales: 20,000,000
• 500 Songs That Shaped Rock: No
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Yes
But do you like it?
John: ✯ ✯ ✯
Lew: ✯ ✯ ✯
Neal: ✯ ✯ ✯
September 10–October 1
Chubby Checker
The Twist
Parkway P-811
(4 weeks)
Chubby Checker’s The Twist was more than the first of the really BIG dance craze records of the ’60s—it was a cultural phenomenon that went global. Its effects should not be underestimated in that dancers were freed from the need to hold on to a partner and follow a pattern of steps while dancing. Once you learned how to twist, with a little tweaking you had your own dance!
And suddenly a whole generation was “expressing themselves” through dance.
Even wallflowers like me!
(I know—nobody who knows me now believes I was ever remotely shy, but it’s true. Hell, I fell for a girl in 1967 and didn’t work up the courage to ask her out until 1997. But that’s another story.)
The Twist may be the most popular dance song of all time: After spending four weeks at #1 in 1960, it dropped off the charts as all hit records do. A slew of twist-like dance records and fads came and went (the Mashed Potato, the Pony, the Watusi, etc.). Then, eighteen months later, The Twist returned to the top and spent four more weeks at #1 (see January 6, 1962, entry).
John: And all because Dick Clark reputedly couldn’t get hold of Hank Ballard—who was spending his 9,000th consecutive week on the road—for a gig on American Bandstand. Clark needed somebody to do it.
The dance was taking off.
Had to have a record a singer could lip-synch to on the show.
Found Chubby.
To be fair, Hank was a great bandleader, but Chubby could out-sing him any day of the week.
Neal: As John noted above, the record and the dance have an interesting history. In early 1959, King Records released Hank Ballard & the Midnighters’ new single, the ballad Teardrops On Your Letter backed with the dance number The Twist. The A-side was a Top 10 hit on the R&B chart while the B-side made the Top 20. Neither side made much of an impression on the pop charts.
A year later, The Twist started getting a lot of attention so King re-released the single in July 1960, this time promoting the B-side. Exactly what happened next varies from source to source (and sometimes varies a lot) but the gist of the story remains reasonably constant:
Ballard got the idea for the song by either 1) watching Midnighters moving on stage or 2) watching kids dancing an unnamed step on the floor while they played. Ballard and the Midnighters started doing the song with the dance at their shows as they toured America.
Apparently, the dance caught on in parts of the East Coast and came to the attention of Dick Clark. He loved the song and the dance but either 1) couldn’t get Ballard onto his show due to the singer’s busy schedule, or 2) was wary of Ballard’s history of suggestive songs like Sexy Ways and Work With Me Annie.
Clark had a good relationship with Philadelphia’s Cameo-Parkway Records and had a young singer named Ernest Evans who recorded as Chubby Checker. He could do reasonable impersonations of such popular stars of the time as Fats Domino, Elvis, and the Coasters.
Evans and a group of local studio musicians duplicated the Ballard record, using the same key and the same tempo. Parkway rush-released the record and Evans sounded so much like Ballard that when Hank heard it on the radio he thought it was his own record!
Both the Ballard record and the Checker record debuted at #82 on the Cash Box Top 100 on July 23, 1960, the same week that Ballard’s latest single Finger Poppin’ Time entered the Top 40. The next week, both records moved up to #42.
At this point, most historians credit Checker’s August 6 appearance on American Bandstand as catapulting the song and the dance to the forefront of millions of teens’ attention. But by the time Chubby appeared on Clark’s show, his version of The Twist had already shot from #42 to #22 on the Cash Box August 6 chart (which had been compiled the week before the publication date) while Ballard’s version had dropped off the survey!
Supposedly, Ballard was not bitter toward Checker or Clark: as the song’s writer, he received massive royalty checks from the use of the Checker version on countless compilation albums.
For an even more detailed look at the Twist and everything that followed, check out “The Twist: Ballard’s Brainchild, Checker’s Change of Fortune” on the Way Back Attack website.
• Billboard Hot 100 #1: Yes (4 weeks)
• Million-seller: Yes
• RIAA Gold Record: No
• Accumulated sales: Unknown
• 500 Songs That Shaped Rock: Yes
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: No
But do you like it?
John: ✯ ✯ ✯
Lew: ✯ ✯
Neal: ✯ ✯ ✯
October 8
Connie Francis
My Heart Has A Mind Of Its Own
MGM K-12923
(1 week)
My Heart Has A Mind Of Its Own is a nice pop record with a slight rock & roll beat that has Connie doubling up on her vocal to sing lead and harmony. Hardly one of her best, yet it connected with a million record buyers in 1960.
John: I was lukewarm on Connie until very recently. I really discovered her (if that’s the right word) in my local diner where the consumption of the world’s best cheeseburger—two blocks away, how lucky am I?—is accompanied by a good mix of oldies from this very period.
She fits in with Elvis and Fats and Chuck way better than I would have assumed. And I always knew she was a fine pop singer. Agree with Neal’s argument that Connie Francis should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which is why they need to heed my long-standing call for a Veteran’s Committee!
Neal: The Baseball Hall of Fame has a time limitation to the eligibility of newly retired players (a mere ten years), after which they can no longer be elected by the general body of voters (the Baseball Writers Association of America, or BBWAA). The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame does not have such a restriction on eligibility, so the nominating committee and general body of voters function pretty much the same as the various veteran’s committees that Baseball has used in the past.
For the many (seemingly) deserving rhythm & blues, rock & roll, and pop artists, songwriters, and producers of the ’50s and ’60s, who have not been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, our best bet is to either:
1) convince the current nominators to reconsider their opinions, or
2) convince the Hall to replace the current nominators.
I’m not holding my breath waiting for either to occur.
John: It’s true the Nominating Committee does not have a time limit. Realistically, though, it has become harder and harder to get any hearing for deserving artists from the ’50s and ’60s who slipped through the cracks. A Veterans’ Committee could address this without these forgotten artists having to go through a voting process that includes an increasing number of younger voters who may not even know who they are!
Finally, when it comes to Halls of Fame, I’d rather have some undeserving in than leave any deserving out!
Neal: Amen.
• Billboard Hot 100 #1: Yes (2 weeks)
• Million-seller: Yes
• RIAA Gold Record: No
• Accumulated sales: Unknown
• 500 Songs That Shaped Rock: No
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: No
But do you like it?
John: ✯ ✯
Lew: ✯ ✯ ✯
Neal: ✯ ✯
October 15–November 19
The Drifters
Save The Last Dance For Me
Atlantic 45-2071
(6 weeks)
In 1958, the manager of the Drifters owned the rights to the group’s name and all the contracts upon which it appeared. He fired the entire group and then hired another quintet, the Five Crowns, and made them the new Drifters! This was a brilliant move, as new lead singer Ben E. King was the best thing to happen to the Drifters since Clyde McPhatter formed the group in 1953.
King stayed with the group long enough to release several classic singles, notably There Goes My Baby (1959) and This Magic Moment (1960). He then left the group for solo stardom and immediately struck gold with Spanish Harlem (1960) and Stand By Me (1961).
Like many early rhythm & blues and rock & roll singers, he pursued “legitimacy” by recording Tin Pan Alley chestnuts, easy-listening pop, and even supper club songs. While this may seem crazy in hindsight, at the time, the career of a Top 40 pop artist did not have a long lifespan.
Like many early rhythm & blues and rock & roll singers who pursued this course, his career faltered. By the middle of the decade, he could barely get his records played on the radio, including black radio.
He enjoyed a brief resurrection during the Disco Era of the ’70s. In 1986, Stand By Me was a hit for the second time when it was featured on the soundtrack to the movie Stand By Me.
John: I’m not familiar with Ben’s easy-listening phase, though I imagine he was good at whatever he did. He released a lot of fine soul sides through the last half of the ’60s which, for whatever reason, didn’t do much, even though he had helped invent the form on records like this one. Life and the record charts aren’t always fair. This was one of the Drifters’ best from any phase and it doesn’t get any better than that.
• Billboard Hot 100 #1: Yes (3 weeks)
• Million-seller: Yes
• RIAA Gold Record: No
• Accumulated sales: Unknown
• 500 Songs That Shaped Rock: No
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Yes
But do you like it?
John: ✯ ✯ ✯
Lew: ✯ ✯ ✯
Neal: ✯ ✯ ✯
November 26–December 31
Elvis Presley
Are You Lonesome To-night?
RCA Victor 47-7810
(6 weeks)
Are You Lonesome To-night? was a 30-year-old chestnut reputedly done as a favor to Colonel Parker. Elvis sings it so convincingly, so tenderly, it could make a punk rocker weep. The spoken bridge (“I wonder if you’re lonesome tonight. You know, someone said that the world’s a stage and each of us must play a part”) would be outlandishly hokey coming from most singers but here, by Elvis, it is actually believable!
Presley’s biggest selling single of the ’60s was It’s Now Or Never: According to Joseph Murrells, it sold 20,000,000 copies, 5,000,000 in the US alone! Are You Lonesome To-night? sold 2,000,000 in the US yet it was a much bigger hit on both Cash Box and Billboard. Which is why you can’t trust the charts to tell you anything meaningful about total sales, only relative sales.
The flip-side was I Gotta Know, which had been recorded in a more rockabilly manner by English Elvis emulator Cliff Richard on his 1959 album CLIFF SINGS. Had Presley’s version been issued as an A-side, it probably would have made #1 on its own. It is my go-to song to sing to myself—often out loud—when the world requires that I smile.
John: All three Elvis #1’s in this year were recorded in a span of a few weeks, right after he got out of the Army. At the same time, he also made two classic LPs, ELVIS IS BACK! and HIS HAND IN MINE, the latter recorded in a single night which might be the most remarkable vocal session in American music.
The gospel album was so good, RCA Victor didn’t let one of its key tracks, Crying In The Chapel, out of the vault for five years. When they did release it in 1965, it promptly went Top 5 on every chart and became his biggest hit between 1963 and 1969. Elvis just out of the Army was something to behold.
Neal: While it might seem like sacrilege to some, I have to turn you on to comedian Sam Kinison’s rendition of Are You Lonesome To-night? I am not a fan of Kinison and his ilk, but here he reaches below the controlled, polite surface of Presley’s recording and finds the true pain of having your heart ripped out of your chest and stomped on by someone you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with. A must-see!
RCA Victor did not seek immediate RIAA certification for an official Gold Record Award for Are You Lonesome To-night? This was rectified on April 15, 1983, when it received a Gold Record Award for 1,000,000 sales.
Finally, I haven’t a clue as to why “Tonight” is spelled with a hyphen as “To-night.”
• Billboard Hot 100 #1: Yes (6 weeks)
• Million-seller: Yes
• RIAA Gold Record: No
• Accumulated sales: 4,000,000
• 500 Songs That Shaped Rock: No
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Yes
But do you like it?
John: ✯ ✯ ✯
Lew: ✯ ✯ ✯
Neal: ✯ ✯ ✯
Percy Faith’s ‘Theme from a Summer Place’ was the biggest hit of 1960 on the Cash Box Top 100. Find the other big hits of the year here! Click To Tweet
FEATURED ARTIST: The photo at the top of this page is Brenda Lee relaxing (posing?) at the piano backstage during one of her many concerts in 1960. In the first four years of the ’60s, she would have ten Top 10 hits on the Cash Box Top 100. Then struggle to make it anywhere near the toppermost of the poppermost on the pop charts.
Brenda Lee was at the forefront of what John Ross refers to as the “Ballad Revolution,” a phenomenon that has been ignored by most historians. John traces its origin back to the mid-’50s to the recordings of Tony Williams of the Platters and Elvis. He argues that it kicked into high gear in 1960 with Brenda’s I’m Sorry and Presley’s Are You Lonesome To-Night? playing prominent roles.
Year-end observations
Fifteen records reached #1 on the Cash Box Top 100 chart in 1960. (I counted the tie between the Hollywood Argyles and Dante & the Evergreens’ versions of Alley Oop as one record.) There had been fourteen #1 records in 1956 and fifteen in ’57, the years when Elvis dominated the top of the charts.
In 1958, there had been nineteen #1 records and but in ’59, only fifteen again.
Here is the breakdown of those chart-topping records based on how many weeks they spent at the top:
8 weeks: 1
7 weeks: 0
6 weeks: 2
5 weeks: 1
4 weeks: 3
3 weeks: 3
2 weeks: 2
1 week: 3
The Number One Record of the Year 1960 was The Theme From “A Summer Place” by Percy Faith with eight weeks at the top spot. Tied for second place with six weeks each at #1 were the Drifters’ Save The Last Dance For Me and Elvis Presley’s Are You Lonesome To-night? While the Drifters’ record is pop infused with rhythm & blues, none of these big hits were actually rock & roll.
This mix of adult-oriented easy-listening, teen-oriented pop, and out-and-out novelty records accounted for eleven of the fifteen chart-toppers) with some rock & roll and some rhythm & blues (two each) was the norm until the so-called British Invasion of 1964.
As mentioned several times above, record buyers were still infatuated with novelty records in the early ’60s. A working definition of that form might be comical recordings that poked fun (satirical, ironic, or otherwise) at current events, including politics, fads, movies, celebrities, and even other hit records.
In 1960, Alley Oop was a novelty record while Running Bear, Teen Angel, and Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini are so dated that they sound like novelty records fifty-odd years later. If we count trendy dance records as a kind of novelty record, then we can add The Twist to those four and we can see that one-third of the chart-topping hit records of 1960 were novelty records of some sort!
Gold Record Awards
Of the fifteen records that reached #1, Joseph Murrells lists fourteen of them as million-sellers. Yet the artists, their management, and their record companies thought so little of the RIAA Gold Record Award that only one company sought “official” certification for one record: Columbia made sure that Percy Faith received his first official Gold Record for Theme From “A Summer Place.”
RIAA certification rate: 1%
After five years in the recording industry with little success, in 1960 Roy Orbison wrote and recorded Only the Lonely (Know How I Feel) at RCA’s Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee. It was a huge hit and helped establish the so-called Nashville Sound. Roy would have two #1 records on Cash Box in 1961 using the same studio, along the way contributing to what John calls the “Ballad Revolution.”
Nashville on the Pop Charts
by John Ross
We should probably mention that Nashville had a hu-u-u-ge year on the pop charts in 1960. Elvis, Brenda Lee, and the Everly Brothers had five #1 hits on Cash Box between them, spending a total of twenty-one weeks at the top. It was even better on Billboard, where seven #1 hits were produced in Nashville and they spent twenty-five weeks at the top.
None of these big pop hits (except El Paso) was a big hit on country radio, although Stuck On You and Are You Lonesome To-night? made it into the Top 30. That was because in 1958—coincidentally or not, just when Elvis entered the Army—Nashville had cracked down on “cross-over hits” from the pop charts to the country.
If you ran a country station and insisted on playing records that were also being promoted to pop (or, God forbid, rhythm & blues) stations, then the record companies would not deliver their country product to your station. The implications for American music and culture were not insignificant.
Like a lot of bad things, it had nothing to do with what the public wanted—country fans didn’t stop liking Brenda Lee and the Everly Brothers overnight—and everything to do with cramped souls in corporate boardrooms deciding it was okay to lose money.
The important thing was to retain control. So they did and so they have, down to this very day.
1960 was a very interesting year indeed.
You must remember that Connie Francis was the first female singer to top the 1960’s charts and with an all-time two consecutive releases (Billboard four weeks at #1]. She still holds the record of #1 for “Who’s Sorry Now” and “Stupid Cupid” / “Carolina Moon” with twelve weeks in one year for her #1 hits in the UK.
To know more about my appreciation of Connie Francis, give this a read: “Should Connie Francis Be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?”
Thanks for the comment and keep on keepin’ on!