Junk Box Jury

Taken from the LP ‘Hits ’69′ | (Music For Pleasure MFP 1302) 1969

Cilla Black | Cover Version | “Surround Yourself With Sorrow” | One of the most surprising features of the charts at the moment is the number of great hits of the past few years that have been re-issued to become hits all over again —does this mean that today’s pop music cannot hold its own against the pop of a few years back?

Not necessarily, because the great hits that have re-appeared in the charts have been the hits of a decade, not just the hits of a week or a month. Songs of the calibre of ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ have always been rarities — a product of Phil Spector’s vintage period, it provided a massive hit for the ‘blue-eyed soul’ sound of the Righteous Brothers, and was successfully covered in Britain by Cilla Black, but it’s the Righteous Brothers‘ version that is currently rising up the charts again.

In spite of the fears of pop commentators a few months back that the Tamla sound was getting stereotyped, it has made a big come-back to the charts recently and one of the most successful songs from the Tamla stable was ‘I’ll Pick A Rose for My Rose’, which introduced a new singer to our Top Twenty, Mary Johnson. Another successful representative of the Motown sound was Stevie Wonder who has fulfilled the promise he showed as a twelve-year-old soul prodigy with a string of hits of which the latest is ‘For Once In My Life’.

But there have also been some very familiar sounds in the charts: ‘The Way It Used To Be’ proved a sturdy vehicle for the voice of Engelbert; Cliff Richard had a winner on his hands’ with a cheerful song aptly entitled ‘Good Times’; and another hit came from a singer whose huge record sales are usually confined to long-play albums — ‘Gentle On My Mind’ was the king of swinging, sophisticated song that better than any other suits the romantic style of Dean Martin.

A brand-new star in the Top Twenty was Peter Sarstedt, whose ‘Where Do You Go To’ carried him to the very top. Unlike most pop songs, a great part of its appeal lay in the imaginative and touching lyrics. Another newcomer to the charts was Dick Emery, who followed in the successful footsteps of fellow-comedians Ken Dodd and Des O’Connor with the romantic ballad ‘If You Love Her, Please Don’t Go’, sung by Donald Peers, also helped to maintain the position of romantic ballads in the hit parade.

The hitmaking team of Bill Martin and Phil Coulter (writers of ‘Puppet on a String’ and ‘Congratulations’) came up with a big one for Cilia in ‘Surround Yourself With Sorrow’, a song that in spite of its title builds up to a loud and lively finale.

‘Something’s Happening’ was a song that perfectly suited the cheery style of Herman and the Hermits, and it has the kind of catchy tune that marks a ‘stayer’ in the pop charts. ‘Boom Bang-a-Bang’ was written by Alan Moorehouse and Peter Warne; Alan Moorehouse has been the Musical Director for some of Music for Pleasure’s most successful recordings, so we were specially pleased when Boom Bang-a-Bang was chosen as Lulu‘s Song for Britain in the Eurovision Song Contest.

On this album the sounds of pop in ’69 have been faithfully recreated in stereo — twelve hits performed by studio musicians that have lost none of the appeal that originally carried them up the charts. (BLASE MACHIN)

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cost of record: free
from: Chester-le-Street book hub