Friday, July 17, 2015

Beatles covers No. 1s

Beatles covers No. 1s: The three strange Lennon-McCartney hits that weren’t recorded by Lennon and McCartney, and what they tell us about the secret to recording a smash.

11 comments:

Deb said...

I really know I'm old when I read articles explaining to the young whippersnappers things that I lived through and know because they are a part of me--and I don't need anyone to explain to me why events happened the way they did, thank you very much. Sigh.

Re Beatles covers: my favorite is John Denver's cover of "Mother Nature's Son." It wasn't a hit, I'm not even sure it was released as a single, but it's a lovely interpretation of (IMHO) an underrated Beatles song.

Unknown said...

It really makes me feel old to have someone explaining who Peter & Gordon were, all right.

Jeff Meyerson said...

That's because we are old. Of course it wasn't all McCartney as the piece implies. P&G also did Buddy Holly's "True Love Ways."

Jeff

Jeff Meyerson said...

And "I Go to Pieces" was written by Del Shannon.

Jeff

Todd Mason said...

And there's a charmingly (faux?) naive faith in the chart positions having all that much to do with actual sales.

Deb said...

The post-barcode generation doesn't realize that every single sale of every single item has not always been a clearly quantifiable thing.

Unknown said...

Speaking of quantifiable, I was reading the other day about recordings that made the Billboard top 10 but never appeared in the top 100 in Cashbox, and vice-versa. There have been a few.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Any that a geezer would know?

Jeff

Unknown said...

Well, I was misremembering, as usual. The story was about records that charted on one magazine's Top 100 but not on the other. For example: Kathy Linden's 1959 Felsted single "You Don't Know Girls" b/w "So Close To
: My Heart."
:
: Not a smash success by any means but both
: sides did chart but in an interesting way.
:
: "You Don't Know Girls" charted in
: Billboard but not in Cash Box.
:
: The flipside "So Close To My
: Heart" charted in Cash Box but not in
: Billboard.

Fred Blosser said...

Thanks to TEEN, TIGER BEAT, etc., every 14-year-old in 1964 knew all about the Peter Asher-Jane Asher-Paul McCartney axis. I guess it might be news to anyone else. And the same year, Jane Asher was the virginal young peasant girl threatened with droit de seigneur by Vincent Price's evil Prince Prospero in MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.

Jeff Meyerson said...

We saw Jane on stage in London twice, both in plays by Alan Ayckbourn -

In 1989, HENCEFORWARD..., with Ian McKellen.
In 2000, GARDEN, a failed attempt to repeat the success of THE NORMAN CONQUESTS with HOUSE and GARDEN, with David Haig.

Clearly, HOUSE was the more important half but we could only get GARDEN. The gimmick was, both plays ran simultaneously in adjoining theaters with the actors going from one to the other.

Jeff