♫Music of Yesterdays♫

It is always so interesting to learn something new about the music of yesterdays...the songs, the artists, the times. So often we listen to the songs but don't take note of what's behind the melody. Each song has a story, each recording artist a biography, each musical era a sign of the changing times. Many of the songs and recording artists started abroad with hits that spanned the mighty oceans. Others became 'top dog' in their countries of origin but never made it big in the US. Yesterday's gone but not the memories! From nostalgic times to modern times, emotions are preserved in music while alterations in rhythm often produce variances from the simplest to the most complex.

Today in Music History: June 29

The song has been covered numerous times by multiple artists but there is nothing more nostalgic than listening to the original!

1961 'Runaway' was a No.1 Billboard Hot 100 song made famous by Charles Weedon Westovery, professionally known as Del Shannon, in 1961. The song was written by Shannon and keyboardist Max Crook, and became a major international hit making the No.1 spot on the UK singles chart on this particular day in '61. It was a No. 1 hit in the US maintaining the top spot for 4 weeks prior to this date. It is No.472 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time from 2010.

 

1968 The Small Faces started a six week run at No.1 on the UK album chart with 'Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake', a concept album with a round cover designed to look like a tobacco tin. The album featured the hit 'Lazy Sunday'.  The band is remembered as one of the most acclaimed and influential mod groups of the 1960s. With memorable hit songs such as "Itchycoo Park", "Lazy Sunday", "All or Nothing", "Tin Soldier", and their concept album Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, they later evolved into one of the UK's most successful psychedelic acts before disbanding in 1969.

Small Faces were the best English band never to hit it big in America. Outside Europe, all anybody remembers them for is their sole hit, "Itchycoo Park," which was hardly representative of their psychedelic sound, much less their full musical range -- but in England, Small Faces were one of the most extraordinary and successful bands of the mid-'60s, serious competitors to The Who and potential rivals to The Rolling Stones. [Source: Small Faces Biography]

 

1991 Jason Donovan had his third UK No.1 single with 'Any Dream Will Do' a song written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice for the 1968 musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This song was in the show right from the beginning, but Tim Rice didn't realize its potential. Donovan was playing the lead role in a new London production of the musical.

In 1969, Lloyd Webber and Rice used the popularity of their second rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, to promote Joseph, which was advertised in America as a "follow-up" to Superstar. Riding on Superstar's coattails proved profitable for Joseph, as the U.S. Decca recording of Superstar had been in the top of America's charts for three months. The first American production of Joseph was in May 1970, at Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception in Douglaston, New York. Following this, according to Lloyd Webber's Really Useful site, "there followed huge interest from colleges and schools." [Source: wikipedia.org]

 1994 Oasis made their debut on BBC TV's 'Top Of The Pops' performing their new single 'Shakermaker'. This song would become the subject of a plagiarism suit, with Oasis paying $500,000 in damages.

The song bears a strong resemblance to the 1971 The New Seekers song 'I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing', which was featured in a famous Coke commercial where children gather on a hilltop to sing. Noel Gallagher cited "irony" as his defense and after losing, joked, "Now we all drink Pepsi."

2003  Singer Beyoncé started a five week run at No.1 on the UK album chart with 'Dangerously In Love', also a US No.1. Beyoncé rose to fame as the lead singer of Destiny's Child. She released her first solo album a year before the group disbanded. In addition to her music career, she has appeared in several movies, including Austin Powers in Goldmember, The Pink Panther and Dreamgirls.

 

2008 Ne-Yo was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Closer' the American R&B artists second No.1. Ne-Yo explained the inspiration behind this track to The Boston Globe September 18, 2008: "I knew I wanted to do something that was very much U.K.-inspired, very much along the lines of house, trance, techno, but I knew I couldn't do a straight-up house record or a straight-up techno record. I had to do something that had elements of it but still had elements of R&B, which is my base, and that's exactly what that track was. (Stargate) played the track, and it was exactly where I wanted to go, anyway. I think that's why we work. We're getting to the point where we finish each other's sentences musically."

And the music goes on beating with the rhythm of the changing times...