At the spearhead of the legendary British Invasion of America by British artists in the Sixties was, as everyone knows, the Beatles. 'I Want To Hold You Hand' made No.1 in early 1964 having first entered the charts on 18 January. They were not the first British group to have found success in America and just a couple of weeks before the Beatles made the charts The Caravelles (named after the French passenger airliner) made it to No.3 with 'You Don’t Have To Be A Baby To Cry'. With blurred hindsight people tend to assume that the Rolling Stones were at the forefront of the invasion but it would be 10 months before they scored their first American Top 10 hit with 'Time is on my side'. Besides the Beatles it was the Dave Clark Five who helped establish the bridgehead for British bands in America. Before the Stones top ten hit the beaming boys from Tottenham had six American Top 20 hits including 'Bits And Pieces, 'Can’t You See That She’s Mine' and 'Because' which all made the Top five. Before 1964 was over the Beatles had fifteen records on the US charts, 7 of which made the top – a feat that has never been bettered in a single year.
7 comments:
Like any young Northern lad worth his salt, we didn't really care for the Dave Clark Five 'up north'. We all thought he was a bit of a plonker. BUT, I always thought 'Because' was a great record - if only for the fact that it sounds like it could be a John Lennon song and even the singing sounds remarkably like Lennon.
Admitting you like the DC5? Even if it is just one record. Whatever next Mr.E?
I think those Caravelles are pretty hot too!
I remember having a video of several episodes of Ready Steady Go! which, at the time, Dave Clark had bought the rights to. What was strange watching the episodes was how many times the DC5 appeared to be on. I can't remember them being on that much and it wasn't until I saw a clip of them where a girl in the audience screams 'Ringo!" that I cottoned on to the fact that Dave Clark had edited the tapes so that the DC5 appeared more frequently and appeared more popular than they really were.
Some of his so called Ready Steady Go appearances were actually from the Ed Sullivan show. He just edited them into the RSG segments!
Anyway, Dave Clark aside, let's wish Connie Francis a happy 69th birthday today!
'Where the Boys Are?', 'Stupid Cupid', 'Lipstick On Your Collar'. True rock'n'roll!
She's younger than Bill the Bass!
Where the Boys are has always been a fave of mine. Written by Neil Sedaka and his buddy Howard Greenfield.
Richard, we're ALL younger than Bill the Bass!
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