One of the earliest Forgotten Hits we ever featured was Abergavenny by Shannon, a Top 20 Hit here in Chicago in the Summer of 1969 ... and one that just missed The National Top 40, peaking at #42 in Cash Box Magazine and #47 in Billboard.
British rocker Marty Wilde never really enjoyed the chart success here in the States that he had back home in the U.K. Here, his only chart single, Bad Boy,
topped out at #45 in 1960. In Great Britain, he scored a dozen Top 40 singles, including six Top 10's ... pretty much all remakes of American hit records.
Wilde's version of the Dion hit, A Teenager In Love, went all the way to #2 and remakes of Donna (Ritchie Valens) and Sea of Love (Phil Phillips) both hit #3. Endless Sleep (by the recently departed Jody Reynolds) went to #4 and the previously mentioned Bad Boy (a rare Wilde original), while not able to crack The Top 40 here in the U.S., was a #7 smash in Jolly Ole England. By 1962, the chart hits had pretty much stopped happening, even across the pond.
In 1969, Marty teamed with producer Jerry Ross and, under the studio name Shannon, released what would end up being Wilde's biggest U.S. Hit. (Amazingly, this one didn't chart at all in Great Britain!)
But Marty Wilde's best U.S. achievement just may have been his daughter Kim Wilde, who went all the way to #1 with a remake of her own in 1987 when she covered The Supremes' 1966 chart-topping hit You Keep Me Hangin' On. (The single was produced by her brother ... and Marty's son ... Ricki).
After the success of Abervavenny, neither Shannon nor Marty Wilde ever hit the charts again.
DIDJAKNOW?: In the late '60's, Wilde tried a comeback by forming a trio with his wife Joyce (Baker) called The Wilde Three. (The "third" in that trio??? Future Moody Blues member Justin Hayward!!!)
