Friday, January 11, 2013

The Friday Flash

Just a morning quickie today ...
(and who wouldn't enjoy that?!?!?)

re: YOUR TOP 50 ALL-TIME FAVORITE GARAGE BANDS:  
Hi Kent ... Happy New Year.
I've been working hard, so maybe I missed it ... but what was the Number One Garage Hit ... or hasn't it been posted as yet?
Regards ...
(I'm still digging the weekly news, too.)
Murray Walding,
Lorne, Victoria, 
Australia 
The number one Garage Band was The Shadows Of Knight ... 
If you scroll back to November 26th (and then move forward each day) you'll find the entire countdown of 33 artists who finished with 100 votes or more. 
And you can now check out The Top 50 All-Time Favorite Garage Bands on the other Forgotten Hits website, too ... read on! (kk)   

Kent,  
Did you ever print the top 50 garage bands? I have been out of town, but don't see them yet. 
Clark Besch  
Editing took a little bit longer than I had anticipated, but the list is FINALLY up on the other Forgotten Hits Website for all the world to see. You will find it here:

Click here: Forgotten Hits - Your Top 50 All-Time Favorite Garage Bands  


What else will you find there?  All kinds of archived goodies like four pages worth of your "First 45" memories ... our "Who Played The First Beatles Record In America" series ... The Music of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart (followed by an exclusive FH interview with Bobby Hart) ... a look back at The Ed Sullivan Show (followed by our interview with Andrew Solt) ... our interview with Peter Noone ... profiles of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jimi Hendrix and Dusty Springfield ... "The Stories Behind The Songs" ... and all of our famous countdowns, like:  The Top 200 Favorite Forgotten B-Sides, The Top 200 Biggest Two-Sided Hits Of All Time, Your Top 20 All-Time Favorite Psychedelic Songs, Your Top 50 All-Time Favorite Instrumentals, The Greatest Hits Of Summer, and much, much more.
If you haven't visited for awhile, you're in for HOURS (if not DAYS!) of enjoyment.
You can check it all out here:
In fact, our cup runneth over with oldies music goodies!


 
re: PATTI PAGE:  
Got this very nice tribute to Patti Page from FH Reader Tom Cuddy ...  

Chart Watch Extra: Patti Page, R.I.P.  
By Paul Grein  (Billboard Magazine)
Everybody knows that Elvis Presley was the top hit-maker of the 1950s, but who was the top female hit-maker of the decade? Move to the front of the class if you know that it was Patti Page, who died yesterday at age 85. Page had four #1 hits in that decade, including “The Tennessee Waltz,” which was one of the decade’s biggest hits. Page’s other chart-toppers were “All My Love (Bolero),” “I Went To Your Wedding” and the novelty tune “The Doggie In The Window,” which did little to enhance her artistic reputation, but remains one of her best-known songs.   
Just last month, Page was announced as one of this year’s recipients of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Remarkably, she is the second recipient to have died since the announcements were made on Dec. 10. World music legend Ravi Shankar died the day after the announcements. (Both awards will be made posthumously next month.)
Neil Portnow, President and CEO of the Recording Academy, made note of Page’s death in a statement: “I recently had the privilege of speaking with Ms. Page and informing her that she would be recognized with The Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award this upcoming February, and she was grateful and excited to be receiving the honor.”
Page, who was born Clara Ann Fowler in Muskogee, Okla., was one of 11 children.  
Page landed her biggest hit in 1950, when she was just 23. "The Tennessee Waltz" spent 13 weeks at #1. It is tied with "Goodnight Irene" by Gordon Jenkins and his Orchestra and the Weavers for the longest run at #1 by any hit in the 1950s. Page's recording of "The Tennessee Waltz" was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.
Page was nicknamed "The Singin' Rage" in the 1950s, and it's easy to see why. She and Presley are the only artists who topped the pop chart for eight or more weeks with three different songs in that decade. She scored with "The Tennessee Waltz," "I Went To Your Wedding" and "The Doggie In The Window." He scored with "Don't Be Cruel"/"Hound Dog," "All Shook Up" and "Heartbreak Hotel."
All but five of Page’s 24 top 10 hits occurred prior to 1955, but her rock-era hits include two of her biggest and most memorable, 1956’s “Allegheny Moon” and 1957’s “Old Cape Cod.” The latter song was referenced in the Beach Boys’ wistful 1971 ballad “Disney Girls” (which was written by Bruce Johnston): “Patti Page and summer days/On old Cape Cod.” 
Page’s top 20 hits spanned three decades. She first reached the top 20 in the summer of 1948 with “Confess.” She made the top 10 for a final time in 1965 with the title song to the movie “Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte” (which starred Bette Davis and Olivia De Havilland). Page sang the song on the Oscars in April 1965.
Page had success with two other movie title songs: 1958’s “Another Time, Another Place” (starring Lana Turner) and 1962’s “The Boys’ Night Out” (starring James Garner).  
Page’s most successful albums were Christmas With Patti Page, first released in 1955, and Manhattan Tower, which reached the top 20 in 1956.
Page also found success with a few songs from Broadway shows, namely “So In Love” (from Kiss Me, Kate), “Steam Heat” (from The Pajama Game) and “The Sound Of Music” (from the musical of the same name which starred Mary Martin).
Page’s other notable hits included “Say Something Sweet To Your Sweetheart” (a collabo with Vic Damone), “With My Eyes Wide Open I’m Dreaming” (which was credited to Patti Page Quartet), “Mockin’ Bird Hill” and “Cross Over The Bridge.”
The warm tones in Page's voice made her a natural for country music. She reached the top 20 on the country chart with four songs: 1949’s “Money, Marbles And Chalk,” 1950’s “The Tennessee Waltz” (which reached #2 country), 1962’s “Go On Home” and “Hello We’re Lonely,” a 1972 collabo with Tom T. Hall.
Page also starred in a few TV shows: The Patti Page Show (1956, a summer replacement for The Perry Como Show), The Big Record (1957-1958) and The Patti Page Olds Show (1958-1959).  
Most of Page’s biggest hits pre-date the 1958 inception of the Grammy Awards, but Page won a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance for her 1998 album Live At Carnegie Hall—The 50th Anniversary Concert. She was the second female artist to win in that category, following Natalie Cole (whose father, Nat “King” Cole, was a contemporary of Page’s from 1948 until his death in 1965).
So who exactly were the top female hit-makers of the 1950s? According to Joel Whitburn Presents A Century Of Pop Music, the top female hit-makers for that decade were, in order, Page, Kay Starr, Rosemary Clooney, Jo Stafford, Teresa Brewer, Georgia Gibbs, Doris Day and Joni James.  

Patti Page was not just another 50's singer, though I loved each and every one of them from that era. Patti was the one I spent most of my summers with along the Allegheny River. A milk shake, a hamburger, and listening to her records on Mrs. Carson's juke box on Route 62, is a perfect memory of mine. Years later, I would do The Mike Douglas Show with her. It all happened so fast that I didn't have a chance to tell her what she meant to me growing up and singing harmony along with her. Rushing into a studio, then off to another city was my new way of life. Having hit records was what it was all about for me at that time. Now, I wish I could have told her how pretty she was, how talented, and how kind she was to me when I was starting out. Allegheny Moon will remain my favorite ... she wove such a spell for me as she sang.  
Thank you, Patti!
Lou Christie   

re: DICK CLARK:
The NON-tribute to recently deceased DICK CLARK on another of HIS creations, DICK CLARK'S ROCKIN' NEW YEARS EVE, was a poor attempt at honoring him! The network should have insisted on a better job as they squeezed a few more dollars from his corpse!
The problem is probably as simple as the people who put the show together being too young to remember Dick's iconic status, and his contribution to rock-and-roll ... So they 'honored' a game show host instead! (get him in, get him out)
This same problem has popped up before ... i.e. ... the COLUMBO re-boot and The NEW PERRY MASON,
re-boots of two long-running, wildly successful shows that are part of pop culture history.
I swear, as a student of both original shows, that whoever wrote and made the 'new' shows, must not have done much research from the originals. THEY MISSED THE MARK BY A MILE!!! Perhaps too young to have seen them the first time around, the creators pissed-on both shows and totally missed the 'charm' of the originals.

RENFIELD   

Not all of the Dick Clark press has been flattering of late ... "Wages Of Spin" (scan back to 2008 for several pieces on this documentary) has been showing on PBS Stations all over the country ... and is now part of The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Online Archives, too. Producer Shawn Swords tells us:  
The Charlie Gracie "Fabulous" Edition will be up on the online archives soon!!!!  
Click here: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum   

And, speaking of Dick Clark (and the Golden Bandstand Days), here's an update on a Philly Guy who seems to be on the mend ...  

Click here: Senior Connections: Bobby Rydell: Golden Boy Given Gift of Life

re:  50 YEARS AGO TODAY: 
THIS song was in The Top Ten: