Saturday, January 13, 2024

January 13th, 1964

THE SATURDAY SURVEY

The Beatles premier at #38 this week on our Super Chart ... their first Top 100 appearance in America.

Of little notice at the time (it didn't even earn a bullet), Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want To Be With You" premiers at #97.

Hottest records at the time?

Bobby Vinton's "There, I've Said It Again" holds down the #1 spot for the third consecutive week, keeping the teen favorite "Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen at #2, where it has spent three of the past four weeks.

The Trashmen are at #4 with a bullet with their garage band classic "Surfin' Bird" ... and, speaking of surfin', that whole new "beach" surfin' / hot rod sound shows up in several places on this week's chart ...

The Rip Chords are up eleven places to #7 with "Hey Little Cobra, Jan and Dean hold down the #12 spot with "Drag City" ... while The Beach Boys themselves have TWO records on this week's chart:  "Be True To Your School" sits at #36 and "In My Room" can be found at #91.

Rick Nelson, Lesley Gore and Dionne Warwick are all making big strides with their latest records, "For You" (#16), "You Don't Own Me" (#17) and "Anyone Who Had A Heart (#19) , all earning bullets this week ... while Bobby Rydell holds on to the #5 spot with his hit "Forget Him," now in its tenth week on the chart.

Two songs in the lower region of the chart will have very successful British remakes this year ... "Do Wah Diddy" by The Exciters (#86) will go all the way to #1 for Manfred Mann when they cut it as "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" later this year ... while "When You Walk In The Room" by Jackie DeShannon, this week's #88 song, will find much greater success in the hands of The Searchers later this year as well.