Top Ten Tuesday: 1961, The Next 10

We’re looking at the Billboard year-end Hot 100 and focusing on the songs that finished #11-20. This week, we look at 1961

#20 – Sue Thompson, "Sad Movies (Make Me Cry)": A song by John D. Loudermilk. Sue was a woman in her 30’s when this song came out, her singing style appealed to the younger recordbuyers, and it reached #5 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart.

#19 – Ray Charles, "Hit The Road Jack": Percy Mayfield wrote this and Ray Charles took it to #1 on the Hot 100 and the R&B chart, his sixth straight #1 on that chart. It also took the Grammy for Best Rhythm & Blues recording.

#18 – Connie Francis, "Where The Boys Are": Theme song from the movie of the same name, written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield. It reached #4 on the Hot 100 and #5 in the UK.

#17 – Ferrante & Teicher, "Exodus": The theme song from Otto Preminger’s 1961 movie of the same name. Their cover of the song reached #2 on the Hot 100.

#16 – The Shirelles, "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow": A song by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, this is the first #1 record ever recorded by an all-Black girl grup.

#15 – The Mar-Keys, "Last Night": An instrumental that was on the Mar-Keys’ 1961 album of the same name. Steve Cropper is on this record, although he didn’t play guitar: he held down a note on the organ throughout. This was the first single issued by Stax Records.

#14 – The Shirelles, "Dedicated To The One I Love": Written by Lowman Paulding and Ralph Bass and originally done by The 5 Royales. That version only reached #81 on the Hot 100. The Shirelles recorded it in 1961 and reached #3.

#13 – Roy Orbison, "Running Scared": Joe Melson and Roy wrote this and Roy issued this as a single in March. It reached #1 on the Hot 100 and sold over one million records.

#12 – Bobby Vee, "Take Good Care Of My Baby": Another Goffin-King creation that reached #1 in the US, Canada, and the UK.

#11 – Lawrence Welk, "Calcutta": This is actually a German pop song, written by Heino Gaze and originally called "Tivoli Melody." It was renamed several times before finally it was given the name "Kalkutta" in Germany and "Calcutta" by Welk. This was the most successful single of Welk’s career. It was the title track of Welk’s 1961 album and reached #1 for two weeks, while the album spent three months on the chart and reached #1 on the Album chart.

That’s Top ten Tuesday for May 11, 2021.

Song of the Day: The Animals, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”

A very happy 80th birthday to Eric Burdon, lead singer for The Animals, War and several other projects. "Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood" was written by Bennie Benjamin, Horace Ott and Sol Marcus for Nina Simone, who recorded it in 1964. The Animals released their cover of the song at the end of 1964, and it reached #3 in the UK, #4 in Canada, and #15 in the US in 1965. Burdon said that "it was never considered pop material, but it somehow got passed on to us and we fell in love with it immediately."

Share Your World For May 10, 2021

Melanie has another batch of Monday questions to answer. Hey, why not go over to her place and learn about Share Your World? It’s oodles of fun!

What do you believe but cannot prove? The Parallel Universe Theory. Also, Fermat’s last theorem.

Do animals have morals? Forty plus years of cat ownership has shown me that no, at least not as far as cats are concerned. Ogden Nash once wrote "In the world of mules, There are no rules."

Is there inherent order in nature or is it all chaos and chance? I think I’d have to go with chaos and chance, mostly because of alliteration.

Where is your least favorite place in the world? The international arivals area at Pearson Airport in Toronto. It’s ugly, with horrible abstract drawings of international destinations painted on walls the color of boogers, and more often than not the Immigration Canada agents were unpleasant. The last time I went to Canada, I flew to Buffalo and drove to Toronto. Yeah, that bad.

Gratitude: I had a really bad backache yesterday, so I’m grateful for Biofreeze and NSAID’s.

Monday’s Music Moves Me: Happy Birthday, Betamax!

On this day in 1975, Sony released the Betamax, the first video recorder and player for home use. Within ten years, it was overwhelmed by the VHS format, but into the ’90’s prerecorded Betamax tapes were available in video stores. Nevertheless, the VCR revolutionized home entertainment, and it all started 46 years ago today. To celebrate, I as the "guest conductor" chose to assign the task of selecting songs from movies of the 1980’s and 1990’s.

Note that, since I don’t pay WordPress enough to be able to embed Javascript into my blog posts, I’m unable to display the Linky here, but you should be able to see it on the blogs of the four hosts of this blog hop. They’re listed at the end of this post.

  1. Ray Parker Jr., "Ghostbusters" (Ghostbusters, 1984): We all remember this one, with Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and Dan Aykroyd as a team of parapsychologists who run a ghost-catching business in New York. Also featured were Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis. They used Huey Lewis’s "I Want A New Drug" as a placeholder duing the montage until they could come up with a new song, and Ray Parker Jr. wrote it with a similar tempo and feel. The song reached #1 on the Hot 100 for three weeks, and Lewis sued Parker, eventually receiving a settlement.
  2. Phil Collins, "Against All Odds" (Against All Odds, 1984): This was Phil Collins’s first #1 hit in the US and the first of seven in a row at the start of his solo career.
  3. Harold Faltermeyer, "Axel F" (Beverly Hills Cop, 1984): Faltermeyer did all the synthesizer and drum parts and reached #3 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Hot Ac chart, #2 in the UK, #2 in Canada (where it also reached #1 on the AC chart), and was a Top Ten hit nearly everywhere else.
  4. Jeff Healey, "Roadhouse Blues" (Road House, 1989): The blind guitarist and his band covered The Doors’ song from 1970’s Morrison Hotel. It wasn’t released as a single, but was a pretty good highlight.
  5. Madonna, "Crazy For You" (Vision Quest, 1985): Crazy For You was the name of this movie in the UK and Australia. Madonna had a small part in it as a singer (of course) and did this and "Gambler." It was her second #1 single and did well in Canada and the UK as well. I really enjoyed the movie, by the way.
  6. Madonna, "This Used To Be My Playground" (A League Of Their Own, 1992): I know, two Madonna songs in a row; you got a problem with that? Madonna was one of the stars of the movie and contributed this to the soundtrack, though it didn’t apear on the soundtrack album, for contractual reasons. Regardless, she had another #1 in the US and Canada and a Top Ten hit elsewhere.
  7. Whitney Houston, "I Will Always Love You" (The Bodyguard, 1992): Dolly Parton wrote this for Porter Wagoner when she was about to go out on her own, and it adapted well to the movie starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner. Whitney’s recording of the song spent 14 weeks at #1 on the Hot 100.
  8. Eric Clapton, "Change The World" (Phenomenon, 1996): Written by Tommy Sims, Gordon Kennedy, and Wayne Kirkpatrick for the movie, and Eric Clapton recorded it for the soundtrack. As a single it reached #5 on the Hot 100 but #1 on the AC chart in the US and in Canada.
  9. Elton John, "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" (The Lion King, 1994): The song that plays while Simba and Nala have some adult fun… Sir Elton wrote it with Tim Rice and had a chart hit in the US (#4), the UK (#14), Canada (#1) and France (#1). Oh, and it won the Oscar for Best Original Song and Elton won the Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.
  10. Elliott Smith, "Miss Misery" (Good Will Hunting, 1992): This played at the end of the movie over the credits, and was nominated for Best Original Song, losing out to "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic.

And that’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for May 10, 2021.

Monday’s Music Moves Me is sponsored by X-Mas Dolly, Cathy, Alana, and Stacy, so be sure and visit them, where you can also find the Linky for the other participants.

Song of the Day: Larry Williams, “Slow Down”

Singer, songwriter and pianist Larry Williams would be 86 today. He wrote and recorded a number of classic songs, including "Boney Maronie," "Short Fat Fannie," and "She Said Yeah." John Lennon was a fan and The Beatles recorded several of his songs, including "Dizzy Miss Lizzie," "Bad Boy," and "Slow Down." The latter was the B side to "Dizzy Miss Lizzie," which only reached #69 on the Hot 100 in 1958. The Beatles’ cover didn’t do much better, but it’s a great song nonetheless.