As 1960 drew to a close, rock & roll was giving way to R&B and increasingly to the solo singer, either backed by a band or a full orchestra. It’s not an era I’m that familiar with, and when I looked at this survey, more than a few of these songs looked unfamiliar, so I heard a few of them for the first time today. Anyway, here’s what they were listening to in Chicago on this day 56 years ago. I only embedded the top five, but I added links to the next five, in case you wanted to listen to them.
#10 – “Sleep” by Little Willie John This is a rework of Fred Waring’s theme song. I hadn’t heard this one before today, at least not Little Willie John’s version.
#9 – “Sailor” by Lolita Austrian singer Lolita gives us this German-language song with an English verse recited over her singing. I’m pretty sure I featured this once before, but I have to find it….
#8 – “Stay” by Maurice Williams and The Zodiacs This was listed on the survey as being by Maurice Williams only, so I didn’t recognize it at first, but this is a classic.
#7 – “The Hucklebuck” by Chubby Checker The Hucklebuck didn’t catch on as well as The Twist, but it’s still a rockin’ little number. I hadn’t heard this before today.
#6 – “I Want To Be Wanted” by Brenda Lee Little Miss Dynamite in a sweet downtempo country love ballad. Heard this for the first time today.
#5 – “Save The Last Dance For Me” by The Drifters Another classic from when Ben E. King was with the group.
#4 – “New Orleans” by Gary “US” Bonds You might also remember this one from the end of The Blues Brotheres 2000, which wasn’t quite as good as the original, but it had a lot more music.
#3 – “Wait For Me” by The Playmates Another lovely new-to-me song. The Playmates were a vocal trio, kind of like The Lettermen.
#2 – “Poetry In Motion” by Johnny Tillotson Another classic. I thought I had seen recently where Johnny had died, but he’s still going strong at almost eighty.
#1 – “Ruby Duby Du” by Tobin Mathews This kind of threw me for a loop: I found two guys named Tobin Matthews, one a guitarist and bandleader and the other a singer. This is by the former. Thank heaven they both didn’t do this song. I heard this for the first time today, too.
And that’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for November 7, 2016.
Monday’s Music Moves Me is sponsored by X-Mas Dolly, Callie, Stacy, Cathy, and Naila Moon, so be sure and visit them, where you can also find the Linky for the other participants.
In 1960 I was living in San Diego and that was before I started listening to music on the radio. The only music that I kept up with back then is whatever records my parents had in the house. Only about half of the songs you list here are songs that I’m familiar with.
Arlee Bird
Tossing It Out
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Sad that you hear only about half of these on oldies radio. Sometimes I think that’s the reason I do these survey overviews, because many of the songs that were popular back then are never heard again.
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I was only 5 in 1960 but some of these are familiar, probably because I had older sisters. Thanks for sharing.
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Like the previous person to comment, I was too young to be listening to these songs, but I remember hearing them from the radio stations that my brother and older cousins listened to.
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These tunes are from my big brother’s era. I can remember him playing his records on his phonograph and blasting it in his room. hahahaha~ Thanks for bringing back a great memory!
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I was the oldest, so I missed a lot of these.
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These songs are from my era. Thank you for the memories.
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You’re welcome. They were just before my time and there were a couple I hadn’t heard before. That’s why I do this.
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Save the last dance is still such a huge hit!! I love that song.
Thanks for sharing the ones on the top list for that era also.
Aloha! 🙂
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I like doing that because so many good songs that were popular in the past never get hard anymore. Glad you liked it.
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