Don't you feel like crying?

Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.  

1962 : Cry To Me - Solomon Burke

I don't recognise this at all - but I know who Solomon Burke is because he always used to sit on a throne when he appeared on Jools Holland, so I'm expecting some kind of soulful thang but that's as far as I go at the minute.

And having invested 2:33 of my time in listening to it, there's been no "Ah yes - that one!" moment - I assume I must have heard it at some point in my 54 and a bit years, but it's not ringing any bells.  It is, indeed, some kind of soulful thang - it's fine and he's got a nice voice, but I can't say it particularly wowed me.

Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot on the song - it was written by Bert Berns, who was a white New Yorker with a formal musical education from the Julliard School of Music.  All of which meant that Solomon Burke had little time for the man to start with, but came round to appreciating his skill over time.  And that's pretty much it - it got to #44 in the US charts and apparently sold 400,000 copies over here without charting (which seems kinda unlikely to be honest).  After this, Solomon was one of the first performers to be known as a soul artist - with his "hollers and vocal melismas" and the "flowers and curlicues of gospel singing" being pretty salient, apparently.  Apparently, he also used to keep a pulpit with him in his recording studio - which seems an interesting choice.

Wikipedia is light on the cover versions - Betty Harris, The Pretty Things, The Rolling Stones (I have at least heard of them) and Freddie Scott.  I'm not expecting a lot more from other sources - Tom Petty, Professor Longhair (a New Orleans piano player, apparently), Eric Burdon (from The Animals), Buckwheat Zydeco (an American accordionist, apparently), Huey Lewis, Seal and IDLES (really?).  Not a huge selection - but an interesting variety of styles, to say the least.

We've not had any clues yet why this track tops the year - a quick scoot around the internet only turns up the fact that it appears in Dirty Dancing, which is going to up its numbers but it still seems a bit of a surprise.  Was there no competition?  The best selling track of the year in the UK was Frank Ifield's "I Remember You", which I might have heard but remember it, I do not.  Other tracks that jump out from the charts are Neil Sedaka's "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen", Cliff's "The Young Ones", Little Eva's "Locomotion" and Carole King's "It Might As Well Rain Until September" (which I'm only including because I had no idea she was writing songs this early).  From the US, we have Acker Bilk's "Stranger On The Shore", Neil Sedaka's "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do", Booker T's "Green Onions" (which you know, even if you don't know you know it) and Sue Thompson's "Norman" (which I've never heard of, but I'm just amazed that someone called Sue Thompson had a hit with a song called "Norman").

So there's no stand-out track which definitely deserves the title over Solomon's effort, but there's plenty there that I feel are better known over here at least - I can only assume that Dirty Dancing gives Solomon the edge.  I didn't mind the track and it was an interesting musical education but I can't say too much of it stuck in there at first listen - and if I hear it again, I suspect I'll think it's another first listen.

1961 - A worthy winner
1963 - Probably my favourite so far