Giddy-up, giddy-up ding-dong

Continuing my trip back through the 1957 album charts.

21/04/57 : The Tommy Steele Stage Show - Tommy Steele 

Two weeks skipped over this time and you can probably guess what was #1 for both of them.  I also skipped over a compilation album - shame on me!  Yes, I know I probably shouldn't have but, in my defence, it was a Frank Sinatra compilation and I really think we've had enough of the man this year (and it balances nicely with having skipped over an Elvis compilation earlier in the year).  And what was my reward?  A second Tommy album of the year which I'm really not looking forward to...

Hmmm - it's a poorly recorded live show which suggests he was popular (from the screams of the audience) without offering a great deal of evidence as to why.  His voice is odd because he sings with a US accent (generally holding the note, but not always), but in the mid-song chats he's very English indeed (sounding suspiciously like Anton du Beke at times).  The songs aren't horrible but they're very simplistic - there's absolutely nothing here to suggest this isn't a swift cash-in because they didn't think his popularity would last very long.

We're at #5 in the charts this week with a new entry - and that was it, with it never being seen again!  I thought he was supposed to be a BIG THING?!?  The rest of the top five were Frank's best-of, TKAI, High Society and Oklahoma!.

Wikipedia gives the impression it was indeed all a bit rushed - he'd had his first couple of hit singles, announced he was going to star in The Tommy Steele Story and got this out all within five months.  Simon Napier-Bell made the point that people "didn't love Tommy Steele because he was sexy, they loved him because he'd managed to do something never before done in the British music business. Be young!".  The critics were not fans of this album with my favourite comment coming from The Liverpool Echo who said "apart from his exuberance he has nothing. It is apparent that he is quite unable to sing and play the guitar at the same time. In the case of many of his numbers I would even go further and say he cannot sing with or without a guitar".

"Customers also listened to" "no similar recommendations" - for once, I'm going to say that Amazon probably got that right.  This is a peculiar one indeed.

10/02/57 - A strange album to end a strange year
12/05/57 - Not bad at all

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