Plinky-plinky-plonk

Continuing my trip back through the 1958 album charts.

23/11/58 : Pack Up Your Troubles - Russ Conway


Even though it's '58, I'm skipping an album because it's a Frank best-of - he (or more accurately, his various record labels) released SIX best-ofs in this year alone so I feel I have to draw the line somewhere. So that leads us back to Russ Conway and if it's anything like our last visit with the lad, it's going to be far worse than listening to a Frank best-of.

Oh yes - TWENTY songs played on an out-of-tune ol' Joanna. The good news is that it was only 35 minutes long, but that was still more than enough to give me a dreadful headache. There's also remarkably little variety - a guitar appears on one of the tracks, but apart from they all sound exactly the bleedin' same. Amusingly, my eldest came into the room when I was playing it and she was a big fan, I can tell you - when I explained I had to listen to the whole album she asked if that was so I could change my review from "shit" to "completely shit". The man had six top ten albums between '58 and '60 - why, oh why did people used to subject themselves to this?

We're at #9 in the charts this week on his second week of a two week run - he came back for a three week run over Xmas and New Year, peaking at #6. The top five this week were South Pacific, My Fair Lady, Elvis, Frank and Elvis and it probably won't surprise you to hear that it was remarkably similar in the week we skipped over. We also have a new entry this week with the aforementioned Frank best-of appearing at #8.

There's no Wikipedia entry on the album - what exactly would you find to say about it? His entry tells us that this was his first charting album and I should be very worried about visiting '59 because he had three albums out in the year (which resulted in two #1 singles - the mind boggles!)

"Customers also listened to" Mrs Mills (similarly bonkers if you've ever had the misfortune), Winifred Atwell, George Mitchell (avoid at all costs!) and Frank Ifield. We've certainly had a few contenders over the years, but Russ certainly makes a good case for being the least understandable in terms his popularity - this is irredeemably dreadful.

16/11/58 - A wry musical oddity
07/12/58 - Dated, but surprisingly enjoyable

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