Quizás, quizás, quizás

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts.

20/10/63 : When In Spain - Cliff Richard & The Shadows


Before we get to the main album, we have another one to discuss that we've skipped over - from that well-known musical duo of Steptoe & Son. Huh? The internet is surprisingly lacking in information as to what was actually on this album (because there were several S&S albums) but it was almost certainly just bits from the soundtrack of some episodes. I listened to the only one available on Amazon Music (which was released in '70, but might have been a re-release of this one) and it was surprisingly dry - so I felt quite happy to skip over it...

...even if it meant having to endure a seventh visit with Cliff. I suspect we're into full-on cheesy Cliff mode by now - surely he must have accepted by now that he's never going to be Elvis?

Well - this was unexpected. In some ways, he is quite Elvis-ish - but slow, ballad-y Elvis as opposed to rock'n'roll Elvis. However, he is, for no obvious reason, singing entirely in Spanish - and there's remarkably little evidence that The Shadows are involved at all. I guess it's not terrible (and Cliff's voice is actually pretty decent) but it's really not great either. However, it is, most definitely, very curious - I've no idea what was going on here at all!

We're in the second half of the chart this week at #11 on his fifth week of a ten week run, with it having peaked at #8 in its fourth week. The top five this week were the usual mix of The Beatles, The Searchers, Frank Ifield, The Shadows and Kenny Ball with the highest new entry being Gerry & The Pacemakers (#10). 

Wikipedia tells us this is his sixth album and that's pretty much all it has to say on the matter, but his entry tells us that Cliff also recorded an album in Italian and a couple in German - but fortunately it seems like we're going to spared from visiting them. Critically, we've only got a four star review from New Record Mirror to refer to but commercially, I can report it got to #5 in Norway - which is obviously the first country you'd imagine would go for Cliff singing Spanish standards.

discogs.com tells us you can spend £5-15 on it, but I've absolutely no idea why you would - it has a certain curiosity value but the only real thing to its credit is that it doesn't have that Merseybeat sound.

27/10/63 - Both good and not so good

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