Some other guy run off my honey like a yellow dog

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts.

24/11/63 : Freddie & The Dreamers - Freddie & The Dreamers


A band not based in Liverpool - what's going on? Yeah, this lot are from the massively distant metropolis of Manchester. And one look at the album cover makes me suspect I'm not going to like this.

Well, in the same way that Manchester isn't a million miles away from Liverpool, this isn't a million miles away from the Merseybeat sound. There is more variety than we've seen on some of this year's albums but that's not always a good idea - their cover of "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" is a most peculiar downbeat thing and "I'm A Hog For You" is really surprisingly bad. But, for the most part, it's pretty listenable - their version of Roy Orbison's "Crying" was actually pretty decent and we also met the second version of "Money (That's What I Want)" of the year.

We're at #4 in the charts this week on their sixth week of a 28 week run with it having peaked at #2 in its fourth and fifth weeks. The rest of the top five were The Beatles, The Beatles (a new entry), The Searchers and Gerry & The Pacemakers (what a fantastically diverse top five that is) and the highest new entry was Roy Orbison (#14). 

Wikipedia tells us this is their debut album and it suggests most of the tracks are covers, but some could have been original tracks written by random people who don't have Wikipedia entries. Looking at their entry, it tells us that their live performances were "enlivened by the comic antics of Freddie Garrity, who would bounce around the stage with arms and legs flying" - sounds great, eh? Apparently, the group appeared on Little Big Time, an ITV children's show, for FIVE YEARS in the early 70s - fortunately, I was too young to remember (and I wasn't allowed to watch ITV because it was for common people). There's also an amusing comment on the group from Lester Bangs - "a plenitude of talentless idiocy...Freddie and the Dreamers represented a triumph of rock as cretinous swill, and as such should be not only respected, but given their place in history". There's no word on the critical notices but, somewhat amazingly, it charted in the US, getting to #19.

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a copy of the LP for three quid, but if you want a mint copy then it's going to set you £33 - these albums are getting cheaper as the year goes on. And the quality isn't exactly increasing either, but this isn't nearly as dreadful as I feared.

01/12/63 - This lot again

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And all at once I owned the earth and sky

Image
A new year to start the New Year - starting my trip back through the 2001 album charts. 30/12/01 : Swing When You're Winning -   Robbie Williams There's a reasonable argument I should reject this album, but it was such a surprising cultural moment that even I don't feel I can, so it means we're starting the year with one that "we" own. This is our fifth visit with Mr Williams - I'm determined not to enjoy it, but I also have to admit I'm not going to hate it nearly as much as I would like to.  You know what? This is perfectly fine. Completely inessential, but he's not doing anyone any harm. For the most part, it's classic Sinatra-or-thereabouts tracks which Robbie does a decent job with on the vocals (along with some slightly peculiar guests) and they've obviously got some decent musicians in to lay down the backing tracks. He rarely does anything wildly original with them but, most importantly, he doesn't ruin them either - I don't...
Read more

I wanna keep the door from closing, yeah

Image
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 26/12/25 : I Barely Know Her - Sombr Christmas week gives us some odd albums - last year we had Lana del Rey's album from '12, which hasn't left the chart all year. I'm pleased to say we're somewhat more up to date this year with an album that came out in August - I met it as a new entry  and was somewhat nonplussed by it, but I have mentioned it a couple of times since because it's just not gone away, which is somewhat unusual. So let's see what I make of it on a second listen (this trick totally failed to convince me of the virtues of Addison Rae earlier today). Well, well, well - Sombr at least intrigues on second listen. I'd struggle to describe it - it's kinda poppy indie with a woozy vibe to it, but it feels like it has depths to it and I reckon the more you listen to it, the more you pick up on. Intriguing indeed - I'd love to tell you more but that's all I got for the time ...
Read more

In your grace, I looked for some meaning - but I found none

Image
Continuing my trip up The Guardian's  50 best albums of 2025 . #3 :  Essex Honey - Blood Orange Dev Hynes’ fifth album as Blood Orange felt uniquely keyed into the fragmented, distracted headspace that comes after someone passes, in his case, his mother. Essex Honey’s restive nature was summed up in its painful opening lines, which you could read as the dying’s acceptance of death starkly contrasting the living’s ability to meet them on those terms: “In your grace, I looked for some meaning,” Hynes sings on Look at You. “But I found none, and I still search for a truth.” That search is wide-reaching: The Field refashions the Durutti Column’s Sing to Me as a racing hymnal made for the stereo of a Ford Escort. There are tough little Robert Rental-style post-punk gems in The Train (Kings Cross) and Countryside that bristle with frustration. Vivid Light is a plainly soulful duet with Zadie Smith; Life, featuring Tirzah’s unmistakable vocals, basks in languid, flute-dappled funk. T...
Read more