They say don't go on Wolverton Mountain if you're lookin' for a wife

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts.

10/11/63 : Born Free - Frank Ifield

He's been mentioned a few times in the top five this year, but apart from that I can tell you absolutely nothing about him - the best we can do is hope he doesn't come from Liverpool.

Ah yes, there's no danger of that Merseybeat sound - we're back in 50s territory here in the style of Andy Williams or Perry Como, complete with, quite obviously, added yodelling in places. Well, I guess I was asking for something different and that's definitely what we've got here - there's no danger of me every listening to it again, but it was nice to have some more variety.

We're at #4 in the charts this week on a surprisingly length 32 week run (obviously not everyone was listening to that hip new sound) with it having peaked at #3 in its 5th-7th weeks. The rest of the top five were The Beatles, Gerry & The Pacemakers, The Searchers and Kenny Ball with the highest new entry being The Searchers (#13).

Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for the album and his entry is surprisingly short about these times, other than noting he was successful, becoming the first UK-based artist to have three consecutive #1s here - although UK-based is somewhat tenuous because he lived in Australia for a lot of his life. Things got pretty quiet for him after the mid 60s though except for '91 when a dance remix of "She Taught Me How To Yodel" charted here - and I can assure you I won't be checking that out.

discogs.com tells us that the trend of reduced prices continues because you can pick up an original copy of the album for 75 pence with the most you can spend on it being £12, although there is at least also the interesting option of a reel-to-reel tape copy for £12 as well. This was super cheesy and definitely not what the cool kids were listening to, but it was well done cheese nonetheless. 

17/11/63 - Well, at least it's different