No use in holding other hands for I'd be holding only emptiness

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts.

25/08/63 : All Alone Am I - Brenda Lee


So we've made it all the way to August and we've finally met an album by a woman - and it's only the second album this year to feature women in any major capacity. Such enlightened times - and talking of enlightened, I know Brenda was quite a big thing around this time but I can currently tell you absolutely nothing about her. So let's change that...

Well, I'd say it's of its time - but we already know that's not true. Because she's an actual woman, making a record and people are buying it - so it's very much not of its time. I'd struggle to say there's anything exceptional about any of the tracks but they're all done well enough and she's got a nice voice (think an American Shirley Bassey) which jaunts along nicely and I'm never going to complain about "Fly Me To The Moon". But, quite frankly, it could have been a helluva lot worse and I would still have been pleased to hear a female voice - cheers, Brenda!

We're at a relatively high #15 in the charts this week on her last week of a four week run, but this was preceded by a sixteen week run, during which it peaked at #8. The top five this week were The Beatles (we're not even halfway through their run yet!), The Shadows, the Cliff best-of, West Side Story and The Searchers with there being no new entries in the chart this week.

Wikipedia tells us this is her eighth album - allegedly it was an attempt to move into the more mature album buying market, but you do have to wonder what the previous seven albums were for. Looking at her entry, it tells us that she had her first hit single in '57 at the age of 12 (which means she was only 18 now), she was only the second woman to top the US singles chart and she's still with us at the ripe old age of '81, having recently celebrated her 63rd wedding anniversary. It also tells us that "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" got to #1 in the US in '23 (65 years after it was released) making her the oldest artist to get to #1. Back to the album, critically it got a four star review from New Record Mirror (I think they've given every album we've met four stars) and it got to #25 in the US charts.

discogs.com tells us that you will have to spend £2-25 to pick up a version of this - I struggle to imagine too many people are all that interested in this these days, but it was all well done and I found it a very pleasant breath of fresh female air in this year.

01/09/63 - Dated but perfectly listenable

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