Three stars will shine tonight

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts.

28/04/63 : Richard Chamberlain Sings - Richard Chamberlain

I can't say I was expecting to see him - this is going to be super cheesy, isn't it?

Yeah, this was definitely one bought by the grannies - it's very much looking backwards in time rather than attempting to do anything radical. He's got a decent voice though so it's all perfectly listenable, even if a whole album of it is a bit too much. We are also served up yet another Everly Brothers cover - I really should have been counting them because we've seen quite a few this year.

We're at #16 in the charts this week on the last week of an eight week run, with it having peaked at #8 in its third week. The top five this week were Cliff (just finishing a mere fourteen week run at the top), The Beatles, Buddy Holly, Frank Ifield and the All Star Festival album (how refreshing to see something different in the top five for a change!) and the highest new entry was Acker Bilk Esquire (#20).

Wikipedia tells us this is his debut album and was also his most popular - and that's pretty much your lot. Looking at his entry to pad things out, he was playing Dr Kildare at the time (and the theme tune is included on the album) - and he basically went on from that to do a load more acting. The highlight for me was a short spell in the Breakfast At Tiffany's musical which was a notorious flop, with the producer shutting it down after four preview performances, taking out an ad in the New York Times saying he took the decision to close it "rather than subject the drama critics and the public to an excruciatingly boring evening". I also learned that Richard was also the first person to play Jason Bourne in an '88 TV adaptation - you didn't know that, did you? Back to the album, it was received well enough with Cashbox saying it "earned him a significant niche in new crop of young thespian-chanters" (and I've absolutely no idea what they meant by that) - it also reached #5 in the US.

discogs.com only has two copies for sale, so you can choose to spend £3 or £4.79 on it - but I've absolutely no idea why you would. It's perfectly fine, but very, very inessential.

05/05/63 - Another woman? Oh no, it's the same one...

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