I thought Dizzy was okay, not #1 material but okay. I enjoyed Heather Honey more. I know none of this will matter for another 7 years but one never knows if they'll be around then.
Gee, I'm fascinated that younger folks remember a tune from 1962, but not one from a short five years earlier. I'll take Holly all day long over Roe, and just like 11/22/63, the date, 2/3/59, will be one that will always be in my mind. To a lesser extent, I think that what you wrote about Roe can be connected to the far more talented Bobby Vee too. BTW, I saw Holly in person when he was a guest on the Milt Grant Show — a local DC copy of American Bandstand — in October of 1957; they lip synced "That'll Be The Day" (what else).
I think there are quite a few of us around who started listening to the radio avidly around '62 or so. For some reason I remember hearing Tom Dooley from '58 but a lot of the music between then and '62 I only know from oldies play. Can't really explain why. I didn't really notice Sheila in '62 and when I heard it around' 76 I first thought it was just a Buddy Holly imitator. I really only knew Tommy Roe records from his "bubblegum"period.
I don't remember when I started listening to the radio, but I'll guess it was 1955. Dad had put a radio in the bedroom that my brother and I shared, so I would turn it on every morning while I was getting ready for school. The station I listened to was in the town of State College, PA, where Penn State University is. My dad was assigned to the Army ROTC program there; it was his dream assignment. After 3 years he had to go back to his regular duties at the Pentagon. That station played all of the top songs of the period, and as a kid I had lots of favorites that I hoped I would hear often. I really liked Rusty Draper, the McGuire Sisters, Mitch Miller and Frank Sinatra, and when they started playing Elvis and Bill Haley in the afternoons I thought it was great. That station did not make a hard distinction between pop and rock, but I did not learn about Little Richard and Fats Domino there, I heard those artists at my cousin's house 30 miles away. Thinking of imitators, I guess Pat Boone's covers of Little Richard and Fats Domino tunes were imitations of a sort, but Boone was really the music business' way of banishing certain kinds of music. Books have been written on this and it has nothing to do with bubblegum music you spoke of. It does have a lot to do to with seeing the sociological changes that would be taking place in our world just a few years later that would pave the way for great artists like Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles on radio stations everywhere.
I’ve always preferred the mono mix of Sheila, as heard on the original ABC-Paramount 45, to the stereo mix posted above (post #1222). The mono mix has more impact and is the version I recall blasting from the radio. The drumming of Buddy Harman and bass playing of Bob Moore are pushed forward in the mono 45 mix and really propel the song. I also prefer Tommy’s lead vocal and the background vocals by The Jordanaires on the "hit" version (the background vocals are recessed and pushed to the side in the stereo mix):
That's a great record. It's was still being played on occasion on AM radio where I lived 10 years later.
The mono version is available on this CD... Amazon Prime members can get a new copy delivered to them for $4.99.
A screechy classic. Annoying as all ****, but everybody knows it to this day and it's certainly iconic. I will say, it sounds much older than 1962 - I always thought this hailed from the late '50s...
I could not disagree more. The opening intro is a classic that set the stage for a chart dominance that continued for a couple of years before...well, you know. This was everywhere in '62 and we all (well, most of us) loved it. I still cross my legs and wince when Valli hits those high notes.
I like Sherry, always did. I remember it going 10 - 7 - 8 - 7 - 10 on the U. K. chart of whichever radio station I was listening to over there. As things came to pass, it was like opening the door to a vault of riches ... I have the Rhino 3-CD set and I regularly listen to about 30 of the 54 tracks. If I were to rank them in order, Sherry would be in the 20s (and for what it's worth, Big Girls Don't Cry would be #30). Good song but nowhere near truly sublime numbers like Rag Doll, Big Man in Town and Girl Come Running.
And for even longer after...well you know. "Dawn Go Away" cracked the top five when the Beatles literally had the rest of it to themselves, "Rag Doll" went to #1 in the summer of '64, and they continued to hit the top ten regularly through 1967. Actually the Four Seasons are a perfect example of how the British Invasion didn't really derail the careers of American acts who were up-and-coming in the months and years immediately beforehand. (The Beach Boys are another example of this.) It was mostly the acts who were already on their last legs commercially speaking who got wiped off the charts. As for "Sherry," I love the Four Seasons but I was never crazy about this one. It's certainly a promising sign of their unique sound, but they got so much better later on. I think "Let's Hang On" is my all time favorite.
Nor could I disagree more — except I never winced. Along with "The Locomotion", "Sherry" ushers in the beginnings of the greatest part of 1960s music. Amazing that one of the feats here is that this, the very first Four Seasons song to enter the Billboard charts, will make it all the way to #1, and do so rapidly. They are to become one of the top groups of the decades along with another group to enter the charts for the first time in 1962 in the USA, but the Beach Boys did NOT chart at #1 for two more years, when in 1964 their 13th chart entry, "I Get Around," burst onto the airwaves; IMO, "Don't Worry Baby," the record's B side was just as great. Two more hallmarks of the Fall of 1962 were the beginning of the Bossa Nova craze with the entry of the Stan Getz - Charlie Byrd hit, "Desafinado," that peaked at #2 on November 2nd, and the initial entry of "The Monster Mash" which was destined to become a perennial Halloween favorite for nearly all of the coming decades. WMAL, Radio 63, in Washington, DC would soon dub themselves the station of the year, then devote its entire evening's airplay to Bossa Nova, hosted by the renowned Felix Grant.
And we should remember that Motown also coexisted with the Beatles very well. In fact, it would be the Supremes to make it to #1 five times in a row despite the Fab Four.
Connecting the Dizzy discussion and the songs hitting number one on multiple occasions, Vic Reeves and the Wonder Stuff took Dizzy back up to the top of the UK singles chart in 1991. I have a soft spot for their take on it. A little more muscular than the original.
It has to be "Disco Duck" for me. Of course there were many others, but I remember this one especially well because two college coeds came into the all-night diner at 3:00 AM where I was preparing paperwork for the coming day's itinerary and proceeded to play the song no less than 12 times in a row.
I don't know how anyone can say Sherry is even close to being one of the most annoying pop songs in history, with a straight face no less, when turds like The Night Chicago Died, Billy Don't Be A Hero and Torn Between Two Lovers exist to fracture our collective eardrums. And don't get me started on current dreck like Work.
I don't listen to modern radio, so I have no knowledge of the thee tunes you listed. My daughter DID give me a CD of a then popular group some years ago for Christmas, saying that I had to get with the times. A few days later, she asked what I thought, and I replied that the group had to be the most appropriately named ever. Oh, the name of the group was (is?) Garbage. I want to take this opportunity to say that maybe "Dawn (Go Away)" is my personal favorite Four Seasons tune... today, at least.
