Cliff Richard - Back from the Wilderness Singles and Albums 1975 - 1995

This version seems to be from the 1984 "TOGETHER" live video.

 

And this is an early version, from around 1964 or 1965, I´d guess. (Edit: I checked. It´s from the London Palladium in 1965.

 

And they did, of course, find a place for it on the set list for their final tour in 2009.

 

And on the "REUNITED" album. Enough already?

 

Single No. 22: 1963 August 16th Columbia 45-DB 7089
A-side: "IT´S ALL IN THE GAME" (Written by General Charles Gates Dawes & Carl Sigman) Running time 3:12 7XCA 27056
B-side: "YOUR EYES TELL ON YOU" (Written by Hank Marvin) Running time: 2:31 7XCA 27057
Produced by Norrie Paramor



Charts
UK: No. 2
Norway: No. 2
Sweden: No. 10
Ireland: No. 2
Australia: No. 7
Belgium: No. 6
Germany: -
The Netherlands: No. 4
New Zealand: -
US: No. 25 (US AC No. 10)

More chart action:
Canada: No. 1
Austria: No. 32

Here is the story of "IT´S ALL IN THE GAME". A very meandering way to success for the song itself, and quite a distinguished pedigree. The melody written by a US Vice President and a Noble Peace Prize laureat? I impressive.

I wish my memory were stronger, though... I rwad in Record Collector that a well-known musician had played for Cliff during the 1990s and/or the decade following that. I think the musician in question had a background in Procol Harum or some other respected institution. (Can anyone help me on this?) Anyway, he mentioned that he had a ot lof respect for Cliff and his music, and he opined that Cliff was underrated as a singer - also that he had a lot of really good songs in his repertoire. (Thanks, but we know that. ) There was only one song he couldn´t stand, and that was "IT´S ALL IN THE GAME". He told Cliff that it was rubbish, and that he should drop it from his set.

I don´t agree. It´s a pleasant song with a haunting melody. I have some problem with the mixing and mastering of the song - a lot of hiss on the tape, and the violins sound a bit too shrill at times. But there´s nothing wrong with the song itself, I think. Schmaltzy, of course, but that´s not a problem for me. True, Cliff has many better ballads up his sleeve, but this one is classy. His new record company in the States, Epic, released an album by the same name, and expected to mae Cliff a star. His next hit in the US would be "DEVIL WOMAN", in 1976. So maybe not, then.





The LP looked a bit like this:


The Composers:
Charles G. Dawes: Charles G. Dawes - Wikipedia
Carl Sigman: Carl Sigman - Wikipedia

From Wikipedia:
"It's All in the Game" was a 1958 hit for Tommy Edwards. Carl Sigman composed the lyrics in 1951 to a wordless 1911 composition titled "Melody in A Major," written by Charles G. Dawes, later Vice President of the United States under Calvin Coolidge. It is the only No. 1 single in the U.S. to have been co-written by a U.S. Vice President or a Nobel Peace Prize laureate (Dawes was both).
The song has become a pop standard, with cover versions by dozens of artists, some of which have been minor hit singles.
Edwards' song ranked at No. 47 on the 2018 list of The Hot 100's All-Time Top 100 Songs.

Melody in A Major
Dawes, a Chicago bank president and amateur pianist and flautist, composed the tune in 1911 in a single sitting at his lakeshore home in Evanston. He played it for a friend, the violinist Francis MacMillen, who took Dawes's sheet music to a publisher. Dawes, known for his federal appointments and a United States Senate candidacy, was surprised to find a portrait of himself in a State Street shop window with copies of the tune for sale. Dawes quipped, "I know that I will be the target of my punster friends. They will say that if all the notes in my bank are as bad as my musical ones, they are not worth the paper they were written on."
The tune, often dubbed "Dawes's Melody," followed him into politics, and he grew to detest hearing it wherever he appeared. It was a favorite of violinist Fritz Kreisler, who used it as his closing number, and in the 1940s it was picked up by musicians such as Tommy Dorsey.

"It's All in the Game"
In summer 1951, the songwriter Carl Sigman had an idea for a song, and Dawes's "Melody" struck him as suitable for his sentimental lyrics. Dawes had died in April of that year. It was recorded that year by Dinah Shore, Sammy Kaye, Carmen Cavallaro, and Edwards. The Edwards' version reached No. 18 on the Billboard Best Sellers In Stores survey. The range of the melody would have been "difficult to sing", so required rearrangement. A jazz/traditional pop arrangement was recorded by Louis Armstrong (vocals) and arranger Gordon Jenkins, with "some of Armstrong's most honey-tinged singing." Jenkins would in 1956 produce a version with Nat King Cole along the same lines.
In 1958, Edwards had only one session left on his MGM contract. Stereophonic sound recording was becoming viable and it was decided to cut a stereo version of "Game" with a rock and roll arrangement. The single was a hit, reaching number one for six weeks beginning September 29, 1958, and would be the last song to hit number 1 on the R&B Best Seller list. In November, the song hit No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart. The single helped Edwards revive his career for another two years.

Recordings
"It's All in the Game" has been recorded by different artists. Other notable versions include:
Cliff Richard had a number-two hit in the United Kingdom in 1963 and a number-25 hit on the US Hot 100 in 1964. This was Richard's only top 40 hit in the United States in the 1960s (compared to his UK tally of 43) and his last until "Devil Woman" in 1976. In Canada it reached number 1 on the CHUM Chart.
In 1970, Four Tops had a number-five hit in the United Kingdom. Their version peaked at number six on the soul charts and number twenty-four on the Billboard Hot 100.
Merle Haggard backed by The Strangers recorded a version for his 1984 album It's All in the Game. His version peaked at number 54 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart.
Van Morrison included his version in a song cycle with "You Know What They're Writing About" on his 1979 album Into the Music. Morrison's cover of the song was voted number 813 on Dave Marsh's list of 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made, B-side to Morrison's "Cleaning Windows". He also released it on the live albums, Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast (1984), A Night in San Francisco (1994) and Live at Austin City Limits Festival (2006).

Robert Porter:
The mono and stereo recordings are the same take and edit, but different mixes.

"As we get older, of course, we tend to realize that we can't go on doing the same sort of thing. We feel we have to try new things and, if the public like them; this is good; it broadens the artist's scope, it broadens the artist's public. If you keep on doing one type of thing, your public is limited, but if you can offer them an entertaining act, an entertaining film or television show, or if they associate you with a beautiful ballad as well as a beat number, well, all this is so much more valuable. For example, It's All in the Game. Cliff always liked that number. Often we'll record a number that he specially likes, and you'll think afterwards, well, it's a nice number but maybe only suitable for filling out an LP. But with this particular one, we thought it came out so nicely that it could be a good single. It turned out to be very good, went to the number two in the charts, and was kept off the top spot by The Beatles. In fact, everything in the top ten at that time was beat, Cliff was the only ballad and he stayed in second place for four or five weeks and would have made the very top but for The Beatles."
Norrie Paramor (1964 - The Wonderful World of Cliff Richard)

"Gormley will never concede that the transformation of Cliff Richard, for instance, from being a rock-and-roll artist to that of an all-round family entertainer has been calculated by him or anyone else. He insists that this is something that happened in Cliff's mind, that when he now sings songs like Spanish Harlem or It's All in the Game or Maria from West Side Story, it is because he, Cliff Richard, wants to sing them; it is because he is five years older and must feel differently about music and about everything else. His musical horizons, as well as all of his other horizons, must be wider. This is not to say that Cliff looks back on things he has done in the past and wishes he had never done them. If another Move It came along, he would probably record it again, just as he did at seventeen."
Bob Ferrier (1964 - The Wonderful World of Cliff Richard)

"EMI issue souvenir 'Golden Discs' to all artists who sell one million copies of one number. If all are called, few are chosen. Cliff has four of these庸or Living Doll, Bachelor Boy, The Young Ones and Lucky Lips. They also issue souvenir 'Silver Discs' for sales of 250,000 and over, and Cliff has some seventeen of these, for such numbers as Living Doll, Travelling Light [sic], Voice in the Wilderness [sic], Fall in Love with Me [sic], Please don't Tease, Nine Times out of Ten, I Love You, Theme for a Dream, Girl in your Arms [sic], Looking out the Window [sic], It'll be Me, Lucky Lips, Don't Talk to Him, All in the Game [sic], as well as the four million-sellers."
Bob Ferrier (1964 - The Wonderful World of Cliff Richard)

"I was interested to follow the sequences of one record right through, from the moment the tune occurred to someone as a subject for recording, until the finished article was in fact finished. We settled on It's All in the Game, an old number which Louis Armstrong had made a standard with a typically Armstrong vocal version. Cliff had always liked the number and had wanted to record it and, said Paramor : 'I thought it was a good idea.' They had been looking around for some titles to record with Paramor's orchestra, as opposed to The Shadows, not because they didn't want The Shadows, but simply because they were not available at the time. What happened was this. I had a song copy of It's All in the Game in my office. Cliff and I worked out what key he would sing in-- that's rather important to a singer-- and then the kind of treatment we should give it. I said we should have a kind of guitar noise with a harp. Cliff wanted to know what that sounded like and I said I couldn't be sure until I heard it but I thought it would work out nicely. So we did that. While we were rehearsing I was playing harmony underneath his voice on the first phrase, on piano, and he said it sounded nice and could we do it on piano in the arrangement. We routined four songs that afternoon. I make notes on the song copies, a kind of musical shorthand, and I might take a piece of manuscript paper to write out a coda or an introduction or something. Then I take this home pretty soon with my memory fresh and orchestrate the thing. This took place about a week before the recording session. In that time, I would reserve the studio and tell the band booker, name of Benson, to book the orchestra. This is important. I would tell him how many strings, brass, reeds, rhythm and so on I wanted, and, if I want to be more specific, I'll tell him the names of individual musicians I'd like if they are free. We recorded four numbers, of which this was one, on 28 December 1962, and it was issued in August of 1963. Cliff is very quick, Frank Ifield is quick too. We did the four numbers in one three-hour studio session. There is a great deal of pressure on the studios too, so we need time to book them. Our studios are in constant use, twelve hours a day or more. The reason for the nine month delay between recording and issue is that I started, with artists of Cliff's stature, stockpiling items. I have probably fifteen or sixteen songs recorded by Cliff in stock, or always aim to have. There is often a big demand for an LP by Cliff Richard at short notice. He is so busy with other things that it is not always possible to record him at short notice, so, with things in reserve, we can compile LPs and get them out quickly. You have to choose fairly timeless, non-topical numbers, of course, and you do this kind of thing only with the really big artists. I decide when the record should be released. In Cliff's case, I would speak with Peter Gormley, tell him I thought it was time for another Cliff single to go out, and what did he think of this number on that date. He might say it was not so good and that we should have it a week earlier because Cliff had a Sunday Night Palladium show that could fit, or something of the kind. It is all done in a pleasant conversational way. I then schedule the record, give it a specific release date which Peter Gormley and I have agreed, and I then talk with our general promotional manager, Arthur Muxlow, and our marketing manager, Fred Exon, to tell them what I think of the record and how strong it might be. We discuss how often it might be played on our programmes on Radio Luxembourg, for example. Then I also talk with Colin Burn, who does our plugging. He is very good. He has the dirty work of going to the B.B.C. and he disc-jockeys and trying to persuade them to play the records. With Cliff, his job is not too difficult, but with lesser-known artists, it is not always easy. Arthur Muxlow decides how he is going to promote this particular record, Fred Exon decides how many copies the factory should manufacture. The record is advertised in the trade press and, come the great day, it is released. And all we can do then is hope it will be a hit."
Norrie Paramor (1964 - The Wonderful World of Cliff Richard)

"A record that reached the number two spot in Britain that autumn-- It's All In The Game-- topped the charts in Hong Kong, Israel, New Zealand, Canada and half a dozen countries in Europe."
David Winter (1967 - New Singer, New Song)

"It's All In The Game was again a cover job. I know that we were about the third people to get into the song. And we had a hit with it. I mean, I like playing it. It's one of those records I quite like playing. I don't often play my own records. You tend to get fed up with them. You know, you hear them so often in the studio, you hear them so often while you're learning it. When you first get the actual acetate of a record, it's quite exciting to hear what sounds you've made in the studio. And you play them for a while. But you play them very critically, you know. You're listening to whether you can hear the group or yourself or the guitar solo or whatever. And you get so close to it that eventually you get fed up with hearing it and don't play it very often after that."
Cliff Richard (1974 - The Music And Life Of Cliff Richard collection)

"I know that we were about the third people to get into the song [It's All In The Game]. And we had a hit with it. I mean, I like playing it. It's one of those records I like playing. I don't often play my own records."
Cliff Richard (August 1980 - The Cliff Richard Special on 2HCR FM in Australia)

"With Cliff we also reached No. 1 with The Next Time, and Bachelor Boy, followed immediately by Summer Holiday, and we consolidated that success by scoring with Lucky Lips (No. 4), It's All In The Game (No. 2) and Don't Talk To Him (No. 2)."
Bruce Welch (1989 - Rock 'n' Roll - I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life)
"August 16, 1963: For his 22nd single, Cliff releases It's All In The Game, a song which Tommy Edwards took to the Number One spot in the British charts in 1958. The tune, originally entitled Melody In A Major, was written in 1912 by Chicago banker General Charles Gates Dawes, who later became Vice-President of the USA. Cliff's version peaked at No. 2 during a three month stay in the Top Fifty. [...] September 7 1963: ...Pat Boone confesses that he prefers Cliff's new version of It's All In The Game to the original. [...] January 31, 1964: It's All In The Game starts to climb the American charts. [...] February 1964: It's All In The Game peaks at No. 25 in US Billboard chart. [...] November 12, 1965: ...It was [Bruce Welch's] suggestion that we released It's All In The Game and The Twelfth Of Never as singles.'"
Mike Read, Nigel Goodall & Peter Lewry (1995 - The Complete Chronicle)

"Taking its title from Cliff's May 1963 Top Five hit, the Cliff's Lucky Lips EP featured two recent singles, Lucky Lips and It's All In The Game, along with their respective B-sides, I Wonder and Your Eyes Tell On You, both of which are included here."
Nigel Goodall & Peter Lewry (2008 - liner notes for Rare EP Tracks 1961 - 1991 album in the ...And They Said It Wouldn't Last! {My 50 Years In Music} set)
"The non-movie songs that preceded and followed the Summer Holiday tracks-- It'll Be Me, Lucky Lips, It's All In The Game and Constantly-- kept Cliff at #1 in foreign territories..."
Nigel Goodall & Peter Lewry (2008 - liner notes for The Hits: Number Ones Around The World album in the ...And They Said It Wouldn't Last! {My 50 Years In Music} set)

"[Cliff's] new American label, Epic was just starting to have some success with It's All In The Game after having launched what it called 'one of the greatest introductory campaigns in our history.'"
Steve Turner (2008 January - Cliff Richard - The Biography (revised edition))

Running Time: 3:12
Record Date: December 28, 1962
Record Location: Abbey Road, London
Written By: General Charles Gates Dawes (music) & Carl Sigman (words)
Arranged By: Norrie Paramor
Produced By: Norrie Paramor
Engineered By: Malcolm Addey
Performed By: Cliff Richard (vocals), The Mike Sammes Singers (backing and support vocals), Norrie Paramor (orchestra conductor), The Norrie Paramor Orchestra (orchestra and all other instruments)

 

The B-side was written by Hank Marvin, and is another typical Shadows rock´n´roll number. Quite a contrast to the A-side - and that seemed to work for Cliff at the time. One ballad, one rock´n´roll number. Everyone satisfied. This may not be Hank´s strongest song for Cliff, but it´s a nice song.

The US single had "I´M LOOKIN´ OUT THE WINDOW" as the B-side.

 

A 1924 recording of the original "MELODY IN A MAJOR", by Fritz Kreisler.

 

Charles G. Dawes died in 1951, THe same year the song was recorded by... Dinah Shore.

 

... Sammy Kaye...

 

... and Tommy Edwards.

 

Louis Armstrong had a look-in.

 

In 1956, even Nat King Cole left his mark on the legacy of the song.

 

Until Tommy Edwards re-recorded the song in 1958, and was rewarded with a hit bigger than the No. 18 he achieved in 1951... All the way to No. 1.

 

The Four Tops had a go at it in 1970.

 

As did Merle Haggard in 1984 - the same year Cliff released the singles "HEART USER" and "SHOOTING FROM THE HEART", as well as the album "THE ROCK CONNECTION ". Yes, we´re in that era.

 

And Van Morrison, Cliff´s future duet partner, also recorded it in 1979.

 

Cliff performed it live in Berlin in 1970. What lovely hair we had in the 70s...

 

He also performed it in 1999.

 

And also in 2007. From The One Show. An intimate version.

 

Love this song, i wish he would perform it more often, maybe replace the next time with it, i cant remember the last time he sang it live must be over 10 years, this is a lovely version too with the clarinet, would love to hear more songs stripped back like that.

 

Yes, it´s a beautiful song, and I also liked this simpler version. It really focuses on the strengths of the song rather than the elaborate arrangement. I was glad I found it.

 

I really think it's a shame that the UK didn't catch on to picture sleeves until the late '70s. (unless you were David Essex, who seemed to have all his '70s singles in picture sleeves).

 

It's quite clear to hear which version this is based on!

 

I agree! We were quite lucky in Scandinavia - most of the singles were given the picture sleeve treatment. (And in Norway, Cliff´s singles were pressed on yellow vinyl. Rather nifty, they were.)

 

Yes. Although Ruth Brown may have the best and most rootsy version, Cliff had the commercial edge. And it is a good pop single!