Every UK #1 Single Of 1971 Discussion Thread

One of Beatle John's favourite song and George Harrison amongst the UK number ones this year!

Turning back time from these threads:

Every UK #1 Single Of 1972 Discussion Thread

Every UK #1 Single Of 1973 Discussion Thread

Every UK #1 Single Of 1974 Discussion Thread

1971 starts with a big number 1, a song that ended 1970 at number 1, was number 1 for a total of six weeks, and is one of John Lennon's favourite song.

The UK charts for the first week of 1971:



Welsh singer and guitarist Dave Edmunds recorded I Hear You Knockin in 1970 at Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire. In an interview, John Lennon commented, "Well, I always liked simple rock. There's a great one in England now, I Hear You Knocking."

In December 1970, I Hear You Knocking reached number one in the UK, including the Christmas number one slot, and topped the UK Singles chart for six weeks. It also placed in the top 10 in several other countries, including number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1971. It sold over three million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. In 1972, the song was included on his first solo album, Rockpile.



The US single B side



The German sleeve

 

The self-penned B side

 

Dave Edmunds was still going strong and producing excellent music when I was a few years older and buying music. I bought the I Knew The Bride single and a Dave compilation LP. I liked I Hear You Knocking then, and still do.

I've also got this CD comp, where Sabre Dance highlights his guitar playing prowess, and I Hear You Knocking, can be heard.

What a talent.

 

I seem to recall this track doing well in the various poll threads I’ve done on here. It’s a decent song. I think I have it on a comp somewhere. I doubt I’d seek it out myself otherwise, though. 1971 is a little early for me and I probably only know about half of that top 50, unfortunately.

I do recall liking Jackie Lee’s Rupert. It was the theme song to the Rupert the Bear kids TV show, unsurprisingly.

 

1970 ended as the year when T.Rex started to become famous, yet they couldn't reach the top position (thanks Clive Dunn!). Glam wasn't popular, nor invented yet and the charts reflected the variety of styles.

We have gospel (Amazing Grace spent a lot of weeks in the charts), Motown sound (perhaps the end of the golden era, with The Motown, later Detroit, Spinners and Stevie Wonder), Carolina Soul (with Invictus' Chairmen Of The Board and Freda Payne, she was a number one), pop-rock of Christie, Frank Sinatra (35 weeks in the charts!) and a rememberance for the late Jimi Hendrix. The rest has a lot of different styles, which shows the brutal change between 1971 and 1970.

Remember, January 1970 was the moment when Cookaway were every week two or three times in the charts. The charts were cluttered with MOR rubbish that dissappeared the following year.

 

The original by Smiley Lewis

 

I'll go further back to 1970 when the 1971 thread finishes.

The change may seem even more brutal.

 

The original shows the piano led 12/8 shuffle, rather than the straight 4/4 so loved by John Lennon of the Dave Edmunds' version.

 

I think @bob60 is going be keeping a close eye on that number 10 in the singles chart!

 

A great song and Dave has always been a great performer.

 

Dave Edmunds - I Hear You Knockin' / Black Bill
An average cover of a good song. The Sunsets did their slower triplet version the previous year (on their debut LP, produced by Dave Edmunds). No beating Smiley's original. I know Dave is a capable musician but I never got what the fuss was about, not with Rockpile either. But that's the way with this type of music, it's all about the interpretation and the detail and whatever moves you personally. The vocal sound sounds a little forced. As noted, Dave changed the shuffle beat to straight, which makes it sound less New Orleans.
The B-side sounds like jamming rather than a song.

 

Let me mention more hit singles of that era: Gerry Monroe's My Prayer, is basic Opportunity Knocks materia. Straightforward pop, performed by a man who surely was still living with his mother. Frankie Valli's first hit in years, re-relased because of the Northern Soul craze (it was released in the 60s), two versions of My Way : the famous by Sinatra and other by variety singer Dorothy Squires (she had two hits in 1970), teenybopper (perhaps the first of the lot) by The Jackson Five. They had a marvellous 1970, and in 71 their fortunes sort of dwindled.

The best of the lot is John Paul Joans. Not the Led Zeppelin artist, but a comedian. His real name is Reginald John Davidge, and he released on RAK Records (that label needs a thread on its own, because the talent they had was amazing) a song about Jesus Christ, The Man From Nazareth. I think the song was climbing when Led Zeppelin's lawyers wanted to pull the plug on the single. The single rested for a few weeks, then started to climb again, reaching number 25. In the US the song was also released. It claimed that it was performed by John Paul Jones. Guess what happened? Yes, they had to rename the performer, as John.

Oh, and this song was created by a duo of writers which may be familiar: Kevin Godley and Lol Creme.

 

Lots of great songs on that compilation. Unfortunately missing is “In the Land of the Few” from the 2nd Love Sculpture LP. Dave never went down that road after that band split. What an amazing song.

 

Ride A White Swan was a real slow burning debut for T.Rex. This was its 11th week in the charts, it had climbed all the way to no 6 a few weeks previous before dropping to no 12 for a couple of weeks. It would spend another 5 weeks inside the top 10, eventually reaching no 2.

 

I remember really liking that Dave Edmonds single.
This was the year that I first started getting interested in the charts and pop music. My parents bought me one of those small plastic record players along with my first ever three singles, none of which I had asked for..

T,Rex - Ride A White Swan
Lynn Anderson - Rose Garden
Cufflinks - Tracy

I actually liked all of them, but how could I not as they were the only singles I had so I played them hundreds of times.
I was wondering why Tracy is not in the above chart, on checking I saw that it was released a whole year previous. My parents must have picked up that one in a bargain bin just because they liked it. I would have thought a year was a long time to be in a bargain bin...

 

Dave Edmunds vocals were piped a telephone line to help achieve the sound. I like the song, but don't love it and am certainly surprised at the length of time it was number one!

I guess a ringing endorsement from Beatle John in 1970, would do no harm to sales whatsoever

I liked Rockpile, and along with Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe and the amazing drumming of Terry Williams they swung and grooved on many tunes later in the decade.

 

As for the song itself, the original song, I think it's great. I like it when a rhythm'n'blues number has a distinctive melody. There's obviously some influence of Peggy Lee's Why Don't You Do Right in the verse melody, some of the lyrics hint that way also (1922 / back in '52). The chorus is carved of the same wood as Fats Domino's Ain't That A Shame, also from 1955 and also co-written by Dave Bartholomew as many of Smiley's and Fats' hits. It's a solid example of the New Orleans sound, complete with piano triplets.

 

I had no idea that 'I Hear You Knocking' was a remake, and that it was originally an R&B song recorded as early as 1955!

10 years after Edmunds had a hit with 'I Hear You Knocking', one of his own songs was covered, 'Queen of Hearts'. It reached number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in a version by Juice Newton.

The original version by Edmunds peaked at number 11 in the UK in 1979.

 

Another U.S. pressing, of the A side, this time from CBS Pitman (the B side was a Monarch pressing with label typesetting by Stoughton Printing):

And CP's B side:

Much preferred Fats Domino's 1961 rendition; the only reason I have this version at all is due to the CP label fonts shown here.

 

From this, I have the following singles: #1, 4, 6, 15, 18, 23, 24, 28, 39, and 43; the albums, #2, 4, 5 (mono), 10 - 12, 16, 20, 32 and 47 (mono). From 5 years before, #1, 8 and 10; from 10 years before, only #4.

As for #24, the U.S. had a different angle of the yacht on the RAK label (distributed through 1973 by CBS Records), seen on these labels:

 

I really like Edmunds' I Hear You Knocking. That 'KLAAAAANG' of the piano is great. I remember having to record this from a radio broadcast on a little mono cassette/radio combo thing I had. IIFC, that tape also had Fresh As A Daisy and What Is Life? on it.

Edmunds is no slouch, and I think he's horribly underrated, at least in the US. His albums Trax on Wax 4 and Repeat When Necessary are amazing. (Are we allowed to jump ahead on this thread? )

I even like the album he did with Jeff Lynne - Information.

 

The TOTPs theme tune was for years derived from the C.C.S. recording of Whole Lotta Love, where C.C.S. is the abbreviation of Collective Consciousness Society; the band led by Alexis Korner.

It may have been played on Top Of The Pops more than any other song, but didn't progress higher than number 13.

I bought the single from the bargain bins for 10p.

 

Dave Edmonds - I Hear You Knocking.
Great single....great pop music.
5/5

 

That was considerably better than in the U.S. where it could only muster #58.