A new year, a new decade and the first thing that strikes me about the chart music from 1960 is that it is probably the most stereotypical 1950s style music we've had so far. It is the same sort of variety of music you're likely to hear in Frankie & Benny's.
This was the year that music went both happy and sad, and also saw a rise in instrumentals.
The act to have the first new number one of the year came from Liverpool, a theme we would frequently see throughout the decade. This was not the Beatles though, they are yet to debut on the charts this year. It is actually Michael Holliday with "Starry Eyed". He made his chart debut back in 1956, and this would be his penultimate hit, his last being "Skylark" which reached number 39 later on in the year.
The beginning of the year also saw the long awaiting chart debut of the Drifters who reached number 17 with "Dance With Me". The Drifters are quite well known for their ever changing line up and already by this point there were no original members left in the group.
We also had the chart debut of Brenda Lee who reached number 4 with "Sweet Nuthins". I found this quite surprising as I've always had Brenda Lee down as being a 1950s singer. Further to that, she was just 15 when she entered the charts with this song.
During the 1950s I mentioned that 7 of the 20 acts who charted in the first year of the charts, 1952, would have hits beyond the 1950s. Three of these had hits in 1960, they were Max Bygraves, Nat 'King' Cole and the Four Lads, who would have their final hit with "Standing on the Corner" which reached number 34. The reason they could claim their final hit this year is because in March the charts were extended from 30 to 50. For the purposes of this blog though, I will just be looking at the top 40, partly because that's what everyhit.com covers, but also this is the traditional cut off point on things like top of the pops etc.
We had another Rock n Roll death this year, with Eddie Cochran being killed in a car crash in April. He would then score his one and only number one the following month with "Three Steps to Heaven".
The instrumental music I mentioned came in all sorts of forms, but the one which stands out is the instrumental Rock n Roll. Duane Eddy, who started the ball rolling charts wise in the 1950s would continue into 1960. We also had John Barry Seven, Johnny & the Hurricaines and Bert Weedon who had a hit with Apache. However, it was Cliff Richards backing group, the Shadows, whose version would be more successful with their cover reaching number one. We also had the chart debut of the Ventures later on in the year who had hits with "Walk Don't Run" reaching number 8 and "Perfidia" reaching number 4. Surprisingly, they would have no further UK hits.
In America at the start of that year, there were three consecutive number ones where someone would die in the song. They were "El Paso" by Marty Robbins, "Running Bear" by Johnny Preston and "Teen Angel" by Mark Dinning. All three songs were hits in the UK that year, but only "Running Bear" got to number one. However, we had our own number one where somebody died. This was a one hit wonder by Ricky Valance called "Tell Laura I Love Her" which knocked "Apache" off number one in September. This was then knocked off number one by another sad song, "Only the Lonely" which was the chart debut for Roy Orbison.
The next number one was "Its Now or Never" which was the fifth number one for Elvis Presley, which would make him the act to have the most number ones outright. Following this, we had the first Christmas number one for Cliff Richard who topped the charts with "I Love You".
The year also saw the first Motown artist hit the charts, Marv Johnson who reached number 7 with "You Got What it Takes", though this wasn't actually released through Motown as they were still in their infancy at the time, but Marv Johnson was signed to the label and would have hits released by Motown later on in the decade. Another notable chart debutant of the year was Ray Charles who reached number 24 in December with "Georgia on my Mind".
We welcomed two new nationalities to the charts in 1960. There was Little Tony from Italy who reached number 19 with his only hit, "Too Good". Then there was Makadopoulos & His Greek Serenaders from Greece who reached number 36 with their only hit "Never on a Sunday". We also had the first Eurovision winner hit the charts, "Tom Pillibi" by Jacqueline Boyer from France.
Overall the year still seems very 1950s with slight hints that the 60s are on the way. We'll see how close the 60s as we know it are when we look at 1961 in a couple of weeks.
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