UK Singles Chart: 1962

I begin my review of 1962 by talking about an artist who made his chart debut in 1961 who I failed to mention in my review of that year, Chubby Checker. He had reached number 27 with his debut "Pony Time" and then his follow up, "Lets Twist Again" reached number 37 and remained in the top 40 for one week. The first week of 1962 saw "Lets Twist Again" re enter the top 40 and would go on to reach number 2 and remain in the top 40 until the end of May before reappearing for two more weeks in June. The second week saw "The Twist" enter the top 40 having failed to do so on its original release two years earlier.

This set the scene for the first half of the year with several songs about doing the twist appearing in the charts such as "Twistin the Night Away" by Sam Cooke, "Ya Ya Twist" by Petula Clark and "Slow Twistin" by Chubby Checker himself. There would be no further twist songs in the second half of the year with Chubby Checker moving onto rock having hits with "Limbo Rock" and "Jingle Bell Rock".

Another record from 1961 which made a big impact in the charts in 1962 was "Stranger on the Shore" by Mr Acker Bilk. This entered the top 40 in December 1961 but would remain in the charts until December 1962 spending just 3 weeks outside the top 40 in that time. This was a record at the time and it never actually made number one.

It proved to be yet another successful year for Elvis Presley scoring another four number ones taking his total to 13. At the time of writing, this number has only been topped by the Beatles, Cliff Richard and Westlife in the history of the charts. His total number of top 40 hits would now stand at 43.

Of the 1952 chart debutants, only Nat King Cole would have top 40 hits this year. This would be the last we'd see of Nat King Cole in the charts until "When I Fall in Love" got rereleased in 1987. Of the 1953 debutants we have a hit for Perry Como with "Caterina" which would be his last record for several years until he would return with a string of hits in the 70s. Frank Sinatra and Frankie Vaughan both continued their run of having a hit every year since 1954 and as mentioned 1954 debutant Petula Clark would be in the charts this year.

The instrumentals were still going strong with three instrumental number ones this year. They were "Wonderful Land" by the Shadows, "Nut Rocker" by B Bumble and the Stingers and "Telstar" by the Tornados which was also the first US number one by an English group. We also had the chart debut of instrumental group the Spotnicks who were the first act from Sweden to enter the charts having hits with "Orange Blossom Special" and "Rocket Man". Meanwhile Duane Eddy had a hit late on in the year with "(Dance With The) Guitar Man" which was his first UK hit with vocals on.

The year saw the chart debut for the Four Seasons with "Sherry". Meanwhile, November saw the chart debut of a certain band from Liverpool called the Beatles with the record "Love Me Do". This record would slowly climb the charts for the rest of the year being at number 17 in the final week of the year.

So despite this being the third year of the 60s the chart still has a 50s feel about it. Will the debut of the Beatles change that? Well you know the answer to that, but come back in a couple of weeks to see exactly what happened.