Best Song: Jimmy Jones - Good Timin'
This was at number 2 and would top the charts the following week where it would stay for 3 weeks. I remember listening my way through the number ones of the 60s in the early days of YouTube and this was the first one that made me think good song.
Worst Song: Tommy Steele - What A Mouth
Tommy Steele was approaching the end of his Top 40 career by this point. Dubbed the British Elvis in the 50s, by the 60s he'd resorted to novelty records. This is a cover of a cockney song by The Two Bills from Bermondsey and it's as terrible as that sounds.
Top 40 Review
The 50s don't appear to have really ended going off this Top 40. The number one record is a posthumous one from Eddie Cochran and we also have a posthumous record from Buddy Holly. Yet these 2 records sound more modern than many of the others.
A lot of the charts is along the lines of rock & roll, rockabilly and instrumental rock though the latter is perhaps more associated with the turn of the decade than the 50s themselves and we're just before the debut of The Shadows minus Cliff Richard.
Then we have Nat 'King' Cole and Frank Sinatra who were charting before rock & roll came about.
I was well aware that this pre-Beatles and all that's celebrated of the 60s and fully expected to come up with a score close to zero. I thought it was a possibility that I wouldn't find a single record I would like in this Top 40.
But the Jimmy Jones number wasn't the only record I liked. He had another record in the Top 40 at the same time with "Handy Man" that I also liked. There was "Shakin All Over" by Johnny Kidd And The Pirates which I seriously considered picking as my favourite.
There was even a Lonnie Donegan record I was expecting to declare rubbish as whilst I appreciate skiffle music it really doesn't sound very good in my opinion. However his record "I Wanna Go Home" wasn't a skiffle record and it was OK.
Although this year has next to no chance of finishing top, I've given it a pretty respectable score.
Score: 9.5
Table
Well 1960 tops the table so far because it's the only year I've looked at:
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