1962
Johnny Angel — Shelly Fabares
|
Michele “Shelly” Fabares was playing teenage daughter Mary Stone on The Donna Reed Show when Ricky Nelson started singing on Ozzie and Harriet. The Donna Reed producers felt they had to compete and so Shelly became a pop singer.
|
Roses Are Red — Bobby Vinton
|
In 1960, Vinton and his band landed a recording contract for 4 records with Epic. After 3 flops, the band members had given up and quit. Bobby literally picked Roses Are Red out of the reject pile and cut it for the final record. On July 14, 1962, Roses hit number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for 4 weeks.
|
Telstar — The Tornados
|
We enter the space age with Telstar. The first public broadcast relayed through the world’s first telecommunictions satellite built by AT&T occurred on July 23, 1962 at 3 PM EDT with CBS’s Walter Cronkite, NBC’s Chet Huntley in New York, and the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby in Brussels.
|
|
Rhythm of the Falling Rain — The CascadesNumber 4 song of 1962
|
1963
Tais toi petite folle — Tiny Yong
(Foolish Little Girl) Tiny Yong sings The Shirelles 1963 hit.
She was born Juong Ton Hu Thi in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to Vietnamese parents. With relations becoming tense between North and South Vietnam, the family moved to France in the late 50s where her name was simplified to Young Thien.
She debuted as an actress in 1960 under the name Huong-Thein quickly gaining several movie credits to her name. She was spotted by record producer Henri Salvador in 1963 and signed to a recording contract using the name Tiny Yong. Her cover of The Shirelles Foolish Little Girl was the highlight of her first album.
She was born Juong Ton Hu Thi in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to Vietnamese parents. With relations becoming tense between North and South Vietnam, the family moved to France in the late 50s where her name was simplified to Young Thien.
She debuted as an actress in 1960 under the name Huong-Thein quickly gaining several movie credits to her name. She was spotted by record producer Henri Salvador in 1963 and signed to a recording contract using the name Tiny Yong. Her cover of The Shirelles Foolish Little Girl was the highlight of her first album.
Surf City — Jan & Dean
Surf City! where it’s two to one. Unless, of course, you’re Jan & Dean! Surf City was the first surf song to reach number 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. The real Surf City was Santa Cruz, California. San Francisco youths streamed down to Santa Cruz on Monterey Bay every weekend in the summer.
The Beach Boys may have been the crown princes of surf music but Jan & Dean were the court jesters. They laughed at the genre and themselves, had a good time, and understood it was all for fun.
The duo were unfairly booed at concerts for lip-syncing by audiences who did not understand the only way to for two guys to sing multi-part harmony was by overdubbing their own voices—a technique that would be repeated by Richard and Karen Carpenter.
Although they recorded with different labels, Jan & Dean were good friends with the Beach Boys. They often collaborated on songwriting and would decide later who would record it. Group members often lent their voices to each other’s recordings. Studio execs on both labels never knew the competition was collaborating. The result was win-win for both groups.
The Beach Boys may have been the crown princes of surf music but Jan & Dean were the court jesters. They laughed at the genre and themselves, had a good time, and understood it was all for fun.
The duo were unfairly booed at concerts for lip-syncing by audiences who did not understand the only way to for two guys to sing multi-part harmony was by overdubbing their own voices—a technique that would be repeated by Richard and Karen Carpenter.
Although they recorded with different labels, Jan & Dean were good friends with the Beach Boys. They often collaborated on songwriting and would decide later who would record it. Group members often lent their voices to each other’s recordings. Studio execs on both labels never knew the competition was collaborating. The result was win-win for both groups.
Ue o Muite Arukō — Kyu Sakamoto
|
(I Look Up As I Walk)
Reminiscing about a past love, he looks up so his tears won’t fall. Kyu Sakamoto is the only Asian singer to reach number 1 on Billboard’s U.S. Hot 100 chart. Even Gangnam Style stopped short at number 2. Music video is down again. But, here is an English version. |
When network programming switched over from radio to TV, radio stations were left high and dry looking for something to capture audiences. Many started playing recorded music and the Top 40 radio station was born. Artists and music producers were up in arms and began suing radio stations. Who, they thought, would buy records if they could listen for free over the air! They soon discovered, however, that the real key to selling millions of records was to get new releases played by radio stations. Things now went the other direction and music producers started paying disc jockeys under the table to play new songs in what became the Payola scandal—a scandal from which Dick Clark barely escaped because he too had just switched from radio to TV.
Today the new radio is YouTube and the Koreans have capitalized on that better than anyone. It has been oft’ said that music knows no language and the Koreans have been proving the adage. Nobody but nobody knows Korean except the Koreans and yet they have been able to sell K-Pop (Korean popular music) all over the world by producing world class music videos of new songs on YouTube. K-Pop is now recognized as a unique genre of music by YouTube, MTV, Billboard, and the Grammys. Billboard charts the K-Pop Hot 100 weekly.
The unprecedented runaway success of Psy and Gangnam Style forced Billboard to admit that it was late to the game recognizing the influence of YouTube as a measure of popularity. Billboard has now added YouTube views into its charting scheme along with iTune sales and radio airplay.
Today the new radio is YouTube and the Koreans have capitalized on that better than anyone. It has been oft’ said that music knows no language and the Koreans have been proving the adage. Nobody but nobody knows Korean except the Koreans and yet they have been able to sell K-Pop (Korean popular music) all over the world by producing world class music videos of new songs on YouTube. K-Pop is now recognized as a unique genre of music by YouTube, MTV, Billboard, and the Grammys. Billboard charts the K-Pop Hot 100 weekly.
The unprecedented runaway success of Psy and Gangnam Style forced Billboard to admit that it was late to the game recognizing the influence of YouTube as a measure of popularity. Billboard has now added YouTube views into its charting scheme along with iTune sales and radio airplay.
|
Navy Blue — Diane RenayOne hit wonder, 17-year-old Diane Renay, struck gold with Navy Blue.
|
Jefferson High, Class of 1968, Alexandria, Minnesota