Past Times
The UK’S Official Singles Chart began 70 years ago. Marion Mcmullen looks at the early hit makers who made the top spot
AMERICAN crooner Al Martino was known to millions as heartthrob singer Johnny Fontane in the 1972 movie The Godfather, but he also had another claim to fame .... he was the first artist to have a number one hit in the UK.
The Italian-american scored the first number one record in November, 1952 with Here In My Heart which went on to top the charts for nine weeks. The lyrics included the lines “Here is my heart, my life, and my all dear/please be mine and stay here in my heart”.
Born Alfred Cini, Al Martino also had hits with Spanish Eyes and The Man From Laramie during a career which spanned 50 years.
The first singles charts appeared in music paper the New Musical Express 70 years ago on November 14. It was launched by publisher Percy Dickins who was looking at ways to encourage new advertisers. He phoned around retailer friends to collect records sales figures and then created an aggregated chart. It was originally a top 12 chart but became a top 20 two years later.
Official Charts Company Chief Executive Martin Talbot says: “Over the past seven decades, the Official Singles Chart has chronicled the story of the UK’S favourite music in the UK, week in, week out, celebrating a huge range of music.”
The charts have reflected the changing face of British music since the 1950s. It was the decade that saw hits from Bill Haley, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.
Rock Around The Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets was the first single to become a UK million seller in 1955.
Elvis Presley notched up his first number one single with All Shook Up and said: “They put me on television and the whole thing broke loose. It was wild.”
The Swinging Sixties saw The
Beatles at number one for the first time with
From Me To You in 1963. She Loves You became their first millionseller release in August of the same year. John Lennon said: “We were all on this ship in the Sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World, and the Beatles were in the crow’s nest of that ship.”
Top Of The Pops launched on the BBC on January 1, 1964, and offered a showcase for all the chart hits as interest in music grew.
The 1970s saw singles still in demand despite the introduction of 8-tracks and cassettes. The 12 inch single launched in the UK with a re-issue of The Who’s Substitute.
It was the decade of glam, disco and ultimately punk, God Save The Queen by the Sex Pistols narrowly being beaten to the top of the charts by Rod Stewart’s double A-side I Don’t Want To Talk About It and The First Cut Is The Deepest in the week of Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee.
Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon later said: “People think I hate the royal family, but that’s not true.” The first single to pass two million sales in the UK was Mull Of Kintyre by Paul Mccartney & Wings in 1978.
The era of compact discs dawned in the 1980s, with Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits, the title track from their smash hit album of the same name, becoming the UK’S first compact disc single in 1985. Pop diva Madonna celebrated her first number one the same year with Into The Groove. Band Aid’s charity record Do They Know It’s Christmas also became the first single to top three million sales. The 1990s saw Bryan Adams’ (Everything I Do) I Do It For You from the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves spending 16 weeks at number one. It broke the record for longest stay in the top spot, set in 1955 by Slim Whitman with Rose Marie which spent 11 weeks atop the charts. Everything I Do is also the biggest selling cassette single of all time.
Wet Wet Wet notched up 15 weeks at the top with their version of Love Is All Around, which featured in the 1994 British film comedy Four Weddings And A Funeral, starring Hugh Grant and Andie Macdowell. The song was originally written by Reg Presley of The Troggs, who only managed to reach number 5 with the track in 1967.
Irish group Westlife welcomed the new Millennium in 2000 with I Have A Dream/season In The Sun. Westlife singer Shane Filan said: “The music will never stop as long as our fans are around inspiring us to keep on making beautiful music together.”
In more recent times Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones, Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and Mr Brightside by The Killers among the most-streamed songs to have been released since the creation of the Official Singles Chart.
And the most streamed song released in 1952 was not Al Martino, but Singin’ In The Rain by musical legend Gene Kelly.