Yodellers to shout about
QUESTION
Has a song with yodelling made the charts?
THE most famous yodelling pop singer was Frank Ifield. Often described as an Australian singer, he was actually born in Warwickshire in 1937 to parents from Down Under. When Frank was 11, the family moved back to Australia.
In the mid to late 1950s, he became wellknown in Australia as a country singer with a penchant for yodelling songs.
He returned to England in 1959 and secured a contract with the EMI Records subsidiary label Columbia.
After achieving minor success with Lucky Devil, he topped the charts with I Remember You for seven successive weeks in 1962.
This was the first record to sell a million copies in Britain alone. It was followed by an excellent cover of the Hank Williams classic Lovesick Blues, which featured Ifield gently yodelling along with the harmony.
But it was the B-side, She Taught Me How To Yodel, that showcased his extraordinary vocal talent. Each side of the record featured in a separate position simultaneously in the Top 20.
Later that year, Ifield headlined the Royal Variety Show, attended by the Queen Mother. Worried that he would be typecast as a novelty act, his manager decided he should not record or perform any more yodelling songs.
But She Taught Me How To Yodel was a favourite of the Queen Mum and she sent down a request to Ifield asking him to sing it — which, of course, he did.
Ifield’s revival of Gogi Grant’s The Wayward Wind prevented The Beatles from reaching the top of the charts with Please Please Me and led to the singer becoming the first British artist to have three consecutive No 1 singles.
Ifield still tours occasionally and his two-hour show features his many hits and a question-and-answer session with the audience.
He always acknowledges — albeit with a wry smile — that is mostly remembered for She Taught Me How To Yodel. It’s certainly had enduring appeal. Re-released as The Yodelling Song in 1991 as a dance remix featuring Frank with The Backroom Boys, it reached No 40.
Michael Brooks, Kendal, Cumbria.
THE Dutch prog rock band Focus, fronted by keyboard player Thijs van Leer, had a huge international hit in 1973 with the instrumental/yodel/whistling track Hocus Pocus.
The track was the result of a jam session in a castle in Holland.
When guitarist Jan Akkerman came up with a heavy riff and drummer Pierre van der Linden created a ferocious drum solo, van Leer, a flautist and keyboard player, felt the only way he could compete was to ‘start yodelling for the first time in my life’. It turned out he was pretty good at it.
Simon Reeves, Worcester.
BRING Me Edelweiss, by Austrian outfit Edelweiss, was a comical ‘scratch’ pastiche of Abba’s SOS and Indeep’s Last Night A DJ Saved My Life, which reached No 5 in Britain and topped the charts in several countries.
Other tracks incorporating yodelling include The Smiths’ The Boy With The Thorn In His Side, which peaked at No 23 in 1985.
Tight Fit’s version of the much-recorded song The Lion Sleeps Tonight features a yodel-like vocal.
F. Harvey, Bristol.
THE American country singer Slim Whitman was known for his yodelling.
He toured with Elvis in the 1950s as the opening act. His biggest hit, Rose Marie, spent 11 weeks at No 1 in 1955. Another huge hit was Indian Love Call. Whitman continued to feature in the charts until the mid-1970s.
I saw him at the theatre in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, in the early 1970s, when he performed to a packed house.
Andrew Birch, Ashbourne, Derbys.
QUESTION
What is the origin of the word heyday?
THE word heyday refers nostalgically to a time when someone was believed to be at the peak of their powers or success.
It lies in our everyday exclamation ‘Hey!’ or ‘Hey there!’, which has its roots in the Greek eia and the Latin
heia (an expression of joy). In Middle English, we see hey and by the 1500s heyda or heyday, which was a shout of happiness or surprise, like hooray. There were similar words in Dutch, Danish and German.
Heyday became used as a noun meaning vigour or high spirits. Hamlet tells his mother: ‘At your age, the heyday in the blood is tame.’
By 1751 the word is used in the current sense of a period of greatest vigour or success. In Tobias Smollett’s The Adventures Of Peregrine Pickle, our hero is ‘in the heyday of his fortune’.
The ‘day’ part of heyday was by then believed to be associated with time, which it had not been before.
Ian MacDonald, Billericay, Essex.
QUESTION
Why do razor blades have the numbers one to four in the corners?
THIS quality assurance measure applies to traditional double-sided razor blades.
After being stamped out, each blade has its edges ground by progressively finer grinding wheels, then polished and honed with animal leather.
Finally, the edges are coated with a fine spray of super-tough molecules, such as titanium nitride and platinum.
The finished blades then go through quality assurance. The numbers one to four help identify which machine may be at fault if there is a problem.
Ed Fowler, London E12.
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