In a three-year span in the late 1950s, RCA released 14 new Elvis Presley singles. The A-side on eight of them topped Billboard’s Top 100 pop chart.
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Three others reached #2, two more got to #3, and the remaining one peaked at #4. Four of the B-sides even charted in the top 10. Among this amazing group of recordings, the chart performance of two of them stood out—“Don’t Be Cruel” and “All Shook Up.”
Read more: Elvis History Blog
April 13, 1959: The new Number 1, "Come Softly to Me," by The Fleetwoods, begins it's four week run a the top of the charts.
The Fleetwoods were three high-school kids from Olympia, Washington, and they managed to land two #1 hits in a single year before fading into total obscurity and, eventually, taking civilian jobs.
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| The Fleetwoods |
When they made “Come Softly To Me,” the first of those hits, they recorded it entirely a cappella; the only sound other than their voices was the jingling of group member Gary Troxel’s car keys. Eventually, the song went to another studio for overdubbing, but all that was added was a delicate acoustic-guitar figure.
Read more: Stereogum
April 13, 1968: Georgie Fame peaked at Number 7 with "The Ballad Of Bonnie And Clyde."
Many songs have been inspired by a film, for example, John Hartford wrote Gentle on my Mind after seeing the 1965 film Doctor Zhivago, Breakfast at Tiffany’s was written after Deep Blue Something singer and songwriter, Todd Pipes, saw Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, but decided that Breakfast at Tiffany’s would make a better song title and The Ballad of Bonnie And Clyde was another.
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| Bonnie & Clyde with Faye Dunaway & Warren Beatty |
The songwriters, Mitch Murray and Peter Callender, went to see the film, Bonnie and Clyde, about two 1930s gangsters, Bonnie Parker played by Faye Dunaway and Clyde Barrow portrayed by Warren Beatty. . “We both decided that they had blown the music,” says Mitch, “They should have had a hit song and so we thought we would write one."
Read more: Jon Kutner
April 13, 1974: Elton John scored a Number 1 hit with "Bennie And The Jets."
Like the vast majority of Elton John songs, “Bennie and the Jets” began as a lyric by Bernie Taupin. “I saw Bennie and the Jets as a sort of proto-sci-fi punk band,” he told Rolling Stone in 2014, “fronted by an androgynous woman, who looks like something out of a Helmut Newton photograph.”
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| Elton John on Soul Train |
Elton first saw the lyrics while writing songs for Goodbye Yellow Brick Road in 1973. “I knew it had to be an off-the-wall type song,” he told Rolling Stone, “an R&B-ish kind of sound or a funky sound. The audience sounds were taken from a show we did at the Royal Festival Hall years earlier. The whole thing is very weird.”
Read more: Rolling Stone
April 13, 1974: Redbone peaked at Number 5 with "Come And Get Your Love."
In 1973 Redbone released their monster hit "Come And Get Your Love". The song was written by Lolly Vegas, who sang lead on the track, plays guitar and electric sitar. This iconic song has taken on a life of its own!
Read more: Redbone Band
All Shook Up
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
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