Throwing back to the week of Nov. 2, 1954, we find a familiar trio hanging on at the top three of Billboard’s singles chart: Eddie Fisher’s ‘I Need You Now‘ and two Rosemary Clooney tracks, ‘Hey There‘ and ‘This Ole House.’
At #4 that week was Perry Como’s ‘Papa Loves Mambo,’ a tune that capitalized on a nationwide interest in the Cuban dance music style.
After writing about one too many lazy R&B jams, I’ve made the executive decision to narrow Throwback Weekends to the 50s through the 80s. I’m always excited to discover which songs were popular in those four decades, and seldom excited to relive the hits of the 90s and 00s, so why not make it official?
Part of the appeal of the earlier decades is that they all predate my adulthood. I was either a teenager, a kid, or not yet born when those songs came out. That makes for a more entertaining throwback than revisiting the hits of my 20s and 30s. Plus, popular music in the 90s and 00s frequently sucked.
Throwing back to the week of October 2, 1954, we have two repeats atop the Billboard chart in Rosemary Clooney’s ‘Hey There’ and the Crew Cuts’ ‘Sh-Boom.‘ Those two songs dominated the summer and fall of 1954, with one or the other sitting at #1 for 13 straight weeks.
Right behind them on this week was Eddie Fisher with ‘I Need You Now,’ a song that would eventually make it to #1 for three weeks that November. This was Fisher’s fourth #1 in two years and his second in 1954 (following ‘Oh! My Pa-Pa’).
Throwing back to the week of September 11, 1954, we find two repeats atop the Billboard chart: The Crew Cuts’ ‘Sh-Boom‘ and Rosemary Clooney’s ‘Hey There.’
At #3 was vocal trio The Gaylords with ‘The Little Shoemaker,’ a song based on the French tune ‘Le petit cordonnier’ by Rudi Revil.
The song certainly has a European flair, with two of the choruses sung in Italian (maybe they had too much trouble singing in French?).
Throwing back to the week of August 21, 1954, we find The Crew Cuts still on top of the charts with ‘Sh-Boom,‘ a doo-wop classic.
In the second spot that week was Rosemary Clooney’s ‘Hey There,’ a show tune from the musical The Pajama Game. Clooney stayed in the #2 spot behind ‘Sh-Boom’ for a month before grabbing #1 for six straight weeks. This was the third of four #1 hits for Clooney, all in the first four years of the 1950s.
