Petula Clark topped the Billboard Hot 100 the week of January 26, 1965, with ‘Downtown.’ It was the song’s second straight week at #1.
This single was the first U.S. chart-topper for the British singer/actress, and kicked off a phase of her career during which she released 15 consecutive Top 40 hits in the States.
The week of January 12, 1965, saw The Supremes and The Beatles atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Come See About Me‘ and ‘I Feel Fine,’ respectively.
At #3 was The Searchers with ‘Love Potion No. 9,’ their take on a song first released by The Clovers in 1959. This is an example, one of many, of a white group finding more success than a Black group with the same song.
When The Beatles’ ‘I Feel Fine’ showed up as the #1 song the week of December 29, 1964, I assumed I had featured it on the blog already. After all, I posted 80 Beatles songs as part of ‘Beatles Weekends‘ alone back in 2009.
But somehow I never got around to this one, The Beatles’ sixth #1 in 1964 (a record for a single calendar year). The Beatles would nearly repeat that feat the following year, scoring five #1s in 1965. I look forward to encountering those in coming installments of Throwback Weekends.
The week of December 15, 1964, saw The Supremes atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Come See About Me.’ This was the third of five consecutive #1 hits the trio released between 1964 and 1965.
The song would lose its top position to The Beatles’ ‘I Feel Fine‘ the following week, then win it back from the Fab Four in January of 1965.
The 60s were a strange time, when Bonanza‘s Ben Cartwright could score a #1 hit with a spoken-word country and western song. That’s exactly what Lorne Greene did the week of December 1, 1964, when his ‘Ringo’ topped the Billboard Hot 100 for a single week.
Accompanied by a promotional recording explaining that the song was not about The Beatles’ drummer, this tale of the bond between a gunslinger and a lawman became an unexpected hit for a man whose other musical attempts were largely met with crickets.
