Elvis takes a 1926 Al Jolson hit and turns it into one of his most audacious No.1s – a production so sepulchral that he had the studio lights turned off to do it and an utterly commanding performance. From a distance the record seems a piece of[…]

With the help of a sax as cheeky as himself, Tillotson gives a trifling song the big sell, and I buy it. How does it work? The teasy intro and chipper tune; Tillotson’s piping voice and the way he sings “mo-shun!”; the way he balanc[…]

The next entry is turning out to be quite a big one, so I’m pushing it back a day or two and putting up the last of our 60s polls. It’ll find its way to its proper place in the blog in time.
I give a mark out of 10 to every song on Popula[…]

If you wanted to prove that pre-Beatles British pop was rubbish, this might be a good record to pick. Pop is at its worst when you can detect self-satisfaction, when you feel it’s been made by people who think they have it all sewn up. Cliff so[…]

The calling-card of the post-army Elvis, it’s easy to hear “It’s Now Or Never” simply as a record made by a tamed man. But how big, in truth, is the gap between thrilling a crowd or charming them? Elvis could sell the promise […]

A to-and-fro between the depthlessly woeful Orbison and his soothing backing singers, “Only The Lonely” is almost scotched by the fashionable pizzicatos of the string arrangement, which taunt Roy while everything else in the song hugs him[…]

Death ballads aren’t really about the unfortunate who dies. Listen to Valance’s pallid, picky enunciation; listen to the way he caresses every detail – “he was the youngest driver there”; “as they pulled him from t[…]

Hot weather music: languid and evocative but also precise and unshowy, every note placed with minimum energy for maximum effect. The echo on the lead guitar does two things – it conjures a shimmer of desert heat, and it also emphasises the fing[…]

It began as a lad’s joke – one of the band saw a girl he fancied, “she gives me quivers in me membranes” he would tell the rest. It began as a riff and a baseline jabbed out in thirty minutes. It began as a B-Side. The marvel […]

Of all Cliff’s No.1s, “Please Don’t Tease” is the one where he tries hardest to be a ‘British Elvis’. Even Elvis at this point wasn’t really doing Elvis, and Cliff’s weedy glottals certainly don’t[…]