At the beginning, I thought The Searchers were better than The Beatles. It didn't take me long to change my mind. I also remember that as The Beatles brought out a seemingly endless string of new hits, each one at first hearing didn't seem as good as the previous ones; again, that rapidly changed after a couple more hearings. In the sixth form, we used to hear them (and their peers) live on the radio most lunchtimes; I think the show was called Radio Bandbox, but I'm not sure. I was over here in the US as an exchange student at the time of the infamous "more popular than Jesus" fiasco. It wasn't pretty.
I thought the Beatles first album had a freshness about it that was fantastic at the time. Just listen to the bland stuff about at the time and then listen to I Saw Her Standing There to understand the difference. They did change everything. No more bands being told what to record for a start. Bands writing their own stuff. Hard for anyone not about the time to appreciate how rapidly things changed from 1963, not just in music. TV, films. All down to young, working class people being taken seriously. As well as all the university ones like Frost, Peter Cook and others. A lot of us read about the Beatles influences, which they promoted, and looked them up and went in a different direction of soul and Motown listening to the originals. Same with all the blues artists the Stones covered. I actually appreciate Beatles stuff more now than I did then.
Remember Pearl Carr and Teddie Johnson's Eurovision epic "Little Bird in the Treetop"? Sheesh!! Then, out of nowhere, suddenly appeared The Beatles, Stones, Searchers, Freddie (!!), The 'Oo, Jerry Dorsey (who?), Vince Hill, and many others. It was an amazing time to live through. Unfortunately now it's mostly reverted to utter schoite.
Top 20 December 1962. http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-chart/19621206/7501/ Top 20 December 1963 http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-chart/19631219/7501/
There was a lot broader spectrum of record buyers then A lot of people buying records weren't teenagers or in their twenties. Have a look at the list of best sellers of thebsixties in the link, go down past the Beatles and there are some very uncool types. The Stones feature surprisingly poorly on it. As an aside, Elvis only had one record which sold a million in the UK, It's Now Or Never. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_singles_of_the_1960s_in_the_United_Kingdom
The Stoners were second to The Beatles on that list, with five songs, but none near the top of the list. I'm surprised that Honky Tonk Woman only came in at #50; my wife and I both consider it one of the best recordings of all time.
Great site this ^^^^ The day I bought my first ever record: http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-chart/19570830/7501/ Recommended by my old man, who was playing sax at the time... edit: I'm adding this as it came up next on youtube...
I remember doing a student-exchange with a French kid from a small town, Merville, near Lille, around 1958-ish, when Paul Anka was hitting the (pre-proper-rock) charts. I remember a slightly-heated exchange on whether Anka's 'Diana' was better than Johnny Hallyday's "Kiliwatch". He wasn't a patch on Edith Piaf.
Mmm ...... strange that Bengal, I had a French pen pal and when we first started writing, a school excange thing was how it came about, she blitz me with Johnny Halliday stuff, up to that point I hadn't really took any notice of who he was, besides Edith Piaf and Petula Clark I didn't know any singers from France. But I just found him to be another crooner, of dubious talent, and tried my best to write back and say, mmm interesting (not).
Yes, we did. My mother took my 10 year old self to see them at Brid Spa.seem to recall there was a bit of a fuss over "tactical" voting depriving them of a win. It did sell a million copies in the UK, which puts them level with Ellis for million sellers here. The year before the Alisons our entry was Looking High High High by Brian Johnson and the year after Ring a Ding by Ronnie Carroll. It seemed positively brilliant in comparison.
Until recently Petula Clark was the biggest selling British female artist. Johnny Halliday was like a French Cliff Richard, a pale imitation of what rock and roll should be. Said a lot about the French lack of affinity to rock and roll at the time.
When you delve a littled deeper you will find Lennon/McCartney songs on quite a few artists records, The Stones, Billy J Kramer, Marmalade, and others and here's a link to the songs they did write, astonishing, and it doesn't include George Harrison's contribution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Songs_written_by_Lennon–McCartney
