for Sunday 29th January 1967

A selection of sprogs are crawling around Field's Fab Forty with 'Matthew And Son' at #3, 'Thank You Baby' by Graham Bonney at #15, 'Here Comes My Baby' at #18, 'I Can't Break The Habit Of Lovin' You Baby' at #20, 'Stay With Me Baby' at #21 and 'Baby What I Mean', #23. Tuesday's Children #37, And then of course, there's 'It Takes Two' at #8! In the climbers, there's another 'Baby' (and its B-side is called 'Baby Come Closer') and 'Young and Warm and Wonderful' is Album of the Week.

Notes:
After four weeks with only 40 records in the Fab 40 (quite rare in those days), there are three joint positions in this week's chart: numbers 33, 34 and 35. In each case only the second record is in Brian Long's list from Curzon Street, but the first record was also played on the station and announced at the relevant position. However, while Alan Field heard both discs at numbers 33 and 34, the Jackie Trent record at joint number 35 was not played on the Fab 40 show and Alan did not hear it later in the week. Hans Peters' list reflects Alan's, as does Monty's Diary.

Although Alan and Hans Peters (who both listened to the Fab 40 show) only list Strange Light From The East, in Brian Long's list from Curzon Street the B side is listed instead. Wolfgang Buchholz had noted this side played as a climber two weeks earlier.

Like many soul singers, Howard Tate (b 1938), the son of a Baptist minister, began displaying singing talents in church at an early age. When he was in his mid-teens, a gospel group called the Belairs, consisting of Garnet Mimms, Sam Bell and Little Joe Cook performed a concert at the church. Impressed by the young Howard, they asked him to join them shortly afterwards, when Cook left. The group performed in churches around the Philadelphia area where they were spotted by a Mercury talent scout and assigned to Brook Benton's producer, Clyde Otis. Several doo-wop singles which they recorded under the name of the Gainors, unfortunately made little impact.

In the early Sixties, Bill Doggett spotted Howard Tate singing in a nightclub. Howard fronted the Doggett band on a nation-wide tour, although he never recorded with them. While he was gone, his former band had changed names to Garnett Mimms and the Enchanters and were enjoying a hit record Cry Baby, produced by Jerry Ragovoy. When Mimms played Ragovoy some recordings of Howard, the producer/writer wanted to record him, but nobody knew where he was. To track him down, legendary Philly DJ Georgie Woods (The Guy With the Goods) broadcast a message on WDAS for Howard to contact the station. This was the first time in his career that radio was instrumental in giving Howard Tate a break.

Soon after he began working with Jerry Ragovoy, Howard's records were not only hitting the heights of the R & B charts but also touching the lower part of the Hot Hundred. Look At Granny Run Run (Mort Shuman/Jerry Ragovoy) got to #67 at the end of 1966. Howard was to spend twenty years on the road, performing alongside the soul superstar alphabet from James Brown, Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye to the Temptations and Jackie Wilson.

Dogged by the infamous music business problems of missing money and poor record company promotion, Howard stopped performing around 1980 and went to work for the Prudential Insurance Company. In 1994, he became a minister, working with drug addicts and the homeless. When Howard heard in 1995 that Mercury had released a compilation CD of his work (Get it While You Can - The Legendary Sessions Mercury 314 526 868-2), he thought someone was playing a hoax on him!

Howard had vanished from the music scene so successfully that nobody was sure if he was still alive. Searches had proved fruitless until in 2001, he was reached once again by radio. Phil Casden host of the Saturday night R & B show, midnight to 0300 on WNJC1360am ('Philadelphia's Renaissance Station') asked his audience if anyone knew where Howard Tate was. Listener Ron Kennedy, who had himself been a group singer, called to tell Phil that he knew Howard was in New Jersey and he promised to let him know that Phil was looking for him. When Ron encountered Howard in the local supermarket on New Year's Day, Howard's return to his musical career began. Via the Internet, Phil quickly spread the news of his discovery and at an age when few singers would consider making a comeback, Howard soon found himself working with Jerry Ragovoy on a new album and returning to the stage.

Howard's only other Fab Forty appearance occurred when Baby I Love You was picked as a climber in June '67. He recorded his final album, A Portrait of Howard, in 2006 and died in December 2011, aged 72, ten years after his rediscovery and stage comeback.

Webmaster's note: Some of the above information was gleaned from a long and interesting interview with Howard Tate conducted in 2001 by Jason Gross, which can be found at Perfect Sound Forever

Read the lyrics to Look At Granny Run Run here.

PS for lovers of Fab Forty trivia...

The song chosen as Mike Lennox's final climber had already reached #30 in the US Hot Hundred in the spring of 1966 for Garnett Mimms, the man who introduced Howard Tate to Jerry Ragovoy. It may not have been played on Big L, but apparently it was aired on Caroline North. I'll Take Good Care Of You appears to have been originally intended as the Cliff Bennett single's B-side.

Described by Miles Davis as, "The only white woman who ever had soul", New York-born jazz singer and pianist, Blossom Dearie journeyed regularly to England in the mid-Sixties, appearing at London's famous Ronnie Scott's club and recording four albums for the Fontana label. Sweet Georgie Fame made an unusual addition to the usual Fab Forty fare, but the single proved very popular with listeners when it was heard again during the1997/8 Radio London Christmas/ New Year RSL.

Surprisingly, for a song with lyrics scarcely suited to a male performer, Sweet Georgie Fame was apparently also recorded by Tony Bennett. Not long out of the Fab himself, with Sittin' in the Park, Georgie Fame reciprocated with his own answer song, Blossom.

The enduringly-popular Blossom Dearie, who also recorded a tribute to John Lennon, called Hey John, still performed regularly in New York until 2006. She died in Greenwich Village in February 2009, aged 84. (New York Times obituary.) Friends and family launched an official tribute website.

Besides climbers that were played at the time of the broadcast of the Sunday Fab Forty, Alan kept a note of others he heard later in the week and incorporated them into his list.

Jan 31st
"I'll Take Good Care of You' was Mike Lennox's final climber. Deciding he had suffered enough of a 'life on the ocean wave', Mike left the ship, but he would continue to work for Radio London making personal appearances ashore. 'Give It to Me' was TW's last climber. He left Big L on February 7th.

Just a note on the Big L Fab 40 dated January 29th 1967, or to be more precise one of the Big L climbers for that week. You speculate whether the Four Evers' A Lovely Way To Say Goodnight got a UK release. Well it did. It was released on CBS 202549. And being a US record, it had come out over there in November 66 on Columbia 43886. That's all for now trivia buffs.