Sunday 24th Jan 1965
If you are new to the Big L Fab Forties, we suggest you take time to read the explanation
of why these charts originally started in the middle, rather than from the beginning!

An international collaborative effort culminated in a set of Fab Forties unique to the Radio London website.

Additional information has kindly been supplied by Brian Long and the first Big L DJ, Pete Brady. As Pete explains, the station was renowned for having very few records during its early days. At first, the DJs had to rely heavily on recordings that had sailed over from the States with the ship. It took a while for Programme Director Ben Toney to build up a relationship with the record companies and persuade them that Big L was no mere pirate, but a force to be reckoned with. Luckily for those companies, Ben eventually convinced most of their exploitation managers that airplay on the station would work wonders for their singles' sales. You'll be able to spot the appearance of some of the Decca singles that arrived in the box that Pete mentions, with 'It's Not Unusual' arriving in the Fab Forty for February 7th.

We have only limited Fab 40 information prior to 24th Jan, as detailed in Alan Field's comprehensive feature.
If you can supply missing listings, please get in touch!
We are particularly interested in information regarding DJ climbers

#1	Joint #5	#9

Last	This	Although scheduled, this Fab Forty was not broadcast on Jan 24th, as a mark of repect to Sir Winston Churchill, whose death had just been announced
Week	Week
1	1	Go Now!	Moody Blues
2	2	Yeh Yeh	Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames
	3	Girl Don't Come	Sandie Shaw
	4	Terry	Twinkle
	5	You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'	Righteous Brothers / Cilla Black
	6	Come Tomorrow	Manfred Mann
	7	Keep Searchin' (We'll Follow The Sun)	Del Shannon
	8	Ferry 'Cross The Mersey	Gerry & the Pacemakers
9	9	Cast Your Fate To The Wind	Sounds Orchestral
	10	Leader Of The Pack	Shangri-Las
	11	Tired Of Waiting For You	Kinks
	12	I Feel Fine	Beatles
	13	Baby I Need Your Lovin'	Four Tops
	14	Baby Please Don't Go	Them
	15	Somewhere	P J Proby
	16	Walk Tall	Val Doonican
	17	I'm Lost Without You	Billy Fury
	18	Come See About Me	Supremes
	19	Getting Mighty Crowded	Betty Everett
	20	Downtown	Petula Clark
	21	Three Bells	Brian Poole & the Tremeloes
	22	Goin' Out Of My Head	Dodie West / Little Anthony & the Imperials
	23	Promised Land	Chuck Berry
	24	Dance Dance Dance	Beach Boys
	25	No Arms Can Ever Hold You	Bachelors
	26	I Could Easily Fall (In Love With You)	Cliff Richard & the Shadows
	27	How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)	Marvin Gaye
	28	What Have They Done To The Rain	Searchers
	29	I'll Never Find Another You	Seekers
	30	Too Many Fish In The Sea	Marvelettes
	31	Shake	Sam Cooke
	32	Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood	Animals
	33	What In The World's Come Over You	Rockin' Berries
	34	Thanks A Lot	Brenda Lee
	35	Everybody Knows	Dave Clark Five
	36	Let The Sunshine In	Peddlers / Presidents
	37	The 'In' Crowd	First Gear
	38	The Game Of Love	Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders
	39	I'm Gonna Be Strong	Gene Pitney
	40	Thou Shalt Not Steal	Dick & Dee Dee

35 Everybody Knows Dave Clark Five Rather unusually, the Dave Clark Five recorded two completely different songs with the title Everybody Knows, three years apart. The one in this January 65 Fab Forty was a collaboration between Dave Clark and fellow band member Lenny Davidson. The second Everybody Knows, penned by Les Reed and Barry Mason, was released late in 1967, after the demise of Big L. It was only then that the suffix '(I Still Love You)' was added to the 1964 song to differentiate between the two. However, at the time when this Fab Forty for 24th January 1965 was being aired on Radio London, the DC5 had yet to record a second song duplicating the title, so no suffix was necessary. (Thanks to Debbie Sutton for suggesting this clarification) Read the story of the DC5 drum kit.

Everybody Knows 1964	Everybody Knows 1967

37

The 'In' Crowd

First Gear

Pye 7N 15763

First Gear was a five-piece Yorkshire band managed by Shel Talmy, with Dave Walton on lead vocals, Phil Birkenshaw (gtr, vcls) Michael Ryal (bs, vcls), Raymond Wafer (gtr) and Ian Colling on drums.

First Gear's version of The 'In' Crowd is one of many singles that fall into the 'Did A Guitar Virtuoso Play On It?' category, the virtuoso in question being Jimmy Page. Jimmy, of course, was in those days earning a good living by enhancing numerous recording sessions. He would probably be the first to admit that neither he, nor anyone else, could possibly recall whether his talents were genuinely featured on every track he is alleged to have graced. Those long-ago sessions would have included many memorable recordings, plenty he would have forgotten a week or a month later, and a few he probably preferred to forget!

In a comment he posted on Youtube, Dave Walton wrote. "Jimmy Page played guitar on all our PYE tracks. Some people disbelieve that but I was sat at the side of him when he did it and infact threw the switch on Jimmy's distortion box when he nodded to me to play the lead break on The 'In' Crowd because he couldn't reach it where he was positioned. Not a lot of people know that bit of useless info!"

Jimmy is indisputably the soloist on Leave My Kitten Alone, the B-side of the band's first single, A Certain Girl (Pye 7N 15703). His performance on that track has been nominated by one fan as Jimmy's best-ever solo – and in that category, it must be up against some impressive competition. The collectable value of that particular bit of 1964 vinyl is around £125. Follow-up single, The 'In' Crowd receives a mere £30 valuation. The inclusion of all four First Gear tracks on a double CD of 'Page played on this' Pye and Immediate tracks, (see below) confirms Dave Walton's youtube comment. Both releases were produced by Shel Talmy, who frequently used Page at his recording sessions.

The In Crowd is most definitely a Page composition – Billy Page, that is. And Dobie Gray's hit version of the song was arranged by Billy's Brother Gene. Two more Pages in the history book.

Graham Hall of Lincoln City Radio writes:
"My colleague Phil Pask conducted an interview with Dave Walton, who has posted a Youtube video of himself playing The 'In' Crowd in 2014."

The In Crowd, a #13 US hit for Dobie Gray, was followed later in the year by Ramsey Lewis's jazzy instrumental take, which reached #5. With UK Mods seeing the song lyrics as the story of their lives, the Dobie Gray's disc climbed to #25 in the Nationals, while the Lewis version (for years used as background music in 'Savile's Traviles' - sorry, 'Travels') made no impression. Numerous cover versions of The In Crowd, have been recorded by artists as diverse as the Ventures, Mamas and Papas and Joe Jackson. Brian Ferry finally took the song into UK Top Twenty (#13) in 1974.

Kenny and Cash, of course, started their own listener 'Out Crowd' club.

All four First Gear tracks, plus Fab 40 entries by Twice As Much and Chris Farlowe, can be found on the Sequel CD 'Jimmy Page – Hip Young Guitar Slinger'. The compilation contains 2 CDs, comprising 65 tracks which are believed to have been enhanced by Jimmy's talented performances. Click on the picture to see track list.

DJ Climber:
Last Time You'll Walk Out On Me	Mike Hurst	Philips BF1389	Dave Cash

Mike Hurst began his musical career as a Springfield, with Dusty and Tom and went on to release singles both as a solo artist and with various bands. As a producer, Mike is responsible for countless hits. We have Mike to thank for the two Warm Sounds singles Birds and Bees and Sticks and Stones, both of which proved so popular on Radio London during the Summer of Love, alongside another Hurst production for the Spencer Davis Group, Time Seller.

Mike's personal website (which doesn't list this Big L Dave Cash climber in the discography) is here.

Missing the Fab Forty
Machteld Meijer, who contributed a great deal of valuable information to our early Fab Forty listings, had only just discovered that the Big L Fab Forties were being broadcast weekly on Sunday afternoons. Not surprisingly, she was extremely disappointed to discover that the programme that she had been excitedly anticipated for Jan 24th, was not being broadcast as a mark of respect to Sir Winston Churchill. Machteld remembers:

The big disappointment (and frustration) of the Fab Forty not being broadcast on January 24th due to the death of Winston Churchill, has made me always remember that day. I listened to Big L every day after school (my brother listened to Radio Caroline) and wrote down during the week at which position in the charts the songs were standing, because that was always mentioned. That made my list of that week complete. I enclose a jpg of these two weeks. The crosses behind the titles in the second week represent the number of times I heard the song on Radio London. Every colour represents a day in the week.

I don't know whether the Fab Forty was integrally broadcast at another time in the same week. If so, and I would have been at home, I would have listened and written down the list. Since I didn't do that, probably it was not the case. However, I cannot exclude this.   I cannot remember whether the programming of Radio London was adjusted as well on the January 30th, the date of Churchill's funeral. The Fab Forty was on the radio on the afternoon of Sunday 31st and I wrote it down then.

The news of Churchill's death had been announced officially on the BBC around 8.30am. Brian Long notes in The London Sound that on January 24th, 'the day of his funeral', programmes on Radio London were cancelled, a tribute was broadcast and classical music played (instead of the usual playlist) and there was a partial closedown from 1.30 to 3pm 'whilst the funeral takes place'. However, the references to January 24th as the day of the funeral are a mistake. The state funeral took place six days later on Saturday, January 30th and Chris Elliot in The Wonderful Radio London Story correctly identifies that as the date of Radio London's tribute, classical music and partial closedown as a mark of respect during the service. 

Click on the image above to see a legible version

Tune in next week for another Big L Fab 40!

The Caroline Chart for this week is here