Happy weekend everybody, I hope if you're in the top half of the globe that the weather's starting to get warmer, and if you're in the bottom half that it's not too cold just yet! I'm in the UK where the weather's more or less always the same, a bit nippy out.
I have finished indexing every British and American episode of This Is Your Life. Hopefully everyone on the UK version who has a profile is linked now, but I've probably missed a few. I plan to start looking for low-hanging fruit to connect up now at the British end. The American guests are all indexed but for now I'm not really inclined to go searching for them all, but anyone's free to jump in. It's going to be a nice challenge trying to track down the non-celebrity guests from the early shows!
Now my main focus is on the UK Number 1 Singles index, I'm almost at my target year of 1980 for performers but I've been pushing hard on the writers this week, and we're up to 1962. I've also started putting Youtube links to each record so you can listen to any of them (and see a picture of the record) with one click. Those links might break down from time to time in the future, but easy enough for whoever finds a break to edit.
I've learned some interesting facts. The lyric we all know for Blue Moon (written by Lorenz Hart, tune by Richard Rodgers) were the 4th attempt, 2 previous attempts were recorded for, but then cut from released motion pictures, while the 3rd attempt actually featured in ''Manhattan Melodrama'' (sung by Shirley Ross). MGM's Jack Robbins thought the tune was suitable for release but needed punchier lyrics. So Hart wrote a fourth lyric (the one we know), and the song was released in 1934 initially by Ted Fio Rito with Muzzy Marcelino on vocals, but was quickly re-recorded by other artists.
A 1958 number 1, It's All In The Game sung by Tommy Edwards has a writing credit to a US Vice President, no less (I'll let you look up which!). The story of the writing credits of The Teenagers' Why Do Fools Fall In Love is very sad, but well documented.
I found a connection for (not yet built the intermediates) Boudleaux Bryant who wrote more than one number 1. I built a profile for Eddie Cochrane's brother Bob, who co-wrote Three Steps To Heaven. The co-writer of Cliff Richards' hit Please Don't Tease is the (living) son of British comedian Charlie Chester, who didn't have a profile but does now (and was on This Is Your Life in 1961!).
The last surviving original member of UK band The Moody Blues, Mike Pinder died this week. I haven't made him a profile but three of the other members with profiles are now connected to the "band" space (a section of my Music Groups and Bands page) so you can jump from member to member with ease. I'm hoping to do this with many more bands and expand it out beyond just those who had number 1s in the UK. Ideally other people will join in!
I made a couple of UK politician pages, one because she was on This Is Your Life and one because he died this week. I also found a connection for the film director Michael Powell (of Powell & Pressburger fame).
Maybe my most intriguing find of the week has nothing to do with number 1s or This Is Your Life, I can't even remember how I got on that track, I think because the Youtube algorithm has been throwing "old music" at me. There is a song called The Teddy Bear's Picnic which everyone in the UK knows, I'm not sure whether it has penetrated the American national psyche. Whenever I see it it's credited to Henry Hall and his Orchestra (which were at the time the BBC Dance Orchestra, the time being 1932 (the tune was written in 1907 but the lyrics only appeared in 1932). But Henry Hall wasn't the singer. That honour goes to Val Rosing.
Now this is where it gets confusing. Val, the singer, was Valerian Rosing, but he was the son of Vladimir Rosing, who was also known as Val. He (the father) was also a singer, a Russian-born tenor with a fascinating story dancing (or singing, I guess) on the edges of history, but you can read that on his profile (now).
Val (the son) after he recorded Teddy Bears, went off to the USA to try and become the new Bing Crosby and was persuaded by Louis B Mayer to change his name to Gilbert Russell, which he did - maybe because his father was already America's famous Val Rosing. He never found stardom but did become a vocal coach to the stars. The Teddy Bears Picnic guy was Natalie Wood's vocal coach. As the song (almost) goes:
When you go down in the family trees, you're sure of a big surprise...
(edited - 1 typo and linking in a profile I just created for Shirley Ross. Her grandfather already had a profile, thankfully!)
