What was the longest time it took an artist to reach number one?
When an artist puts together their first compositions, the journey to number one in the charts feels like an eternity. While it might be easy to assemble a tune that could make for a decent B-side, it all comes back to making the most universal emotion in song so that millions of people can relate. Creating a hit like that doesn’t happen overnight, but one particular number one hit was decades in the making.
Of course, there’s a lot more that goes into a song getting to number one than the sheer numbers. Even though a handful of acts may not have seen chart success in years, news of their death can send their biggest triumphs back onto the charts. Even though George Harrison may have been considered a relic of the past in the 2000s, the shockwave of his death managed to send his single ‘My Sweet Lord’ back to number one for the first time since the 1970s.
The use of songs in commercials has also helped old tracks regain a footing on the charts again. No matter how much people may have gotten tired of the Awesome Mix playlist from Guardians of the Galaxy, there are probably thousands of people that know every word to Redbone’s ‘Come and Get Your Love’ who would typically want nothing to do with dad rock.
Similarly, a young Tony Christie was hard at work trying to scrape together his first handful of hits during the end of the 1960s psychedelic movement. Coming up with his first single ‘Las Vegas’, the song rocketed up the charts before stalling at number 21. Although he would notch one more song, ‘(Is This the Way to) Amarillo?’ on the hit parade at 18, it looked like his days as a pop singer were a pipe dream.
From there, he spent the rest of his career slowly chipping away at different niches of the music industry. Long before Andrew Lloyd Webber turned it into a stage production, he played the role of Magaldi in the studio recording of Evita and eventually entered into the Eurovision song contest in the late ‘70s for the track ‘The Queen of the Mardi Gras’. He would only place in third behind winners Brotherhood of Man.
Though there was the occasional collaboration with a big name like Jarvis Cocker, any chance of Christie reaching number one wasn’t in the cards. That is until the new millennium kicked in. In 2002, ‘Amarillo’ became unearthed for the comedic series Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights, which led to millions of people familiarising themselves with the song again.
Doubling down on the song’s appeal, Kay also used the song during his TV appearances, which led to Christie’s label re-releasing the song for the charity drive Comic Relief. Coming 34 years after it was initially released, ‘Amarillo’ eventually reached the top spot, giving Christie his first significant chart hit.
Though Kay would add various additions to the track, the lion’s share of the tune was Christie’s original vocal from 1971. Christie even participated in a re-recording of the song after hitting number one, updating it with Dutch pop act Hermes House Band and making it to number 25 in Germany. While no one is looking to wait this long for their song to gain traction, ‘Amarillo’s journey of 34 years to the top of the charts is the epitome of the phrase “better late than never”.
