Which song dominated the charts for seven weeks in 1966?
Despite drenching themselves in the kaleidoscopic colour of the 1960s counterculture movement, there was a moment in ‘66, where music fans feared that the death of the art form was upon them.
The Beatles had emphatically announced that they were retiring from touring. Citing the deafening screams and lack of artistry as the primary reason, the Fab Four peeled themselves away from any of the major live stages and instead retreated to the studio. And so to many, the end of the era brought with it what they feared would be the death of music altogether, thus prepared to mourn appropriately.
But really, they needn’t have. On the one hand, The Beatles became an infinitely better band the minute they got the touring monkey off their back. And the other, more important hand, it gave the rest of the world a chance to step forward and incite the screaming appetite for wild live music performance.
In ‘66 alone, there was a string of hits worthy of taking the crown from The Beatles and their reign of supremacy. The Kinks’ ‘Till the End of the Day’ or ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ by The Supremes served as obvious substitutes. Let’s not forget The Rolling Stones, who were stepping on stage with their own original material in ‘Paint It Black’. These songs rightly proved that ‘66 wasn’t the death but the resurrection of music.
But none of them dominated the charts quite like this one song from ‘66 that ruled the roost in Beatles-esque fashion by topping the charts for an entire seven weeks and raising a sea of screaming fans in the process.
What song held the top spot for seven whole weeks in 1966?
Welsh heartthrob Tom Jones asserted his dominance on the charts with an adaptation of Curly Putnam’s country hit ‘Green Green Grass Of Home’. Originally written for Johnny Cash and later performed by Jerry Lee Lewis, it was the performance of the former who inspired Jones to deliver his own rendition:
“I used to collect anything Jerry Lee Lewis recorded, and still do. I was in New York in 1965 when I bought his country album Country Songs For City Folks. ‘Green Green Grass Of Home’ stuck out”.
He continued, “I got on well with Jerry Lee. I did have a bit of a dust-up with him one night in Vegas, but most of the time, we got on great. He came over to do a British tour in 1966, and I had just recorded the song. He told me he’d love to hear it, so I played it to him in his hotel room. He was knocked out with it and said, ‘You’ve done something different here, the arrangement is great. It sounds like a number one to me’. I said, ‘I hope you’re right’. He was.”
Not only did it sit at the top spot for an entire seven weeks, but it became Jones’ biggest hit in the UK, selling 1.2million copies. It was the first Decca single by a UK artist to sell more than a million copies in the UK and made Jones a bona fide star, worthy of carrying the torch lit by The Beatles.
