What song held the number one spot for the longest in 1962?
The 1960s started in a different universe from how it ended.
Whatever revolutionary stirrings were in the air, culture seemed to skip a decade or two of necessary transformation, hurtling at lightspeed toward the countercultural explosion that threatened the cast-iron mythologies and propaganda on both sides of the Atlantic.
Sexual liberation, chemical experimentation, unreined fashion flair, and an economic settlement that afforded the youth to ‘drop out’ without hassle from ‘The Man’ enjoyed an equally revolutionary rock and pop soundtrack to match.
Not everybody was a hippy radical; in fact, most weren’t, but even the tightly buttoned-up conservative tut-tutting at ‘that sort of thing’ must have felt the dizzying slap of cultural change’s gargantuan pendulum swinging open the new social frontier with scarcely believed daze. While US teens were enjoying a golden age as a demographic with deep pockets and a surrounding entertainment industry eager for their cash, the UK was still just about emerging from the 1950s’ post-war lumber, the early years of Boomer childhoods defined by rationing and urban ruins still scarred by the Luftwaffe bombing campaigns.
With the ease of rationing and the final vestiges of National Service scrapped, British youth were able to leave the embers of war behind them for good. It would take a few years, but the scene was set for The Beatles to score a new youthquake for a sound of their own, swiftly storming the charts in earnest from 1963 and ushering a frenzy of stardom the country had never seen before.
Yet, The Beatles’ debut single ‘Love Me Do’ would be dropped in October 1962, and the British invasion chart conquest they’d usher in would take a couple more years. In 1962, the pop world was still looking to the States for the next big hit, and the trends echoed the sounds of the 1950s.
Over in America, two of the era’s biggest stars shared the number one spot for the longest. R&B legend Ray Charles spun a cover of Don Gibson’s ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’ for Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music in April, holding the Billboard Hot 100 top spot for five weeks. Boasting two number one five-weekers was New Jersey doo-wop soul quartet The Four Seasons. Famously fronted by Frankie Valli, ‘Sherry’ and ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’ both soared to the top of the pops, the latter being inducted into the 2015 Grammy Hall of Fame.
So, what song held the number one spot the longest?
Most famous for backing Cliff Richard in his Elvis aping infancy, instrumental group The Shadows found fame outside of the future Christian crooner, cutting a string of surf and country twang numbers that felt like scores to non-existent movies, all aided by Hank Marvin’s expert guitar chops. With help from writer Jerry Lordan, The Shadows would score number ones with their ‘Apache’ and ‘Kon-Tiki’ singles.
Dropped in February and staying put at the top spot for a gobsmacking eight weeks, ‘Wonderful Land’ would continue a breezy run of UK number ones, cutting a number both innocent in its pre-Beatlemania character but sincerely filled with evocative stir.
