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Some UK Hits: Dec 1962
| 1 |
Return to Sender |
| Elvis Presley |
| 2 |
Lovesick Blues |
| Frank Ifield |
| 3 |
Sun Arise |
| Rolf Harris |
| 4 |
The Next Time |
| Cliff Richard |
| 5 |
Dance With The Guitar Man |
| Duane Eddy |
| 6 |
Let's Dance |
| Chris Montez |
| 7 |
Bobby's Girl |
| Susan Maughan |
| 8 |
Swiss Maid |
| Del Shannon |
| 9 |
Rocking Around the Christmas
Tree |
| Brenda Lee |
| 10 |
Telstar |
| Tornados |
| 11 |
Dance On |
| Shadows |
| 12 |
Bachelor Boy |
| Cliff Richard |
| 13 |
It Only Took A Minute |
| Joe Brown and The Bruvvers |
| 14 |
Devil Woman |
| Marty Robbins |
| 15 |
The Main Attraction |
| Pat Boone |
| 16 |
Sherry |
| Four Seasons |
| 17 |
Your Cheatin' Heart |
| Ray Charles |
| 18 |
Up on the Roof |
| Kenny Lynch |
| 19 |
Venus in Blue Jeans |
| Mark Wynter |
| 20 |
A Forever Kind of Love |
| Bobby Vee |
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**********
 We
have been refused permission to reproduce charts from this
era, so please note that the list of singles on this page does
not represent any one UK chart; compiled from many different
sources, the list is a general guide to the most popular singles of
the month, ordered loosely by sales and peak chart position.
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Happy
birthday to Frank Ifield, who was born on Nov 30
1937. Breaking into showbiz when he was 13, Frank had 44
singles behind him by the time he was 19. Lovesick Blues
was the second of his three consecutive No 1's, Frank being the
first artist to achieve this feat in the UK charts. The song
itself has been most closely associated with Hank Williams, but in
fact it was originally recorded in 1925 by Emmett Miller.
Frank first went to Nashville in 1966, and since then has
concentrated on Country music, touring all over the world the last
30 years.
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Let's
Dance at No. 6 was the first of three UK hits for Chris
Montez, and was re-released by him twice, in 1972 and
1979. A version by Liz Kershaw and Bruno Brookes also
came out in 1990, but only go to No. 54. Chris has not been
much in evidence here since The More I See You in 1966, but
is still doing the rounds in America.
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Little
Miss Dynamite herself at no. 9. Brenda Lee (born 1944) made
her first recording at the age of 11, and by the age of 20 had
recorded an amazing 256 sides. Quite successful in the
UK (Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree got to No. 6 here, and
sold 7m worldwide) Brenda was always much bigger in America, and
today is a leading Country singer.
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Better
not say too much about Joe Brown's embarrassing admission at
No. 13, so let's look at No. 17 instead, and one of Ray Charles' five
UK Top Tenners, among many which reached the Top 50. This is
the second Hank Williams hit in this list (and in 1963 Ray was also
to record Take These Chains From My Heart). Blind
from the age of 7, Ray had as bad a start in life as can be
imagined, but still fought through to become a major performing
star. This month - he's 71 now - he completes a tour of
continental Europe. Ray's pretty laid-back about his
disability, too; although he gave full support to Martin Luther
King, he decided against going on the marches. "Heck, I
wouldn't know when to duck when they were throwing broken bottles at
us", he explained.
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