Mr. Oldie Knows

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Our very own Mike Marvin shares his vast knowledge and in depth perspectives of all your favorite songs and artists monthly in his very own column.

April, 2013

The original title of “I Will Follow Him” was “Chariot”-pronounced “shar-e-o” and was first recorded in French by Petula Clark in 1961. The tune found its way to America where it was given English lyrics. This translated to a Number one hit for Margaret Battavio, better known as Little Peggy March. She was little all right-standing at 4’ 10”. The combination of extreme devotion and a lilting melody resulted in a #1 hit in May, 1963. In the Top 40 sense, she wasn’t a “one hit wonder”. Her follow-up,the wistful “I Wish I Were A Princess” peaked in the top 30 that Summer and was much later used in the 1988 movie “Hair Spray”. After one more semi-hit “Hello Heartache, Goodbye Love” in the Fall of 1963 and a minor hit with “The Impossible Happened”, she found great success in Germany. If you’re curious you can find some of her German hits on Youtube.

Bobby Goldsboro was crying all the way to the bank in April, 1968 when this tearjacker “Honey” topped the Country, the Easy Listening, and the overall Hot 100 charts. The tearful song was written by Bobby Russell who also wrote “Little Green Apples”, initially a mid charter for Roger Miller and later a massive hit for O.C. Smith. When “Honey” was first played for consideration to Bobby Goldsboro, the singer walked away unimpressed. A second meeting with his producer Bob Montgomery, who wanted him to record this song, resulted in a change of heart. Bobby recorded it in Nashville-and from earlier mentioned in this article became a huge across the board hit. In spite of its huge popularity, “Honey” was voted the “worst song” by Todd Leopold of CNN in 2006. Well this “worst song” has been covered by many different artists-such as O.C. Smith, whose version was not quite so dramatic as the original. I read somewhere that a British DJ was playing “Honey” for his soon to be ex-wife as an expression of how much he missed her. I wonder if she had a change of heart.

April 11th, 1970 was a sad day for Beatles fans. On that date, Paul McCartney announced to the world that the Fab Four was no more. Intergroup bickering tore the band apart. Recording sessions for the White album and the originally named “Get Back” sessions were marred by dissension-disagreements over musical direction, money matters, and Yoko Ono being at the sessions. In the Summer of 1969, the Beatles set aside their differences to record “Abbey Road” what became their farewell album-well almost. After that album was issued, Apple Records released an album of tracks that were only issued as singles. This marked the first stereo appearance of “Hey Jude” b/w “Revolution”-their most successful single. But what to do about the “Get Back” session tapes just wasting away in the vaults. Ace record producer Phil Spector was called in to salvage the project. That album was finally issued as “Let It Be” in May, 1970. The title single was their 19th chart topper. There would be one more chart topper with the swan song, “The Long & Winding Road”, which turned out to be a bone of contention for Paul McCartney. He strongly objected to Phil Spector’s overdubbing an orchestra and choir- and demanded that those elements be removed. When it didn’t happen, Paul quit the group. Really sad.

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