Interestingly, I choose the same year as William, 1957, my favourite year from the British pop charts. I had my own room and my own radio in it and listened to pop music as much as I could (not a lot of it in those days on the BBC). I also started buying record magazines when pocket money would allow. 1957 was a brilliantly diverse year for pop music in the UK with such a range of different kinds of music. Although Elvis Presley had arrived in 1956, some of the easy listening giants like Frankie Laine and Johnny Ray were hanging on in the face of attack from the new exciting sounds. Lonnie Donegan was probably the best selling British artist and skiffle was generally big while British rockers like Terry Dene were trying to break through. It was also a calypso year (West Indies cricket team toured here) and Harry Belafonte became very popular. Plenty of good ballads – Pat Boone, Nat Cole, Slim Whitman. Sonny James and Tab Hunter battled with 'Young Love' (it was not cool for boys to like the Tab Hunter version) There was so much variety.
The top R&R sounds I remember were:
Bye Bye Love - Everlys
Little Darlin’ - Diamonds
Long Tall Sally - Little Richard
Wanderin’ Eyes - Charlie Gracie
Be My Girl - Jim Dale (British singer later turned actor)
That’ll Be The Day - The Crickets
Great Balls of Fire – Jerry Lee Lewis
Reete Petite – Jackie Wilson
Elvis – never out of the charts.
There were lots of Bill Haley records about but I found them very repetitive – if you heard one you’d heard them all. (Is this sacrilegious?)
Plus some great skiffle sounds like:
Freight Train – Chas. McDevitt Group with Nancy Whiskey
Last Train to San Fernando – Johnny Duncan and the Blue Grass Boys
