56) Joe Dowell – “Wooden Heart (Muss I Den)”

Pat Boone eked a 3 because, in another lifetime, “Moody River” was actually a good song.  But if Elvis couldn’t rescue the treacly “Wooden Heart,” then poor Joe Dowell didn’t have a chance.  Dowell’s lone top 20 hit was a cover in the true definition of the word: not just a remake, but one designed to piggyback on another version.  For reasons mysterious (or not, if you’ve ever listened to the song), Presley’s single was never released in the US, despite topping the UK charts for six weeks.  Sensing an opportunity, Dowell’s label Smash Records recruited the anonymous young singer and taught him to croon the German phoenetically.  Sure enough, the record was a hit, although why isn’t quite clear. There was the tenuous Elvis connection, of course, but surely that couldn’t have been enough to entice record buyers.  No one had heard of Joe Dowell, so they weren’t buying it for him.  There couldn’t have been that many German omas in the Midwest with August birthdays and functioning Victrolas.  Which leads to a troubling conclusion: people bought “Wooden Heart” because they liked it.  Which … is a dificult concept to grasp.  The (English) lyrics are vacuous, the cheapo musical arrangement is quarter-baked and Dowell carefully avoids spilling out a single drop of personality.  While I’m all for German on the Hot 100  (“99 Luftballoons”! “Don’t bring me down – Grüß”!), I’m disappointed that, in this case, it’s in a song with absolutely no redeeming value. Well, one - it’s still not quite as terrible as “Mr. Custer.” 2

Hit #1 on August 28, 1961; total of 1 week at #1
56 of 969 #1′s reviewed; 5.78% through the Hot 100

55) Bobby Lewis – “Tossin’ and Turnin’”

Well, this is a bit more like it.  While Gary U.S. Bonds ducked out just before last call, Bobby Lewis keeps going all night.  But unlike the offhand jive of “Quarter to Three,” each sax blast and vocal doot-doot-doot in “Tossin’ and Turnin’” underpins the manic restlessness.  This may well be the most aggressively upbeat song about insomnia ever.  The languid, ghostly tones of “Sleep Walk” are traded for wails and blares: the brass section, the rock gospel back-up, the wah-wah foghorn of Lewis’s voice.  Before he can even finish bellowing the opening line (“I couldn’t sleep at all last night!”), the music is off and running.  Lewis never really planned to sleep tonight, anyway, and why should he? Sleep is for people who don’t have anything interesting enough to keep them up at night.  7

Hit #1 on July 10, 1961; total of 7 weeks at #1
55 of 969 #1′s reviewed; 5.68% through the Hot 100

54) Gary U.S. Bonds – “Quarter to Three”

It’s tempting to think of “Quarter to Three” topping the charts as the public doing penance for making “Moody River” a #1 hit.  Instead of a melodramatic death disc covered in the sticky ooze of insincerity, we get a straightforward, fun song about dancing till the wee hours. (It may or may not be worth commenting that Boone was also replaced atop the charts by an actual African-American R&B singer.)  Because if “Quarter to Three” isn’t a reaction to Pat Boone, it seems a minor league choice for #1.   Bonds gently barks out his tale recounting a previous night’s revelry over a charmingly simple arrangement – handclaps and a saxophone.   Most intriguing, though, are the background vocalists, whose haphazard whoops, whistles and chants add verity to the record’s live and spontaneous sound.  The record’s rawness is refreshing, especially in an era of gloopy production.  Nevertheless, it’s just missing that tiny but inimitable thrill, which is particularly evident when compared with the full-out rush of the next entry.  While it’s more exciting and soulful than anything Boone could ever release (but then, what isn’t), unfortunately it’s still a little too flat to really be the raucous, party (most of the) night number it wants to be. 6

Hit #1 on June 26, 1961; total of 2 weeks at #1
54 of 969 #1′s reviewed; 5.57% through the Hot 100

53) Pat Boone – “Moody River”

Pat Boone, the eternal punching bag of rock and roll lovers everywhere, continues his career trajectory of sapping all the soul out of another artist’s perfectly fine song.  (At least he mixes it up by ripping off a white guy this time.)  Boone croons placidly about his girlfriend’s suicide, which was somehow less shocking to the record-buying public than his metal covers album would be decades later.  Whereas Chase Webster’s original version shudders with regret and desolation, Boone revels in the horrible wonderful tragedy of it all (inasmuch as he expresses any emotion whatsoever).   This is the record where his characteristic smarm metastasizes into something vulgar and ugly.  Just as the narrator of “Long Black Veil” had to die to protect his lover’s reputation, so too must Boone’s girlfriend. Them’s the rules.

Contrast Boone with his whitebread compatriot Lawrence Welk, who appears with him in the video above and who also gained a spot at the top of the 1961 charts.  Welk had generally the same Middle America audience, although he skewed a bit older.  But no matter how bland or corny Welk’s music got, he always conveyed an air of endearingly folky genteelness.  He had better taste than to  indulge in Boone’s creepy crassness.  Still, Boone can’t even muster up enough tastelessness to actually be interesting (cf. “Mack the Knife” or “Stagger Lee“).  Instead, all that’s left is an unpleasant mess, the discomfort of which is only alleviated through the vague suspicion that the girl in the song faked it all to escape this narcissistic creep. 3

Hit #1 on June 19, 1961; total of 1 week at #1
53 of 969 #1′s reviewed; 5.47% through the Hot 100

52) Roy Orbison – “Running Scared”

 

In retrospect, Roy Orbison was an unlikely pop star.  He was a failed rockabilly singer with a voice that verged closer to Tosca than teen idol.  His self-penned songs, only occasionally in verse-chorus format, borrowed from classical music, theater and ballroom dance.  His style was more sophisticated and adult than songs typically targeted to the teenage audience, while at the same time too rock and roll to reach parents more comfortable with Lawrence Welk and Bert Kaempfert.  Add on homely looks and you have a musician unmarketable in today’s musical landscape, except perhaps as a contestant on a reality TV singing program.  Of course, the formative years of rock were as concerned about marketability as well – which is why Fats Domino and Little Richard songs only achieved pop chart success after being covered by blandly handsome white teenagers. Still, 1961 predated video killing the radio star, and sometimes talent did beat all else.

Although Elvis had flirted with Old World aesthetics in his post-Army singles, these embellishments were always self-conscious.  By remaking Neapolitan ballads and bounding across octaves, Presley sought to legitimize his position as rock singer through cross-generational appeal.  Orbison, on the other hand, couldn’t do straight rock and roll.  Like Elvis, he was an alumnus of Sun Records, but one who left frustrated and without prospects as a performer.  It was only after carving out a dramatic and hypermelodic niche that Orbison was able to conquer the pop charts.  “Running Scared,” the follow-up to his breakout “Only the Lonely,” sounds bombastic on paper: a rock bolero with no chorus that continuously builds into a crescendo with no release.  But Orbison approaches it with restraint and humility, which lends the song a sincerity lacking in more overblown pop melodramas.  The lyrics are simple as well – will the girl choose him or me? – and balance out Orbison’s powerful voice and the mounting musical tension.   While “Crying” and “In Dreams” have deservedly become the better-known classics (as has the version of “Love Hurts” on this record’s B-side), “Running Scared” is a fine introduction to Orbison as poperatic legend. 7

Hit #1 on June 5, 1961; total of 1 week at #1
52 of 969 #1′s; 5.37% through the Hot 100