A History of Pop Music – Albums 1963

Featured Album:

This is a series of articles looking at albums from 1960 to whatever year we end up in.

I will select a featured album for each year and the link for the whole album, Plus list the songs on it.

As before, it is not just about the songs and tunes, it is very much about memories, and good ones, I hope.

Not everyone will like my choices of course, and you may remember some from each particular year that you feel should have been included, so do please post a link to the song.

The Beatles – Please Please Me:

Track listing:

All tracks are written by McCartney–Lennon, except where noted.

Side one
No.	Title	Lead vocals	Length
1.	“I Saw Her Standing There“	McCartney	2:55
2.	“Misery“	Lennon with McCartney	1:49
3.	“Anna (Go to Him)” (Arthur Alexander)	Lennon	2:55
4.	“Chains” (Gerry Goffin, Carole King)	Harrison	2:23
5.	“Boys” (Luther Dixon, Wes Farrell)	Starr	2:24
6.	“Ask Me Why“	Lennon	2:24
7.	“Please Please Me“	Lennon with McCartney	1:59
Total length:			16:49

Side two
No.	Title	Lead vocals	Length
1.	“Love Me Do“	McCartney with Lennon	2:21
2.	“P.S. I Love You“	McCartney	2:04
3.	“Baby It’s You” (Mack David, Barney Williams, Burt Bacharach)	Lennon	2:40
4.	“Do You Want to Know a Secret“	Harrison	1:56
5.	“A Taste of Honey” (Bobby Scott, Ric Marlow)	McCartney	2:03
6.	“There’s a Place“	Lennon and McCartney	1:51
7.	“Twist and Shout” (Phil Medley, Bert Russell)	Lennon	2:32
Total length:			15:27

Well she was just 17, mind you she would be 74 today!

More writings on this album here: Please Please Me

This album was the first album I bought. Well not me as such, but by grandma got it as a birthday present for me, she had a stereogram, huge great cabinet thing that had a record player inside and a radio. I was then and will always remain a Beatles fan. I know some may not like them, but hey ho.

The Top 10 Albums with a You Tube hyperlink on the title:

Top Tip: Right-click and open in new tab

Top Albums of 1963
1	The Beatles	With The Beatles
2	Beatles	Please Please Me
3	Cliff Richard & the Shadows	Summer Holiday
4	Original Soundtrack	West Side Story
5	The Shadows	Out Of The Shadows
6	The Shadows	The Shadows’ Greatest Hits
7	Searchers	Meet The Searchers
8	Buddy Holly & The Crickets	Reminiscing
9	Frank Ifield	I’ll Remember You
10	Gerry & The Pacemakers	How Do You Like It?

What a wonderful year for music. Charts dominated by The Beatles, Cliff and the Shadows, and Buddy Holly. Love The searchers, first track on the link above is Needles & Pins, super album. Gerry & the Pacemakers another firm favourite, the song “How do you do it” the song was written by Mitch Murray who offered it to Adam Faith and Brian Poole but was turned down. George Martin of EMI, feeling the song had enormous hit potential, decided to pick it up for the new group he was producing, the Beatles, as the A-side of their first record. The Beatles recorded the song on 4 September 1962 with Ringo Starr on drums. The group was initially opposed to recording it, feeling that it did not fit their sound, but worked out changes from Murray’s demo-disc version. Although Murray disliked their changes, the decision not to release the Beatles’ version was primarily a business one. In fact, George Martin came very close to issuing “How Do You Do It?” as the Beatles’ first single before settling instead on “Love Me Do“, recorded during the same sessions. The “How do you like it album has “You’ll never walk alone” as well. (Link is the karaoke version, as I know you will want to singalong!

Buddy Holly is of course one my favourites, the music industry owes him so much. He will be one of the few artists that feature with a “Greatest Hits” album.

So, on we go with memories from 1963: (Thank you Wiki)

I was only about 9 years of age. I do remember going to the barbers with me mum and I was allowed to have a Beatles haircut. Most of the us kids had one as I recall. Happy carefree days, playing outside, going for long walks, all safe and sound. As long as you got back home for tea, all was well. How times have changed.

I have to say that the top 10 albums for 1963 were all awesome. However, some more are below that I would say are well worth a listen. In my view the best albums of the year, after the featured one, and the top tunes from each, are:

The Beatles – No 1 – Nothing but classics on this.

The Beatles – Greatest Hits – All here, total awesomeness.

Roy Orbison – In Dreams – Classic songs from a great artist. You will no doubt know all of the songs on this.

Ike & Tina Turner – It’s Gonna Work Out Fine – This year, for me at least, really was the start of British pop music. As an avid Radio Luxembourg listener though, I remember some of their stuff.

The Crystals – He’s a rebel – great stuff

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons – Big Girls Don’t Cry – could not find the full album, but what a cracking song this is. I had a high pitch voice at the time and loved singing this.

Willie Nelson – Here’s Willie Nelson – Not a fan at the time, heard some of the music on the TV shows. I think I was about 30 years of age before I discovered him.

Chuck Berry – Chuck Berry On Stage – Impossible not to want to dance or at least get those feet tapping.

The Beach Boys – Little Deuce Coupe – more classics from a great band.

Scoring:

As you know I like to review your “tunes” that you post. Scoring this week will be as per my first comment you will not read:

*Note. Anyone scoring a Morrissey (lowest score possible) will be reported and blocked.

Hat tips to:

https://www.albumoftheyear.org/ratings/8-all-music-highest-rated/1963/1 these give the top 100 selling charts for each year

http://www.everyhit.com/chart1.html these give the top 10 songs for each year

https://www.youtube.com/ you know them.

Next Time: 1964

Featured image: United Press International (UPI Telephoto)Cropping and retouching: User:Indopug and User:Misterweiss, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons