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- [00:00]
Chris Melanphy
You're listening ad free on Amazon Music.
- [00:04]
Narrator/Host
Hey there Hit Parade listeners. What you're about to hear is Part one of this episode. Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. Would you like to hear this episode all at once the day it drops? Sign up for Slate Plus. It supports not only this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts. Just go to slate.com hitparadeplus you'll get to hear every Hit Parade episode in full the day it arrives. Plus Hit Parade the Bridge, our bonus episodes with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics, and pop chart trivia. Once again to join, that's slate.com hitparadeplus thanks and now please enjoy part one of the of this Hit Parade episode. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One series on today's show nearly six decades ago, in April of 1964, this single by a band from Tottenham, North London was just breaking into the top 10 on America's flagship chart, the Hot 100. The song was GLAAD all over the band the Dave Clark 5, and at the time, believe it or not, they were billed as the main chart rivals to another British band tearing up the charts. In fact, that very week in America, this other band had several hits on our chart. Like a ridiculous number of hits.
- [02:11]
Chris Melanphy
She loves you yeah yeah yeah she loves you yeah yeah, yeah.
- [02:20]
Narrator/Host
The Beatles, of course, who that week in April 64 famously held down the entire top five on the Hot 100. It had taken America nearly two years to catch on to the Fab Four. Then suddenly, with three consecutive number ones at the start of 64, the Beatles instantly became the most successful UK act ever to reach US shores. But the fact that the Beatles had British rivals was important. Because this was how you knew the Beatles weren't a one off phenomenon. America was being taken over US record stores, radio airwaves and our Billboard charts by acts from our mother country across the Atlantic. Soon the Beatles and The Dave Clark Five were joined on the Hot 100 by other UK acts. They called this chart incursion the British Invasion.
- [03:37]
Chris Melanphy
I will together nearly every single day singing.
- [03:46]
Narrator/Host
Two decades later, in 1982, another wave of British bands began making landfall on US shores. As with the Beatles in 64, it had taken America a few years to catch onto this new wave of cutting edge synthesizer heavy UK Acts. And again. At first, the chart toppers like the Human League's number one smash, don't you want me Seemed fluky. But then that that British New wave hit was followed by another, Then another. Until eventually this wave of British bands no longer seemed like a fluke. Soon enough, the pundits started calling this wave the second British Invasion. Both invasions were marked by hits that are now considered classics in both the 60s and. And the 80s. But as badass as some of these songs were, there were British Invasion hits that were pretty silly.
- [05:56]
Chris Melanphy
I'm a rake, old man I'm Henry 8th I am second verse, same as the first. Gimmicky I'm telling you now I'll say what you wanna hear.
- [06:14]
Narrator/Host
Or kitschy. And sometimes just impossible to follow up.
- [06:28]
Chris Melanphy
You too Shine shine hush hush I do I.
- [06:36]
Narrator/Host
But for American pop fans, both invasions left an indelible mark. British acts were taking an American art form, rewiring it for a new age. And giving it a new rainbow colored soul.
- [07:05]
Chris Melanphy
Do you really want to hurt me? Do you really want to make me cry?
- [07:13]
Narrator/Host
Today on Hit Parade, we will do some post war analysis on a pair of musical bloodless coups. What did the British invasion of the 60s and the second British invasion of the 80s have in common? Why did America fall for Cool Britannia twice? What came in between? And how did each of these invasions come to an end?
- [07:43]
Chris Melanphy
Goodbye Ruby Tuesday. Who could hang a name?
- [07:51]
Narrator/Host
The boundaries of a British Invasion can be hard to define. There were no declarations of war. We only began to recognize it was happening when enough of England's newest hitmakers had already detonated on our charts. By then we Yanks had succumbed. And that's where your hit parade marches today, the week ending April 25, 1964, when the Dave Clark Five's first American hit, Glad all Over, reached its peak on Billboard's Hot 100 of number six. The same week that the Beatles. Held down 10 spots on the Hot 100. This made it official. The British Invasion had begun. But it would take on many different forms in the years to come and the decades to follow. From the Stones to Soft Cell, the Kinks to Culture Club, Petula Clark to Annie Lennox, Herman's Hermits to Duran Duran.
- [09:20]
Chris Melanphy
Please, please tell me now, Please, please tell me now Please, please tell me.
- [09:29]
Narrator/Host
What wrinkle in the space time continuum made America throw open its borders to all these sassy English lads and lasses? Was there something they could say that would make them come our way? Join us as we puzzle out how the former colonies got so much satisfaction from old Blighty for a time. It really was about as easy as a nuclear war.
- [09:59]
Chris Melanphy
You're about as easy as a nuclear war. There's a dream. Strange.
- [10:14]
Narrator/Host
Before we walk through the hits of the 60s and 80s British invasions, I want to lay out some principles. Let's briefly go back, not just before the invasion, but before the birth of rock and roll. This is one of earliest known recordings of the American folk standard Rock island line, captured in 1934 at an Arkansas prison by folklorist John Lomax and led by a vocalist named Kelly pace. About 22 years after this recording, this folk standard had made its way across the Atlantic.
- [11:12]
Chris Melanphy
And just now we see a change coming down the line. And when she come up near the tailgate, the driver, he shout down to the man, he say, I got pigs, I got a horse.
- [11:21]
Narrator/Host
And was recorded by British singer Lonnie Donegan, the king of skiffle, England's mid-50s answer to rock and roll. Commonly played on washboards, jubilantly plucked guitars and a stand up bass. Widely credited with igniting a skiffle craze among British teenagers in 1956, Donegan's Rock Island Line really traveled. It even brought the song back to America. Donegan's Rock Island Line reached number eight on Billboard's best sellers in stores chart, a predecessor to the Hot 100. This was in the spring of 1956, so a year before Liverpudlian skiffle fan John Lennon ever even met Paul McCartney, let alone recorded or wrote songs with him. Rock Island Line was the first, first major British crossover hit on the American charts of the rock era. I'm playing Lonnie Donegan's breakthrough hit to illustrate a couple of things. For one thing, there were British hits prior to the British Invasion. Indeed, skiffle was a major influence on the Beatles, as well as other Liverpool, London and Manchester groups that would later conquer America. For another thing, covers like Rock Island Line or this recording of the Hank Williams standard Jambalaya by Jerry and the Pacemakers exemplify a key principle of British Invasion music. It took American musical idioms and made them new again. I call this the first principle of the British Invasion. And by the way, it applies to both British invasions. Sometimes the British acts were literally just remaking American recordings like say, soft sell, mashing up an old Gloria Jones single with another old Supremes single. So let's call that British Invasion principle number one. The British acts were borrowing, reimagining and renewing American music and selling it back to us. Here's a Second rule, British Invasion Principle 2. The second tier bans were what made it an invasion.
- [14:53]
Chris Melanphy
I don't care what they say I won't stay in a world without love.
- [15:01]
Narrator/Host
Maybe Peter and Gordon, whom we discussed in a prior Hit Parade episode, is not remembered as a top tier British inventory invasion act. They probably won't be on a Rock and Roll hall of Fame ballot anytime soon. Neither will Spandau Ballet. But the US success of Peter and Gordon and Spandau Ballet, acts that wouldn't have come near the American charts a year or two earlier indicated that each invasion wasn't about just one Titanic act like the Beatles or Duran Duran. And speaking of the Fab Four and the Fab Five, part of what made them fab was their look as well as their sound. And that's not a slight. Those looks were an asset.
- [16:08]
Chris Melanphy
My name is Rio and she dances on the sand.
- [16:16]
Narrator/Host
Which brings me to British Invasion principle number three. The visual mattered. Duran Duran are often remembered, sometimes pilloried, for their glossy music videos like the Yacht Bound Rio. But remember, the Beatles generated their share of glossy visuals too. The iconography of the British bands was nearly as important to their conquest as their music. Both before and after the age of the music music video, the British Invasion bands cultivated a look from Mick Jagger's strut to Annie Lennox's glower, that pulled them ahead of their American competition. It made them larger than life and just a little bit exotic. And that's yet another thing. At the peak of each invasion, exoticism was a plus. So let's call that British Invasion principle number four. The Britishness mattered.
- [17:34]
Chris Melanphy
She's not bad. Well, let me tell you about the way she looked, the way she acted.
- [17:41]
Narrator/Host
While some British Invasion acts tried to sound American, many of their hits were tinged with a Scouse accent, winsome lyrics, or an ethereal quality that was unmistakably English. This was exactly what American listeners in the mid-60s and the mid-80s wanted. Often, the more British it sounded, the better. In other words, what made each of these periods an invasion was that for about three, three or four years, the American hunger for British sounds seemed bottomless. But eventually, the pendulum swung the other way, which had something to do with fashion, but also a lot to do with Americans own adaptability. Which brings me finally to what I will call British Invasion principle number five. America eventually struck back. Maybe strike back isn't the right phrase. Exactly. There was no final battle to end each invasion. More to the point, American acts incorporated British Invasion tropes into into their own music. And American Tastes pivoted back towards sounds the Brits couldn't do as well. Music historians broadly agree about when each British Invasion started. There is less agreement about when each one ended. After all, British music hardly went away in the years after each invasion. Several British superstars continued to command our charts for years afterward. Rather, what dissipated around 1967 the first time, and around 1987 the second time was the idea of a cogent movement. The sense that Britannia meant cool British music just became part of pop's potpourri. So with those five British Invasion principles established, let's walk through each invasion to chart its rise and fall. I'll be recapping some songs and artists we've covered in previous episodes of Hit Parade, most especially our episodes about the Beatles and the history of the music video. But we'll place these hits in a more invasion specific context. One more thing the two movements had in common British Invasion music didn't sound like one single thing. It ranged more widely than you might recall. But at the dawn of the 1960s, to American ears at first, British music was little more than a novelty.
- [21:18]
Chris Melanphy
Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the Bed coast overnight? If your mother says don't chew it, do you swallow it?
- [21:26]
Narrator/Host
In spite of the Lonnie Donegan, the skiffle legend I mentioned just a few minutes ago, scored his biggest US hit with the age old novelty song does yous Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight? It cracked the top five on the Hot 100 in 1961. This was the state of affairs for UK artists on the US charts. Even respected acts like Donegan could only break in America with the occasional freak hit. Consider British teen idol Cliff Richard, who launched his UK career with four number ones in 1959 and 1960, but in the US could only scrape the top 30 with his single Living Doll, Got.
- [22:21]
Chris Melanphy
Myself a Crying Dog.
- [22:30]
Narrator/Host
Cliff Richards backing band the Shadows were also legends in the uk. To this day they're best known for their UK chart topping instrumental Apache, Which by the way would later become an early hip hop anthem when covered by the Incredible Bongo Band. Get your sampler ready for that Ill break beat. But while Apache was a UK number one for the shadows in 1960, In America it didn't even chart. Which was odd because the early 60s was a good time for any instrumentals on the Billboard charts, even British instrumentals. As I mentioned in our Hits of the Year episode of Hit Parade, a mellow clarinet ditty by a Somerset man who called himself Mr. Acker Bilk was the Hot 100's number one song of 1962. That made Acker Bilk the first British act to score a hot 100 number one hit, but he never returned to the US top 40. Later that same year, another British instrumental act, the Tornadoes, topped the Hot 100 with their space age surf rocker about a telecommunications satellite, Telstar. It reached number one by Christmas 1962. In between these two instrumental hits in the fall of 62 came an even quirkier hit with vocals. Yodeling vocals to be exact. British born, Australia raised singer Frank Ifield, who scored multiple chart toppers in his native UK, reached number five on the Hot 100 with I remember you. The strummy bop contains copious amounts of Ifield's patented yodel.
- [25:25]
Chris Melanphy
I remember you. You're the one who made my my dreams come true.
- [25:34]
Narrator/Host
So can we call the second half of 1962 the start of the British Invasion? Not really. Music historians rightfully regard these singles as flukes one offs. Their momentary success in America in 62 was a coincidence, not a movement. Even the next year, 1963 progress for British acts on the Billboard charts was slow, but the contours of the British Invasion were taking shape, thanks mostly to a provincial rock movement welling up in and around Liverpool known as Beat music, or more popularly thanks to the Mersey river that flows past Liverpool Mersey Beat.
- [26:28]
Chris Melanphy
How do you do what you do to me I am feeling blue Wish I knew how you do it to me.
- [26:38]
Narrator/Host
Even before the Beatles, Jerry and the Pacemakers were setting the pace on the charts for Mersey Beat groups led by Liverpudlian Jerry Marsden, and signed with the same manager and producer as the Beatles, Brian Epstein and George Martin, respectively. Jerry and the Pacemakers recorded this song how do you do it? As their debut single after the Beatles rejected it. How do you do it holds a special distinction in UK chart history with an asterisk on the United Kingdom's flagship pop chart, then known as the Record Retailer chart, the Predecessor to the UK's Modern Day Official Charts Company chart How do you do it? Hit number one before any song by the Beatles did, making Jerry and the Pacemakers technically the first Liverpool group to have a UK number one. The asterisk is that before how do you do it? The Beatles went to number one on two competing UK charts with their early 1963 single Please Please. In Record Retailer. Please Please me only hit number two. Regardless the song that knocked Jerry and the Pacemaker's how do youo do it out of the Record retailer number One spot was the Beatles own From Me to youo which made it official. By the spring of 63, a Mersey beat invasion had taken hold across Great Britain. By the fall of 63 both groups went back to number one in the UK. Jerry and the Pacemakers with a cover of the show tunes standard you'll Never Walk Alone. And the Beatles with their head shaking original song she loves you.
- [29:19]
Chris Melanphy
She said she loves you and you know that can't be bad yes, she loves you.
- [29:28]
Narrator/Host
By then they were joined by on the charts by a group that scored its first UK top 20 hit with a song written by the Beatles, a five man combo from London calling itself the Rolling Stones.
- [29:44]
Chris Melanphy
I wanna be your man. I wanna be your man.
- [29:52]
Narrator/Host
It is ironic that the Stones future pro purported rivals to the Beatles broke on the British charts with a song by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. From the jump, vocalist Mick Jagger, guitarist Keith Richards, multi instrumentalist Brian Jones, bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts played with more overt connections to American rhythm and blues than the Beatles did. Whether the Stones were covering Chuck Berry as on their debut single Come on. Or covering Buddy Holly with a Bo Diddley beat as on their early 64 single Not Fade Away, I'm gonna love.
- [30:46]
Chris Melanphy
You night and day.
- [30:56]
Narrator/Host
Each of these singles would be gradually bigger British hits for the Stones. But as exciting as all this beat music was in England through the end of 1963, none of these songs were appearing on Billboard's Hot 100. Mind you could. Contrary to the long held stereotype of moribund American music, pre British Invasion, there were plenty of lively hits on the American charts in 63. From Doo Wop a la those famed Jersey Boys, the Four Seasons, To girl groups like the Chiffons or the Angels, And the first wave of hitmakers on Motown, including the young man then known as little Stevie Wonder, say yeah yeah. To get past this homegrown U S competition, British beat music couldn't just sound like an imitation of American R B. It would have to feel like a new wave. In the decades since 1964, cultural historians have offered theories as to why the British invasion finally began to take shape in the United States. At the end of 1963, Rolling Stone critic Park Pewterbaugh wrote, quote, a popular theory holds that the country in the aftershock of President John F. Kennedy's assassination transferred to the Beatles all the youthful idealism that had been cresting under jfk. It's also plausible that the Beatles gave kids their first credible excuse for mania since Elvis Presley. Whether you buy into this widely held received wisdom based on chart performance alone, there is no question the Beatles finally delivered a galvanizing single.
- [33:28]
Chris Melanphy
Say that something. I wanna hold your hand I wanna hold your hand.
- [33:38]
Narrator/Host
I covered the Beatles US chart conquest in exhaustive detail in the second ever episode of Hit Parade, our Fab four sweep edition. So I will cover John, Paul, George and Ringo's output only glancingly in this episode. Briefly, Capitol Records in the States, after passing on releasing the group's singles through 1962 and almost all of 63, finally got with the program when Beatlemania in England became too big to ignore and US fans were independently recording requesting I want to hold your hand on the radio.
- [34:22]
Chris Melanphy
Yeah, you got that something I think you'll understand.
- [34:31]
Narrator/Host
The result, the Beatles had America's number one song by the end of January 1964, a couple of weeks before their plane even touched down at JFK airport. And in a remarkable streak, the Beatles commanded the Hot 100 through three consecutive number ones, a still unbroken record. After seven weeks on top, I want to hold you'd hand was replaced at number one by she loves you, Which two weeks later was instantly replaced itself by can't buy me Love. That same week, as I noted at the top of the show, the Beatles locked down the Hot 100's entire top five.
- [35:26]
Chris Melanphy
Can buy me love, Can buy me love.
- [35:36]
Narrator/Host
Now all of this could have just reflected the Beatles dominance and not any larger transatlantic cultural trend. True, the US media had started using the word Invasion as early as December 1963. And on the day the Beatles arrived in New York, esteemed TV anchorman Walter Cronkite said the British Invasion this time goes by the codename Beatlemania. Cronkite's point was well taken. At first the so called Invasion was mostly about the Fab Four. But almost immediately there was evidence the Beatles had coattails that all of the suppressed British music that had failed to make our charts previously finally had an opening to rise or fall on its own musical merits. Interestingly, the first single to break out in the Beatles wake was not a male Mersey Beat combo, but rather a female soloist. Dusty Springfield, the blue eyed soul singer from London, was in the right place at the right time with a first rate song. Her classic girl group style, I only want to be with you. A fortnight after the Beatles I want to hold you'd hand reached number one. Springfield's debut single hurdled 27 spot on the hot 100 into the top 30. A month after that, when Hand was in its final week on Top I Only Want to Be with you reached an impressive peak of number 12. Not bad at all, but not quite enough to quite qualify for an invasion. It would help if another group like the Beatles, but distinct from them, entered the arena. As fortune would have it, a certain fivesome. No, not the Stones were also peaking at the right moment. Like many British groups of the time, the Dave Clark Five, named for their drummer, Tottenham born Dave Clark, launched their career with a cover of an American hit, the Contours, do youo Love Me. The fact was the DC5 were trend hopping weeks before their do youo Love me reach number 30 on the UK chart. Another cover of that same same song by Brian Poole and the Tremolos had done much better reaching number one. But the Dave Clark 5's next single, an original song written by Clark and singer Mike Smith, established them as a chart force. Glad all over made headlines in Britain for knocking the Beatles I want to hold you'd hand out of the number one spot in January 1964. Fleet street even hyped up the DC5's music as quote the Tottenham Sound, a rejoinder to the Beatles and the Pacemaker's Mersey Beat Sound. The portrayal of of the DC5 as Beatles rivals. Imagine that three decades later they might have been the NSYNC to the Beatles. Backstreet Boys only helped the band's cause in America. Glad all over debuted on the Hot 100 in mid February 1964. The same week Dusty Springfield made her big leap up the chart. Two months later as the Beatles locked down positions all over the Hot 100. GLAAD all over reached its peak of number six. The first non Beatles single of the British Invasion to crack the US top 10. The invasion Walter Cronkite had spoken of was now actually coming to pass. That same week, Liverpool group the Searchers were holding at number 13 with their cover of the Jackie DeShannon single Needles and Pins.
- [40:37]
Chris Melanphy
Needles and Pins because of all My Pride.
- [40:44]
Narrator/Host
And yet another Liverpool band, the Swinging Blue Jeans were in the top 40 with their cover of the Chan Romero Rock and Roll Rave Up Hippie hippie shake. The jeans version peaked at number 24.
- [40:59]
Chris Melanphy
The hippie hippie shake it to the left.
- [41:08]
Narrator/Host
The Swinging Blue Jeans never reached those heights with any other single. But the Dave Clark Five and the Searchers became regular hit makers. Less than a year later the Searchers reached their all time high of number three on the Hot 100 with another Mersey beat cover of an old US hit Love Potion number nine.
- [41:31]
Chris Melanphy
Love potion number nine.
- [41:42]
Narrator/Host
And The Dave Clark Five strung together a new, nearly unbroken streak of more than a dozen top 20 US hits, most of them originals and half of them peaking in the top 10, including the number four bits and pieces, The number three ballad because. By the time the Dave Clark Five peaked with Because, America had a new number one song, the first of the British Invasion by a group other than the Beatles, and not counting the aforementioned duo Peter and Gordon, yet again, it was an English cover of an American standard. But this cover had its own unique, Harder Edge style, and it represented an entirely different side of the Invasion. The origins of House of the Rising sun date back to the early 20th century, a seedy folk blues tale of a life gone wrong in New Orleans. By the time the Animals, a five man band from Newcastle upon Tyne, got a hold of the song, it had been transformed by Troubadour's Dave Van Ronk and Bob Dylan into a sharp screed, a cautionary tale, Animals frontman Eric Burdon said, quote, we were looking for a song that would grab people's attention. That it did. The Animals breakthrough single debuted on the Hot 100 in August 1964 and was number one just four weeks later. In his book the Heart of Rock and Soul, critic Dave Marsh calls the Animals House of the Rising sun, quote, almost certainly the first folk rock hit, and he adds, quote, alan Price's bold organization and Eric Burdon's howling vocal connected the ancient tune to a live wire. Whether it was their bluesy playing or Eric Burdon's Geordie accent, House of the Rising sun was not only a massive hit, it signaled that the British Invasion had truly broadened in scope. There were still beat groups like Jerry and the Pacemakers or the Honeycombs, featuring Honey Landtree, one of rock's earliest female drummers. But there was also the groovy mod pop of the Zombies.
- [45:19]
Chris Melanphy
But it's too late to say you're sorry how would I know why should I care? Please don't bother trying to find out.
- [45:30]
Narrator/Host
The lilting folk pop of Chad and Jeremy.
- [45:39]
Chris Melanphy
Goodbye to you, wish you didn't have.
- [45:43]
Narrator/Host
To or the raucous R B flavored rock of Manford man, led by the South African keyboardist of the same name, Manford Mann. The band went to number one one month after the Animals with the strutting Do Wa Diddy Diddy.
- [46:01]
Chris Melanphy
There she was just walking down the street singing do what did it.
- [46:10]
Narrator/Host
Do Wa Diddy Diddy was a product of American songwriters Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, part of New York's Brill Building stable So was the song that broke. Herman's Hermits, a Manchester band led by the ebullient 17 year old frontman Peter Noon, I'm into something good, penned by famed Brill Building songwriters Carole King and Jerry Goffin, hit number 13 on the Hot 100 in December 1964. But here's the funny thing about Herman's Hermits. They did better in America, the more British they sounded. Misses Brown, you've got a Lovely Daughter sounded old timey, but it was actually written in 1963 for a British teleplay starring actor Tom Courtenay. The Hermit's label MD MGM had no intention to issue the hermits cover of Mrs. Brown as a single from their album Introducing Herman's Hermits. But then US radio stations leapt on it. While the Hermit's earlier hits can't you Hear My Heartbeat and silhouettes, both top 10 hits, were still on the Hot 100.
- [47:54]
Chris Melanphy
She's made it clear enough, it ain't no good.
- [47:58]
Narrator/Host
Pre Release airplay for Mrs. Brown youn've got a Lovely Daughter was so strong MGM was compelled to issue the single in April 1965. The song set a Billboard chart record at the time for highest debut. All the way up at number 12 on the Hot 100 it was went to number one just two weeks later. By then British acts had completely taken over the Hot 100. One week in May 1965 when the Hermits were number one with Mrs. Brown, British Commonwealth acts held down nine of the top ten songs. These included two fellow Mancunian acts who'd also hit number one back to back, Freddy and the Dreamers, whose I'm telling you now came with its own lurching dance. The Freddy hit number one in April 65.
- [48:56]
Chris Melanphy
I'm telling you now I'm telling you right away I'll be staying for many a day.
- [49:06]
Narrator/Host
And Freddie and the Dreamers were followed directly by Wayne Fontana and the the Mindbenders, whose blue eyed soul strutter the Game of Love also hit number one. Also riding the top 10 that week in May was Petula Clark, who at age 32 was already a veteran of the British charts and the variety show circuit. The British invasion turned Clark into a late blooming US hitmaker. In the winter of 65 she'd topped the Hot 100 with her classic single Downtown.
- [49:57]
Chris Melanphy
Just Listen to the Rhythm.
- [50:02]
Narrator/Host
And during that week of British chart dominance in May May she was back with the number three, peaking I Know A Place. Of course the Beatles were in the top 10 at the time, rising fast with their soon to be eighth number one hit, the jangly Ticket to Ride. And there was even an Australian folk group the Seekers, benefiting from the mania for all things British adjacent with their number five hit I'll Never Find Another your. By this time, bands that seemed resolutely British and might not have wanted anything to do with this US Fad were finding themselves with US Hits. Consider the Kinks, whom critic Nicholas Schaffner would later call, quote, the most quintessentially British and the most reluctant conscripts to serve in the original invasion. Between the fall of 64 and the spring of 65, the Kinks, powered by the raucous playing of brothers Ray and Dave Davis and Rey's almost sneering self consciously English voice, scored three top 10 US hits back to back, a pair of number seven hits, you really Got Me, and the similarly rambunctious All Day and All of the Night. And the Shout Out, Shuffling Lovelorn, Tired of Waiting for your, a number six Kinks hit. Also reaching number six that spring were unlikely hitmakers the Yardbirds, a blues rock act that went for the pop jugular with for your Love. The song prompted guitarist Eric Clapton to leave the group, But the latest bloomers of the British invasion were arguably the Rolling Stones, who were gradually refining their electric R and B and clawing their way up the US charts. The Stones finally broke into the US top 10 in the closing weeks of 1964 with Time is on My side.
- [53:16]
Chris Melanphy
Time is on my side yes, it is time.
- [53:26]
Narrator/Host
The week in May that British acts were locking down the top 10, the Stones were among them at number nine with their rave up. The Last Time this could be the.
- [53:37]
Chris Melanphy
Last time this could be the last time maybe the last time I don't know.
- [53:45]
Narrator/Host
And finally, in the summer, the Stones hit number one with a song whose immortal riff Keith Richards conjured in a dream and whose Mick Jagger lyrics were considered scandalous for their overt sexuality and anti commercialism. I Can't get no Satisfaction topped the Hot 100 for four weeks in July 1965.
- [54:11]
Chris Melanphy
Get no.
- [54:20]
Narrator/Host
Once the Stones were finally chart broken, they became reliable hit makers, immediately returning to number one with their Taking the piss follow up Get Off My Clap. By year's end, even The Dave Clark 5 had topped the Hot 100. After a string of hits that were mostly originals co written by Dave Clark and other band members, their cover of a 50s sock hop party record by Bobby Day called Over and over finally took them all the way to number one the week of Christmas 1965.
- [55:09]
Chris Melanphy
I said over and over and over again. This dance is gonna be a track. I said over and over.
- [55:18]
Narrator/Host
Over and over was a throwback in more ways than one. It not only sounded like the 50s, by 1966, it even sounded a little old school for the British Invasion. In the wake of the Beatles sitar laden tracks like Norwegian Wood, Several British acts were writing hits attached to the so called raga rock movement with guitars that resembled sitars, as on The Hollies number 5, 1966 hit bus stop.
- [56:01]
Chris Melanphy
Nice to think that that umbrella could lend me to a vow.
- [56:13]
Narrator/Host
Or outright raga with actual sitars as on the stone's sinister 1966 number one hit painted black.
- [56:23]
Chris Melanphy
I see a red door and I want it been painted black. No colors anymore.
- [56:32]
Narrator/Host
I want them going fully psychedelic. Also got Scottish folk rocker Donovan to number one in the summer of 66 with his groovy Sunshine Superman.
- [56:45]
Chris Melanphy
Cause I made my mind up. You're going to b mind, I'll tell you right now.
- [56:53]
Narrator/Host
And then on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, several Invasion acts were throwing back all the way to the age of vaudeville and British music hall. In the late summer of 65, Herman's Hermits had doubled down on their quirky approach by recording an actual music hall song from the 1910s, a cockney trifle called I'm Enery VIII. I am the result, another American chart topper. And like Mrs. Brown, it wasn't even released as a single in the UK.
- [57:28]
Chris Melanphy
I'm an eighth old man I'm enarily eighth I am second verse same as the first I'm annerid the eighth I am.
- [57:39]
Narrator/Host
One year later, in the fall of 66, a studio band assembled by London musician Jeff Stevens called the New Vaudeville Band, scored an even more improbable Hot 100 number one with Winchester Cathedral, a song inspired by 1920s dance bands that even featured a Rudy Valley megaphone style vocal.
- [58:04]
Chris Melanphy
Winchester Cathedral, you're bringing me down.
- [58:11]
Narrator/Host
You stood and you watched that. As trifling as these music hall style throwback hits might seem today, they may have had an impact on no less than the Beatles. It has been observed that the alter ego the Fab Four took on one year later on their totemic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band LP was an imagined music hall group not far from what Herman's Hermits and the New Vaudeville Band were doing.
- [58:41]
Chris Melanphy
Will you still need me, Will you still feed me when I'm 64?
- [58:51]
Narrator/Host
By the time of sergeant Pepper, depending on whom you asked, the British Invasion was either morphing or winding down. To be sure, new Invasion style bands were still breaking the who, fronted by songwriting. Guitarist Pete Townsend and the explosive singer Roger Daltrey, been issuing singles as far back as 1964, but only began cracking the US top 40 in 1967 with Happy Jack. The Kinks were recording ever more conceptual albums and singles like their 1966 classic dedicated follower of Fashion. The song was a satire of Carnaby street dandies at the peak of Swinging London, and it could only manage to reach number 36 in the states.
- [59:51]
Chris Melanphy
And when people see frilly nylon and is raked uptight, he feels a dedicated follower of fashion.
- [60:00]
Narrator/Host
But likely the main reason the press was no longer pushing the British Invasion hype was that American acts had adapted their sound, their style and even their band names to compete with Cool Britannia. For example, a San Antonio Tex Mex band led by songwriter Doug Sam called themselves the winkingly absurd name the Sir Douglas Quintet, just to co opt a piece of the British Invasion.
- [60:29]
Chris Melanphy
Whoa, yeah what I say hey, hey.
- [60:38]
Narrator/Host
Paul Revere and the Raiders, another American band dressed in Revolutionary War garb and marketed themselves as America's answer to the British Invasion.
- [60:49]
Chris Melanphy
Don't it seem like kids just keep getting harder to find? And all your kids.
- [60:58]
Narrator/Host
More seriously, Folk rock legends the Birds began adding chiming Rickenbacker guitars to number one hits like 1965's Mr. Tambourine man as a response to the jangly guitars George Harrison was playing on the Beatles hits. And in late 66, the launch of the TV spawned band The Monkees, a quartet of three Yanks, plus British singer Davy Jones kicked off their career with a number one hit, Last Train to Clarksville, that sported a remarkably authentic imitation British Invasion sound.
- [61:47]
Chris Melanphy
Cause I'm leaving in the morning and I must see you again we'll have one more night together Till the morning springs my train.
- [61:56]
Narrator/Host
As I said earlier, no one declared an end to the British invasion. By 1967, the media was more captivated by the hippie movement and the Summer of Love. And even as British bands were still scoring piles of hits, they seemed to adhere to no one galvanizing sound. Now that the Stones were scoring baroque chart toppers like Ruby Tuesday.
- [62:31]
Chris Melanphy
Who could hang a name on you?
- [62:37]
Narrator/Host
And the Beatles were exploring the land limits of the studio in their sessions for sergeant Pepper, It was hard to still call British pop an invasion. As I said earlier, unlike an actual war, no treaty brings a chart invasion to a close. It's more like an implied truce. With hindsight, the 60s British invasion had crested in 1964, 65 and 66, though you will find some critics claiming it stretched even into the early 70s. Indeed, if there is one figure who can be said to have bridged the first and second British invasions, it is arguably this man who spent the mid-60s trying to become a pop star before changing his name and finding his bold new direction with this 1969 recording.
- [63:52]
Chris Melanphy
Ground Control to Major Tom Ground Ground.
- [63:58]
Narrator/Host
Control to Major Tom when we come back, the former David Jones takes on a new name and creates conditions in the 70s that will lead to another invasion in the 80s. Another UK chart coup on the US charts marked by much slicker technology, more danceable rhythms and much bigger hair. Non Slate plus listeners will hear the rest of this episode in two weeks. For now, I hope you've been enjoying this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited, and narrated by Chris Melanfy. That's me. My producer is Kevin Bendis, Derek John is executive Producer of Narrative Podcasts, and Alicia Montgomery is VP of Audio for Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of shows@slate.com podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. We'll see you for part two in a couple of weeks. Until then, keep on Marching on the one I'm Chris Melanthe.
- [65:24]
Chris Melanphy
Here am I, Floating around my tin can Far above the world Planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can do.