Surely they were hits really

[howarddobson]

Hello everyone

I was thinking about the Drifters/Shadows first 3 singles, before Apache.

In the 50s and 60s I think I'm right in saying that the charts were much shorter in length - a top 15 to start with and gradually extended to 25, 30, 40...

Later on British Hit Singles etc started publishing hits that made the top 75.

So this means that if the Shads' first 3 singles had got to say number 30 - they wouldn't have counted as hits in their day but they would do now.

Does anyone know what number they actually got to? Perhaps they were top 40 hits after all!

Would be good to set the record straight.

(It shows how British Hit Singles was very biased - a song scoring a few weeks at no 60 in the 90s would be listed, whereas songs from the 60s that missed the cut off point of the day wouldn't be. If there was a fairer system of working out weeks in chart we'd really see which acts had the most chart success)

[strongbow]

By the time the Drifters/Shadows started issuing singles, the NME had a Top 30, which is what's used in most chart books prior to early March 1960. When the chart books switched to Record Retailer in mid-March, it was to a Top 50. And the first three singles didn't appear in either the Top 30 or the Top 50.

[howarddobson]

That's really interesting thank you.

So I wonder if any of them got somewhere between 50 and 75.

Surely they gathered up more info and published the top 5O or whatever - the info must exist somewhere.

I remember from interviews someone saying that one of them had bubbled under - perhaps it got to number 55.

[strongbow]

I believe the "near miss" was Saturday Dance.

[Moderne]

The relative rarity of the original single copies of Feelin' Fine and Jet Black shows you how poorly they sold when first issued. They rarely turn up on eBay - Saturday Dance is slightly more common. I spent several years in the late '70s searching secondhand record shops before I found a copy of Feelin' Fine for 10p at the Radio 1 Ally Pally record fair in 1979. I had to pay £10 for Jet Black at Rob Finnis's At the Hop shop in Fulham Broadway in 1981 and have rarely seen either since. Now of course they are available on umpteen CDs or on the internet in seconds following a few clicks on your laptop...

Cheers,

Clive

[GoldenStreet]

Feelin' Fine / Don't Be A Fool With Love (Columbia DB 4263) was also issued in 78rpm format, although I doubt the asking price for such a copy would amount to much, unless maybe in pristine condition.

Bill

[Fenderman]

I often wondered what they released on 78RPM, was the first three singles available on this format and surely must be collectors items now?

[iefje]

I often wondered what they released on 78RPM, was the first three singles available on this format and surely must be collectors items now?

I think all singles from "Feelin' Fine" in January, 1959 to "Man Of Mystery" in November, 1960 have been released on both the 78 and 45 rpm formats. After that, all singles have been issued on 45 rpm formats only.

[Moderne]

In Britain, it was just Feelin' Fine, Jet Black and Saturday Dance. I'm pretty sure that EMI's 78 production for the home market had ceased by the time of Apache, although other countries (e.g. South Africa) continued to press 78s. Any 78s from 1959-60 are very rare and any in the rock 'n' roll category would be very valuable today. 78s were still available in early 1960 by special order only.

[Arpeggio]

Columbia's last 78rpm release was Russ Conway's "Royal Event" - March, 1960.