DECEMBER 1964 (50 YEARS AGO) Petula Clark: Downtown b/w Youd Better Love Me (Warner Bros. 5494) 45 single is released in the US. Downtown is a song composed by Tony Hatch which, as recorded by Petula Clark, became an international hit – No. 1 in the US and No. 2 in the UK – at the end of 1964. Tony Hatch had first worked with Petula Clark when he assisted her regular producer Alan A. Freeman on her 1961 #1 hit Sailor. In 1963 Freeman had asked Hatch to take over as Clarks regular producer: Hatch had subsequently produced five English-language singles for Clark none of which had charted. In the fall of 1964 Hatch had made his first visit to New York City seeking material from music publishers for the artists he was producing. Hatch would recall: I was staying at a hotel on Central Park and I wandered down to Broadway and to Times Square and, naively, I thought I was downtown. Forgetting that in New York especially downtown is a lot further downtown getting on towards Battery Park. I loved the whole atmosphere there and the [music] came to me very, very quickly. Hatch was hoping to pitch the song to the Drifters. Shortly afterward Hatch visited Paris to present Clark with possible material - none of it written by him - for a London recording session scheduled for 16 October 1964: Tony Hatch she was not very enthusiastic about [the material] and asked me if I was working on anything new myself. Reluctantly (because the [lyric] was still so unfinished) I played her the tune of my New York inspiration and slipped in the word Downtown in the appropriate places. Thats the one I want to record, she said. It just needs some great lyrics. Downtown was recorded 16 October 1964 at the Pye Studios in Marble Arch. Thirty minutes before the session was scheduled, Hatch was still touching up the songs lyrics in the studios washroom. Hatch always insisted on recording all the personnel on his productions actually performing together as would be heard on the finished track: the large number of personnel contributing to the Downtown session necessitated that two studios be utilized for the tracks recording, with a closed-circuit television connection allowing Hatch to conduct the personnel in both the studio in which he was physically present and the auxiliary studio. The session personnel on Downtown included guitarists Vic Flick, Jimmy Page and Big Jim Sullivan, and also drummer Bobby Graham and the Breakaways vocal group. Downtown entered the UK Top 50 dated the week 14 November 1964 ending a virtual two-year UK chart absence for Clark; of the ten singles shed had released in the UK during that period only one: Chariot, #39 the spring of 1963, had appeared in even the lower charts. Downtown rose to #2 that December remaining there for three weeks, kept out of the #1 position by the Beatles I Feel Fine. However Downtown had its greatest significance in the reception it was afforded in the United States. Warner Bros. A&R man Joe Smith was scouting in London for records with American hit potential, the musical British Invasion of the US then going strong. Smith wanted to release Clarks Downtown in the US and when a surprised Hatch asked if Smith didnt consider Downtown to be a very English record he recalls Smiths reply as: Its perfect. Its just an observation from outside of America and its just beautiful and just perfect. Warner Bros. released Downtown in the US in December 1964: the track appeared near the bottom of the national charts the week before Christmas and despite the Christmas season traditionally being the worst time to break a new hit Downtown shot up to the Top Ten in five weeks and the next week – 23 January 1965 – it became #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Downtown retained that position a further week before being overtaken by the ascendancy of the Righteous Brothers Youve Lost That Lovin Feelin. Clark became the first UK female artist to have a US #1 hit during the rock and roll era and the second in the annals of US charted music. Petula Clark
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 22:20:01 +0000
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