1960 - The worst year for pop

yearguide | home | singles | albums | news | TV | films | books

---

 

"Nineteen hundred and sixty was probably the worst year that pop has been through. Everyone had gone to the moon. Elvis had been penned off in the army and came back to appall us with ballads. Little Richard had got religion, Chuck Berry was in jail, Buddy Holly was dead. Very soon, Eddie Cochran was killed in his car crash. It was a wholesale plague, a wipe-out."

  ...Nik Cohn (pub: 1969)

The Pop Year:

• Everly Brothers join Warner Brothers
• Elvis leaves the army
• Eddie Cochran killed on UK tour
• Jack Good's new music show 'Wham' starts on ATV
• DJ Alan Freed indicted on payola charge
• The Cavern Club drops It's Jazz Only Policy
• Trad Jazz craze sweeps UK
• Shadows tour UK
• Adam Faith appears on face To Face'.
• Aretha Franklin makes her first album for Columbia.

Singles:

• Cliff Richard - Please Don't Tease
• Ricky Valence - Tell Laura I Love Her
• Roy Orbison - Only The Lonely
• Elvis Presley - It's Now or Never
• Johnny and the Hurricanes - Shakin' all Over
• Sam Cooke - Chain Gang
• The Ventures - Walk Don't Run
• The Drifters - Save the Last Dance for Me
• The Shadows - Apache
• Bryan Hyland - Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini
• Tommy Steele - Mess of Blues
• Everly Brothers - Cathy's Clown
• Anthony Newley - Why?
• Johnny Tillotson - Poetry in Motion
• Adam Faith - Someone Else's Baby
• Johnny Preston - Running Bear
• Lonnie Donnegan - My Old Man's a Dustman
• Max Bygraves - Fings Aint What They Used To Be
• Eddie Cochran - Three Steps to Heaven
• Duane Eddy - Shazam!
• Brenda Lee - Sweet Nothings
• Rolf Harris - Tie me Kangaroo Down Sport
• Charlie Drake - Mr. Custer
• Eddie Byrnes and Connie Stevens - Kookie Kookie Lend Me Your Comb

top

Albums:

• Acker Bilk - Seven Ages of Acker
• The Twang's the Thang - Duane Eddy
• Bobby Darin - Bobby Darin
• Russ Conway - Party Time
• Anthony Newley - Love is a Now and Then Thing
• Nina and Frederick - Nina and Frederick
• Gene Vincent - Crazy Times
• Bert Weedon - King Sized Guitar
• Johnny and the Hurricanes - Stormsville
• Marty Robbins - Gunfighter Ballads 
• Adam Faith - Adam
• Billy Fury - The Sound of Fury
• The Everly Brothers - It's Everly Time
• Buddy Holly - The Buddy Holly Story
• Cliff Richard - Cliff Sings; Me and my Shadows
• Elvis Presley - Elvis is Back; GI Blues
• Eddie Cochran - Memorial Album

top

In the news:

• Sharpville massacre: 56 black South Africans killed and 162 wounded by armed police in peaceful protest.
• Dead sea scrolls discovered.
• Dr Barbara Moore walks from John O'Groats to Land's End.
• End of National Service in Britain.
• Princess Margaret marries Anthony Armstrong Jones.
• Lady Chatterly's Lover trial - jury finds it a work of art and therefore not obscene. Sells 200,000 copies in one day.
• Macmillan 'winds of change' speech about the strength of African nationalism.
• Cassius Clay wins gold in Rome Olympics and turns pro.
• American spy plane shot down over Russia.
• Ten black Americans shot by Mississippi police during protest.

top

T.V:

• Bonanza
• Coronation Street
• Rawhide
• Juke Box Jury
• Black and White Minstrel Show
• It's a Square World
• Four Feather Falls
• Torchy
• Danger Man
• 77 Sunset Strip

Top Ten

1. Royal Variety Performance
2. Armchair Theatre
3. Take Your Pick
4. No Hiding Place
5. Wagon Train
6. Army Game
7. Bootsie and Snudge
8. Sunday Night at the London Palladium
9. The Larkins
10. Arthur Haynes Show

  top

Films:

• Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
• The Alamo
• The Magnificent Seven
• Psycho
• The Apartment

Books:

• To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
• The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner - Alan Silletoe
• For Your Eyes Only - Ian Fleming

Ring of Bright Water - Maxwell