The Ultimate Averaged Chart - The BBC Chart Re-Imagined

[MrTibbs]

Greetings Pop Pickers

Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending May 26th 1956

Here are all '' the uppers, the downers, the just hanging 'arounders '

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending May 26th 1956							NME	MM	RM	Total
Last	This		The Sound Survey			Stores	65	20	60	Points
Week	Week		The Top 30 Singles Chart					TOP	30	Scored
1	1	No Other Love - Ronnie Hilton					1	1	1	4350
3	2	A Tear Fell - Teresa Brewer					2	2	2	4205
6	3	I'll Be Home - Pat Boone					4	3	3	3995
2	4	Poor People Of Paris - Winifred Atwell					3	6	5	3880
4	5	My September Love - David Whitfield					5	4	4	3850
5	6	Rock And Roll Waltz - Kay Starr					6	5	7	3585
9	7	Lost John - Lonnie Donegan					7	7	6	3540
12	8	The Happy Whistler - Don Robertson					9	14	8	3150
8	9	Theme From 'Man With The Golden Arm' - Billy May					10	10	9	3105
14	10	Heartbreak Hotel - Elvis Presley					8	13	11	3055
10	11	Only You - The Hilltoppers					11	9	10	3000
7	12	It's Almost Tomorrow - The Dream Weavers					13	8	12	2770
11	13	Theme From 'The Threepenny Opera' - Louis Armstrong					12	11	13	2715
22	14	Blue Suede Shoes - Carl Perkins					14	20	15	2285
13	15	You Can't Be True To Two - Dave King					17	15	14	2250
NEW	16	Hot Diggity - Perry Como					15	19	19	2000
23	17	Rock Island Line - Lonnie Donegan					21	12	16	1930
15	18	Too Young To Go Steady - Nat King Cole					19		17	1620
16	19	See You Later Alligator - Bill Haley and His Comets					22	17	19	1585
26	20	Memories Are Made Of This - Dean Martin					25	16	18	1470
NEW	21	Blue Suede Shoes - Elvis Presley					16	18		1235
21	22	Mountain Greenery - Mel Torme					17			910
18	23	Port-Au-Prince - Winifred Atwell					20			715
NEW	24	The Saints Rock'n'Roll - Bill Haley and His Comets					23			520
27	25	Ain't Misbehavin' - Johnnie Ray					24			455
25	26	The Great Pretender - Jimmy Parkinson					26			325
NEW	27	Out Of Town - Max Bygraves					27			260
NEW	28	Ivory Tower - The Three Kayes					28			195
RE	29	Juke Box Baby - Perry Como					29			130
24	30	Memories Are Made Of This - Dave King					30			65
17		Willie Can - Alma Cogan
28		I'm A Fool - Slim Whitman
20		No Other Love - Edmund Hockridge
19		Theme From 'The Threepenny Opera' - The Dick Hyman Trio
29		Zambesi - Lou Busch
30		Robin Hood / Davy Crockett - Dick James

[Robbie]

'Heartbreak Hotel' climbs into the top 10 while 'Blue Suede Shoes' enters at 21. The latter was possibly rush released to compete with the Carl Perkins version. If not it seems like a strange release policy to have two singles by the same act (and a new act at that) competing for sales. 'Heartbreak Hotel' appears to have taken a few weeks from release to chart so perhaps His Master's Voice were already set to release 'Blue Suede Shoes' and went ahead regardless.

[Graham76man]

Here's something interesting, I was looking up the release date for the other Elvis Track on 45 Worlds and they have it for June. Which is clearly wrong! But I wanted to see if the papers had a date for it. But the only one I could find that is on the US site, was Melody Maker for June of 1956. And guess what under the chart for June they had a list of stores. So I captured the image and found they were using (if I counted them right) 31 stores! As you can see the text is a bit smudge, so hard to read. But it does reveal the stores and one of them is Brian Epstein's NEMES store in Liverpool. Which is also found later in Record Mirror's list proving that the same stores could have taken part in the surveys of different papers. Alan Smith said they didn't. But clearly they did!

2021-10-11 15_48_19-Melody-Maker-1956-06.pdf - Adobe Reader.jpg

Other issues in June have 30 and 33 shops used.

[MrTibbs]

Greetings Pop Pickers

Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending June 2nd 1956

Here are all '' the uppers, the downers, the just hanging 'arounders '

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending June 2nd 1956							NME	MM	RM	Total
Last	This		The Sound Survey			Stores	65	20	60	Points
Week	Week		The Top 30 Singles Chart					TOP	30	Scored
1	1	No Other Love - Ronnie Hilton					1	1	1	4350
2	2	A Tear Fell - Teresa Brewer					4	2	2	4075
3	3	I'll Be Home - Pat Boone					3	3	3	4060
7	4	Lost John - Lonnie Donegan					2	4	4	4045
10	5	Heartbreak Hotel - Elvis Presley					5	8	5	3710
5	6	My September Love - David Whitfield					7	6	5	3620
4	7	Poor People Of Paris - Winifred Atwell					6	7	7	3545
6	8	Rock And Roll Waltz - Kay Starr					8	5	10	3275
8	9	The Happy Whistler - Don Robertson					9	11	8	3210
9	10	Theme From 'Man With The Golden Arm' - Billy May					12	9	9	2995
24	11	The Saints Rock'n'Roll - Bill Haley and His Comets					10	12	11	2945
11	12	Only You - The Hilltoppers					11	13	12	2800
18	13	Too Young To Go Steady - Nat King Cole					14	17	13	2465
16	14	Hot Diggity - Perry Como					13	15	15	2450
13	15	Theme From 'The Threepenny Opera' - Louis Armstrong					15	18	14	2320
15	16	You Can't Be True To Two - Dave King					17	14	16	2150
14	17	Blue Suede Shoes - Carl Perkins					16	19	17	2055
12	18	It's Almost Tomorrow - The Dream Weavers					21	9	19	1810
21	19	Blue Suede Shoes - Elvis Presley					19	20	18	1780
17	20	Rock Island Line - Lonnie Donegan					22	16	19	1605
22	21	Mountain Greenery - Mel Torme					18			845
23	22	Port-Au-Prince - Winifred Atwell					20			715
19	23	See You Later Alligator - Bill Haley and The Comets					23			520
NEW	24	Delilah Jones - The McGuire Sisters					24			455
29	25	Juke Box Baby - Perry Como					25			390
NEW	26	Moonglow And Theme From Picnic - Morris Stoloff					26			325
27	27	Out Of Town - Max Bygraves					27			260
NEW	28	The Happy Whistler - Cyril Stapleton					28			195
RE	29	No Other Love - Edmund Hockridge					29			130
28	30	Ivory Tower - The Three Kayes					30			65
20		Memories Are Made Of This - Dean Martin
25		Ain't Misbehavin' - Johnnie Ray
26		The Great Pretender - Jimmy Parkinson
30		Memories Are Made Of This - Dave King

[MrTibbs]

While 'Lost John' is poised to enter the top three Lonnie's 'Rock Island Line' is still hanging around in the Top 20. Elvis the other 'new kid on the block' is also making big strides up the Top 10.

[brian05]

'Heartbreak Hotel' climbs into the top 10 while 'Blue Suede Shoes' enters at 21. The latter was possibly rush released to compete with the Carl Perkins version.

40 years of NME charts says,

"HMV rush Elvis' cover version of Blue Suede Shoes on to the UK market as soon as Heartbreak Hotel made the chart. The song was marketed as an EP in the US. But in the UK, the usurping of an original with a stronger cover version was still the major ploy in the A&R man's book - even when, as here, both versions were American."

[braindeadpj]

On the May 26th chart Perry Como Juke box jury is a re-entry. Also the last week positions for 'The Happy Whistler' and 'You Can't Be True To Two' are switched and also 'Mountain Greenery' and 'No Other Love'

[MrTibbs]

On the May 26th chart Perry Como Juke box jury is a re-entry. Also the last week positions for 'The Happy Whistler' and 'You Can't Be True To Two' are switched and also 'Mountain Greenery' and 'No Other Love'

Those are sorted above guys. I'm concerned that a few minor errors are creeping in here just a couple of days apart. As I mentioned in an earlier post a few days ago these Fifties charts are much more difficult to work with and much more time consuming due to checking A and B sides that both chart, split sides on one chart but not another, etc etc.

In my attempt to work ahead compiling these under pressure for daily posts perhaps this pace is obviously compromising sufficiently robust checks which previous years with less variance allowed and therefore a few more errors are slipping through the net. I have said all along this is a very important project for me, I'm a perfectionist and I want to get this project spot on and completely error free in order to deliver the best composite chart around anywhere.

So to allow myself more time for compiling and checking these more complicated charts and reduce the pressure on daily delivery I intend for the time being to post a chart every other day as opposed to daily. I hope this is acceptable to you guys also. I don't want the embarrassment of guys picking up on careless errors every couple of days. It reflects badly on the project.

As a side issue I get a lot of enquiries as to why I don't include the other less known minor charts into the project. My answer is simple and for two reasons. Firstly, this project is about revisiting, correcting, and improving the BBC charts so has to stay true to the charts they used.
Secondly, all the other minor charts had a shorter shelf life of a few years at best so no real consistency, also, although the major charts had obvious differences between them, especially RR as we all discuss at length, they do have a consistency in the higher positions. The minor charts, like Top Pops, Music Echo etc, had enormous differences between them and the majors at times including off the wall number one's, Music Echo had some really weird ones. They whilst respected in their own right would bring nothing of value to The Ultimate Averaged Chart. All these different charts dropping by for just a couple of years then dropping out would just disrupt consistency. That's just my thoughts of course you will also have your own opinions on this which I of course respect as always.

Brian

[kjell]

Brian, you’re doing exactly what is sensible. And I appreciate that the few minor faults are quickly corrected. Even the pope has turned out to do faults, and god hasn’t been seen for 2000 years.

[kjell]

There’s one way to completely avoid doing faults, and that is to do nothing at all. Heaven forbid that.

[braindeadpj]

Apologies for not mentioning earlier, but on the June 2nd chart, Edmond Hockridge is a reentry.

[Graham76man]

Just a heads up for you. 45Cat site has now the option to have more than 50 results if you subscribe. You can subscribe to all three sites for under £30 for the year. There are lots of features too for subscribers. I have done so myself and checked the results for the current month on here, got more than 100 results back. You can have up to 250 results. They did say you could have the 78's in most collected order, but 45 Worlds never did that option, so it doesn't work there.
There are a lot of most owned EP's from this period. Do you think that people went more for the 45 EP's than they did for the 45 singles at this time? Getting 78's for the singles? I don't know if 78's were cheaper than 45's at this time, but it could have been a factor in keeping the 78 alive at this point (1956).

[kingofskiffle]

I suspect sales of record players would be an indication here as well as, unless I am mistaken, a new record plater was needed for 45 rather than 78? I know that today one can play them all and one needle can do the lot (my dad’s needed a special needle for the 78 to avoid damage but it can be done). So today you’d buy one, but then those who had a 78 would have needed a new machine I think.

[MrTibbs]

My dad had a radiogram that played both as I remember. The cartridge had two different needles on it with a little nozzle on front that you rotated to select a needle for 45's or LP's, and another to play 78's.

[MrTibbs]

Greetings Pop Pickers

Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending June 9th 1956

Here are all '' the uppers, the downers, the just hanging 'arounders '

I've corrected the Edmund Hockridge record mentioned above.

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending June 9th 1956							NME	MM	RM	Total
Last	This		The Sound Survey			Stores	65	20	60	Points
Week	Week		The Top 30 Singles Chart					TOP	30	Scored
1	1	No Other Love - Ronnie Hilton *					1	1	3	4230
3	2	I'll Be Home - Pat Boone*					2	2	1	4265
4	3	Lost John - Lonnie Donegan (A)					3	4	2	4100
2	4	A Tear Fell - Teresa Brewer					5	3	4	3870
5	5	Heartbreak Hotel - Elvis Presley					4	6	5	3815
11	6	The Saints Rock'n'Roll - Bill Haley and His Comets					7	8	6	3520
6	7	My September Love - David Whitfield					8	5	7	3455
14	8	Hot Diggity - Perry Como					6	9	13	3145
8	9	Rock And Roll Waltz - Kay Starr					9	7	11	3110
7	10	Poor People Of Paris - Winifred Atwell					11	10	9	3040
9	11	The Happy Whistler - Don Robertson					13	11	8	2950
13	12	Too Young To Go Steady - Nat King Cole					12	12	12	2755
19	13	Blue Suede Shoes - Elvis Presley					10	18	14	2645
10	14	Theme From 'Man With The Golden Arm' - Billy May					17	18	10	2430
26	15	Moonglow And Theme From Picnic - Morris Stoloff					15	14	16	2280
17	16	Blue Suede Shoes - Carl Perkins					16	17	15	2215
12	17	Only You - The Hilltoppers					14	13	20	2125
15	18	Theme From 'The Threepenny Opera' - Louis Armstrong					21		20	1310
21	19	Mountain Greenery - Mel Torme					22		19	1305
27	20	Out Of Town - Max Bygraves					28	20	18	1195
20	21	Rock Island Line - Lonnie Donegan					19	15		1100
22	22	Port-Au-Prince - Winifred Atwell					18			845
NEW	23	Hot Diggity - The Stargazers							17	840
30	24	Ivory Tower - The Three Kayes					20			715
16	25	You Can't Be True To Two - Dave King					25	15		710
NEW	26	Take It Satch (EP) - Louis Armstrong							20	660
18	27	It's Almost Tomorrow - The Dream Weavers					23			520
RE	28	Ain't Misbehavin' - Johnnie Ray					24			455
28	29	The Happy Whistler - Cyril Stapleton					26			325
NEW	30	The Wayward Wind - Jimmy Young					27			260
		Stewball - Lonnie Donegan (B)						20		220
24		Delilah Jones - The McGuire Sisters					29			120
		Who Are We - Vera Lynn					30			65
23		See You Later Alligator - Bill Haley and His Comets
25		Juke Box Baby - Perry Como
29		No Other Love - Edmund Hockridge
		* Three Point Rule apllied to confirm #1

[Graham76man]

The 3 speed mechanism was generally fitted to all new record players by this time. Cartridges would be the type you turn over for 78's. They were no longer being called "needles" but "stylus" though. Many people even young people even call them "needles" today. The 78 records still need a larger stylus today as the grooves on a 78 are larger than the 45 and 33. If you have a 78 today you can still play them, even if the record deck has only 45 or 33 speeds. Though you will to record it with an audio software. The software then can change it to the 78 speed.
Later on the Boxed record player came out that would be a favourite of the teenager gave the 45 and LP a boost. fhdhfefyw6usa4npcyts.jpg

[Robbie]

^
that looks exactly like the record player my mum still had in the early 70s! That too had a 33/45/78 changeable control. To play 78s you had to flick the needle over.

[MrTibbs]

Greetings Pop Pickers

Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending June 16th 1956

Here are all '' the uppers, the downers, the just hanging 'arounders '

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending June 16th 1956							NME	MM	RM	Total
Last	This		The Sound Survey			Stores	65	20	60	Points
Week	Week		The Top 30 Singles Chart					TOP	30	Scored
2	1	I'll Be Home - Pat Boone					1	1	1	4350
3	2	Lost John - Lonnie Donegan					2	4	2	4165
1	3	No Other Love - Ronnie Hilton					4	2	3	4015
5	4	Heartbreak Hotel - Elvis Presley					3	4	6	3860
4	5	A Tear Fell - Teresa Brewer					7	3	4	3740
6	6	The Saints Rock'n'Roll - Bill Haley and His Comets					6	7	5	3665
8	7	Hot Diggity - Perry Como					5	8	7	3590
7	8	My September Love - David Whitfield					8	6	8	3375
13	9	Blue Suede Shoes - Elvis Presley					9	11	9	3150
11	10	The Happy Whistler - Don Robertson					11	10	9	3040
16	11	Blue Suede Shoes - Carl Perkins					10	15	13	2765
9	12	Rock And Roll Waltz - Kay Starr					12	9	15	2635
15	13	Moonglow And Theme From Picnic - Morris Stoloff					13	15	12	2630
10	14	Poor People Of Paris - Winifred Atwell					15	20	14	2280
12	15	Too Young To Go Steady - Nat King Cole					14	13	18	2245
14	16	Theme From 'Man With The Golden Arm' - Billy May					21	17	11	2130
19	17	Mountain Greenery - Mel Torme					17		18	1690
NEW	18	Gal With The Yaller Shoes - Michael Holliday (B)					19		20	1440
17	19	Only You - The Hilltoppers					16	12		1355
20	20	Out Of Town - Max Bygraves					18	14		1185
NEW	21	Hot Diggity - Michael Holliday (A)						20	16	1120
22	22	Port-Au-Prince - Winifred Atwell					20			715
29	23	The Happy Whistler - Cyril Stapleton					22			585
18	24	Theme From 'The Threepenny Opera' - Louis Armstrong					23			520
24	25	Ivory Tower - The Three Kayes					24			455
21	26	Rock Island Line - Lonnie Donegan					25			390
25	27	You Can't Be True To Two - Dave King						18		260
23	28	Hot Diggity - The Stargazers						19		240
NEW	29	Carousel Waltz - Ray Martin					28			195
26	30	Take It Satch (EP) - Louis Armstrong					29			130
		No Other Love - Edmund Hockridge					30			65
27		It's Almost Tomorrow - The Dream Weavers
28		Ain't Misbehavin' - Johnnie Ray
30		The Wayward Wind - Jimmy Young
		Songs For Swingin' Lovers (LP) - Frank Sinatra					26			325
		Carousel' Sountrack (LP)					27			195
		* RM did not list a #17 this week

[brian05]

So the NME chart has one EP and two LPs in their chart.
Is that the first occasion these were allowed in the SINGLES chart?
Did the NME can any explanation why they were included?

[kingofskiffle]

I don’t believe they did. And yes I think it is.

[MrTibbs]

So the NME chart has one EP and two LPs in their chart.
Is that the first occasion these were allowed in the SINGLES chart?
Did the NME can any explanation why they were included?

NME will continue to chart albums in the singles chart until the late sixties Brian.
RM will also chart those two albums in their singles chart in the next few weeks.
MM stayed true to singles and did not chart the albums.

NME, RM (till it's demise in 1962), MM, and Disc all charted EP's in their singles chart again well into the sixties. Only RR resisted this until the end of 1967 when they too charted The Beatles' 'Magical Mystery Tour' EP in their singles chart.

[Splodj]

RM will also chart those two albums in their singles chart in the next few weeks.

It looks like RM stopped including albums in the 'general / singles' chart when they started their LP chart. Although it is possible that "Songs for Swingin' Lovers", having fallen from 11 to 13, would have exited the singles chart anyway.

There is an EP coming up called 'All Star Hit Parade' which was really an EEP as it had 6 tracks!

[kingofskiffle]

I think it is rather because of these two that they started the Albums chart - or rather because these and others where showing up in returns they would have had a talk internally about the chart and what they where charting. Remember, NME was 'The Hit Parade' not "Singles Chart", and neither was RM - they called it 'Britain's Top Ten', with no specific mention that it was singles. Even MM called it 'Top Discs', which could imply both singles and albums.

[Splodj]

Interesting that there were 3 different reactions to the growth in sales of LPs at this time:

NME - we'll include them in our general chart
RM - we'll create a separate chart
MM - we'll exclude them from our general chart

[MrTibbs]

There is an EP coming up called 'All Star Hit Parade' which was really an EEP as it had 6 tracks!

It was an EP yet it wasn't an EP as such. Although various artists sang a part each of a different popular song of the time each track just ran consecutively. Given that the original versions of each of thee songs had just been a hit for the original artists I could never understand the popularity of this disc.