Here's a few tunes from this date a long time ago, appearing in today's LARadio.com. You might remember these songs, and if you remember them as original hits, then you are from a long time ago, too. This music was from a time before the British Invasion, Psychedelic Rock and it followed the period where DooWop was strong. The Beach Boys and other groups had helped to keep surfer music maintain a solid hold in the pop scene around this time.
The songs in the list could all be heard on single stations that at that time played all types of music before the later change that kept stations playing music in particular categories like country, R&B, hard rock, Soft Rock, Smooth Jazz and so on. If you listen to 94.7 "The Wave" now, you will hear songs on that "Smooth Jazz" stations that were once conisdered very pop, including rock, Motown, easy listening, regular oldies as well as newer releases. Just goes to show you that changes happen all the time and there's often a return to practices of the past that work out again at a different time.
Top Five Flashback, August 24, 1962:
The Loco-Motion by Little Eva,
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do by Neil Sedaka,
Things by Bobby Darin,
You Don't Know Me by Ray Charles,
Sheila by Tommy Roe.
One feature of these songs of this period in the past is that the lyrics are very easily understood and the content is usually about life experiences relating to love and relationships or group activities like certain dances and events that mostly are on the fun side.
PostScript: The singer, Little Eva, only 19 when "The Locomotion" became a hit, died on April 10, 2003. The obituary in the UK site for "The Independent" from April 12, 2003, show quite a bit of her life's path and also demonstrates that many financial rewards from hit songs and their re-birth when performed by other artists do not always trickle down to the original artists and performers, especially in those days.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/little-eva-730204.html
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