Win Nick’s Voucher [Extended]

at

Happy Friday!

Welcome to the weekend.

OK, I might be pushing my luck this week but with all decades of music merely a YouTube click away, let’s see what ya got.

This week I want to know what’s your favourite underrated/obscure gem from the 1950s?

Here’s mine.

Reply below to be in with a chance of winning a gleaming, fin-tailed €25 Golden Discs voucher.

The winner will be chosen by my archivist.

Please include video links if possible.

Lines MUST close at 5.15pm EXTENDED until Saturday 9.50am!

Golden Discs

Sponsored Link

Related posts:

Win Nick’s Voucher Though Your Dreams Be Tossed And Blown You’re The Beshtest Song In The Whole Wide World Win Nick’s Voucher

122 thoughts on “Win Nick’s Voucher [Extended]”

  1. Pip

    Doris Day, Pickin’ a Chickin, .
    Doo do do dooo do, do doo doo do dooo do. doo do do do do do doooo.

    1. Slightly Bemused

      Oh, if it is the lady Doris, it has to be Secret Love. As legend has it, she was sent the music the night before recording, and cycled to the studio humming it in her head. When she arrived, she asked if she could practice it before they went to record it (tape was expensive back then). Unbeknownst to her, they recorded her practice version, and it was so perfect they used it. She apparently never recorded it again, and the wonderful version we know is just her warming up.
      A lady with a wonderfully pure voice!
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8P_p7dB2dw

  2. James M.Chimney

    Roger Miller’s “King of the Road”.
    I don’t want a voucher, just adding it to the list as it was one of Noel Brennan’s favourite songs to sing.
    Noel was a regular friendly face in the Underground Bar, Dame Street. He passed away recently and I’m sure will be fondly remembered by the gig-goers, drinkers, and dreamers that descended down the stairs to his bar in the mid 80’s and the good natured anarchy himself and Jeff presided over therein. RIP Nollaig!

    https://youtu.be/oKF-712iz9w

  3. Slightly Bemused

    Oh hell, there can be only one! Walking After Midnight by the lady Patsy Cline

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsRNCvHXHHU

    A friend of mine once serenaded his lady to this after a momentous dinner date that included a session of fantastic Irish music by the wonderful Davy Spillane. I was a blind date with her friend.

        1. Bertie Theodore Alphege Blenkinsop

          Oh, I just meant we’d chosen the same song at the same time.
          I don’t kiss and tell :)

    2. Glat1

      A blind date?
      Was your friend’s “lady” dining from the set menu while her friend was dining a la carte?
      Apart from your friend, Bertie and yourself, how many other gentlemen were present?

      1. Brother Barnabas

        if you’re trying to trick bertie into admitting it was a dogging session, you’ll need to sharpen your approach

  13. Andy Pipkin

    Although probably not that obscure too a lot of people, it might be too our younger contributors, it’s a song with the most haunting lyrics and sung with such passion.
    Ironically recorded in 1959, it’s still as prevalent too today’s circumstances all over the world.

    Billie Holidays masterpiece,
    Strange Fruit

    https://youtu.be/-DGY9HvChXk

  19. millie madonna

    Ne me quitte pas by Jacques Brel

    https://youtu.be/q_bq5mStroM

    It’s one of my favourite songs ever. The emotion he manages to convey, you don’t need to know the language to understand the heartbreak and desolation in the song. I cried the first time I heard it and cried again once I was able to understand it. Kinda sums up how powerful music is for me.

    1. Bertie Theodore Alphege Blenkinsop

      Nice choice.
      In case you missed it, Janet has been babbbyed, the floozy.

        2. Janet, dreams of big guns

          yup, cooking up a little mini himself hopefully, he’s much more mellow than l ;)

          1. Slightly Bemused

            Janet, is this true? Delighted for you! Except the bits at 4 am of a morning.

            As a TV character I like once asked: have you got burp rags? Get more!
            My family did not just advise that, they just gave me all their (cleaned) ones. I still neede more :-)

    2. Janet, dreams of big guns

      gorgeous song, I’m waiting until I can sit down and go through everyone’s entries to see if I have anything to add ! Love these threads

      1. Slightly Bemused

        That’s what Saturday is for! Now that I will be Hoovering with Headphones it should be a much more enjoyable experience :-)

    1. Slightly Bemused

      I am glad they turned up. Been looking at one of their records for ages without playing it. I will use this as my excuse

  25. Slightly Bemused

    My mother’s favourite song. Despite how much she taught me about music, this is the only song I remember her singing as she moved about the house. She never liked the later more popped up version of Gerry and the Pacemakers.
    A goodly number of years back she organised the first of what is now a recurring family gathering, pulling togeher family from all corners of the globe. I met family I did not know I have, thanks to her.
    She passed away, but I remember at the last Gathering (and trust me, there are enough of us to warrant the capital letter), after all the young ones had regaled us with about twnety versions of Let It Go from Frozen, my aunt, my Mum’s sister, asked if we could sing this in honour of my mother, who had set us all off on this path.
    She loved this song since before I was born, and taught me to love it too.

    We are a musical family, but for some reason forget to record our musical get togethers.

    Whatever the storm, it may seems so but you never walk alone

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7YhWIzd-gc

      1. Junkface

        No worries. Its one of the first songs that pops into my head if I think about 50’s music. You’re only human

    2. Owen O'Connor

      Ditto Santo & Johnny. If you’re going to have a one hit wonder make it a timeless classic.

  32. Rosette of Sirius

    It was the early 90s. there was this somewhat dingy but wonderful spot called the DA Club (Dublin Arts). Upstairs was a very small room with a tiny stage upon which sat the Black Romantics. A young fellah with attitude, swagger and an ego bigger than Texas would whip through the packed crowd, cape flowing, cane a-twirling and atop his noggin a daft but fitting top hat.

    This was of course Jack L and the Black Romantics. It was such a fun experience. Music was wonderful and the vibe, again while packed, dreamy. At the time me and my pals felt that we were plugged into a vein of cool, sophisticated and creativity but looking back now, I dunno….. I suppose that’s that’s zeitgeist for you.

    I had not heard of Jacques Brel. I very soon found all about him, the Walker Brothers and of the great chanson and chanteuse ‘French/Belgian artists from the 1950s. I was and remain hooked to this day.

    So, for today here’s the marvelous Jacques Brel and from the original recording from 1956, the beautiful “Quand on n’a que l’amour” (If We Only Have Love)

    https://youtu.be/uNMwYZiBFV0

    It is, to me, one of the loveliest, most romantic lyric ever penned….

  33. Andy Pipkin

    How about this instrumental from 1959, the little know brothers, Santo & Johnny with Sleep Walk.
    Was more then likely too be the inspiration for so many tunes years on, including the brilliant cover by Cowboy Junkie of Blue Moon.

    https://youtu.be/2rwfqsjimRM

  38. Charger Salmons

    No-one personified American popular music more in the 1950’s than Frank Sinatra, then at the height of his pomp.
    Cocky,eye on the main chance,supreme confidence and with immaculate musical timing.
    Songs for Swingin’ Lovers came out in ’56 and this Cole Porter track was the best on it.
    Think Count Basie and the orchestra at the Sands and Sinatra out front in a solitary spot, glass of whiskey in one hand and mic in the other, in total control.
    A classic.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gleRAh-jKIU

      1. Charger Salmons

        In another life I was once backstage at the Royal Albert Hall watching
        an army of his flunkies running around like headless chickens because he was insisting on stuff, the smallest detail about every single aspect on his show,being done properly.
        He was in his late 70’s at the time and his main concern was there shouldn’t be a single crease in his dinner jacket that he put on at the last available second before he went on stage.
        He was also checking the brand of spring water that would be on the table at the side of the stage in case he needed a swig – it had to be Evian – and there had to be a bucket of ice that didn’t have any melted water in it.
        And even though his voice was shot to bits and he was an old man he went out and did a 90 minute show with a full orchestra without breaking into a sweat.
        Amazing to watch but I figured this bloke was a worldwide star in the 40s when most of the people there hadn’t even been born,
        Different times.

  41. Jasper

    Buddy Holly – That Makes it Tough

    https://youtu.be/6iMeWnE_hqc

    Recorded in his apartment just before Christmas 1958. No instruments other than his acoustic guitar.

    It makes me sad to think he would be dead in a matter of weeks, aged just 22.

    My favourite Buddy song.

  44. Andy Pipkin

    Without question, in my opinion one of the greatest vocalist we every had. His voice is like chocolate, but what a really sad ending too his rough life that makes this even sadder.
    I could have picked numerous songs from him, if you haven’t heard his work, he’s well worth checking out.

    Should be listened too later with a nice glass of vino.

    The amazing,
    Chet Baker – I Fall In Love

    https://youtu.be/3zrSoHgAAWo

    Enjoy

  47. Andy Pipkin

    This gorgeous number from the little known Kitty Kallen, first heard it at my friends father’s funeral and stuck with me ever since.
    Beautiful pure vocals and brilliant lyrics.
    So relatable too what’s happening in these strange times

    Kitty Kallen – Little Things Mean A lot

    https://youtu.be/2C7SzKv2uLU

    Enjoy

  48. SOQ

    I loved my aunt May- she had a way of shocking the family which as a child I found really funny. She said things which were completely inappropriate for a conservative country family and it was much later on that I figured out why.

    She was reared in Goldenbridge in Dublin- for those who don’t know, that was a brutal industrial school ran by The Sisters of Mercy. She never ever spoke about it until one day she started with my mother and that hyper speak continue for another two weeks.

    And then, at the age of 56- she passed in her sleep- not even turning the sheets.

    She met my uncle in the London dance halls and they married there- in London I mean. They arrived home on a bike with her in the leather trousers, heels and big dyed hair apparently. So from the get go the family pearls were being clutched but she became as much part as anyone else.

    She encouraged me to try on girl’s clothes but I wasn’t that sort of gay- even then- but I am grateful for her being the first to spot the difference and let me know it was fine to be me- whatever that was.

    And so with a few gins taken- to May- your favourite singer.

    Who’s Sorry Now? by Connie Francis 1958

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9QEAtcz3o8

    This song is also dedicated to the government on their virus strategy- obviously.

  49. scottser

    Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, ‘don’t you touch me baby cos I’m shaking so much’.
    Pedant alert, this was the first UK recording to use reverb on vocals. This tune is also considered to be the second most important pre-Beatles rock n roll single.
    https://youtu.be/vMTIgKTaYak

  51. scottser

    Don’t you touch me baby cos I’m shaking so much by Johnny Kidd & the Pirates

    https://youtu.be/vMTIgKTaYak

    Not only considered the second most important pre Beatles rock n roll single but also the first UK recording to use reverb on the vocals.
    #scottserissuchanerd

  53. Andy Pipkin

    From 1955, originally sung by Doris Day, Jimmy Unknown.

    I always like too try and push our homegrown Irish talent, with that this is the beautiful May Kay ( ex, Fight Like Apes, who are no more unfortunately!)
    With her rendition of said song, I think it’s fair too say she does it justice!.

    https://youtu.be/PS4m30j6-zk

    Enjoy

  56. f_lawless

    Bob Fleming Quartet – Almost Paradise (1958)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUi8to03ijk

    A great easy-listening, melancholic jazzy instrumental. “Bob Fleming” was a pseudonym for Brazilian saxophonist Moacyr Silva. I love his almost lazy, weary style of playing – and the piano player, whoever he is, compliments the saxophone beautifully. Some top notch playing in my book

  57. Kingfisher

    The Gestapo tortured all three – her Résistante mother said not a word – then deported mother and elder sister Charlotte to Ravensbruck concentration camp, but threw the younger daughter out on the streets of Paris to fend for herself – at sixteen, she was too young. In her raffia shoes she walked from the Avénue Foch headquarters of the Gestapo across Paris to her favourite teacher’s home. Hélène took her in; she’d been wearing just a thin blue dress and jacket, and Hélène’s sons gave her their old trousers and jackets to wear; a friend of Hélène’s gave her an old pair of shoes. This became the basis of her style, and the basis of all beatnik style.
    She lived like that for two years until the war ended, then every day she would go to the Hôtel Lutetia, where the people from the transports came in, hoping against hope that her mother and sister had survived. “I felt suddenly a butterfly on my shoulder: it was the transparent hand of my sister… but they were two living dead that I found, a horrible odour of death rising from their bodies…”
    Juliette Gréco’s deep, husky voice became the soul of Paris. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, “Gréco has a million poems in her voice, it is like a warm light that revives the embers burning inside of us all. It is thanks to her, and for her, that I have written songs. In her mouth, my words become precious stones.”
    Here’s Bonjour Triestesse, from 1958:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWr_OcUKEhU

  58. Kingfisher

    Ack, correction; it was from Fresnes prison that young Gréco walked to her teacher’s home.

  60. scottser

    Ewan McColl & Peggy Seeger, ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’
    https://youtu.be/VP8qXnnn4tc
    When my eldest was born, this song more than any other nailed exactly how I felt about her. Funny then that McColl wrote this for Seeger who was 20 years his junior while he was still married. He taught it to her over the phone long distance.
    This song has been covered loads of times, made him a ball of cash and a grammy but McColl is reputed to hate every single version. He had a spot for them in his record collection called ‘the chamber of horrors’. Whenever I sing it, I enjoy a wry smile knowing that the old bollix would turn in his grave if he ever heard me.

  61. eamonn

    Late to the party, too late for the tambola.
    regardless of all that.
    Louis Jordan
    1956
    Ain’t nobody here but us chickens
    happy saturday

Comments are closed.

Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie