Chesney Hawkes is 50 this week.
He is not a one-hit-wonder as Channel 4 keep insisting in some of their programmes, he actually had six hits but, obviously none reached the heights of his debut, The One and Only in 1991. His only other song to make the top 40 was the follow up I’m a Man not a Boy, let’s remember that song.
The Man in Black passed away 18 years ago this week. He made sos many great and humerous records, but here’s one you may not know of. First played to me by the ex-BBC DJ Keith Skues, it’s called Chicken in Black and come with an amusing video. Check it out.
This week Freddie Mercury would have celebrated his 75th birthday. Hard to believe it’s almost 30 years since he passed away but what a performer and I had the privilege of meeting him twice.
His solo career began in 1984 and ran concurrently alongside Queen for a few years. Prior to the re-issue of Barcelona which tied in with the Olympic Games that year and the re-mix of Living on My Own the following year, Freddie’s cover of the Platters’ The Great Pretender was his biggest solo hit single which peaked at number four in March 1987.
Let’s remember the greatest showman and his hit that could almost be biographical.
Dana is 70th week.
She was born Rosemary Brown and her family origins are from Derry in Northern Ireland. Her father came to London and got a job as a porter at Kings Cross Station. They were living in nearby Islington which is where Rosemary was born.
She loved singing and entered her first talent contest when she was just six. It was at this time that other talent show contestants started calling her Dana which was Irish for bold. When she was 16 she met music promoter Tony Johnston and got her a deal with a Decca records subsidiary label called Rex.
In 1970, she was invited to represent Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest which she won and went on the top the UK singles chart and the Irish singles chart for nine weeks. Eight years later she married a hotel owner called Damien Scallon and changed her name to Dana Rosemary Scallon and the pair moved to County Down.
In 1997, she tried her hand at politics and served as Member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2004.
She charted eight song in the UK, so let’s remember her second top 10 hit, after All Kinds of Everything from 1975.
Colin is a founding member of The Shamen which he formed in Aberdeen in 1985. He celebrates his 60th birthday with week.
Let’s remember their 1992 chart-topping single Ebeneezer Goode.
The R&B and jazz singer Bobby Caldwell is 70 years old this week.
He was born in Manhattan, New York but grew up in Miami. At the age of 12 he learned guitar and piano and formed his first band when he was 17. In 1978, he signed to the TK record label and released some singles, none which made the UK chart, but from that same year, here is his most well-known song.
A cover version, however, by Go West reached number 15 in 1993, but let’s remember the original.