THURSDAY BACKTRACK: Music and news from 60 years ago - week ending 2 September 1961

 At #8 this week is the Brook Brothers' 'Ain't Gonna Wash For A Week':

Some memorable events (via Wikipedia):

29 August: Six people in an aerial tramway car in the Alps fall to their deaths when a jet fighter accidentally strikes and severs the cable. 81 other tourists are stranded for hours until rescued.

    There have been many other accidents involving military aircraft in the Sixties alone; there was one similar to this in 1998: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-02-04-9802040065-story.html 

30 August: racial segregation in schools in Atlanta, Georgia ends with the admission of nine African-American to four formerly all-white Atlanta high schools.

https://www.atlantamagazine.com/civilrights/the-integration-of-atlanta-public-schools/

31 August: amid rising tensions between the West and the USSR during the Berlin crisis, the Soviet Union announces the end of a three-year worldwide moratorium on nuclear testing, and begins by detonating an atom bomb the next day - a 16-kiloton airburst over Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.

 

1 September: The 30-year war for Eritrea's independence from Ethiopia begins.
Image source: http://www.madote.com/2017/08/eritreas-revolutionary-war-gold.html

UK chart hits, week ending 2 September 1961 (tracks in italics have been played in earlier posts)

Htp: Clint's labour-of love compilation https://www.sixtiescity.net/charts/61chart.htm

1	Johnny Remember Me	John Leyton	Top Rank
2	You Don't Know	Helen Shapiro	Columbia
3	Reach For The Stars / Climb Every Mountain	Shirley Bassey	Columbia
4	Romeo	Petula Clark	Pye
5	Well I Ask You	Eden Kane	Decca
6	Halfway To Paradise	Billy Fury	Decca
7	A Girl Like You	Cliff Richard and The Shadows	Columbia
8	Ain't Gonna Wash For A Week	The Brook Brothers	Pye
9	Cupid	Sam Cooke	RCA
10	Time	Craig Douglas	Top Rank
11	Quarter To Three	The U.S. Bonds	Top Rank
12	That's My Home	Acker Bilk	Columbia
13	How Many Tears	Bobby Vee	London
14	Hello Mary Lou / Travellin' Man	Ricky Nelson	London
15	You Always Hurt The One You Love	Clarence 'Frogman' Henry	Pye
16	Baby I Don't Care / Valley Of Tears	Buddy Holly	Coral
17	Marcheta	Karl Denver	Decca
18	Pasadena	The Temperance Seven	Parlophone
19	Pepito	Los Machucambos	Decca
20	Temptation	The Everly Brothers	Warner Brothers