Thursday, December 16, 2021

THURSDAY BACKTRACK: Music and news from 60 years ago - week ending 16 December 1961

 At #5 this week, another classic: Kenny Ball's 'Midnight In Moscow':



Some memorable events (via Wikipedia):

10 December: 'The Soviet–Albanian split was culminated when the Communist government of Albania confirmed that the Soviet Union had severed diplomatic relations on December 3, marking the first time that the U.S.S.R. had ever withdrawn its embassy from another Communist state. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had criticized Albanian leaders Enver Hoxha and Mehmet Shehu at the 22nd Soviet Communist Party Congress after the Albanians refused to repudiated Stalinism. The People's Republic of China then began a program of emergency aid to the Balkan nation.'

11 December - Vietnam War begins: 'The Vietnam War officially began for the United States, as the USS Core arrived at Saigon Harbor. The ship brought in two helicopter units, the 8th Transportation Company from Fort Bragg and the 57th Transportation Company from Fort Lewis, with 33 H-21 Shawnee helicopters, and 400 U.S. Army personnel.'

12 December: 'Police in Tokyo arrested 13 men in a pre-dawn raid after uncovering a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda and the 16 members of his cabinet. The plot, under the cover of the "Society for Japanese History", was financed by industrialist Toyosaku Kawanami with the assistance of former Lt. General Tokutaro Sakurai.'

13 December: 'In Geneva, the United States and the Soviet Union announced that they had come to an agreement on the formation of a multinational discussion to reduce nuclear weapons, in a group described as the "Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament". The United Nations General Assembly endorsed the idea one week later, and the group first met on March 14, 1962. The 18 nations were the U.S., the U.K., Italy, Canada and France; the U.S.S.R., Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania; and the non-aligned states of Mexico, Brazil, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Egypt, Sweden, India and Burma.'

14 December: 'The Presidential Commission on the Status of Women was created by Executive Order 10980 by U.S. President Kennedy, with former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt as the honorary chairman. The Commission's report, American Women, was published in 1965 and described the unequal treatment faced by women in American society.'

15 December: 'The United Nations General Assembly declined a resolution to allow the People's Republic of China membership. The vote was 36 in favor, 48 against, with 20 abstentions. On the same day, the Assembly passed United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1668, declaring Communist Chinese membership an "important question", and requiring 2/3rds approval rather than a simple majority for all future votes on admission, passed 61-34, with seven abstentions.'

        Also on 15 December: 'Soviet KGB officer Anatoliy Golitsyn, who had memorized the details of secret documents and cases, defected to the West at the American CIA station office in Helsinki. Golitsyn has been described by one author as "perhaps the most controversial and divisive defector of the Cold War".'

16 December: 'The African National Congress, frustrated with peaceful attempts to end apartheid in South Africa, began a bombing campaign with a new organization, Umkhonto we Sizwe, setting off explosions at empty government buildings in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Durban. "Had we intended to attack life," Nelson Mandela would say in a statement at his trial in 1964, "we would have selected targets where people congregated, and not empty buildings and power stations." The Manifesto of Umkhonto, published the same day, began, "The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices— submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means in our power in defence of our people, our future, and our freedom."[49] The only casualty was one of the saboteurs, Petrus Molefe, who died at the Dube township in Johannesburg, when the bomb he was placing exploded prematurely. There would be 190 attacks in all until the group was suppressed in 1963, and only one other death, when a young girl was killed by a bomb.'

UK chart hits, week ending 16 December 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

Tower Of Strength

Frankie Vaughan

Philips

2

Moon River

Danny Williams

HMV

3

Take Good Care Of My Baby

Bobby Vee

London

4

His Latest Flame / Little Sister

Elvis Presley

RCA

5

Midnight In Moscow

Kenny Ball

Pye

6

Walkin' Back To Happiness

Helen Shapiro

Columbia

7

Stranger On The Shore

Acker Bilk

Columbia

8

Big Bad John

Jimmy Dean

Philips

9

The Savage

The Shadows

Columbia

10

So Long Baby

Del Shannon

London

11

Let There Be Drums

Sandy Nelson

London

12

I'll Get By

Shirley Bassey

Columbia

13

My Friend The Sea

Petula Clark

Pye

14

Johnny Will

Pat Boone

London

15

Take Five

Dave Brubeck

Fontana

16

The Time Has Come

Adam Faith

Parlophone

17

Baby's First Christmas

Connie Francis

MGM

18

I'd Never Find Another You

Billy Fury

Decca

19

Son, This Is She

John Leyton

HMV

20

The Charleston

The Temperance Seven

Parlophone

20

Toy Balloons

Russ Conway

Columbia


1 comment:

Bucko said...

Just listened to that Kenny Ball tune and it struck me that it would make excellent alarm clock music