Hello, my friends, old and new! I've not been feeling very creative lately, so there were no new stories. Perhaps it was for the best: this blog has already created a big reservoir of stories, so for those of you with limited free time, this was a chance to revisit some older stories. I hope you've found them interesting and entertaining enough. Now, it's back to the future!
The 1960s would bring Paul Newman into superstar status, as he became one of the most popular actors of the decade. In 1960 his most popular film was Exodus, Otto Preminger's adaptation of the best-selling novel by Leon Uris. Here's a scene with Paul and Eva Marie Saint:
Newman starred in two important movies in 1961. His most celebrated was Robert Rossen's The Hustler, a film that won two Oscars and had seven more nominations, Newman as Best Actor among them. This role was especially important for Paul. We will get into the reason why, when we reach the 1980s. Here's a key scene from the film:
Also from 1961, Martin Ritt's Paris Blues was an atmospheric story of American jazz musicians in Paris. The great Duke Ellington got an Oscar nomination for his score, while the film starred Newman, his wife Joanne Woodward, the rising star Sidney Poitier, Diahann Carroll, and the great Louis Armstrong. This is the opening scene from the film:
In 1962, he revisited Tennessee Williams in Richard Brooks' Sweet Bird of Youth. It was a hit at the Oscars, garnering Oscar nominations for his co-stars Geraldine Page and Shirley Knight, as well as a Supporting Actor win for Ed Begley. Paul wasn't nominated. This is the film's trailer:
Newman was nominated in 1963, for his powerful performance in Martin Ritt's Hud. The film managed to win two acting Oscars (Best Actress for Patricia Neal and Supporting Actor for Melvyn Douglas), but Paul had to be content with just a nomination. This is a scene with Newman and Patricia Neal:
This is a scene with Newman, Melvyn Douglas, and Brandon De Wilde:
In 1964, Newman starred in two quite different films. First came the star-packed comedy What a Way to Go! This is the trailer:
The Outrage, on the other hand, was the English-language remake of Akira Kurosawa's Oscar-winning classic, Rashomon:
In 1965, Paul teamed up with Sophia Loren in Peter Ustinov's Lady L. This is the film's trailer:
1966 saw an interesting pairing; Newman and Julie Andrews, under the direction of the master, Alfred Hitchcock. The film was Torn Curtain. This is the film's trailer:
In 1967, Newman received his fourth Oscar nomination for Cool Hand Luke. Here's the boxing scene between Newman and Supporting Actor Oscar winner George Kennedy:
In 1968, Newman directed a movie for the first time. It was called Rachel, Rachel - and Paul didn't appear in it. The star of the movie was his wife, Joanne Woodward, one of the movie's four Oscar nominations. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, but Newman was not recognized for his direction. This is the film's trailer:
1969 brought the popular screen duo Paul Newman and Robert Redford together for the first time when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was released. It was a box office smash. This is an impressive scene from the film:
Next week we'll examine the latter part of Paul Newman's career. Don't go away just yet though, we still have our countdown and our statistics: #150 of our Motown countdown is empty because there are two songs tied at #149. First, we find Carolyn Crawford and the song My Smile Is Just A Frown (Turned Upside Down). In 1963, at the age of about 13, she won a talent contest held by Detroit radio station WCHB, the prize for which was a contract with Motown Records. She recorded three singles for the label, an unsuccessful first release of Forget About Me being followed by My Smile Is Just a Frown (Turned Upside Down), written by Smokey Robinson. The record reached #39 on the Billboard R&B chart. This is it:
The song was also covered by The Temptations. Here it is:
Also at #149, Diana Ross' first solo hit, Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand). Written and produced by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, the song peaked at #20 on the Billboard Hot 100, #10 on the Cash Box Top 100, and #7 on the R&B charts with 500,000 copies sold. It was also a hit in Great Britain, making #33 on the UK Singles Chart in August 1970. This is it:
While the song's initial success fell short of expectations, Reach Out and Touch became one of Ross' most popular and notable songs. During her concert performances of the song, Ross often had the whole crowd turn to their neighbors, and "reach out and touch" their hands. This is live in Central Park, NYC, in 1983:
On Saturday, July 28, 1984, Vicki McClure sang Reach Out and Touch before an estimated TV audience of 2.5 billion people during the Opening Ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games held in Los Angeles, CA. Here it is:
Gospel artist, CeCe Winans sang Reach Out and Touch on Memorial Day in Washington, DC in 2007. Here it is:
At #148 we find The Night by an act not normally associated with Motown, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons. The band had their biggest hits in the 1960s in other record companies, such as Vee-Jay and Philips. In 1972 they were recording for MoWest, a Motown subsidiary. Although The Night failed to chart when first released, it became a popular track on the northern soul circuit, which led to a successful UK re-release in the spring of 1975, when it reached #7 on the Official Chart. Valli cited this song as an example of a song that should have been a big hit on first release but didn't chart due to poor promotion by the MoWest label. Here it is:
There is no #147 because at #146 we have another tie. Let's begin with Jimmy Ruffin, brother of David Ruffin of The Temptations. Jimmy's most successful years in the US were 1966 and 1967. As Ruffin found success in the United States difficult to sustain, he began to concentrate instead on the British market. In 1970, Farewell Is A Lonely Sound, I'll Say Forever, My Love and It's Wonderful (To Be Loved By You) each made the UK Top Ten, and he was voted the world's top singer in one British poll. Farewell Is A Lonely Sound, a #8 hit in the UK, is the song in our countdown:
Finally for today, also at #146, is Can I Get a Witness, a Holland-Dozier-Holland classic performed by Marvin Gaye. Recorded at Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. studios on July 17, 1963, the song's lyrical writer Eddie Holland discussed going over the song once with Gaye, who had complained to the producers about singing their songs above his vocal range, something he would later complain about during recording sessions for his rendition of I Heard It Through the Grapevine.
According to Holland, once Gaye heard Holland perform the song to him, he nodded and stated, "okay I'm ready" to a perplexed Holland, who often had to work over the song a few times with other artists who recorded their songs. According to Holland, Gaye recorded the song in one take, which impressed Holland, his brother, and Dozier. Holland would later call Gaye "the most versatile vocalist I ever worked with."
On the song, backed by a boogie-woogie-styled piano riff played by Funk Brothers pianist Earl Van Dyke, Gaye performs the song in a gospel harmony with members of The Supremes and Holland-Dozier-Holland backing him up on background vocals. Gaye performs the song mostly in a tenor range but occasionally sings in both the baritone and falsetto ranges. Here it is:
Released in September 1963 as the follow-up to Gaye's top ten hit, Pride and Joy, the song peaked at #22 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 28 December, 1963, and also became one of Gaye's earlier international hit singles, making a buzz in the United Kingdom, primarily among dance clubs in London and northern England (particularly Leeds), and also charted in France where it peaked at #29. This is a live performance on The T.A.M.I. Show:
Can I Get a Witness was notably covered by The Rolling Stones on their first album, The Rolling Stones in 1964:
Dusty Springfield also recorded a version in 1964 for her second EP Dusty:
Lee Michaels followed up his biggest hit, Do You Know What I Mean, with his version of Can I Get a Witness, which peaked at #39 on Christmas Day 1971, eight years to the week after Gaye's version peaked at #22. This is it:
English singer Sam Brown covered the song on her 1988 album called Stop!:
Elton John performed the song at Bob Geldof's Live Aid Concert on July 13, 1985:
Now, let's continue with our statistics; the most notable thing that happened was a visit from San Marino. You see, San Marino was the only European country that hadn't visited our blog until this week. After this visit, there is no European country, however small, that never visited our blog. This is a source of pride to me.
As far as countries are concerned, the only major players that actually increased their all-time percentage were the United States, Brazil, Australia, and top 10 newcomers Ukraine and the Netherlands - while France, the United Kingdom, Cyprus, and Turkey are slightly falling behind. The other major players kept their percentages more or less stable.
Here are this week's Top 10 countries:
1. the United States
2. the United Kingdom
3. Brazil
4. Ukraine
5. Canada
6. Germany
7. Australia
8. France
9. Spain
10. Italy
10. the Netherlands
Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bermuda, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Curaçao, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, French Guiana, French Polynesia, FYR Of Macedonia, Gabon, Georgia, Greece, Guyana, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Isle of Man, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malaysia, Malta, Martinique, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Vietnam, and Zambia. Happy to have you all!
And here's the all-time Top 10:
1. the United States = 32.0%
2. France = 18.3%
3. the United Kingdom = 11.6%
4. Greece = 8.5%
5. Russia = 2.3%
6. Canada = 1.8%
7. Germany = 1.8%
8. Italy = 1.0%
9. Cyprus = 0.91%
10. Turkey = 0.75%
That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!
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