The Four Tops - Baby I Need Your Loving (1964)

"Baby I Need Your Loving" is a 1964 hit single recorded by the Four Tops for the Motown label. Written and produced by Motown's main production team Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song was the group's first Motown single and their first pop Top 20 hit, making it to number eleven on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1964.

It was also their first million-selling hit single. British group The Fourmost released their version of this song, reaching #24 in November 1964. A surviving episode of the trendy '60's TV music series Ready Steady Go! shows them performing the song. The song was recorded by Johnny Rivers in 1967. His version, titled "Baby I Need Your Lovin'", was released as a single, and became a number-three hit on the Billboard pop chart. O.C. Smith covered it and took it to #52 in 1970, and yet again by Eric Carmen in 1979, who took it to #62.

Sandie Shaw has also recorded a version, as did Carl Carlton (1982), Gene Pitney, and British pop group Dreamhouse (1998). Rolling Stone ranked The Four Tops' original version of the song at #390 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2000, Westlife performed the song for the medley part of their Where the Dreams Come True Tour.

Patti Lupone - Don't Cry For Me Argentina (1976)

"Don't Cry for Me Argentina" is the best-known song from the 1978 musical Evita with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. Sung by the title character Eva Perón, it was titled “It's Only Your Lover Returning” before Rice settled on the eventual name. It appears early in the second act as Evita addresses the crowd from the balcony of the Casa Rosada and features a sweeping melody tied to broad emotional themes of regret and defiance, characteristic of Lloyd Webber’s most popular songs. The musical Evita began as an album, before being adapted for the stage.

The song was first offered to singer Elkie Brooks who turned it down. Julie Covington sang “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” for the original 1976 studio release. The single reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart in February 1977 for a week, selling almost a million copies in the United Kingdom.

Due to concerns that the song might not have commercial appeal in its original form, Covington recorded a version with alternative lines; however, in the end the original version was released for the single. The B-side was "Rainbow High".

When Madonna covered “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”, this song did not appear as a B side for the same song, but for "You Must Love Me" instead.

When Covington chose not to take the stage role, Elaine Paige was cast as Eva in the London production.  In the United States, the song is also closely linked with Patti LuPone, who performed the role of "Eva" in the original Broadway production of the show.

During the 1982 Falklands War between the United Kingdom and Argentina, the song was sometimes played sarcastically by British regimental bands as they deployed to the Falklands. At the same time the Covington recording was banned from play on the BBC.

Edison Lighthouse - Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes (1970)

"Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" is a popular song by "one-hit wonder" Edison Lighthouse. The single hit the number one spot on the UK singles chart on the week ending on 31 January 1970, where it remained for a total of five weeks. "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" was written by Tony Macaulay, Barry Mason and Sylvan Whittingham. Essentially they were a studio group with prolific session singer Tony Burrows providing the vocals. When the song became a hit, a group needed to be assembled rapidly to feature the song on Top Of The Pops, a popular TV show. Sylvan Whittingham found a group called Greenfields and brought them to the auditions a week before their appearance on Top of the Pops. Once chosen and rehearsed, they appeared on the show as 'Edison Lighthouse' to mime to the fastest climbing number 1 hit record in history. Burrows sang the song on the programme during his third appearance on the same show with three different groups. It reached number 5 on US pop chart, number 3 in Canada, and number 1 on the UK Singles Chart for five weeks in January and February 1970.

Paul Simon - "Slip Slidin' Away" (1977)

Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.


Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles charts, "The Sound of Silence", "Mrs. Robinson", and "Bridge Over Troubled Water". In 1970, at the height of their popularity, the duo split, and Simon began a successful solo career, recording three highly-acclaimed albums over the next five years.[2] In 1986, he released Graceland, an album inspired by South African township music that helped fuel the anti-apartheid movement. Besides music, Simon wrote and starred in the film One-Trick Pony in 1980 and co-wrote the Broadway musical The Capeman in 1998.


Through his solo and collaborative work, Simon has earned 13 Grammys, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2001, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 2006 was selected as one of the "100 People Who Shaped the World" by Time magazine. Among many other honors, Simon was named the first recipient of the Library of Congress's Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2007.


Simon became less productive during the second half of the 1970s. He dabbled in various projects, including writing music for the film Shampoo and acting (he was cast as Tony Lacey in Woody Allen's film Annie Hall). He achieved another hit in this decade, with the lead single of his 1977 compilation, Greatest Hits, Etc., "Slip Slidin' Away", reaching No. 5 in the United States.

Fats Domino - "Ain't That A Shame" (1955)

folk

"Ain't That a Shame" is a song by Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew, recorded in New Orleans, Louisiana, for Imperial Records and released in 1955. The original recording ("Ain't It a Shame") was a hit for Domino, eventually selling a million copies. It reached #1 on the "Black Singles" chart and #10 on the "Pop Singles" chart. The song is ranked #431 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.


The song gained national fame after being re-recorded by white recording artist Pat Boone. Domino's version soon became more popular, bringing Domino's music to the mass market a half dozen years after his first major recording, "The Fat Man".


After "Ain't It a Shame", mainstream artists began covering Domino's songs. Teresa Brewer, for instance, performed the Domino rewrite of a folk song called "Bo Weevil".


According to legend, Pat Boone suggested the title and lyrics be altered to "Isn't That A Shame" to make it more appealing to a broader audience but was dissuaded by his producers. Despite his suggestion being rejected, Boone had his first Billboard number-one single in 1955. Domino complimented Boone's cover of the song. Boone likes to tell the story about a Fats Domino concert and Domino invited Boone on stage. Domino showed a big gold ring and said "Pat Boone bought me this ring."


This was the first song that John Lennon learned to play. He later covered it on Rock 'n' Roll.

Camouflage - Love Is A Shield (1989)

When I see this video I realize--NOW--why I had the same haircut and the blond highlights back in 1989.   I was quite influenced by this band and their soothing sound.

Camouflage is a German New Wave trio consisting of Marcus Meyn, Heiko Maile and Oliver Kreyssig. Their only Billboard Hot 100 hit was "The Great Commandment" which climbed to #59 in 1988, though it did spend three weeks at #1 on the US dance chart. They also had two additional minor dance hits in 1989 (including "Love Is A Shield").


With producer Dan Lacksman of Telex, the band recorded a new album Methods of Silence at Synsound Studio in Brussels that following year. Now left to experiment more freely after the commercial success of their first album, Dan's recording work revealed an interesting mix of digital high-tech and out-dated studio equipment. Single "Love is a Shield" (position 9 in German charts) stayed in the charts for over six months, and the album reached 13. After follow-up single "One Fine Day", the band embarked on their first live concert tour to great financial success.

Paul McCartney and Wings - "Goodnight Tonight" (1979)

I heard this while at the 24-Hour Fitness gym in SOHO New York yesterday (September 6, 2011) and recalled how much I liked it.


"Goodnight Tonight" is Wings' disco-inflected single which included a spirited flamenco guitar break. It peaked at number five in both the United Kingdom and United States during 1979. The track did not appear on Wings' then-current LP Back to the Egg (from which sessions this song was recorded), and was finally released on an album as a bonus track on the 1993 reissue of McCartney II. The B-side of this single was "Daytime Nighttime Suffering". An extended version of the song appears on a digital iTunes re-issue of Back to the Egg.


"Goodnight Tonight" began as an instrumental backing track McCartney had recorded in 1978. Needing a single for Wings to accompany the Back to the Egg album, McCartney took out the track and brought it into the studio, where the full Wings line-up completed it. Since the track was over seven minutes long, an edited version was used as the single, with the full version available as a 12-inch single. A music video was made for the song, showing Wings performing in 1930s costumes; stills from the video were used on the single's sleeve. In the US, the single was the first released under McCartney's new deal with Columbia Records. In the UK, it was McCartney's first post-Beatle release on Parlophone.

Sarah Vaughan - "Black Coffee" (1948)

"Black Coffee" is a song. The music was written by Sonny Burke, the lyrics by Paul Francis Webster. The song was published in 1948. Sarah Vaughan charted with this song in 1949 on Columbia. Peggy Lee first released her version in 1953. It was included in the soundtrack for the 1960 Columbia Pictures feature Let No Man Write My Epitaph, recorded on Verve by Ella Fitzgerald, also in 1960.

Cher - "Believe" (1999)

"Believe" is a pop song by American singer-actress Cher. It was released in most countries at the end of 1998 by Warner Bros., as the first single from her twenty third album, Believe.


It became one of the best-selling singles of all time, and is one of the fewer than thirty all-time singles to have sold 10 million (or more) copies worldwide.   It won the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording and was also nominated for Record of the Year.  "Believe" is noted for its deliberately bare-faced use of the Auto-Tune pitch-correction software on the singer's vocals to create a peculiar sound effect, sometimes referred to as the "Cher Effect".


The song debuted at #99 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart for the week of December 19, 1998. It peaked at #1 for the week of March 13, 1999. It stayed at #1 for four weeks.


"Believe" reached #74 on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the 90's."  The Xenomania Mix of the song was the most played version of the single on Australian radio.

Henry Mancini - 'Pink Panther Theme Song' (1963)

"The Pink Panther Theme" is an instrumental composition by Henry Mancini written as the theme for the 1963 film The Pink Panther and subsequently nominated for the 1964 Academy Award for Original Music Score. The cartoon character created for the opening credits of the movie by David DePatie and Friz Freleng was animated in time to the tune. The soloist of this song was Plas Johnson.


RCA Records released the tune as a single in 1964; it reached the Top 10 on the Billboard adult contemporary chart and won three Grammy Awards.


It was featured in the opening credits of all The Pink Panther films, with the exception of A Shot in the Dark, and Inspector Clouseau.