Saturday, 15 August 2009

Rock of Ages:Cliff Richard and Drifters Living Doll 1959


BEFORE they became The Shadows, Cliff Richard’s backing band were known as The Drifters.And it was under this name that they recorded one of the Peter Pan of pop’s best-loved hits.Living Doll was penned by Oliver! author Lionel Bart, who won a coveted Ivor Novello award for the number.Cliff and The Drifters (they were at last forced to change their name to avoid confusion with the American group of the same name) had already had chart accomplishment with songs like Move It but Living Doll was to garner them their first number one aperture, a position they held for six weeks in the summer of 1959, selling a million records in the expension.It was also the teenage Cliff’s first US hit, reaching number 30 in the Billboard charts.Of course, 1959 wasn’t the last time Living Doll and Cliff Richard were to top the charts.The singer, together with Hank Marvin, paired up with The Young Ones in 1986 to record a new version of the track for Comic Relief, and it nextRock spent another three weeks at number one.

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