From Encyclopedia Britannica: - pop ballad, form of slow love song prevalent in nearly all genres of popular music. There are rock ballads, soul ballads, country ballads, and even heavy metal ballads. Here is a selection of some of the most popular “pop ballads” of the 50s, 60s and 70s.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

ALL OVER THE WORLD (Françoise Hardy)


From Wikipedia:
Françoise Madeleine Hardy; born 17 January 1944) is a French singer, actress and astrologer. Hardy is an iconic figure in fashion, music and style...
She grew up in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, the daughter of an unmarried mother. She received a guitar on her sixteenth birthday as a reward for passing her baccalaureat. After a year at the Sorbonne she answered a newspaper advertisement looking for young singers. Hardy signed her first contract with the record label Vogue in November 1961. In April 1962, shortly after finishing school, her first record "Oh Oh Chéri" appeared, written by Johnny Hallyday's writing duo. Her own flip side of the record, "Tous les garçons et les filles" became a success, riding the wave of Yé-yé music in France. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. She first appeared on television in 1962 during an interlude in a programme reporting the results of a presidential referendum.
Hardy sings in French, English, Italian, Spanish, and German. In 1963 she came fifth for Monaco in the Eurovision Song Contest with "L'amour s'en va". In 1963, she was awarded the Grand Prix Du Disque of the Charles Cros Academy...

CUANDO CALIENTE EL SOL (Trini Lopez)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Trini Lopez (born Trinidad López III, 15 May 1937) is an American (Chicano) singer and guitarist...
Lopez was born in Dallas, Texas, on Ashland Street in the Little Mexico neighborhood. He made his name on the club circuit of the Southwestern United States before being 'discovered' in 1962 playing at the club PJ's in Hollywood, California, by record producer Don Costa. Costa was taken with Lopez's Latinized versions of contemporary hits and signed him up to Frank Sinatra's record label, Reprise Records. His debut album, Trini Lopez Live at PJ's, was released in 1963. The album included a version of "If I Had a Hammer", which reached number one in 36 countries (No. 3 in the United States) and was a radio favorite for many years. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.[1] He also performed his own version of the traditional Mexican song "La Bamba" on the album; his recording of the tune was later re-issued as a single in 1966.
His popularity led the Gibson Guitar Corporation to ask him in 1964 to design a guitar for them. He ended up designing two: The Trini Lopez Standard, a rock and roll model based on the Gibson ES-335 semi-hollow body, and the Lopez Deluxe, a variation of a Gibson jazz guitar designed by Barney Kessel. Both of these guitars were in production from 1964 until 1971 and are now highly sought after amongst collectors. Some owners of the guitar include Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters and Noel Gallagher of Oasis...

Sunday, October 31, 2010

PORTRAIT OF MY LOVE (Steve Lawrence)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Steve Lawrence (born July 8, 1935) is an American actor and singer, perhaps best known as a member of a duo with his wife Eydie Gormé, billed as Steve and Eydie. The two have appeared together since appearing regularly on Steve Allen's The Tonight Show in the mid-1950s. Lawrence had success on the record charts in the late 1950s and early 1960s with such hits as "Go Away Little Girl" (U.S. #1), "Pretty Blue Eyes" (U.S. #9), "Footsteps" (U.S. #7), "Portrait of My Love" (U.S. #9), and "Party Doll" (U.S. #5). "Go Away Little Girl" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. However, much of his musical career has centered on nightclubs and the musical stage. Lawrence is an actor as well, appearing in guest roles on television shows in every decade since the 1950s, in shows such as The Danny Kaye Show, The Carol Burnett Show, The Julie Andrews Hour, Night Gallery, Police Story, Murder, She Wrote, Gilmore Girls, and CSI. In the fall of 1965, Lawrence was briefly the star of a variety show called The Steve Lawrence Show, "the last television show in black and white on CBS"...

PUT YOUR HEAD ON MY SHOULDER (Paul Anka)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Paul Albert Anka, OC (born July 30, 1941) is a Canadian American singer, songwriter, and actor.
Anka first became famous as a teen idol in the late 1950s and 1960s with hit songs like "Diana'", "Lonely Boy", and "Put Your Head on My Shoulder". He went on to write such well-known music as the theme for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and one of Tom Jones's biggest hits, "She's a Lady", and the English lyrics for Frank Sinatra's signature song, "My Way".
In 1983, he co-wrote with Michael Jackson the song "I Never Heard", which was retitled and released in 2009 under the name "This Is It". An additional song that Jackson co-wrote with Anka from this 1983 session, "Love Never Felt So Good", has since been discovered, and will be released in the near future. The song was also released by Johnny Mathis in 1984.
Anka became a naturalized US citizen in 1990...

Monday, October 25, 2010

NON HO L'ETÁ (Gigliola Cinquetti)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Gigliola Cinquetti (born 20 December 1947, Verona, Veneto) is an Italian singer, TV presenter and journalist.
At the age of 16 she won the Sanremo Music Festival in 1964 singing "Non Ho L'Età" ("I'm Not Old Enough"), with music composed by Nicola Salerno and lyrics by Mario Panzeri. Her victory enabled her to represent Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest 1964 with the same song, and she went on to claim her country's first ever victory in the event. This became an international success, even entering UK Singles Chart, traditionally unusual for Italian material. It sold over three million copies, and was awarded a platinum disc in August 1964. In 1966, she recorded "Dio, come ti amo" ("God, How I Love You"), which became another worldwide hit...

Sunday, October 24, 2010

CLOSE TO YOU (Carpenters)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Carpenters or The Carpenters were a vocal and instrumental duo, consisting of siblings Karen and Richard Carpenter. The Carpenters were the #1 selling American music act of the 1970s.
Carpenters' melodic pop produced a record-breaking run of hit recordings on the American Top 40 and Adult Contemporary charts, and they became leading sellers in the soft rock, easy listening and adult contemporary genres. Carpenters had three #1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and fifteen #1 hits on the Adult Contemporary Chart (see The Carpenters discography). In addition, they had twelve top 10 singles (including their #1 hits). To date, Carpenters' album and single sales total more than 100 million units.
During their 14-year career, the Carpenters recorded 11 albums, five of which contained top 10 singles (Close to You, Carpenters, A Song for You, Now & Then and Horizon), thirty-one singles, five television specials, and one short-lived television series. They toured in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, the Netherlands and Belgium. Their recording career ended with Karen's death in 1983 from cardiac arrest due to complications of anorexia nervosa. Extensive news coverage of the circumstances surrounding her death increased public awareness of the consequences of eating disorders.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

THE VOICE OF LOVE (Johnny Nash)


From WIKIPEDIA:
John "Johnny" Lester Nash, Jr. (born August 19, 1940) is an American pop singer-songwriter, best known for his 1972 hit, "I Can See Clearly Now". He was also the first non-Jamaican to record reggae music in Kingston, Jamaica. He also enjoyed success as an actor early in his career appearing in the screen version of playwright Louis S. Peterson's Take a Giant Step. Nash won a Silver Sail Award for his performance from the Locarno International Film Festival...

Friday, October 22, 2010

LOVE LETTERS IN THE SAND (Pat Boone)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Pat Boone (born June 1, 1934) is an American singer, actor and writer who was a successful pop singer in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. He sold over 45 million albums, had 38 Top 40 hits and starred in more than 12 Hollywood movies. Boone's talent as a singer and actor, combined with his old-fashioned values, contributed to his popularity in the pre-rock and roll era. He continues to entertain and perform, and is also a motivational speaker, a television personality, a conservative political commentator and a Christian activist, writer and preacher.
According to Billboard, Boone was the second biggest charting artist of the late 1950s, behind only Elvis Presley but ahead of Ricky Nelson and The Platters, and was ranked at No. 9—behind The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney but ahead of artists such as Aretha Franklin and The Beach Boys - in its listing of the Top 100 Top 40 Artists 1955-1995.[2]
In the 1960s, he focused on gospel music and is a member of the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Boone still holds the Billboard record for spending 220 consecutive weeks on the charts with more than one song...

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

MORE THAN I CAN SAY (Bobby Vee)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Robert Thomas Velline (born April 30, 1943), better known as Bobby Vee, is an American pop music singer. According to Billboard magazine, Vee has had 38 Hot 100 chart hits, 10 of which hit the Top 20.
Vee's career began amid tragedy. On "The Day the Music Died" (February 3, 1959), the three headline acts in the line-up of the traveling 'Winter Dance Party'---Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper---were killed in the crash of a 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza v-tailed aircraft (registration #N3974N) near Clear Lake, Iowa while en route to the next show on the tour itinerary in Moorhead, Minnesota. Velline, then aged 15, and a hastily-assembled band of Fargo, North Dakota schoolboys calling themselves The Shadows volunteered for and were given the unenviable job of filling in for Holly and his band at the Moorhead engagement. Their performance there was a success, setting in motion a chain of events that led to Vee's career as a popular singer...

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

I`M SORRY (Brenda Lee)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Brenda Mae Tarpley (born December 11, 1944), better known as Brenda Lee, is an American performer who sang rockabilly, pop and country music, and had 37 US chart hits during the 1960s, a number surpassed only by Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Ray Charles and Connie Francis. She is best known for her 1960 hit "I'm Sorry", and 1958's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", a US holiday standard for more than 50 years.
At 4 ft 9 inches tall, she received the nickname Little Miss Dynamite in 1957 after recording the song "Dynamite"; and was one of the earliest pop stars to have a major contemporary international following...

SOMETHING STUPID (Frank and Nancy Sinatra)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Nancy Sandra Sinatra (born June 8, 1940) is an American singer and actress. She is the daughter of singer/actor Frank Sinatra, and remains known for her 1966 signature hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" and her cover of Cher's "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" (lyrics and music by Sonny Bono), which was used as the opening sequence theme in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. Her other popular recordings include "Sugar Town", "How Does That Grab You, Darlin'?" and the theme from the James Bond film, You Only Live Twice.
In 1967 she paired with her father, Frank Sinatra, for her second number-one single, "Somethin' Stupid". She also co-starred with Elvis Presley in the movie Speedway...

Monday, October 18, 2010

WHEN I FALL IN LOVE (Nat King Cole)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat "King" Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres. He was one of the first black Americans to host a television variety show, and has maintained worldwide popularity since his untimely death; he is widely considered one of the most important musical personalities in United States history.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

RED ROSES FOR A BLUE LADY (Vic Dana)


Vic Dana (born 26 August 1942, Buffalo, New York) is an American dancer and singer.
Discovered by Sammy Davis, Jr., Dana was an excellent dancer (Tap), and was encouraged by Davis to move to Los Angeles to further his career. With the decline of dancing as a form of entertainment Dana initiated a singing career. He is best known for his 1965 recording of the Sid Tepper & Roy C. Bennett song "Red Roses for a Blue Lady" that was a Billboard Top Ten hit single. His album of the same title made it into the Top Twenty. Preceding this success as a solo artist, Dana was the lead singer of The Fleetwoods (for live performances only), replacing original vocalist Gary Troxel when Troxel went into the U.S. Navy...

THE END OF THE WORLD (Skeeter Davis)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Mary Frances Penick (December 30, 1931 – September 19, 2004), better known as Skeeter Davis, was an American country music singer best known for crossover pop music songs of the early 1960s. She started out as part of The Davis Sisters in the early 1950s. In the late '50s and early '60s, she became a solo star. Her best known hit was the song "The End of the World" in 1963.
One of the first women to achieve major stardom in the country music field as a solo vocalist, she was an acknowledged influence on Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton and has been hailed as an "extraordinary country/pop singer" by The New York Times music critic Robert Palmer

I LOVE YOU MORE AND MORE EVERYDAY (Al Martino)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Al Martino (born Alfred Cini, October 7, 1927 – October 13, 2009) was an American singer and actor. He had his greatest success as a singer between the early 1950s and mid 1970s, being described as "one of the great Italian American pop crooners". Apart from singing, Martino played the role of Johnny Fontane in the 1972 film The Godfather, as well as singing the film's theme, "Speak Softly Love". He played the same role in The Godfather Part III and The Godfather Trilogy: 1901–1980.
Martino died on October 13, 2009 at his childhood home in Springfield, Pennsylvania, 6 days after his 82nd birthday...

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES (Dinah Washington)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Dinah Washington (August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963) was a blues, R&B and jazz singer. She is a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame. Washington was well known for singing torch songs.
In 1962, Dinah hired a backing trio that called themselves the Allegros. The male trio consisted of Jimmy Thomas on drums, Earl Edwards on sax, and Jimmy Sigler on organ. Edwards was eventually replaced by John Payne on sax. A Variety writer praised their vocals as "effective choruses".
Very early on the morning of December 14, 1963, Dinah's eighth husband, NFL player Dick "Night Train" Lane went to sleep with his wife and awoke later to find Dinah slumped over and not responsive. Doctor B. C. Ross came to the scene to pronounce her dead. An autopsy later showed a lethal combination of secobarbital and amobarbital which contributed to her untimely death at the age of 39...

BORN FREE (Matt Monro)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Matt Monro (1 December 1930 – 7 February 1985) was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s. Throughout his 30-year career, he filled cabarets, nightclubs, music halls, and stadiums in Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong to Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. He sold more than 100 million records during his lifetime.
Monro died from liver cancer in 1985 at the Cromwell Hospital, Kensington, London, leaving a widow, Mickie, and three children: Mitchell, Michele, and Matthew. Mitchell, a professional pilot, also died of cancer in 2004. A Memorial was held in Harrow...

YOU DON`T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME (Dusty Springfield)

From WIKIPEDIA:
Mary Isabel/Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien,(16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), known professionally as Dusty Springfield, was an English singer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s. She is best known for her work during the 1960s, when she released singles such as "I Only Want to Be with You" (1963), "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" (1966) and "Son of a Preacher Man" (1968), and her most acclaimed album Dusty in Memphis (1969). With her distinctive sensual sound, she is an important white soul singer, and at her peak was one of the most successful British female performers, with 18 singles in the Billboard Hot 100 from 1964 to 1970. Her image, supported by a peroxide blonde beehive hairstyle, evening gowns, and heavy make-up, made her an icon of the Swinging Sixties.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

ANYONE WHO HAD A HEART (Cilla Black)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Cilla Black (born Priscilla Maria Veronica White, 27 May 1943) is an English singer, actress, entertainer and media personality, who has been consistently popular as a light entertainment figure since 1963. She is most famous worldwide for her successful singles "Anyone Who Had A Heart", "You're My World", and "Alfie". After a successful recording career and a brief time as a comedy actress, she became the best paid female presenter in British television history. In September 2009, Black's 45 years in showbusiness was celebrated by EMI (the record label which launched her career in 1963) with the release of a new CD/DVD set alongside an album of club remixes (aka Cilla All Mixed Up). In May 2010, new research published by BBC Radio 2 revealed that Cilla Black was the biggest selling female chart star of the 1960s in Great Britain with her single 'Anyone Who Had A Heart'...

WALK AWAY (Matt Monro)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Matt Monro (1 December 1930 – 7 February 1985) was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s. Throughout his 30-year career, he filled cabarets, nightclubs, music halls, and stadiums in Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong to Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. He sold more than 100 million records during his lifetime.
Monro died from liver cancer in 1985 at the Cromwell Hospital, Kensington, London, leaving a widow, Mickie, and three children: Mitchell, Michele, and Matthew. Mitchell, a professional pilot, also died of cancer in 2004. A Memorial was held in Harrow...

GO AWAY LITTLE GIRL (Steve Lawrence)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Steve Lawrence (born July 8, 1935) is an American actor and singer, perhaps best known as a member of a duo with his wife Eydie Gormé, billed as Steve and Eydie. The two have appeared together since appearing regularly on Steve Allen's The Tonight Show in the mid-1950s. Lawrence had success on the record charts in the late 1950s and early 1960s with such hits as "Go Away Little Girl" (U.S. #1), "Pretty Blue Eyes" (U.S. #9), "Footsteps" (U.S. #7), "Portrait of My Love" (U.S. #9), and "Party Doll" (U.S. #5). "Go Away Little Girl" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. However, much of his musical career has centered on nightclubs and the musical stage. Lawrence is an actor as well, appearing in guest roles on television shows in every decade since the 1950s, in shows such as The Danny Kaye Show, The Carol Burnett Show, The Julie Andrews Hour, Night Gallery, Police Story, Murder, She Wrote, Gilmore Girls, and CSI. In the fall of 1965, Lawrence was briefly the star of a variety show called The Steve Lawrence Show, "the last television show in black and white on CBS"...

STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT (Frank Sinatra)

From WIKIPEDIA:
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998 was an American singer and actor. Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became a successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, being the idol of the "bobby soxers." His professional career had stalled by the 1950s, but it was reborn in 1954 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (for his performance in From Here to Eternity).
He signed with Capitol Records and released several critically lauded albums (such as In the Wee Small Hours, Songs for Swingin' Lovers, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice 'n' Easy). Sinatra left Capitol to found his own record label, Reprise Records (finding success with albums such as Ring-A-Ding-Ding, Sinatra at the Sands and Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim), toured internationally, was a founding member of the Rat Pack and fraternized with celebrities and statesmen, including John F. Kennedy. Sinatra turned 50 in 1965, recorded the retrospective September of My Years, starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music, and scored hits with "Strangers in the Night" and "My Way".
With sales of his music dwindling and after appearing in several poorly received films, Sinatra retired for the first time in 1971. Two years later, however, he came out of retirement and in 1973 recorded several albums, scored a Top 40 hit with "(Theme From) New York, New York" in 1980, and toured both within the United States and internationally, using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, until a short time before his death in 1998.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

TAMMY (Debbie Reynolds)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Debbie Reynolds (born April 1, 1932) is an American actress, singer, and dancer who was an MGM contract star. She is also a collector of movie memorabilia.
Debbie Reynolds regularly appeared in movie musicals during the 1950s and had several hit records during the period. Her song "Aba Daba Honeymoon" (featured in the 1950 film Two Weeks with Love as a duet with Carleton Carpenter) was a top-three hit in 1951. Her most high-profile film role was in Singin' in the Rain (1952) as Kathy Selden. In Bundle of Joy (1956) she appeared with her then-husband, Eddie Fisher. Her recording of the song "Tammy" (from her 1957 film Tammy and the Bachelor) earned her a gold record, and was the best-selling single by a female vocalist in 1957. It was number one for five weeks on the Billboard pop charts. In the movie (the first of the Tammy film series) she co-starred with Leslie Nielsen...

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

GINA (Johnny Mathis)


From WIKIPEDIA:
John Royce "Johnny" Mathis (born September 30, 1935) is an American singer of popular music. Mathis concentrated on romantic jazz and pop standards for the adult contemporary audience through the 1980s. Starting his career with singles of standards, Mathis became more popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status, and 73 making the Billboard charts. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, Mathis has sales of over 27 million sellers, certified units in the United States. According to recordings chart historian and music writer Paul Gambaccini, Mathis has recorded over 130 albums and sold more than 350 million records worldwide...

THAT`S AMORE (Dean Martin)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Dean Martin (June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995) was an American singer, film actor and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "Mambo Italiano", "Sway", "Volare" and posthumous smash "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?". Nicknamed the "King of Cool", he was one of the members of the "Rat Pack" and a major star in four areas of show business: concert stage/night clubs, recordings, motion pictures, and television...

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

AND I LOVE YOU SO (Perry Como)

From WIKIPEDIA:
Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como (May 18, 1912 – May 12, 2001) was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with it in 1943. "Mr. C.", as he was nicknamed, sold millions of records for Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and pioneered a weekly musical variety television show, which set the standards for the genre and proved to be one of the most successful in television history. His combined success on television and popular recordings was not matched by any other artist of the time. A popular television performer and recording artist, Perry Como produced numerous hit records with record sales so high the label literally stopped counting at Como's behest. His weekly television shows and seasonal specials were broadcast throughout the world and his popularity seemingly had no geographical or language boundaries...

WHITE CHRISTMAS (Bing Crosby)

From WIKIPEDIA:
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer and actor. His career stretched more than half a century from 1926 until his death in 1977. Crosby's unique bass-baritone voice made him the best-selling recording artist until well into the rock era, with over half a billion records in circulation.

MONA LISA (Nat King Cole)


From WIKIPEDIA:
Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat "King" Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres. He was one of the first black Americans to host a television variety show, and has maintained worldwide popularity since his untimely death; he is widely considered one of the most important musical personalities in United States history.