Our pick of the pops, May 2008

Julie Grant
Every day I have to cry
Brit girl Julie Grant enjoyed a couple of hits in 1963 but then entered a period where she consistently failed to make any impact on the charts. This storming song, issued in the summer of 1964, didn’t reverse that trend, though its follow up, the subtler Come to me, made the top 40 a few months later. After that, her record label started scoring big with Sandie Shaw and Petula Clark and lost interest in promoting Julie. Shame.

Valeria Mongardini
Se sapessi mio caro
RCA label bosses probably thought they had a sure-fire hit on their hands when Valeria Mongardini recorded Asciuga, asciuga, an Italian version of cartoon group the Archies’ Sugar sugar. It’s a pity they didn’t have the balls to list this superior track as the A-side, rather than relegating it to the reverse. This 1969 number finds Valeria belting out this number against a fabulous psychedelic funk backing. We love it.

Berta Ambrož
Brez besed
We thought we’d mark this month’s 53rd Eurovision song contest with a trip back to the golden years of the pan-European popfest. In 1966, Slovene singer Berta Ambroz represented Yugoslavia with this classy ballad, competing against the likes of Michèle Torr for Luxembourg and Tonia for Belgium. Sadly, she scored just nine points. Nevertheless, the song’s a whole lot better than almost all of the entries in this year’s contest.

Heidi Bachert
Das ist ein Fehler von mir
Young Heidi is best remembered for Super boy, her first-rate cover of Graham Bonney’s Super girl, issued in 1966. It was one of a number of covers she recorded, including German versions of Millie’s My boy lollipop and Brenda Lee’s My whole world is falling down. We’re rather taken by this one, which appeared on the B-side of the single Der Anfang ist immer schwer, released earlier the same year. (Thanks to Jens for his detective work in tracking down the original, The Ikette’s I’m so thankful.)

Adriángela
En tus brazos quiero olvidar
If this song sounds familiar to French femme pop fans, that’s because it’s a version of Dans tes bras (je veux l’oublier), originally recorded by yé-yé girl Sylvie Vartan. Here, Valencia-born Adriángela – or Maria José Guillén Torres, to use her real name – gives the song a Spanish makeover. She was a frequent participant at various song festivals, even winning the Festival de Mallorca in 1969 with Buenos días. Our choice predates that win by four years.

Anouk
Jimmy est parti (va savoir pourquoi)
We have to thank Ready steady girls! visitor Dmitri for reminding us just how good this song by Anouk is. It was issued on an EP by the singer in 1965. She co-wrote all four songs on the release so, given their quality, it seems surprising that she doesn’t appear to have strayed into the recording studio for another 12 years. Her 1977 single, Avant de te connaître, incidentally, also gives the singer co-writing credits.