SATURDAY'S SINGLES : GARY LEWIS & THE PLAYBOYS and GEORGE MICHAEL

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Good morning gang and welcome to the return of Saturday's Singles. A Number Ones Edition. On this day in 1965, Gary Lewis & The Playboys had the chart topper with "This Diamond Ring". The song, Written by  Al Kooper, Bob Brass and Irwin Levine,  is the title track of their debut album and was released in January 1965 on the Liberty label and produced by Snuff Garrett. In addition to #1 on the Hot 100, it also charted in Australia at #6, and Canada at #3. It's flip side is "Hard To Find". We had the great fortune in seeing Gary Lewis in 2015 on The Turtles' Happy Together Tour. I'll enclose a photo of him from that show.

Gary Lewis – vocals, drums
Dave Walker – rhythm guitar, vocals
Dave Costell – lead guitar
Al Ramsay – bass
John R. West – electric cordovox

With :

Ron Hicklin – vocals

The Wrecking Crew :

Leon Russell – keyboards, arrangements
Hal Blaine – drums
Tommy Allsup – guitar
Mike Deasy – guitar
Joe Osborn – bass

Technical :

Snuff Garrett – music producer, liner notes
"Bones" Howe – engineer
H. Bowen David, Henry Lewy – assistant engineers

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Our second number one comes from the year 1987 and the label, Colimbia. "Father Figure" by George Michael from the album Faith. The single hailed from his debut album and reached #1 on the Hot 100 and in Canada, and reached #2 in Belgium, Ireland, and the Netherlands. It's original B-side was "Love's in Need of Love Today" (live at Wembley Arena), but our copy has an instrumental version of "Father Figure".

George Michael – vocals, keyboards , programming, percussion, arranger, producer
Robert Ahwai – guitar
J.J. Belle – guitar
Hugh Burns – guitar
Chris Cameron – piano, keyboards, organ, backing vocals
Betsy Cook – keyboards
Danny Schogger – keyboards
Deon Estus – bass guitar
Ian Thomas – drums
Andy Duncan – percussion
Rick Taylor – trombone
Steve Sidwell – trumpet
Malcolm Griffiths – trombone
Jamie Talbot – saxophone
Paul Spong – trumpet
John Altman – saxophone
Mark Chandler – trumpet
Steve Waterman – trumpet
Shirley Lewis – backing vocals
Chris Porter – engineer
Paul Gomersall – assistant engineer
Paul Wright – assistant engineer
Shep Pettibone – remix, additional production
Steve Peck – remix engineer

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