Telstar

In 1962, the British pop group The Tornadoes, released the instrumental "Telstar," named after an AT&T communications satellite orbited to relay radio and television signals. The instrumental, which featured an electronic device, the claveoline, that sounded rather like an anemic roller-rink organ, shot up with a bullet to become number #1 in the U.K. and the first record by a British group to hit #1 on Billboard's Top 100 in the U.S., a precursor of the British Invasion led by the Beatles a couple years later. Other British groups had hits in the U.S., but "Telstar" was the first trickle of the eventual flood from the U.K.

The Telstar satellite was launched in July, and the record hit the stores five weeks later, in August. Fast turnaround in those days.

Written and produced by Joe Meek, who was reportedly tone-deaf, the novelty tune was meant to evoke the new space age, and welcome to the future. Meek, a workaholic producer, tried to turn The Tornadoes into The Shadows, another U.K. group that was hot at the time, and considered the only British group worth listening to, according to John Lennon. The Shadows had a lot of hits in the U.K. and are probably best known in the U.S. for Jørgen Ingmann's cover version of their guitar instrumental, "Apache."

The Tornadoes didn't make it. "Telstar" was the only song the original group had chart in the U.S. though they did have a couple moderate hits in the U.K., and they broke up when the bassist, Heinz Burt, embarked on a solo career. (Meek had fallen in love with Burt, dyed his hair white and tried to make him a rock star, but couldn't pull it off.)

Burt apparently lived with Meek for some years. Meek was in the closet, and Burt always claimed there was no physical relationship between them, and his family denies it -- he married a woman, didn't he?

Vernon Hopkins, who was for a while Tom Jones's bassist, says he didn't know Meek was gay until he saw Burt naked in Meek's bed.

Burt died in 2000 following complications from a stroke.

I thought "Telstar" was the cat's pajamas and the bee's knees when I heard it, that would have been the summer I was mostly fourteen. (I have worked up a fingerstyle version of it on my own guitar I've almost gotten down.)

Joe Meek, who had been a radio engineer in the military and something of an electronics wizard -- he hand-built one of the first TV sets in the country -- was also dyslexic, and prone to depression. (One of his productions for The Tornadoes, "Do You Come Here Often," is touted as the first openly gay record, with a dialog between two queens toward the end of it, following what sounds like a-couples-only-skate number at the roller rink.)

Meek was sued by a French composer, Jean Ledrut, for stealing the tune for "Telstar," and royalties were tied up. The suit ended with the judges deciding there was no intentional plagiarism, but that those four bars did seem the same. Ledrut got 8500 quid. But by then, Meek had been dead for a year.

When the Beatles came along and rock music changed, Meek was unable to keep the hits coming. He did produce "Have I the Right?" by the Honeycombs, a one-hit-wonder group known for having a girl drummer. After he was arrested while "cottaging," a term used for secret trysts by the gay community, his reputation suffered.

In February, 1967, after an argument with his landlady, he took a shotgun owned by Heinz Burt, murdered the landlady, then killed himself.

It was the eighth anniversary of the death of Buddy Holly, one of Meek's musical heroes. Bad day to ask for the rent, apparently.

Couple years back, somebody did a movie about his life, Telstar: The Joe Meek Story.

Instrumentals rarely make it to the top of the Billboard pop charts. In fifty-odd years among thousands of songs, only nineteen instrumentals have hit #1:

Billboard Hot 100 #1

• "The Happy Organ" – Dave "Baby" Cortez (1959)
• "Sleep Walk" – Santo & Johnny (1959)
• "Theme from A Summer Place" – Percy Faith (1960)
• "Calcutta" – Lawrence Welk (1961)
• "Wonderland by Night" – Bert Kaempfert (1961)
• "Stranger on the Shore" – Mr. Acker Bilk (1962)
• "The Stripper - David Rose And His Orchestra (1962)
• "Telstar" – Tornados (1962)
• "L'amour est bleu" ("Love Is Blue") – Paul Mauriat (1968)
• "Grazing in the Grass" – Hugh Masekela (1968)
• "Love Theme from Romeo & Juliet" – Henry Mancini & His Orchestra (1969)
• "Frankenstein" – Edgar Winter Group (1973)
• "Love's Theme" – Love Unlimited Orchestra (1974)
• "Theme from 'S.W.A.T.'" – Rhythm Heritage (1976)
• "A Fifth of Beethoven" – Walter Murphy" (1976)
• "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" – Meco" (1977)
• "Rise" – Herb Alpert (1979)
• "Chariots of Fire - Titles" – Vangelis (1982)
• "Miami Vice Theme" – Jan Hammer (1985)

Billboard Top 20 Instrumentals

• "In the Mood" – Ernie Fields Orchestra (1959) #4
• "Green Onions" – Booker T. & the MGs (1962) #3
• "Out of Limits" – The Marketts (1964) #3
• "A Taste of Honey" – Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass (1965) #7
• "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" – Hugo Montenegro (1968) #2
• "The Horse" – Cliff Nobles (1968) #2
• "Classical Gas" – Mason Williams (1968) #2
• "Soulful Strut" – Young-Holt Unlimited (1969) #3
• "Hawaii Five-O" – Ventures (1969) #4
• "Hang 'Em High" – Booker T. & the MGs (1969) #9
• "Time Is Tight" – Booker T. & the MGs (1969) #6
• "Theme from Love Story" – Andy Williams (1971) #9
• "Theme from Love Story" – Henry Mancini (1971) #13
• "Scorpio" – Dennis Coffey (1971) #6
• "Joy" – Apollo 100 (1972) #6
• "Outa-Space" – Billy Preston (1972) #2
• "Popcorn" – Hot Butter (1972) #9
• "Dueling Banjos (Theme from Deliverance)" – Eric Weissberg & Steve Mandell (1973) #2
• "Also Sprach Zarathustra" – Deodato (1973) #2
• "Hocus Pocus" - Focus (1973) #9
• "The Entertainer" – Marvin Hamlisch (1974) #3
• "Tubular Bells" (Theme from The Exorcist) – Mike Oldfield (1974) #7
• "Rockford Files" – Mike Post (1975) #10
• "Nadia's Theme (The Young And The Restless)" – Perry Botkin, Jr. (1976) #8
• "Theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind" – John Williams (1978) #13
• "Feels So Good" – Chuck Mangione (1978) #4
• "Music Box Dancer" – Frank Mills (1979) #3
• "Theme from Hill Street Blues" – Mike Post Featuring Larry Carlton (1981) #10
• "Hooked on Classics" – Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1982) #10
• "Axel F" – Harold Faltermeyer (1985) #3
• "Love Theme from St. Elmo's Fire" – David Foster (1985) #15
• "Songbird" – Kenny G (1987) #4
• "(Theme from) Mission Impossible" – Adam Clayton & Larry Mullen (1996) #8
• "Sandstorm" – Darude (2000) #15