MARY HOPKIN (UK)

Born: 3 May 1950

Mary was born in Pontardawe, a town not too far north of Swansea in Wales. As a child she took singing lessons and would later join a folk group called The Selby Set. Her first release would be a 4 track EP called ‘Llais Swynol’ which were all Welsh language songs. She was then noticed by the model Twiggy when Mary won the ITV talent show ‘Opportunity Knocks’. Twiggy recommended her to Paul McCartney and Mary became one of the first acts to be signed to The Beatles’ Apple Record label. Her debut single for the label was ‘Those Were The Day’s’ which has the Apple catalogue number Apple 2. Apple 1 was a 1 off pressing of Frank Sinatra singing ‘Maureen Is A Champ’ which was done as a gift to Ringo Starr’s wife Maureen for her 21^st birthday. ‘Those Were The Days’ would therefore be the first commercially available single for the label. Produced by Paul McCartney, the song would go on to spend 6 weeks at 1 in the UK, ironically knocking The Beatle’s ‘Hey Jude’ off the top spot and subsequently being replaced by Joe Cocker’s cover of The Beatles’ ‘With A Little Help from My Friends’. Mary would go on to see a total of 7 UK chart hits, hitting number 2 with ‘Goodbye’ (written by Lennon & McCartney and produced by McCartney) and ‘Knock Knock Who’s There’, but never topping the charts again. She would see 6 US chart hits with ‘Those Were The Days’ giving her a best peak of 2, spending 3 weeks there, stuck behind ‘Hey Jude’.

Date of entry	Song	Peak (weeks at 1)	Weeks
04-Oct-1968	Those Were The Days	2	11
15-May-1970	Knock Knock Who’s There	2	9
		Total hits	2
		Total weeks	20

Biggest climber awards	2
Star rater climbs	4
Biggest fallers	2
Weeks with oldest in the charts	1
Longest run in the charts (weeks)	11
Weeks with more than 1 in the charts	0
Biggest gap between hits (weeks)	73
Top 30 points ranking	=339
Top 20 points ranking	291
Top 30 points	475
Top 20 points	275

There were no Beatles songs in the charts at any point while Mary Hopkins’ 2 hits were in the top 20.