BILLY SWAN (US)

Born: 12 Mary 1942
Full name: William Lance Swan

Swan was born in Cape Girardeau in Missouri which is a town about 330 kms north east of Nashville, Tennessee. He learnt to play drums, guitar and piano as a kid and would start writing songs at an early age. In 1962 Clyde McPhatter (who had been one of the founding members of The Drifters) recorded a version of ‘Lover Please’ which Swan had written. This went to number 7 on the Hot 100 and was Swan’s first major success. He would move to Memphis to work with musician Bill Black. Sadly for Swan, Black fell ill and subsequently died before much could happen, so Swan moved to Nashville in 1972. He began to get noticed as a song writer and would also produce some country hits, including Tony Joe White’s ‘Polk Salad Annie’. He would record his debut album, ‘Rock on With Rhythm’ that same year, although it does not appear to have ever got an official release. His success as a singer came in 1974 with the song and album ‘I Can Help’. The track went to number 1 in the US and the album peaked at 21 and topped the US Country Album charts. It would also see a peak of 6 in the UK. However, he would only see 2 further minor US hits and 1 further one in the UK. On the Country Singles charts, he saw 16 hits, the last one being in 1987.

Date of entry	Song	Peak (weeks at 1)	Weeks
14-Feb-1975	I Can Help	3	14
15-Aug-1975	Don’t Be Cruel	12	4
16-Jul-1976	Wedding Bells	3	13
		Total hits	3
		Total weeks	31

Biggest climber awards	2
Star rater climbs	4
Biggest fallers	2
Weeks with oldest in the charts	0
Longest run in the charts (weeks)	14
Weeks with more than 1 in the charts	0
Biggest gap between hits (weeks)	44
Top 30 points ranking	=210
Top 20 points ranking	187
Top 30 points	690
Top 20 points	380

As mentioned above, Swan produced the following Tony Joe White hit:

Date of entry	Song	Peak (weeks at 1)	Weeks
26-Sep-1969	Polk Salad Annie	18	1
		Total hits	1
		Total weeks	1

Total chart involvement by the band and its members:

Number of hits	4
Weeks	32