The Minute You're Gone by Cliff Richard

Album: Love Songs (1965)

Charted: 1

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Songfacts®:

This song originally made #95 on the US pop chart and #9 on the Country chart for American country superstar Sonny James in 1963. It was the second UK #1, after Tab Hunter's "Young Love," to have been recorded earlier by Sonny James.
In this song, the guy gets desperately lonely the minute his girl leaves him. It's a love song, but a very needy one.
This was Cliff Richard's first #1 not to feature The Shadows.
The three sessions Cliff did in Nashville in August 1964 yielded 12 songs, including "The Minute You're Gone." The producer, Billy Sherill, later produced Elvis Costello's Nashville album Almost Blue.
The backing vocals are provided by The Jordanaires, who were known as Elvis Presley's backing singers.
This was Cliff's 26th consecutive UK Top 10 hit, but the last in this run of consecutive Top 10s. The follow-up single, "On My Word," which was also recorded in Nashville, peaked at #12.
Although this reached #1 in Britain, it wasn't even released in America, which upset Richard. He told the Mail on Sunday November 2, 2008. "At that time, The Beatles were taking off in the States and anyone who had a #1 here was guaranteed a Top 5 there, including The Bachelors, who weren't rock artists as such but had a huge hit. I thought it was my big chance but the US record company said it wasn't right for their market. Hello? What wasn't right? It was #1 in many countries."

Comments: 1

Mark from Dublin, IrelandThere must be something bout working in Nashville that brings out something great in cliff,anytime he has recorded there he has bein sucessful,the minute your gone got to number one in 1965 when the beatles and the stones were pretty much all over the charts,another great track from those nashville sessions was "wind me up" which reached number 2 in the uk charts but actually sold more records than "the minute your gone" and another great recording "angel" which was a cover of an elvis movie song,in 2002 cliff returned to nashville and recorded what some people reckon as his best album to date "somethings goin on",every track on this album could of being a classic but unfortately it did not get the backing it deserved and "only went gold"....For any cliff fans or music lovers i strongly recommend you take a listen to "somethings goin on" and you will see why cliff is still a big star today...

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