(Above: How do you pass up a picture sleeve like this?)

I didn’t know who Peter Sarstedt was until two things happened several years ago:

1. I picked up a book on British chart history for a project and saw that he had the Number One song in the UK the day I was born.
2. I picked up a CD called “24 Number One Songs of the Sixties,” found it was a British CD, and saw that “Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)” was on it.

I’ve only ever played the song on the radio once.  Back in 2005-2006 Rob Quicke and I tried to launch a syndicated show called “Britsound,” which focused on British music.  Rob was a radio talent in the UK, I was one in the States, we both liked Brit music, and so on.  I got to do a feature on the show called “Len’s Pick” where I’d bring in something forgotten, and decided to make this the feature one day.  To say that we mocked it a bit wouldn’t be telling the whole story.  Hell, it’s mockable, despite the fact that it topped the charts in 14 different countries.  Here in the US?  Nothing.

Peter Sarstedt passed away in Sussex over the weekend at the age of 75. Had I known more about his work, I’d have known that in total he released 14 albums in his career, the last one in 2013.  Sometimes we use the phrase “one-hit wonder” as a term of derision.  It’s not always because the artists didn’t try for more; they just didn’t catch lightning in the bottle, so to speak. Even then, Sarstedt also hit the UK top 10 with “Frozen Orange Juice” the same year as “Lovely.”

If I learned nothing else from this bit of chance research, it’s that I now have the answer to a very personal trivia question.  I also learned that there’s a lot, lot more music to discover once you pass the borders.

If you’d like to learn where Lovely goes, you can do so by clicking here.