Fact #15581
When:
Short story:
Ten thousand teenage rock'n'roll fans bring traffic to a standstill in Johannesburg, South Africa, as they besiege The Carlton Hotel, Eloss Street, in which visiting British pop idol Cliff Richard is staying.Full article:
Bill Martin (songwriter) : At that time I was in my early teens, living in Johannesburg. That was right in the middle of apartheid in South Africa in 1961. It was a time when black people had to walk on the other side of the street from white people. So the amazing thing was that when people knew he had come to South Africa to do a concert, black people and white people alike, they just congregated outside his hotel in Eloss Street and stopped the traffic. It was unprecedented. So Cliff and The Shadows came out on the hotel balcony and I've never seen a crowd like it in my life. It was like having the whole of Piccadilly and Regent Street in London jam-packed with people from end to end. Nothing like it had ever happened before in South Africa.
I saw his concert a couple of days later at the Johannesburg Colosseum and from that time, I was determined that I'd write a song for him, and in 1968 I achieved my song with Cliff, which was Congratulations.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, September 2008)
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I saw his concert a couple of days later at the Johannesburg Colosseum and from that time, I was determined that I'd write a song for him, and in 1968 I achieved my song with Cliff, which was Congratulations.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, September 2008)