THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,139) Barbara Ruskin — “Euston Station”
This “beautiful” ‘67 A-side by Barbara Ruskin “captures something perfectly and deserves to be as well known and as widely loved as the Waterloo Sunset”. (Yr Heartout, https://thelondonnobodysings.blogspot.com/2009/08/euston-station.html) Indeed.
Mick Patrick writes that:
[“Euston Station” was] voted a hit on Juke Box Jury [but that was not to be]. Hit records eluded Barbara in the UK, but she enjoyed chart status in Germany and a high profile on the European song festival scene. Almost all of her releases were self composed and an impressive list of international performers cut her songs [including the Vogues and the Foundations].
liner notes to the CD comp A Little of This: The Barbara Ruskin Songbook
Geoff laments that:
There seemed no obvious reasons why some [British female singers in the 60’s] were successful and others weren’t and every so often you come across a track and wonder why on earth it was never a hit. . . . Barbara Ruskin falls into this group of little-known 60’s women singers . . . reminiscent of Jackie DeShannon. As a woman singer-songwriter she was also a relative rarity in the pop market at that time – artists such as Jackie DeShannon herself or Barbara Acklin notwithstanding. The difficulties artists like her faced seemed obvious with her first release, when her own stronger composition, I Can’t Believe in Miracles, was relegated to the ‘b’ side in favour of a rather pointless cover of the Billy Fury hit, Halfway to Paradise. . . . Euston Station appears to have been inspired by her travelling regularly on the Number 73, the bus that runs from the West End past Euston Station to Stoke Newington and Walthamstow. . . . [S]ongs about British buses are generally as intrinsically comical as songs about English counties. Paul Simon could make a Greyhound bus trip from Pittsburgh to New York into an epic statement on America. Boarding a Number 73 at Euston and counting the cars as you are stuck at the Angel is never going to sound heroic no matter how hard you try. The song came out at a time that seemed to be popular for station songs – Waterloo Sunset and Finchley Central also came out the same year . . . . The station [w]as a symbol of the grey drabness of the 9 to 5 day working for the Big Boss Man at a time when Swinging London was in full swing. Euston Station here is like one of those pictures of a signpost at a crossroads in a children’s story book. Platforms 1-7 This Way: monochrome life, grey suits, commuter train and the office. Platforms 8-11 That Way: Technicolour, Pegasus the flying horse, the giant albatross and Paradise People.
https://songsaboutplaces.blogspot.com/2012/03/euston-station.html
Of Barbara Ruskin, Nostalgia Central says:
Barbara Rosemary Ruskin[‘s] . . . . father died when she was still young and her mother – who worked for music publisher Lawrence Wright in Denmark Street – encouraged her young daughter to pursue her love of music, buying her first guitar. Barbara taught herself to play it, began composing her own songs and, before long, was spending her spare time performing at weddings and youth clubs. In 1964, she was offered a contract with Piccadilly Records and released her first single, a version of Billy Fury’s Halfway To Paradise, in February 1965. Barbara’s second single was one of her own compositions, You Can’t Blame A Girl For Trying (1965) – which she had written with Sandie Shaw in mind – while her third single – Well, How Does It Feel? (1965) – was recorded in the style of Sonny and Cher. In 1966, Barbara released the stomping single Song Without End but once again, the single failed to chart. Light of Love (1966) was her final single for Piccadilly before Barbara moved to Parlophone. Sun Showers (February 1967) became her first 45 for the new label, followed by Euston Station just two months later. . . . She followed it up with one of her finest singles, Come Into My Arms Again (1967), a song she wrote on the bus on the way to the studio. Barbara was then offered a role co-hosting the radio programme, Cool Britannia, on the BBC’s World Service. Pawnbroker, Pawnbroker [see #1,078] was released in October 1968 . . . . Barbara continued releasing singles throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s . . . .
https://nostalgiacentral.com/music/artists-a-to-k/artists-b/barbara-ruskin/
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
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There’s a name that has slipped my attention, female singer songwriters were a rarity, at least ones that got any attention. She was quite good.
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