Favorite BIG #1 HITS Through the Years: 1963 Pop

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Ah....baseball. Yes, it's spring training, and yes, they're playing like it's spring training but it's baseball!!!! I'm watching another game from today (I have an MLB.TV subscription, so I can watch any game I want) and ready to share with you another #1 song. I've gone through the list of #1 songs in each of the first 25 years of my life (1960-1984), in both pop and country, and picked my favorite #1 of that year. Here's the winner of the 1963 sweepstakes. 1963 (Pop): If You Wanna Be Happy - Jimmy Soul Trophy wives? Not in this song!! Jimmy Soul (ne James Louis McCleese) didn't have much of a career, which is sad. This fun, tongue-in-cheek song providing marital advice -- take an ugly woman ("though her face is ugly, her eyes don't match") -- over the "trophy" girl, shows that there was a lot of soul in Jimmy Soul. Sadly, with the advent of Beatlemania a lot of acts fell by the wayside. And later in life, Soul fell into drug use and was sentenced to prison. He died three months after being sentenced in 1988. He was only 45. An awful ending to a singer who gave us one of the most fun songs of the early 60s. If You Wanna Be Happy Written by Joseph Royster, Carmella Guida and Frank Guida Recorded by Jimmy Soul From If You Wanna Be Happy, 1963 #1 for two weeks You'll be happy for the rest of your life: