Sunday night rock 'n' roll covers

Shocking Blue was a Dutch rock band from The Hague formed in 1967. Their biggest hit, "Venus," went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1970, and the band had sold 13.5 million discs by 1973, but the group disbanded in 1974.

The group charted a world-wide hit with the song "Venus," which reached #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in February 1970. Initially the disc was a big hit in the Netherlands, where it reached #3 in the summer of 1969. It subsequently sold 350,000 copies in Germany, and topped the U.S. chart for three weeks, becoming the Netherlands first American #1 hit. It sold over one million copies there by January 1970, and received a gold disc awarded by the Recording Industry Association of America. Global sales exceeded five million copies.

Before the breakthrough of "Venus," the group had a minor hit in 1968 with "Lucy Brown Is Back In Town". Once Mariska Veres took over the vocals two bigger hits followed, "Send Me A Postcard" in 1968/69 and "Long and Lonesome Road" (often mistakenly named as Long Lonesome Road) in 1969. "Hot Sand", the flip-side of "Venus" was also heavily plugged on Dutch radio.

The Original - Shocking Blue



Cover version - the execrable Bananarama (was a big hit for them)



(Nothing Follows)