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The review of Wonderful Land from the March 1962 edition of EMI's own "Record Mail".

The magazine was sold over the counter of record stores for 1d (one old penny) and was published by EMI itself, so the reviews were bound to be favourable for obvious reasons, but this one, if anything, is perhaps a little understated.

https://ibb.co/NT8hDDw

This was the first single I ever bought that I had not heard first. Still get goose bumps.

Here's a larger and older image feature, from the October 1960 edition of EMI's "Record Mail":

https://ibb.co/7Q975f4

I'm doing it this way in order to let you access a full size, hi-res, image. The board software allows only relatively small images to be uploaded directly onto the site.

Excellent. And well done Jim and Ulrich for using this way of showing us the images in quality.
(I hope the boys enjoyed accompanying Cliff Richard for that game of snooker!!)

WL is still one of my favourites (I guess it is for most of us).

At the time it was issued, one of my workmates was in a band doing Shads and other instrumental covers and I remember him saying to me after they had practised it, "Do you know that there are eighty-three chord changes?" I didn't know that and, as I was still in the early stages of learning to play the guitar, it seemed an enormous number in a relatively short track.

I still have the sheet music from 1962 but I've never got round to checking if he was right!

Tony

Tone wrote:WL is still one of my favourites (I guess it is for most of us).

At the time it was issued, one of my workmates was in a band doing Shads and other instrumental covers and I remember him saying to me after they had practised it, "Do you know that there are eighty-three chord changes?" I didn't know that and, as I was still in the early stages of learning to play the guitar, it seemed an enormous number in a relatively short track.

I still have the sheet music from 1962 but I've never got round to checking if he was right!

Tony

Just going through it in my head, 83 strikes me as about right

Wonderful Land was the first record I bought after saving up from my paper round in 1962 at the age of 14. It cost me 6s 8d from the Pinxton Coop electral department in South Normanton. The best buy in my life, I never get bored of listening to it and have requested the last song I won't hear.

my Dads favourite track! He used to love me playing it when he came to our gigs and he asked me to play it for him at his funeral which i duly did. Made the hair on the back of my neck stand up when first heard it and it still does all this time on.

Iain Purdon wrote:

Tone wrote:WL is still one of my favourites (I guess it is for most of us).

At the time it was issued, one of my workmates was in a band doing Shads and other instrumental covers and I remember him saying to me after they had practised it, "Do you know that there are eighty-three chord changes?" I didn't know that and, as I was still in the early stages of learning to play the guitar, it seemed an enormous number in a relatively short track.

I still have the sheet music from 1962 but I've never got round to checking if he was right!

Tony

Just going through it in my head, 83 strikes me as about right

Thanks for the confirmation, Ian. You've obviously got time on your hands - about 2m 20s of it.