Mammy Blue - Chart Success

Chart Success

The Pop-Tops and Joel Dayde both reached #1 on the French charts with "Mamy Blue" while the Nicoletta version rose as high as #4 affording the singer her career record. Both the Pop-Tops and Dayde versions became concurrent major hits in several other territories including Belgium where the Pop-Tops and Dayde's versions reached #1 on respectively the Dutch and French chart with Pop-Tops reaching #3 on the latter, the Netherlands where Pop-Tops reached #3 and Dayde #13, Norway where Pop-Tops reached #1 and Dayde #3 and Sweden where Pop-Tops reached #1 and Dayde #6. In Spain Dayde's English version of "Mamy Blue" reached #2 while Pop-Tops reached #1 with a specially recorded version of the song in Spanish.

In Germany the Pop-Tops spent ten weeks at #1 while the Dayde version only charted peripherally at #40 while a German rendering recorded by Ricky Shayne afforded Shayne his best ever German chart showing with a #7 peak. The Pop-Tops also rendered "Mamy Blue" in Italian with a resultant #1 in Italy where a local cover by Johnny Dorelli also charted at #28: another Italian cover by Dalida failed to chart as did the English version by Ricky Shayne in its Italian release. Ricky Shayne's English version did appear in the French Top Ten (peak: #8) with the Dayde, Nicoletta and Pop Tops versions and also charted in Brazil (#1) and Japan, selling 500,000 copies in the latter territory where the Pop Tops version had also been a hit at #2.

The Pop Tops English version also reached #1 in Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland; in Denmark the song also reached the Top Ten via a cover by Roger Whittaker which also reached #4 in Finland where the version by Pop Tops and a Finnish rendering by Kirka Babitzin also reached the Top Ten.

The Joel Dayde version of "Mamy Blue" reached #2 in Australia, the only evident territory where Dayde did not have to vie with Pop Tops although the cover by Roger Whittaker and another by James Darren did well enough regionally to register on Australia's national chart with respective peaks of #53 and #47. In South Africa "Mamy Blue" was recorded by a session group billed as Charisma: produced by Graeme Beggs, this version spent twelve weeks at #1 making it the second longest running South African #1 hit. Otherwise "Mamy Blue" did not have a strong national chart showing in the English speaking world: in the UK the Pop Tops vied with a cover by Roger Whittaker with neither version reaching the Top 30 respective chart peaks being #35 and #31; in the US the Pop Tops was the sole charting version with a #57 peak on the Hot 100 in Billboard whose Easy Listening chart afforded the track a #28 peak; in Canada Pop Tops vied with a cover by session group Oak Island Treasury Department - these versions respectively peaking at #42 and #68 - while a cover by Roger Whittaker of the original French version was a hit on Canada's French charts reaching #2. "Mamy Blue" returned to the Hot 100 in 1973 via a remake by the Stories which peaked at #50: this version charted in Canada at #47.