Ken Dodd's other life – as a mega-selling singer of romantic ballads

The late comedian’s biggest hits weren’t novelty songs, but earnest romantic ballads that challenged psychedelic pop in a mid-60s generation-gap war

From a distance, Ken Dodd’s musical career seems utterly bizarre. You could understand him having a couple of novelty comedy hits along the lines of Tommy Cooper’s Don’t Jump Off the Roof Dad or Charlie Drake’s My Boomerang Won’t Come Back, but Ken Dodd’s records weren’t funny, or at least the ones that sold weren’t. He knocked out a succession of comedy records, but there were far fewer takers for The Nikky Nokky Noo Song and The Diddly Doo Parade than for the love songs he sang, apparently in deadly earnest.

He specialised in two things. The first were sentimental Italian ballads translated into English – he, or whoever picked songs for him, seemed particularly fond of the oeuvre of Liguria-born MOR singer Wilma Goich – and songs about crying: Tears, Tears of Happiness, I Can’t Hold Back the Tears, Tears Won’t Wash Away These Heartaches, Every Little Tear, Dancing With Tears in My Eyes, Let Me Cry on Your Shoulder. No matter that he made for a deeply improbable romantic balladeer, as evidenced by the sleeves of his albums – with his trademark hair slicked back and his goofy face fixed in a pensive, lovelorn expression, Ken Dodd looked, if anything, even more peculiar than usual. His romantic ballads sold, in occasionally mind-boggling quantities. 1965’s Tears was the biggest-selling single of the year, and the third biggest-selling of the decade: only the Beatles’ She Loves You and I Want to Hold Your Hand shifted more copies. He had 14 Top 30 hits in 15 years: as late as 1980, a Ken Dodd best-of compilation could make the Top 10.

Related: Ken Dodd: farewell to the tattifilarious marathon man of comedy