Competition time! Win new Dreamboats and Petticoats CD, featuring Buddy Holly, Elvis and local legends The Baron Knights!

Before that comes the eagerly awaited new compilation album. The annual Dreamboats & Petticoats compilations have become the most anticipated - and biggest selling - albums of the year, bucking a trend towards streaming and providing fans with 4 CDs of timeless, quality Rock ‘n’ Roll.

For the last five years, each new edition has sold well over 100,000 CDs – a figure now virtually unheard of in compilation sales. Nearly 5 million records have been sold across the series, making Dreamboats & Petticoats one of the most successful compilation brands of all time.

This year, Decca Records presents Dreamboats & Petticoats ‘Music That Lives Forever’. A celebration of the timelessness of the Rock ‘n’ Roll era, featuring 100 classic songs as well as a bonus track, ‘60s World’, newly written and recorded by one of the greatest British voices of them all, Marty Wilde.

The set kicks off with The Beach Boys ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’: one of the most exquisite pop songs of all time. Released in 1966, in the UK it was the B-side to ‘God Only Knows’, which hit No.2 in the chart. The song was also the opening track on their 1966 masterpiece Pet Sounds.

Other highlights – there are many – include The Shadows ‘Apache’: Hank Marvin’s pioneering tremolo sound propelled The Shadows to No.1 in 1960 with Apache. The band and the song are celebrated with a new 60th anniversary companion title ‘Dreamboats & Petticoats Presents The Shadows: The First 60 Years’. Released on 13th November 2020, the collection features 40 sensational Shadows tracks, hand-picked by legendary guitarist Bruce Welch.

Elvis Presley ‘Wooden Heart’ a No.1 hit in the UK and across the world, this tender little song with its chirpy accordion and a verse sung in German, was originally recorded on 28th April 1960 for the Elvis Presley film G.I. Blue.

Finally, mention must be made of local heroes The Barron Knights who enjoyed enormous popularity in the 60’s and 70’s.

Their ‘pop parodies’ - sending up fellow bands including The Beatles, The Stones, The Searchers and many others – earned them millions of record sales – and perhaps surprisingly - many friends in the music business.

Far from causing upset to their rivals, The Barron Knights became hugely popular with many of the world’s biggest acts, owing to their skilful musicianship and arrangements that were humorous but never disrespectful.

‘Call Up The Groups’ - featured in this collection - parodied the Searchers, Freddie and the Dreamers, the Dave Clark Five, the Bachelors, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles. The song imagined the various artists singing about being conscripted, or "called up" into the British Army.

Barron Knights singer and song-writer Pete Langford recalled “We had 17 copyright infringements and I went round on hands and knees to publishers pleading for permission to cover the various songs within our song!” His efforts paid off and ‘Call Up The Groups’ became the band’s first hit, reaching No.3 in 1964.

This, together with all the other groups that have been called up for this collection, is music that truly will live forever.

To be in with a chance of winning a copy of the new CD email [email protected] with the answer to this question:

Buddy Holly tragically died in a plane crash while on tour. And who imortalised the shock felt by teenagers at the time, in a song entitled American Pie?

A. Lady Gaga

B. Don McLean

C. The Beatles

The closing date for entires is November 10th.