Black Is Black

Four members of Los Bravos — bassist Miguel Vicens Danus, guitarist Tony Martinez, organist Manuel Fernández, and drummer Pablo Sanllehi — had previously worked together in the Spanish band Los Sonors. Together with German-born singer Michael Kogel (aliases: Mike Kennedy, Mike Keller), the group set out to achieve success in the European market making English-language pop music. ==Reception==

As lead singer Kogel was not a native English speaker (he had to have the lyrics written out phonetically), his vocals had unusual intonations. By coincidence, his vocal style sounded similar to that of Gene Pitney, so much so that many listeners assumed that "Black Is Black" was actually a Pitney single. In August 1966, the song debuted at number 100 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. It peaked at number four in October, The memo contained a list of 162 songs with "questionable lyrics" that the stations should avoid playing, which included "Black Is Black". == Other notable versions ==

A French version of the song, entitled "Noir c'est noir", was recorded by Johnny Hallyday and held the number one spot on France's singles chart for seven weeks in the fall of 1966. It was also covered by French vocal trio La Belle Epoque as a disco song, and released as a 1977 single. It peaked at number two in the UK, and reached number one in Australia in October 1978. ==Chart performance==

Weekly charts ;Los Bravos Year-end charts La Belle Epoque version Johnny Hallyday version (in French) ==References==