#519: In The Misty Moonlight by Jerry Wallace
Peak Month: July 1964
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #19
YouTube.com: “In The Misty Moonlight”
“In The Misty Moonlight” lyrics
Jerry Wallace was born in 1928 in Guilford, Missouri. He loved to sing and on June 1, 1952, he was one of the performers at the eighth Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. Among the other performers was Roy Brown, who by that time had charted over a dozen Top Ten hits on the Billboard R&B chart. Child star Toni Harper, who recorded with Oscar Peterson, Harry James and Dizzy Gillespie in the ’50’s. And Louis Jordan who had 54 Top Ten hits on the Billboard R&B chart, eighteen of which climbed to #1, including “Caldonia”. Also, jump blues singer Jimmy Witherspoon was there to sing his 1949 #1 hit “Ain’t Nobody’s Business”, which stayed on the chart for 34 weeks. (It was first popularized in 1922 by Bessie Smith and also Alberta Hunter). Wallace’s presence made the bill inter-racial that night.
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#1261: Pick Me Up On Your Way Down by Pat Zill
Peak Month: June 1961
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #16
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #91
YouTube.com: “Pick Me Up On Your Way Down”
“Pick Me Up On Your Way Down” lyrics
Patrick Michael Hill Sr. was born in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1925. In his childhood Patrick sang on a children’s radio-show broadcast in Youngstown. In his youth he trained to become a professional boxer. When America joined the Allies after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Pat Zill joined the United States Marines. While he was a Marine he was part of the Marines Boxing Team. Honorably discharged in 1944, Zill joined the Knights of Columbus Golden Gloves tour. Though he fought several boxing matches as a professional in Youngstown, his father talked him into leaving the profession. Next he opened a nightspot called The Boathouse in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, called Whitehall. At The Boathouse Pat Zill tended bar and word-of-mouth spread. It drew a country music promoter named Pat Nelson to The Boathouse to hear “the singing bartender.”
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#1162: Muskrat by the Everly Brothers
Peak Month: October 1961
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKWX chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #82
YouTube.com: “Muskrat”
“Muskrat” lyrics
Isaac Donald “Don” Everly was born in 1937 and Phillip Jason “Phil” Everly was born in 1939. Don was born in Muhlenberg County in Kentucky, and Phil was born in Chicago. Their dad, Ike, had been a coal miner who decided to pursue music as a guitar player. From the mid-40s Ike and his wife, Margaret, sang as a duo in Shanendoah, Iowa. Later they included their sons “Little Donnie and Baby Boy Phil,” on local radio stations KMA and KFNF. In time they were billed as The Everly Family. In 1953, the family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee. Family friend and musician Chet Atkins got a record deal for the Everly Brothers with RCA Victor in 1956. However, their first single release was a commercial failure and they were dropped from the label. Next, Atkins got them connected with Archie Bleyer, and the boys were signed to Cadence Records. In 1957, their first single on the label, “Bye Bye Love“, became a million-seller and launched their career.
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#520: Soul Dance by Tommy Leonetti
Peak Month: February 1964
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #105
YouTube.com: “Soul Dance”
“Soul Dance” lyrics
Nicola Tomaso Lionetti was born in 1929 in North Bergen, New Jersey. He had a talent for singing and changed his name. He sang with the Charlie Spivak jazz band and the Tony Pastor jazz Band. In the early fifties, Arthur Godfrey remarked on his television show that, when told they had booked Tommy Leonetti, he thought that it was a trio called “Tommy, Lee, and Eddy.” Leonetti had a minor hit in 1954 on the Billboard Pop chart titled “I Cried”, which peaked at #30. His biggest hit in the USA was in 1956 with “Free”, which peaked at #23 on the Billboard chart. He was a singer with the 1957‐58 cast of Your Hit Parade. He had several appearances on The Steve Allen Show in the 1958-59 season.
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#521: Everyday by Bobby Lee
Peak Month: June 1961
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #3
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Everyday”
“Everyday” lyrics
Robert L. “Bobby Lee” Viehmeyer, Jr. was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1941. Between the ages 4 to 10, Robert was plagued with illnesses. He recorded under the name of Bobby Lee on the Decca record label. Perhaps the choice to bill his name this way was that is sounded like the name of teen pop star Bobby Vee. And Lee’s studio recordings resembled Bobby Vee’s “Devil Or Angel” and numerous Buddy Holly recordings. Bobby Lee’s first single release with Decca was “Sugar Love” in 1961, penned by country star Webb Pierce. In this case he sounded a bit like Elvis Presley. Lee recorded several rock ‘n’ roll hits, including a song by Webb Pierce titled “Just Beginning”, in the spring of ’61. The B-side was an old Buddy Holly song titled “Everyday”. This was the side of the disc that DJ’s in Vancouver played on the radio starting in May ’61.
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#522: It’s A Cryin’ Shame by Gayle McCormick
Peak Month: November 1971
7 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG’s chart
Peak Position #4
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #44
YouTube.com: “It’s A Cryin’ Shame”
“It’s A Cryin’ Shame” lyrics
Gayle McCormick was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1948. She joined choir in high school and sang high soprano with the Suburb Choir, a 150-voice unit that performed annually with the St. Louis Symphony. By the mid-60s she sang in a band billed as Steve Cummings and The Klassmen, and sang covers of songs by Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and Tina Turner. In 1967 her band released a single titled “Without You” which peaked at #14 in St. Louis. The following year McCormick released a solo titled “Mr. Loveman” which peaked at #21 in St. Louis. Then in 1969 she joined a band called Smith which subsequently got noticed by Del Shannon. He got Smith signed to Dunhill Records. Smith had a #5 hit with “Baby It’s You” on the Billboard Hot 100. The song had previously been a hit for both The Shirelles and The Beatles.
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#1126: Rocklandwonderland by Kim Mitchell
Peak Month: November 1989
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #17
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Rocklandwonderland”
“Rocklandwonderland” lyrics
Joseph Kim Mitchell was born in Sarnia, Ontario, in 1952. In his teen years Mitchell learned to play guitar. When he was 14 he joined a band called Grass Company. After high school, by 1970 he was playing in a number of bands in Sarnia. He was in a band called Zooom for a few years. Then in 1973 he formed the Max Webster, a progressive rock and heavy metal band. Max Webster released six studio albums. Though it didn’t get a following in the USA, by the early 1980s the band had Top 20 hits in Hamilton, Toronto, Regina, Victoria, Quebec City, and Top 30 hits in Ottawa and Halifax. Kim Mitchell toured with Max Webster until it dissolved in 1982. Kim Mitchell tested a new sound in the club circuit in southwestern Ontario and formed the Kim Mitchell band.
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#1161: You Don’t Know by Jim Byrnes
Peak Month: September 1981
6 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG chart
Peak Position #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “You Don’t Know”
“You Don’t Know” lyrics
James Thomas Kevin Byrnes was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1948. He lived in the north side of the city where one of the neighbourhood bars featured Ike and Tina Turner as the house band. Byrnes recalls when he was a teenager going to music clubs, he and his buddy were often the only white people in the place. “We never had any problems. We were too naïve, and had too much respect for the music and culture – they knew it, they could tell.” From the age of thirteen Jim Byrnes taught himself to play blues guitar. In 1964 he got a taste of a professional life as a musician when he was paid to perform. In the rich blues scene in St. Louis, Byrnes was able to appear onstage with John Lee Hooker, Taj Mahal and Muddy Waters and others. In 1964 he also appeared in stage productions with a St. Louis repertory company.
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#523: Wired For Sound by Cliff Richard
Peak Month: November 1981
12 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN’s chart
Peak Position #7
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #71
YouTube.com: “Wired For Sound”
“Wired For Sound” lyrics
Cliff Richard was born Harry Roger Webb on October 14, 1940, in the city of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, India. In 1940 Lucknow was part of the British Raj, as India was not yet an independent country. Webb’s father worked on as a catering manager for the Indian Railways. His mother raised Harry and his three sisters. In 1948, when India had become independent, the Webb family took a boat to Essex, England, and began a new chapter. At the age of 16 Harry Webb was given a guitar by his father. Harry then formed a vocal group called the Quintones. Webb was interested in skiffle music, a type of jug band music, popularized by “The King of Skiffle,” Scottish singer Lonnie Donegan who had an international hit in 1955 called “Rock Island Line”.
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#524: Bye Bye Love by Webb Pierce
Peak Month: June 1957
5 weeks on Vancouver’s Red Robinson Teen Canteen chart on CKWX
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #73
YouTube.com: “Bye Bye Love”
“Bye Bye Love” lyrics
Michael Webb Pierce was born in Monroe, Louisiana, in 1921. By the time he was 15 Pierce had learned to play guitar and had a weekly 15-minute show on KMLB-AM in Monroe. He joined the U.S. Air Force in 1942. After the war ended he and his wife, Betty Jane Lewis, moved to Shreveport, Louisiana. In 1947 they appeared regularly on KTBS-AM on their morning show Webb Pierce with Betty Jane, the Singing Sweetheart. Webb Pierce worked as a manager of a men’s furnishing section of a Sears Roebuck department store. In 1949 the couple signed with 4-Star Records in California. Webb was successful, but Betty Jane was not. Their changing musical fortunes led to divorce in 1950.
In 1950 he got signed onto the Louisiana Hayride and was an instant hit. He switched record labels to Decca Records in 1951 and later that year his second single release, “Wondering”, shot to number one on the national Country charts. His next two singles, “That Heart Belongs To Me” and “Back Street Affair” also topped the charts. Webb Pierce delivered songs dripping with emotion as his tenor voice reached willing radio and jukebox listeners who rushed to their local record stores to snap up his latest releases. Between 1951 and 1957 Webb Pierce had 30 consecutive Top Ten hits on the music industry Country charts in the USA. Of these, thirteen climbed to number one. In 1954 he had his first crossover hit with his #1 country tune “More And More”, and in 1955 his single “I’m In The Jailhouse Now” spent 21 weeks on top of the Country charts.
His string of Top Ten Country hits was momentarily interrupted when “Someday” stalled at #12 in 1957. But his next single release, “Bye Bye Love”, became his second crossover hit in June 1957.
“Bye Bye Love” was written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. They had a string of hits including “Wake Up Little Susie”, “Bird Dog”, “Problems” and “All I Have To Do Is Dream” among others, for the Everly Brothers. They wrote “Raining In My Heart” for Buddy Holly, and “Last Date” for Floyd Cramer. They also co-wrote “Love Hurts” which was introduced in December 1960 as an album track on A Date with The Everly Brothers, but was never released as a single (A-side or B-side) by the Everlys’. The first hit version of the song was by Roy Orbison who climbed the Australian pop charts to #5. They also wrote “She Wears My Ring”, a Top Ten hit in Vancouver for Jimmy Bell in 1961. Matilda Genevieve Scaduto was born in 1925. Boudleaux Bryant was born in 1920 in Shellman, Georgia. The two met in 1945 and eloped two days later. He nicknamed her Felice and the name stuck. She was 19 when they married. Boudleaux Bryant also wrote a number of songs on his own including “Devoted To You” for the Everly Brothers in 1958.
“Bye Bye Love” was recorded by the Everly Brothers and climbed to #2 on the Billboard pop chart and #1 on the Cashbox singles chart in July 1957. It was ranked as the #7 song for the year by Cashbox and #11 by Billboard. The Everly Brothers recording debuted on the pop charts in the USA on May 25, 1957. Webb Pierce made a recording of the song within a few weeks. His version of “Bye Bye Love” debuted on the pop and country charts on June 15, 1957. The Everly Brothers version of the song was in the Top Ten of the Billboard Country chart for 21 weeks. Both the Everly Brothers and Webb Pierce’s versions of “Bye Bye Love” shared the number one spot on the Country chart for five weeks from July 13 to August 10, 1957. The Everly Brothers version returned to the number one spot on the Billboard Country chart on September 7. By that time Webb Pierce’s version had fallen off the chart. On the pop chart Webb Pierce’s “Bye Bye Love” stalled at #73.
While Webb Pierce’s version of “Bye Bye Love” charted for five weeks in Vancouver, peaking at #2. The Everly Brothers version of the song also peaked at #2. Webb Pierce’s version first appeared on May 24, 1957, and fell off the charts at the end of June. The Everly Brothers original version of “Bye Bye Love” debuted on CKWX on July 7, 1957, for a nine week chart run in Vancouver.
Don Everly remembers he and Phil were on a tour in Mississippi the first half of June 1957. “The record came out while we were on the road down there (Mississippi). Then one day Mel Tillis came up to us and said, “Hoss, I got some bad news for you. Webb Pierce has covered your song.” Phil remembers that moment, telling Rolling Stone in 1986, “Mel just looked down and shook his head, like, “It’s all over boys, forget it.” It was like, Jesus, such bad luck, you know?” Don continues, “Disaster. I almost fainted. I called Archie Bleyer up in New York. I said, “Something terrible’s happened.” He said, “What?” I said, “Webb Pierce has covered our record.” And he said – I’ll never forget this – he said, “Webb who?” He didn’t even know who Webb Pierce was! He said, “Forget about that – the record’s hittin’ pop.” I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.”
“Bye Bye Love” is a song contrasting the fate of two people who used to be lovers. The woman met another man who “stepped in.” The song is sung from the perspective of the guy she left behind. Seeing his “ex” with her new beau, he remarks “she sure looks happy, I sure am blue.” Elsewhere in the song he sings “goodbye to romance that might have been.” Was the dating relationship rather brief while she was his “baby?” It seems the lived romance was more on the hoped for horizon, not part of a long and solid past. However brief, the guy feels empty, lonely and like he could die. Now he vows “I’m through with romance, I’m through with love.” During their romance his “lovin’ baby” concluded he wasn’t the man she hoped for and she was through with him.
On the local AM Top 40 pop charts, “Bye Bye Love” by Webb Pierce climbed to #1 in Akron (OH), #2 in Vancouver and #4 in Toronto.
Other notable versions of “Bye Bye Love” include Ray Charles track on his 1962 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. In 1970 Simon And Garfunkel recorded a live version of the song for their 1970 Grammy Award winning album Bridge over Troubled Water. In 1974 George Harrison recorded a revised version that included one new verse. Harrison’s version, recorded in a minor key, was one of the tracks in his album Dark Horse. The song appears in the 1979 film All That Jazz and sung by Roy Schneider and Ben Vereen. And in 1995 “Bye Bye Love” was part of the soundtrack to the film Bye Bye Love, whose plot was about a divorce. In the film it was The Proclaimers from Scotland who sang the song.
Webb Pierce continued to have big hits on the Country charts in the late ’50s and into the ’60s. “I Ain’t Never” was a number one country hit in 1959 and peaked at #24 on the Billboard Hot 100. Among his hits were “Fallen Angel” (1960), “Sweet Lips” (1961), “Cow Town” (1962), “Sands Of Gold” (1963) and “Memory No. 1” – a number one hit in 1964. But between 1965 to 1982 Webb Pierce only had four Top 20 hits from the 29 singles he released. Other newer country stars had begun to replace him as a regular in the Top Ten Country charts.
The music industry weekly, Cash Box magazine, named Webb Pierce the top male vocalist every year from 1952 to 1956 and again from 1961 to 1963. In total there were 54 songs Webb Pierce charted into the top 10 of the Billboard and Cash Box country music charts. Fifteen of his hit singles peaked at number one. While he was a member of the Grand Ole Opry for some years, he resigned from the Opry in early 1957, objecting to the commissions they charged for concert bookings. A number of his hits were duets. He had a number one hit in 1956 with Red Sovine singing “Why Baby Why”. In 1957 he had a duet with Kitty Wells titled “Oh So Many Years”, and in 1964 they teamed up to record a #2 hit called “Finally”.
Pierce promoted himself in the early 1960’s by driving one of his two limousines, each decorated inside and out with some 1,000 silver dollars. In the early 1970’s, he built a $30,000 guitar-shaped swimming pool at his home. The swimming pool attracted over 3,000 tourists a week. Ray Stevens and other neighbors got a court order bar them from the area. Over the years Webb Pierce got a reputation as a hard drinker. He went into semi-retirement in the early ’80s. Webb Pierce died at the age of 65 of pancreatic cancer in 1991.
September 4, 2019
Ray McGinnis
References:
“Webb Pierce, 65, Dies; Was Country Singer,” New York Times, February 26, 1991.
Kurt Loder, “The Everly Brothers: The Rolling Stone Interview: Thirty Years of Heart-melting Music and Heart-wrenching Sadness,” Rolling Stone, May 8, 1986.
Tony Russell, “Felice Bryant: Gifted Songwriter with Many 1960s Chart Hits,” Guardian, May 20, 2003.
“Felice and Boudleaux Bryant bio,” Rockabilly Hall of Fame.
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