#281: I’m Stickin’ With You by Jimmy Bowen
Peak Month: March 1957
8 weeks on Vancouver’s Red Robinson Teen Canteen chart
Peak Position #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #14
YouTube: “I’m Stickin’ With You”
Lyrics: “I’m Stickin’ With You”
James Albert Bowen was born in the mining town of Santa Rita, New Mexico, in 1937. The town later became a ghost town after it was abandoned in 1967. Bowen’s family moved to a small town in northern Texas in 1941. From early in his childhood, Bowen was very athletic. By the time he was in high school, he was a star athlete who received a scholarship to West Texas State University in Canyon, Texas. While Bowen grew to be an athlete, he also had a musical side to him that began in his teens when he was given a ukulele. He later acquired a guitar and eventually an electric guitar. At a high school assembly, Bowen and some of his classmates were asked to play a couple of songs. Bowen recalls, “the reaction from girls was the absolute proof that we should get in that [music] business.” In 1955, while at university, Bowen formed the Serenaders with singer and guitar player Buddy Knox, and lead guitarist Don Lanier. Lanier and Bowen had grown up in the same town and knew each other before going to university. Bowen played bass guitar and took turns with Buddy Knox as lead vocalist on the tunes in their sets.