#35: Stay and Love Me All Summer by Brian Hyland

City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: August 1969
Peak Position in Fredericton: #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #82
YouTube: “Stay And Love Me All Summer”
Lyrics: “Stay And Love Me All Summer”

Brian Hyland was born in 1943 in Queens, New York. In his childhood Hyland learned to play the guitar and the clarinet. In 1958, while he was still 14 years-old, he formed a group named the Delfis. Though they tried to get a record contract they were never signed. In 1959 Brian Hyland got a record deal with Kapp and released “Rosemary”. The song was composed by two songwriters who never wrote another tune. “Rosemary” had limited success, though it spent six weeks on the pop chart in Vancouver reaching #14 on May 7, 1960.

Hyland released his next single at the age of sixteen. His debut release became a #1 hit in 1960 titled “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”. “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” had backing vocals by Peggy Powers who did a duet with Andy Williams in 1957 titled “I Like Your Kind Of Love”. And Trudy Packer provided the the spoken lyrics (i.e. “two, three, four, tell the people what she wore.”)

It was co-written by Paul Vance (born Joseph Paul Florio) and Lee Pockriss. Together they wrote a number of hit songs including   “Catch A Falling Star” (Perry Como – 1957), “Little Miss Stuck-Up” and “Wait For Me” (Playmates, 1961 and 1960), “Tracy” (the Cuff Links – 1969) and “Playground in My Mind” (Clint Holmes – 1972). Pockriss also wrote “Johnny Angel”, a hit for Shelley Fabares in 1962. “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weekie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” was actually inspired by Paul Vance’s shy 9-year old daughter, Paula, and an actual incident at a beach locker. The duo also wrote a song titled “3 Vanilla, 2 Chocolate, 1 Pistachio Ice” for Kris Jensen. Lee Pockriss went on to write the theme songs for the 1961 film One, Two, Three, the 1964 film The Subject Was Roses, and the 1966 film, Stagecoach. In later years Pockriss wrote a number of compositions for the TV series, Sesame Street. Vance and Pockriss also wrote a parody of the Shangri-Las’ 1964 #1 hit, “Leader Of The Pack”. Their Top 30 rejoinder was titled “Leader Of The Laundromat”, recorded by The Detergents.

Vance and Pockriss wrote Brian Hyland’s follow-up novelty song, “Four Heels (The Clickety Clack Song)”. Though it made the Top 30 nationally in Australia and the UK, it stalled at #73 on the Billboard Hot 1oo. He had another novelty song in 1960 titled “Lop-Sided, Over-Loaded (And It Wiggled When We Rode It)”. After his #1 hit in 1960, Brian Hyland released seven singles in a row with only two making the Top 30 and three missing the Hot 100. But in the summer of 1962 he returned to the Top Ten with “Sealed With A Kiss”. The song was a cover of the 1960 summer song by The Four Voices which met with limited regional success peaking in the Top 30 in Rochester (NY) and Louisville (KY).

Hyland appeared numbers of times on American Bandstand. He toured with Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars. On a Caravan of Stars tour in the fall of 1963 Brian Hyland appeared on the same stage as Bobby Lee, Linda Scott, Jimmy Clanton, The Essex, The Jaynettes, The Ronettes, Little Eva, The Dixie Belles, Dale & Grace, The Dovells, The Tymes and Paul & Paula. He also appeared on the Jackie Gleason Show. On Brian Hyland’s website it is reported “In 1963, he headlined a tour in England with Little Eva, appearing on TV shows Thank Your Lucky Starsand Jukebox Jury as well as the live BBC radio show Saturday Club, where he heard and became an early Beatles fan. And while doing several annual tours in South America with Neil Sedaka during Carnaval, he heard the early Bossa Nova artists.”

After “Sealed With A Kiss”, It would take another eight attempts before he cracked the Top 20 on the BillboardHot 100 with “The Joker Went Wild” in 1966. “The Joker Went Wild” was co-written by Bert Russell and Bobby Russell. The two were not related. It didn’t hurt that ‘The Joker’ was one of the arch-enemies of Batman, played by Ceasar Romero. Batman was the #5 top rated TV show in the USA in the 1965-66 season. The song climbed to #2 in Vancouver and #20 on the Billboard Hot 100.

After “The Joker Went Wild”, Brian Hyland again had a drought between 1966 and 1970. He released eight more singles, and only one of these cracked the Top 40. Of these, several were covers of earlier hits from the early rock ‘n roll era: Thomas Wayne’s 1959 hit “Tragedy”, Jimmy Charles 1960 hit “A Million To One” and Johnny Tillotson’s “Dreamy Eyes” from 1958. One of the singles that failed to crack the Top 40 on the national pop charts in the USA was “Stay And Love Me All Summer”.

“Stay And Love Me All Summer” was the title track from the album Stay and Love Me All Summer. The album cover featured Brian Hyland on the beach in the sand with a young woman wearing a yellow bikini. But, in this case it was not a yellow polka-dot bikini. And the woman on the beach with Hyland this time doesn’t seem shy.

“Stay And Love Me All Summer” was cowritten by Al Kasha and Joel Hirshhorn. Kasha was born in New York City in 1937. started songwriting and producing at a young age and was hired as a producer at Columbia Records when he was 22. In 1959, he began working at the Brill Building on Broadway in Manhattan. This was alongside writers and artists like Neil Sedaka, Carole King, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Burt Bacharach, Hal David, and Neil Diamond. Kasha’s first success with a charting record was with “Irresistible You” by Bobby Petersen which reached #15 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1960. It was a Top 20 pop hit the following year for Bobby Darin. In 1961 he had a #9 pop hit for Jackie Wilson with “My Empty Arms”, and also “I’m Coming On Back to You” which reached #9 on the R&B chart. As well in 1961, The Midnighters had a #3 R&B hit with “The Switch-A-Roo”. While Aretha Franklin enjoyed one of her first Top Ten R&B hits with “Operation Heartbreak”.

Co-writer, Joel Hirschhorn was also born in 1937 (The Bronx), met Kasha in the mid-60s. The pair wrote a minor hit for Jay & The Americans in 1966. In 1968, Elvis Presley’s recording of Kasha and Hirschhorn’s “Your Time Hasn’t Come Yet, Baby” reached #22 on the UK pop chart. While the Peppermint Rainbow reached #32 with “Will You Be Staying After Sunday” in early 1969. Hirschhorn and Kasha achieved their biggest success with “The Morning After” by Maureen McGovern in 1973. From the Poseidon Adventure, the song earned them a Best Original Song nomination at the Academy Awards which they won. They then earned a second Academy Award in 1975 for “We May Never Love Like This Again” from The Towering Inferno, a 1974 film about a catastrophic blaze in a high-rise building. They were also nominated for another pair of Oscars for songs from the Disney animated film “Pete’s Dragon.” This included a Best Original Song nomination for “Candle on the Water”. They were also nominated for two Best Original Score Tony Awards: Copperfield in 1981, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in 1983.

Years later, in 2008, Al Kasha’s “I’m A Fire” put Donna Summer back on top of the US Dance chart. Al Kasha died in 2020 at age 83. On his own Hirschhorn wrote several books, including The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Songwriting, in 2001. Hirschhorn was a theatre critic for Variety from 1999 until his death from a heart attack in 2005. He was 67 years of age.

“Stay And Love Me All Summer” is a song about a guy who wants a gal he’s met to not go on vacation. He wants her to stick around and love him all summer. It’s not a new relationship, as he recalls “last year we parted, ’til September I was downhearted.” We don’t know if she’s going away for a summer job out of town. He laments, “I can’t face this place called home alone.”

“Stay And Love Me All Summer” peaked at #2 in Boston, #4 in Fredericton (NB), #5 in Sioux Falls (SD), #6 in Stevens Point (WI), #10 in Fresno (CA), and #11 in St. Thomas (ON).

Finally, in 1970, Brian Hyland returned to the Top Ten with a remake of the Impressions’ 1961 hit “Gypsy Woman”.

Between 1960 and 1977 Brian Hyland released eleven studio albums. Hyland later became related, through marriage, to Larry Fine of the Three Stooges.

September 2025
Ray McGinnis

References:
“HI-FI FORTY,” CFUN 1410 AM, Vancouver, BC, May 7, 1960.
“Brian Hyland the Artist,” Brianhyland.com.
Michael Jack Kirby, “Brian Hyland“, Waybackattack.com.
“Batman TV (Series),” Wikipedia.org.
Chris Willman, “Al Kasha, Oscar Winning Songwriter of ‘The Morning After’ Dies at 83,” Variety, September 14, 2020.
“Joel Hirschhorn,” Findagrave.com.

CFNB 550-AM Fredericton (NB) Top Ten | August 9, 1969