Jim Nabors began his career moonlighting as a character actor in a Santa Monica nightclub while employed full time as a film-cutter with NBC. His discovery by Andy Griffith lead him to a highly successful acting and singing career, beginning as the bumbling gas-station attendant, “Gomer”, on the Andy Griffith Show. This was followed by Nabors’ own spin-off TV series, Gomer Pyle, USMC, which had a successful six year run. Nabors revealed his rich baritone voice on a 1964 episode of The Danny Kaye Show and subsequently capitalized on it with numerous successful records and live performances. Most of the songs were romantic ballads, though he also sang pop, gospel, and country songs. Jim Nabors has recorded 28 albums and numerous singles, with two albums going gold in the 60s. i.e., Jim Nabors Sings Love Me With All Your Heart (1966) and Jim Nabors Sings The Lord's Prayer (1968).AlexBrowne said:
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They had absolutely nothing to do with the Ray Charles, but in 1964, the Ray Charles Singers -- a group led by TV arranger/conductor Charles Raymond Offenberg -- had one single that was far bigger than any recorded by the Ray Charles that year: "Love Me With All Your Heart (Cuando Calienta El Sol)," which was a #1 Adult Contemporary hit, and peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Ray Stevens (born Harold Ray Ragsdale) is an American country music and pop singer-songwriter known for his novelty songs as well as more serious works. Stevens recorded a series of hit records on Mercury Records in the 1960s that included songs such as "Ahab the Arab", "Harry the Hairy Ape", "Funny Man", the original recording of "Santa Claus is Watching You", and "Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving, Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills". Ray had a gospel/country hit single in early 1972 with "Turn Your Radio On”. In 1976 he released a novelty single, billing himself as a choir of chickens: under the pseudonym "Henhouse Five Plus Too", Stevens recorded a version of Glenn Miller's "In The Mood" in the style of a clucking chicken; it became a Top 40 hit in the US in early 1977.AlexBrowne said:
Three Dog Night, the Los Angeles pop-rock trio, burst onto the scene with three Top 10 singles in 1969, "One," "Easy To Be Hard," and "Eli's Coming"; their biggest hit was the #1 record of 1971, "Joy To The World," which became well-known for its memorable opening lyrics, "Jeremiah was a bullfrog..."
The Grammy-winning Best New Artist of 1970, The Carpenters, peaked only at #54 with their first single, a remake of the Beatles' "Ticket To Ride," but then took off with six consecutive Top 10hit singles which went gold and peaked at at least #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and were also all #1 Adult Contemporary hits. These were "(They Long To Be) Close To You" (#1) and "We've Only Just Begun" (#2) in 1970, "For All We Know" (#3), "Rainy Days and Mondays" (#2) and "Superstar" (#2) in 1971, and "Hurting Each Other" (#2) in 1972. The flip side of "Superstar," "Bless the Beasts and Children," from the movie of the same name, also charted, at #67.
Jerry Butler, American soul singer and songwriter, was the original lead singer of the R&B vocal group, The Impressions. Butler wrote the song "For Your Precious Love", which was released on the Vee-Jay label in 1958, becoming The Impressions first hit and gold record.ChrisInMI said:
Led by Curtis Mayfield after Jerry Butler departed for a solo career, The Impressions had two Top 10 hits: from 1963, "It's All Right"; and from 1964, the powerful "Amen," which had been featured in the movie Lilies Of The Field starring Sidney Poitier.
Sidney Simien aka Rockin' Sidney was a Creole-Zydeco musician and songwriter who played almost every style of music, from the Caribbean beat to blues. His early credits include “No Good Woman”, a small hit in Louisiana in 1962. However, it was the flip side, “You Ain’t Nothing But Fine” that brought him his first national attention as a songwriter. (The song was covered later by the The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Rockpile, and Geraint Watkins.) Rockin’ Sidney became an internationally known figure as the originator of the much-covered, Cajun-feeling song, "My Toot Toot". “My Toot Toot” was recorded in Simien’s own home studio and was released as a single in Louisiana and Texas in 1984. It immediately became a local underground hit (Lake Charles, La.), and then its fame spread to New Orleans and beyond. "My Toot Toot" became the first Zydeco record to get major airplay on pop, rock and country radio stations, breaking into the Country Top 40 chart for eighteen weeks. The song's meteoric popularity hinged on its triple entendre catch phrase, "Don't mess with my toot-toot," that contained both a drug and sex connotation while its real meaning was a Cajun term of endearment meaning sweet heart, as in 'mà chere tout-tout.'AlexBrowne said:
In 2006, viewers of a popular Hummer commercial wondered what the interesting song was that was being played as a young lady drove away in her H3:
Well-a, well-a, well-a, well-a,
I washed all the dishes and I did a lot more,
I even bought the dinner at the grocery store,
And now, Mom, you'll find the key next door
'Cause this little girl's gone rockin'...
It was, in fact, "This Little Girl's Gone Rockin'," the biggest hit for R&B pioneer Ruth Brown during the rock era, a 1958 single written by Bobby Darin and featuring a saxophone solo by King Curtis.
Well-a, well-a, well-a, well-a,
I washed all the dishes and I did a lot more,
I even bought the dinner at the grocery store,
And now, Mom, you'll find the key next door
'Cause this little girl's gone rockin'...
It was, in fact, "This Little Girl's Gone Rockin'," the biggest hit for R&B pioneer Ruth Brown during the rock era, a 1958 single written by Bobby Darin and featuring a saxophone solo by King Curtis.
The Skyliners, a Doo-Wop group fronted by the fabulous Jimmy Beaumont, were best known for their 1959 hit "Since I Don't Have You." (#12 Hot 100, and in the top five R&B). The haunting falsetto voice of Janet Vogel is heard in the final chorus of this classic ballad. They also hit the Top 40 with "This I Swear" (#26) and "Pennies From Heaven." (#24) Other memorable classics include "It Happened Today"(1959), "Close Your Eyes" (1961), and "Comes Love" (1962).AlexBrowne said:
Patty Duke is among a number of actors and actresses who have tried a hand at recording pop tunes; in 1965, while starring in the classic series The Patty Duke Show on ABC-TV, the Oscar-winning 19-year-old had success with her first single, "Don't Just Stand There," which peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Webb Pierce, an American country music singer, had the most number-one country chart hits of the 1950s. He was also one of most popular honky tonk performers of the era. His biggest hit, 1953's "There Stands the Glass," is regarded as one of country's classic drinking songs. Other hits included "In the Jailhouse Now," " More and More," "Backstreet Affair," "Why, Baby, Why," "Oh, So Many Years," and "Finally;" the latter two being duets with Kitty Wells. Pierce was the number-one country artist of the decade with his singles spending 113 weeks at number one during the 1950s, when he charted 48 singles. Thirty-nine reached the top ten, 26 reaching the top four and 13 reached number one.AlexBrowne said:
Van Morrison, Irish troubadour and 1960s-era rock music legend released an excellent cover of “There Stands The Glass”. Morrison’s vocals on this cut do not come close to matching the brilliance of Pierce’s original recording, but the honky-tonk instrumentation is 1950s Honky-Tonk quality. Listen on line at http://www.jango.com/music/Van+Morrison?l=0
The Rolling Stones' last charted hit, last #1, and last million-selling single of the '60s was "Honky Tonk Women" from the summer of 1969; during a vacation in Brazil, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote two versions of the song, the familiar hit and a honky-tonk version with different lyrics, entitled "Country Honk," which appeared on their Let It Bleed album.
Myth has it "The Girl from Ipanema" was inspired by Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto (now Helô Pinheiro), a fifteen-year-old girl living in Montenegro Street of the fashionable Ipanema district of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Daily, she would stroll past the popular "Veloso" bar-café on her way to the beach, attracting the attention of regulars Jobim and Moraes.AlexBrowne said:
“The Girl from Ipanema” (music by Antonio Carlos Jobim) began the Bosa Nova (defined as a refined version of samba) craze of the 1960s, and was a huge hit for Astrud Gilberto (vocals), along with João Gilberto (guitar) and Stan Getz (tenor sax), from the 1963 album Getz/Gilbert. It became an international hit, reaching #5 in the U.S. In 2004, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry
Jack Spector was one of New York City's most popular radio personalities during the golden era of Top 40, an original WMCA Good Guy from 1961-1972 and later host of the "Saturday Night Sock Hop" on WCBS-FM from 1976-1986 (he also charted with the novelty song "Moonflight" in 1969 under the pseudonym Vik Venus Alias: Your Main Moon Man); his closing line each day was "Look out street, here I come," but he never got the chance to say it on his last show, March 8, 1994: he collapsed and died in the studio at WHLI, Long Island, while he was playing "I'm In The Mood For Love" by Louis Prima and Keely Smith.
"Another Saturday Night" is the title of a 1963 hit single by Sam Cooke. It reached #10 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 R&B and UK #23. In 1974, a Cat Stevens cover reached #6.AlexBrowne said:
And who didn't?RicoGregg said:
: A truly sexy voice indeed. 1959 was a successful year for the Fleetwoods (Gary Troxel, Barbara Ellis and Gretchen Christopher) with two Billboard Hot 100 hits. April 1959 found "Come Softly to Me" (originally titled “Come Softly” but retitled before release by Dolphins Records as too risqué) at the #1 position, and then “Mr. Blue” topped the charts in November of the same year.RicoGregg said:
Philadelphia native Barbara Mason was an early example of the Philly sound, charting with 11 singles from 1965-1975, most of them written by herself, including her first and only Top 10 hit, "Yes, I'm Ready"; her songs from the '60s had a sweetness, but her sound became funkier in the '70s, including her 1973 recording of "Give Me Your Love" which was written and produced by Curtis Mayfield.
"In the Midnight Hour" is a '60s soul standard originally performed by Wilson Pickett in 1965 and released on the 1966 album The Exciting Wilson Pickett. It was composed by Pickett and Steve Cropper at the historic Lorraine Motel in Memphis where Martin Luther King, Jr. would later be murdered in April of 1968. It was Pickett's first hit on Atlantic Records, reaching #1 on the R&B charts and it peaked at #20 on the pop charts.AlexBrowne said:
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