Tommy Facenda, "High School, U.S.A."

[firepoint525]

Is anyone familiar with this one? Supposedly, Tommy Facenda recorded 28 different versions of this one (each assigned a separate catalog number!), each one mentioning high schools in the particular area of the country where that record was sold. I'm from Tennessee, so I would be interested in hearing the Memphis and/or Nashville versions of this record, if anyone knows where to find them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhNFAT6Tvog

This is the Texas version, and of course, has no video, only a closeup of the record.

 

[FredRichards]

That is true, except some were towns, other were regions. As I recall, nationally it charted like 187 overall. It was on the Atlantic record label. Imagine the time that was put in doing the session on the song! Then again, in 1959 most stuff was pretty short.

1 - Virginia (the only stereo version on this CD)
2 - New York
3 - Nashville
4 - North & South Carolina
5 - Los Angeles
6 - Indiana
7 - Washington, DC/Baltimore
8 - Philadelphia
9 - San Francisco
10 - Chicago
11 - Detroit
12 - New Orleans
13 - Texas
14 - Pittsburgh
15 - Minneapolis/St. Paul
16 - St. Louis
17 - Florida
18 - Newark
19 - Alabama/Georgia
20 - Boston
21 - Cleveland
22 - Cincinnati
23 - Memphis
24 - Buffalo
25 - Seattle
26 - Hartford
27 - Denver
28 - Oklahoma
29 - National version
30 - original Legrand version (with a distinct Bo Diddley beat)

 

[TheFonz]

Is anyone familiar with this one? Supposedly, Tommy Facenda recorded 28 different versions of this one (each assigned a separate catalog number!), each one mentioning high schools in the particular area of the country where that record was sold. I'm from Tennessee, so I would be interested in hearing the Memphis and/or Nashville versions of this record, if anyone knows where to find them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhNFAT6Tvog

This is the Texas version, and of course, has no video, only a closeup of the record.

A CD with 30 versions of the song was released about 10 years ago. It's hard to find, but here's a link that might help:


http://www.rockabillyhall.com/gvtommy.html

 

[kirkiefan]

It is believed there was also a Dayton, Ohio area version as well. Public station WYSO in Yellow Springs aired it in the 1980s as well as WULM's fomer "Rock n' Soul Classics" format in Springfield from 2003 up until the format's demise in 2006.

 

[gr8oldies]

It was a Cincinnati-Dayton area version. Yes, we have it at WSWO (as well as several other versions).

 

[RadioMan203]

I have the CD and when I had my oldies webstream I would play the National version and depending if somebody made a request I would play the version that related to their part of the country.

 

[radiobop]

At Radio Bop, (radiobop.com), we have the national version in rotation...a couple of years back, we put all 30 versions in rotation for a spell but most folks didn't catch on to the regional differences; after getting complaints about overplaying the song, we pulled the regional versions but do get a request now and then for a specific version...