Chart entered : 18 November 1955
Chart peak : 7
Number of hits : 27
Surprisingly there was just one significant debutant in the 1955 charts and the year was nearly up before he came along. All the criticisms of Bill Haley could also be levelled at this guy and probably more fairly.
Pat, who was 21 when this hit, was born in Florida but moved to Nashville when he was two. His family had numerous connections with the entertainment business; his cousin was Richard Boone the gnarly-faced star of numerous Westerns and his father-in-law Red Foley was a country music giant. No doubt this was helpful in securing a record deal with Republic Records. His modus operandi was clear from his first release , "Two Hearts Two Kisses" a quick cover of an R & B hit by Otis Williams. He would re-make it for his own folks' consumption. The arrangement is almost identical; Pat simply swaps his own deeper, less elastic vocal for that of Williams. It gave him a number 16 hit while the original was confined to the R & B chart.
"Ain't That A Shame " was his second single , tackling Fats Domino's hit which reached number 10 on the main chart. Domino co-wrote the song with his musical arranger Dave Bartholomew and his apparent approval of Pat's cover should be taken in that context, a simple song of betrayal and break -up. Domino's vocal is full of sly charm with the clear intention of trying to work himself back into the girl's affections. Pat gets it all wrong and sees himself as the wounded lion, stoically bearing the pain and his stentorian vocal is more suited to the pulpit than the pop charts. Still history records the injustice that he got to number one with this in the States though we had the sense to stall him at number seven.
No comments:
Post a Comment