1 9 8 2

 

22nd May 1982 - 'Ebony & Ivory', Stevie Wonder & Paul McCartney; 'I've never been to me', Charlene; 'The other woman', Ray Parker, Jr.; 'Don't you want me?', Human League; 'Chariots of fire', Vangelis; 'Empty garden', John Lennon; 'Rosanna', Toto. 

O'Jays

 

For those who lived in the United States between 1971 and 1973 there was no way one could avoid listening to the music made by the O'Jays! 

Even though I hardly spoke English having just arrived in Newark, N.J. from South America I used to listen to New York City's Top 40 radio stations and was impressed by the O'Jays sound. Listening to the introduction of 'Back stabbers' was a dramatic experience. That piano exuberance followed by the sound of bongos is something unique in pop music. After the luscious overture come the voices of the 3 fellows asking the crucial question: 'What'd they do?' Superb!

Then in early 1973, the O' Jayss had their first and only Number One with marvelous 'Love train' an ode to peace, brotherhood and understanding among the countries of the world. 

I had to move back to South America in March 1973, but I kept my ears open for any O' Jays new single having had the pleasure to dig 'For the love of money' around May 1974. 

By mid-1975 I was back in the States and to my joy the O' Jays had a big hit with 'I love music' which played through the new year (1976). 

William Powell (* 20 Jan 1942 + 26 May 1977), Walter Williams (25 Aug 1943) & Eddie Levert (16 June 1942).

Eddie Levert, William Powell & Walter Williams.

Walter Williams, William Powell & Eddie Lavert.

O'Jays pre-1972: William Powell, Bill Isles, Walter Williams, Eddie Levert & Bobby Massey.

Eddie Levert in a prominent central position as The O'Jays were in the 1960s;  from left to right: Bill Isles, William Powell, Eddie Levert, Bobby Massey & Walter Williams.

1. When the world's at peace (Kenneth Gamble-Bunny-Sigler-Phil Hurtt)  5:21

2. Back stabbers (Leon Huff-Gene McFadden-John Whitehead)  3:07

3. Who am I? (Sigler-Hurtt)  5:14

4. (They call me) Mr. Lucky (Gamble-Huff)  3:20

5. Time do get down (Gamble-Huff)  2:53

1. 992 arguments (Gamble-Huff)  6:09

2. Listen to the clock on the wall (Gamble-Huff-Whitehead)  3:48

3. Shiftless, shady, jealus kind of people (Gamble-Huff-Whitehead-Mc Fadden))  3:36

4. (You are my) Sunshine (Sigler-Hurtt)  3:42

5. Love train (Gamble-Huff)  2:59

release date: August 1972.

The first great album of 1970's Philadelphia soul, 'Back stabbers' took the best impulse of the era's pop music -  the inclination to celebrate love as something precious - and bathed it in the studio-orchestra opulence that became the defining characteristic of the Sound of Philadelphia.

This was a potent combination, and a gold mine. On the opening track, lead singer Eddie Lavert proclaims the albums's guiding philosophy: 'Love is not a state of mind, love's a fact of life.' Nine songs later, on the massive hit 'Love train', the singer sends an urgent, idealistic appeal to others who might feel the same way: 'People all over the world, join hands, start a love train'. In between are accounts of love trouble  ('992 arguments'), fear of commitment ('Time to get down'), and a trenchant cautionary tale about deceitful  friends ('Back stabbers').

The songs are all great, but the arrangements - far more lavish than anything else on the radio - makes them undeniable classics. Producers Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff assembled a team of arrangers who conceived of pop on an orchestral level. The Philly Sound is distinguished by active, often tricky string parts that snake around the vocal lines, offset with jazz guitar and vibraphone and other sophisticated touches.

The arrangers - and the musicians of what became known as the MFSB (Mother Father Sister Brother) Orchestra, which included moonlighting Philadelphia Orchestra members - do the hard work. All the O'Jays' Levert (and Teddy Pendergrass and the other Philly-soul stars) had to do was slide their vocals into a sumptuous, instantly sensual mix.

'Back stabbers' contains most of the key O'Jays tracks - one exception is the ambitious 7-minute masterpiece  'For the love of money', issued on the subsequent album 'Ship Ahoy' and 1975's 'I love music'.

text taken from '1.000 recordings to hear before you die' by Tom Moon.

William Powell, Walter Williams & Eddie Lavert. 

WWDJ Hackensack, N.J. 18 April 1973 - Bwana Johnny's countdown on Sunday night

WWDJ was a Top-40 radio station in Hackensack, N.J. which opened on 17 May 1971, and died on 31st March 1974. 97DJ tried to compete with WABC playing hit-songs the NYC station banned from air-play such as 'Jungle fever' (Chakachas' heavy breathing & moaning), 'My ding-a-ling' (Chuck Berry), 'Cover of the Rolling Stone' (Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show), 'Walk on the wild side' (Lou Reed) and 'The Americans' (Gordon Sinclair).  

However, WWDJ signal - only 5 Kw - was too weak compared to WABC's 50 kw. Here is arguably its most popular DJ, Bwana Johnny (real name: Richard Johnson) counting down the top 30 of week of 25 April 1973.

1. Tie a yellow ribbon on the ole oak tree - Tony Orlando & Dawn (Bell) (1)

2. The night the lights went out in Georgia - Vicki Lawrence (Bell) (2)

3. Superfly meets Shaft - John & Ernest (Rainy Wednesday) (7)

4. Cisco Kid - War (UA) (8)

5. Sing - Carpenters (A&M) 

6. Stuck in the middle with you - Stealers Wheel (A&M) (16)

7. Little Willy - The Sweet (A&M)

8. You are the sunshine of my life - Stevie Wonder (Tamla-Motown)

9. Twelfth of never - Donny Osmond (MGM)

10. Neither one of us - Gladys Knight & the Pips (Soul-Motown)

11. Ain't no woman like the one I've got - Four Tops (Dunhill)

12. Reeling in the years - Steely Dan (ABC) (27)

13. Pillow talk - Sylvia Robinson (Vibration)

14. Armed and extremely dangerous - First Choice (Philly Groove) (21)

15. Wild flower - Skylark (Capitol) (29)

16. Danny's song - Anne Murray (Capitol) (10)

17. Killing me softly with his song - Roberta Flack (Atlantic) (6)

18. Peaceful - Helen Reddy (Capitol)

19. Space oddity - David Bowie (RCA) (11)

20. Drift away - Dobie Grey (Decca)

 

21. Frankenstein - Edgar Winter Group (Epic)

22. Daniel - Elton John (MCA)

23. I'm doin' fine, now - New York City (Chelsea)

24. Walk on the wild side - Lou Reed (RCA)

25. Hocus pocus - Focus (Sire)

26. Funky worm - Ohio Players (Westbound) 

27. Stir it up - Johnny Nash (Epic)

28. I can understand it - The New Birth (RCA) (27)

29. Masterpiece - The Temptations (Gordy-Motown)

30. Leaving me - The Independents (Wand) 

clipping of a Hackensack newspaper announcing a 3-day 'rock-a-thon' starting on Friday, 1st October 1971 through Sunday, 3rd October 1971, sponsored by the Bergen & Passaic counties. 

Bwana Johnny, popular DJ and music director of WWDJ from 1971 to 1973, whose real name was Ricky Johnson, was born on 29 August 1946, in Portland, Washington. After working as DJ & music director throughout the USA, Bwana died of heart failure and diabetes on 28 October 2005, in Mercer Island, WA.

23rd November 1971. 

WWDJ was a radio station in Hackensack, N.J. that in the early '70s that tried to compete with WABC. However, the signal did not have the reach that WABC did. Here is arguably the most popular DJ, Bwana Johnny , counting down the top 30 of that week in 1973.

Bwana Johnny talks about the good old times at WWDJ:  

Hello World! John has asked me to make some written verbal comments about WWDJ on the anniversary of the demise of it. Boy that's a tough challenge. WWDJ was so unique, so creative, so audience captivating (although the ratings never showed it) that it is really hard to put into words what the entire experience was like. The only thing that really comes to mind is fun. The entire WWDJ "thing" was really just old friends getting together to have fun. 

Mike Phillips and I had been friends from our hometown of Portland, Oregon. Nick Anthony, Al Brady, Gary Russell had all worked together in Cincinnati. In fact Al and I were roommates. The only additions to the mix were Bill Bailey and Ronnie Grant. Both of these multi-talented performers joined the "fun" crowd head on. In fact Bailey named a cat of mine. I love cats by the way. Was having trouble figuring out a name for this cat that had just appeared at the house I was renting. Bailey suggested "Why don't you name it Boogie... you could take it to remotes and promo it as Bwana and the Boogie." Well... the cat was instantly named.

WWDJ was weird. The studios were in Hackensack, on the slough, just across from the world famous Hackensack Two Guys store. I remember we had the Brooklyn Mets on the schedule when we hit the air. The next year when the contract was up there was a huge celebration. Clients were invited to the Hackensack "oasis" to help in the festivities. After that the nighttime ratings went to hell. Gee! Gawd! Yada Yada!

The best part like I already said was the fact that we were a "family". We had fun together on the air and off the air. Nick Anthony is one of the great Program Directors of the century. He knew how to handle and manage people, without anyone feeling they were being programmed or manipulated. There were always gatherings at Nick's place. It was all part of that "family" atmosphere that came across so vividly on the air.

Promotions were a big part of our assault on NYC from sponsoring Easter Sunrise Services in Central Park, to the "Magic Bus", to a talent contest I co-emc'd with Monte Rock III at Palisades Park.

WWDJ/97 Magical bus... 

Getting involved with the audience on a one-to-one basis was a major part of our "in their face" attack. We were out and making ourselves individually and collectively known in the community. I remember one Friday night after the show going on an adult beverage safari at Esposito's in Ridgewood. The place was always packed and a bunch of us were out on the corner shooting the B.S. and talking with one of the Ridgewood police that were always keeping an eye on weekend nights. I had been involved in moving from Waldwick to Montvale so my 1967 T-Bird was full of "stuff". I told the officer how much we appreciated what he was doing and that we all chipped in to buy him something appropriate to express our feelings. At this point I reached into the backseat pulled out and handed him a roll of toilet paper. Without hesitation he came back with "no, no. I've heard your show. You need it a lot more than I do." 

We all broke out laughing. It was a great comeback. It's hard to put this incredible fun time into words. The best way for me has always been to answer questions. I know you have bunches, and I would love to answer them all. Or at least make up a great answer. So just get your questions in here to the website, and I know John will be on my butt to make sure I answer them all. And it will be fun. Most importantly thanks to everyone who enjoyed what we were doing. Like I've said we were really having "fun" and I'm glad you were too.

Love you all and thanks for making it all worthwhile.

The right of way for the old Jersey Central Railroad was immediately north of here.

WCFL - Chicago, 26 August 1971

1. Uncle Arbert / Admiral Halsey - Paul & Linda McCartney (Apple)

2. Maybe tomorrow - Jackson Five (Motown) 

3. Rings - Cymarron (Entrance) 

4. Wedding song (There is love) - Paul Stockley (WB)

5. Smiling faces sometimes - The Undisputed Truth (Motown) 

6. Won't get fooled again - The Who (Decca)

7. Spanish Harlem - Aretha Franklin (Atlantic)

8. Ain't no sunshine - Bill Withers (Sussex)

9. Take me home, country roads - John Denver (RCA)

10. Resurrection shuffle - Ashton, Gardner & Dyke (Capitol)

11. Liar - 3 Dog Night (Dunhill)

12. Mother freedom - Bread (Elektra)

13. Mercy, mercy me - Marvin Gaye (Motown)

14. Go away little girl - Donny Osmond (MGM)

15. I just want to celebrate - Rare Earth (Motown)

16. Never ending song of love - Delany & Bonnie (Atlantic) 

17. Watcha see is watcha get - Dramatics (Volt) 

18. The night they drove Old Dixie down - Joan Baez (Vanguard)

19. Woke up in love this morning - Partridge Family (Bell) 

20. Roll on - The New Colony Six (Sunlight Records) 

21. Riders on the storm - The Doors (Elektra)

22. Moon shadow - Cat Stevens (A&M)

23. Sweet hitchhiker - Creedence Clearwater Revival (Fantasy)

24. Mr Big Stuff - Jean Knight (Stax)

25. Bangla-Desh - George Harrison (Apple) 

26. Indian Reservation - The Raiders (Columbia)

27. I ain't got time anymore - The Glass Bottle (Atco)

28. Stagger Lee - Tommy Roe (ABC)

29. How can you mend a broken heart? - Bee Gees (Atco)

30. Marianne - Stephen Stills (Atlantic)

31. Don't pull your love - Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds (Dunhill) 

32. Take me girl, I'm ready - Jr. Walker & The All Star (Tamla-Motown)

33. Beginnings - Chicago (Columbia)

34. I've found someone of my own - Free Movement (Decca)

35. Funky Nassau - Beginning of the End (Alston) 

WCFL - Chicago 26 August 1971. 

A L B U M S 

1. Carpenters (A&M)

2. Every picture tells a story - Rod Stewart (Mercury) 

3. Tapestry - Carole King (Ode)

4. Ram - Paul & Linda McCartney (Apple)

5. Every good boy deserves favour - Moody Blues (Threshold-London)

6. Who's next? - The Who (Decca)

7. Mud Slide Slim - James Taylor (WB)

8. B, S & T - Blood, Sweat & Tears (Columbia)

9. Stephen Stills no.2 (Atlantic) 

10. Blue - Joni Mitchell (Reprise) 

Joel Whitburn 1939-2022

 

Joel Whitburn, tireless researcher of music charts, dies at 82

His numerous books delved deeply into the Billboard charts, developing what an admirer called “the de facto history of recorded music.”

By Richard Sandomir & Jim Higgins at jim.higgins@jrn.com

17 June 2022

Joel Whitburn, who relentlessly mined Billboard’s music charts to fill reference books that tell the statistical stories of pop, rock, country, R&B, hip-hop and dance hits since 1940, died on Tuesday, 14 June 2022,  at his home in Menomonee Falls, Wis. He was 82.

His death was confirmed by Paul Haney, a friend, researcher and editor at Record Research, Mr. Whitburn’s publishing company. He "passed away peacefully overnight" on 14 June 2022, following serious recent health issues.  

Mr. Whitburn was a music lover whose personal collection — meticulously curated in his basement and, later, in a vault — totals more than 200,000 records, including every single ever to make a Billboard chart.

“I go in that library alone — all these records — and it’s like they’re all my old friends,” he said in an interview with The Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1986.

Mr. Whitburn published nearly 300 books (counting updated editions), most of them highly detailed chart histories of hit records and albums. He started cataloging records on index cards and turned that project into his first volume, “Top Pop Singles,” published in 1970. Computers came much later.

Disc jockeys and record collectors were among his first customers. But his books also became important additions to other music fans’ libraries. Nearly all used Billboard charts, but Mr. Whitburn also dug into those that were published by the trade magazines Cash Box, Record World and Radio & Records.

“I’m just a huge music fan, and I love the charts,” Mr. Whitburn once said. “I enjoy following artists’ success. There’s just a joy in that.”Credit...Adam Ryan Morris, for Milwaukee Magazine.

“He had a profound impact on the music industry as a whole,” Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard’s senior vice president of charts and data development, said in a phone interview. “He was the first person to catalog the history of charted music, and by doing so it became the de facto history of recorded music.”

He added, “Joel’s chronicling of the Hot 100 gave it a significant stamp of approval nationally.”

His books, with generic titles and alphabetical listings by artist or group, covered vast musical territory: “Top R&B Singles, 1942-2016,” “Hit Country Records, 1954-1982,” “Across the Charts: The Sixties.”

The ninth edition of “The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits” (2010) listed 52 Beatles songs, with the dates each song entered the Top 40, from the first (“I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “I Saw Her Standing There” on Jan. 25, 1964) to the last (“Real Love,” made by the surviving Beatles from demos cut by John Lennon, on March 23, 1996); their peak chart positions; how long the songs stayed on the chart; how long they remained in the No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3 spot; informational nuggets (like the fact that “Please Please Me,” the band’s fourth Top 40 hit, was recorded in 1962); and the record label (usually Capitol, later Apple, but also a few others in the early days).

Here's an example of the clout of pop music chart historian Joel Whitburn. When he met Elton John, Whitburn told a Billboard podcast interviewer in 2016, he tried to give the famous singer one of his books. 

“Oh, I got all your stuff, Joel,” Sir Elton replied.

He also published books containing a given decade’s worth of charts.

In his review of “Top Pop Singles, 1955-2006” (2007), the Los Angeles Times pop music critic Robert Hilburn noted that Mr. Whitburn augmented his updates to the book with new elements. “This time,” he wrote, “he borrows a page from baseball batting averages and assigns a ‘hit average’ to recording artists.”

Mr. Whitburn explained his fascination with Billboard’s charts — and the reason for his venture’s success — in an interview with that magazine in 2014.

“I’m just a huge music fan, and I love the charts,” he said. “I enjoy following artists’ success. There’s just a joy in that. It’s a weekly thrill. And there are millions more like me all over the world.”

Joel Carver Whitburn was born on 29 November 1939, in Wauwatosa, Wis. His father, Russell, worked for a local electrical company. His mother, Ruth (Bird) Whitburn, was a homemaker.

Joel was already a music lover when, at age 12, he saw copies of Billboard for sale at a bus station in Milwaukee. His mother gave him a quarter to buy it, and while reading it at home he was gobsmacked by the information it offered.

“All of a sudden, I knew what the No. 1 song in the nation was,” he said in an interview in 2009 with the music journalist Larry LeBlanc for the entertainment website CelebrityAccess. “I had no idea that there was a chart that told you that information.”

He later became a subscriber, and he held on to every issue.

Mr. Whitburn attended Elmhurst College (now University) in Illinois and the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, but did not graduate. He worked at several jobs before he was hired to represent RCA Records, having told a company distributor in Milwaukee how much he loved music. He was told of a new venture featuring eight-track tapes and got a job setting up eight-track departments at stores in Wisconsin and Illinois. While working for RCA, he met artists like Chet Atkins and Charley Pride.

Whitburn grew up in Menomonee Falls, turned his passion for music and fascination with the Billboard charts into a research and publishing behemoth that served music industry professionals and fans alike with books of organized data and trivia. If you wanted to know how many hits Elton John, Elvis Presley, or The Beatlesi ever had, Whitburn was your guy. 

"I was at the perfect age, 14 or 15, when rock and roll broke," he told interviewer Larry LeBlanc in a 2009 interview, describing his youthful passion for music. "I was able to go down once a week and buy a record. I had to make that awful decision of what record do I buy this week, and what records do I leave out until next week." 

Whitburn began reading Billboard, the music and entertainment industry trade magazine. In particular, he was fascinated with Billboard's weekly charts of the most popular records. 

Decades before the internet, spreadsheets and personal computers, Whitburn kept track of each week's top recordings. When Billboard launched its Hot 100 chart in 1958, he began logging detailed info about every listed song on 3-by-5-inch index cards. 

Working in record distribution for RCA in the 1960s, Whitburn impressed radio staffers with the information he had. "They all said it would be a godsend to have that information at their fingertips, because there was nothing available,” he told Billboard in an interview.

Seeing the opportunity, he quit his RCA job, founded Record Research in Menomonee Falls, and published his first book "Top Pop Records," in 1970. That book evolved into "Top Pop Singles," the flagship publication of Record Research, Haney said. 

By then he was deep into his Billboard research as a hobby, using stacks of the magazines that he had collected since 1954. He focused his work on the Hot 100 chart, which began in 1958, jotting down artists’ names and record information on index cards.

“The first card I wrote up,” he told Mr. LeBlanc, was ‘Nelson, Ricky, “Poor Little Fool.”’ That was the first No. 1 song on the first Hot 100.”

When the first edition of “Top Pop Singles” was completed in 1970, he took out a tiny advertisement in Billboard that promised buyers a history of the Hot 100. Hal Cook, the magazine’s publisher, spotted the ad and called Mr. Whitburn.

“You can’t be using the Hot 100 in an ad,” Mr. Whitburn, in the 2014 interview, recalled Mr. Cook telling him. “Not without our permission.” Rather than threaten Mr. Whitburn with a lawsuit, Mr. Cook asked to see the book.

Two weeks later, Mr. Whitburn said, Mr. Cook called. “He said: ‘Joel, we got the book. It’s amazing. We love it.’” And he conceded that Billboard’s attempts to develop a similar book had failed. He paid for Mr. Whitburn and his wife, Fran, to come to Los Angeles.

After three days, Mr. Whitburn returned home with a 26-page licensing agreement that gave him the exclusive right to use the Billboard charts in his books, in return for royalties he would pay Billboard.

With that permission, Mr. Whitburn built an empire of music research unlike any other.

Mr. Whitburn’s books “had a profound impact on the music industry as a whole,” an executive of Billboard magazine said. “Joel’s chronicling of the Hot 100 gave it a significant stamp of approval nationally.”Credit...Adam Ryan Morris, for Milwaukee Magazine.

He is survived by his wife, Frances (Mudgett) Whitburn; his daughter, Kim Bloxdorf, a vice president at Record Research; his sisters, Joyce Riehl and Julie Rae Niermeyer; his brothers, Charles and David; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

The veteran disc jockey Scott Shannon, currently heard on WCBS-FM in New York, said he bought his first copy of “Top Pop Singles” when he was working at a radio station in Mobile, Ala., in the early 1970s. He has bought some of the updated editions since, keeping one copy at the station and one at home.

“There was no other place to go for information about artists, and I wanted to be the authority on the music we were playing at the time,” Mr. Shannon said in a phone interview. “If you use it properly, you sound smarter than you are to the listener and sharper than the next jock.”

He was no one-hit wonder. Counting successive editions of works such as "Top Pop Singles," Whitburn and Record Research are believed to have published nearly 300 books. Whitburn also tapped his chart knowledge to produce some 150 "Billboard Top Hits" compilation CDs for Rhino Records. 

His careful compilation of chart data made his work go-to references — and stymied charlatans. 

"His accurate reporting also made it more difficult for publicists and labels to credibly fudge the chart achievements of their artists, a notoriously common practice in the early 1970s," Andrew Unterberger wrote in a Billboard obituary article.

Whitburn's personal music collection, stored at his home, added up to 200,000 singles, albums and CDs, Haney confirmed. That collection includes every record ever listed in the Billboard Hot 100, and every record listed in rival and defunct charts.

In a 2014 interview with the Journal Sentinel, he said that he used his collection as a primary source of accurate information on things like label names and B-sides.

At 6 feet 6 inches tall, Whitburn played basketball for Menomonee Falls High School as well as Elmhurt College in Illinois. Whitburn was inducted into the Menomonee Falls High School Fine Arts Hall of Fame in 2015. He was also a voting member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Whitburn's daughter Kim Bloxdorf, a vice president at Record Research, will continue running the company. Haney, an editor and researcher there for 30 years, and Brent Olynick, who's worked there for more than four decades, will assist her, Haney said. 

Whitburn was an easy boss who trusted employees to get the job done, Haney said. But he was also passionate about detail and a stickler for accuracy. "If I didn't get something exactly correct, I would hear about it," Haney added.

Some of Haney's favorite memories are of sitting in Whitburn's office for half an hour or hour, talking about charts and music. "He was really like a father figure to me," he said.

Whitburn's survivors include his wife of 58 years, Frances; his daughter Kim; his sisters, Joyce Riehl and Julie Rae Niermeyer; his brothers, Charles and David; two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. 

Visitation will begin at 1 p.m. June 24 at Northbrook Church, 4014 WI-167, Richfield, with service at 3 p.m. Contact Jim Higgins at jim.higgins@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @jhiggy.

Richard Sandomir is an obituaries writer. He previously wrote about sports media and sports business. He is also the author of several books, including “The Pride of the Yankees: Lou Gehrig, Gary Cooper and the Making of a Classic.” @RichSandomir; A version of this article appears in print on 19 June 2022, Section A, Page 23 of the New York Times.

Joel Whitburn's inner sanctum... 

Joel at work at home... 

Joel Whitburn in earlier times...

Whitburn on 11 July 1990. 

Joel Whitburn. 

Teen magazines

 

November 1958.

May 1958. 

'16 Magazine', June 1960 / 'American Band Stand', June 1960.

Brenda Lee at 16 Magazine, September 1960. 

'Dig' December 1960 (Bobby Rydell) / Billy Wilder's 'The apartment', 1960.

Bobby Darin on Billboard, 19 July 1961.

 Don & Phil Everly at 16 Magazine, October 1961.

Sue Thompson (1925-2021) of 'Sad movies (Make me cry)' & 'Norman'

Sue Thompson, who after more than a decade of moderate sucess as a country singer found pop stardom in the early 1960s with hook-laden novelty hits like 'Sad movies (Make me cry)' and 'Norman', died on Thursday, 23rd September 2021, at the home of her daughter and care-giver Julie Jennings, in Pahrump, Nevada. She was 96. Her son, Greg Penny, said the cause was complications of Alzheimer's disease. 

With a clear, somewhat girlish voice that brought sass to humorous ditties but that could also be used to good effect , Ms Thompson was part of a wave of female vocalists, like Connie Francis and Brenda Lee, who had hits in the late 50s and early 60s. 

Her breakthrough came when she was paired with the songwriter John D.Loudermilk, who wrote her first big hit, 'Sad movies', a done-me-wrong tune about a woman who goes to a movie alone when her boyfriend says he has to work late, only to see him walk in with her best friend on his arms. 

'Sad movies (Make me cry') got to # 5 at Billboard's Hot 100 on 23rd October 1961. Four months later, with another Loudermilk song 'Norman', in which she turned that rather unglamorous male name into an earworm ('Norman, Norman my love', Ms Thompson cooed in the chorus, surrounding the name with ooh and hmms) went even higher getting to # 3, on 24 February 1962.

Thompson never made the Top 10 again. Her follow-up to 'Norman' was a ballad, 'Have a good time', a song, by Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, Tony Bennett recorded a decade earlier. It reached # 30 on 21st July 1962. Before 1962 was over, Mr Loudermilk wrote an elopement novelty, 'James (Hold the ladder steady)' which got to # 17 on 20 October 1962. 

The 1964 British Invasion soon eclipsed this kind of light fare, but Ms. Thompson had one more pop success with Mr. Loudermilk’s “Paper Tiger” which got to # 23 on 6 February 1965. 

In 1966 she traveled to Vietnam to entertain the troops. Because she was accompanied by only a trio, she could go to more remote bases than bigger U.S.O. acts, exposing her to greater danger.

“Tonight we are at Can Tho, a huge American air base,” she wrote to her parents. “You can see the fighting (flashes from guns), hear the mortars, etc.” “We’re fairly secure most of the time,” she continued, “but must be aware that things can pop right in our midst.” The trip left her shaken. “A heartbreaking — and heartwarming — experience,” she wrote. “I will never be the same. I saw and learned unbelievable things.”

Mr. Penny said that his mother was ill for weeks afterward, and that she long suspected that she had been exposed to Agent Orange. She underwent a sort of awakening, he said, becoming a vegetarian and developing an interest in spiritual traditions, Eastern as well as Western.

Despite becoming ill after the first trip, she went on other tours to entertain troops, including one in 1967, the next year, on which Mr. Penny, just a boy, accompanied her. They traveled to Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines and elsewhere. Vietnam had also been on the itinerary, but that part of the trip never happened. “I remember getting the communication while we were on the road in Okinawa,” Mr. Penny said in a phone interview. “They said it was just too dangerous.”

When Ms. Thompson returned to performing stateside, she also returned to country music, releasing a number of records — including a string recorded with Don Gibson — and leaving behind the little-girl sound of her hits.

“I don’t want to be ‘itty bitty’ anymore,” she told The Times of San Mateo, Calif., in 1974, when she was already 49. “I want to project love and convey a more mature sound and a more meaningful message.” Country music, she said, was a better vehicle for that because “country fans pay more attention to what is being said in a song.”

Eva Sue McKee (she picked her stage name out of a phone book) was born on 19 July  1925, in Nevada, Mo. Her father, Vurl, was a labourer, and her mother, Pearl Ova (Fields) McKee, was a nurse. In 1937, during the Depression, her parents moved to California to escape the Dust Bowl, settling north of Sacramento. When she was in high school the family moved again, to San Jose.

As a child Ms. Thompson was entranced by Gene Autry, and she grew up envisioning herself as a singing cowgirl. Her mother found her a secondhand guitar for her seventh birthday, and she performed at every opportunity as she went through high school.

In 1944 she married Tom Gamboa, and while he fought in World War II, she had their daughter, Ms. Jennings. She also worked in a defense factory, Mr. Penny said.

Her wartime marriage ended in divorce in 1947, but her singing career soon began in earnest. Ms. Thompson won a talent show at a San Jose theater, which led to appearances on local radio and television programs, including those of Dude Martin, a radio star in the Bay Area who had a Western swing band, Dude Martin’s Roundup Gang.

In the early 1950s she became the lead vocalist on a TV show that Mr. Martin had introduced in the Los Angeles market, and she cut several records with his band, including, in 1952, one of the first versions of the ballad “You belong to me.” Later that year it became a hit for Jo Stafford, and in the 1960s it was covered by the Duprees.

Ms. Thompson and Mr. Martin married in December 1952, but they divorced a year later, and Ms. Thompson soon married another Western swing star with his own local TV show, Hank Penny. That marriage ended in divorce in 1963, but the two continued to perform together occasionally for decades.

The country records Ms. Thompson made on the Mercury label in the 1950s never gained much traction, but that changed when she signed with Hickory early in 1961. “Angel, Angel,” another ballad by the Bryants, garnered some attention — Billboard compared it to the Brenda Lee hit “I Want to Be Wanted” — and then came “Sad Movies.”

That breakthrough hit was something of an accident. In a 2010 interview on the South Australian radio show “The Doo Wop Corner,” Ms. Thompson said she recorded it only after another singer had decided not to. “I inherited the song,” she said, “and I was really happy and excited when it turned out to be such a hit for me.”

Even before her pop hits Ms. Thompson was a familiar sight on stages in Nashville and Nevada as well as on the country fair circuit, and the hits made her even more in demand in Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, Reno, Nev., and elsewhere.

Gravitating between country and pop came easily. “Most popular songs actually are country-and-western songs with a modern instrumental background,” she told The Reno Gazette-Journal in 1963.

Ms. Thompson said her favorite among the songs she recorded was “You belong to me.” About a decade ago, when she was in her 80s, Greg Penny, a record producer who has worked with Elton John and other top stars, recorded her singing the song to a guitar accompaniment. Carmen Kaye, host of “The Doo Wop Corner,” gave the demo its radio premiere during the 2010 interview, Ms.Thompson still sounding sweet and clear.

Her fourth husband, Ted Serna, whom she had known in high school and married in 1993, died in 2013. In addition to Ms. Jennings and Mr. Penny, she is survived by eight grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

Ms. Jennings, in a phone interview, told about a time when her mother, on tour in Vietnam, asked to visit soldiers in the infirmary who couldn’t come to her stage show. One badly injured young man, when introduced to her, said, “I don’t give a darn who’s here; I just want my mama.” Ms. Thompson sat with him for a long while, asking all about his mother, helping him conjure good memories.

“Three years later,” Ms. Jennings said, “my mother was working in Hawaii, and he brought his mother in there and introduced her to my mom.”

Neil Genzlinger for The New York Times on 28 September 2021.

a Dutch extended-play with 'Norman' / 'Angel, angel' / 'Sad movies' and 'Throwin' kisses'.