Articles by John Twang

The talented Jackie DeShannon recorded "I Can Make It With You" (Chip Taylor) shortly before the Pozo-Seco Singers and took the tune into the top sixty. The Pozo-Seco Singers (Don Williams, Susan Taylor and Lofton Kline) version of "I Can Make It With You" hit the top thirty in 1966. It's from the album of the same name, the groups second LP for Columbia. Don Williams, featured elsewhere on this site, went on to a successful country career after the group parted ways.

The chart topping "You Can't Hurry Love" (Holland–Dozier–Holland) by The Supremes (Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson) was released in 1966 and produced by the talented composers. It's from the number one Billboard chart LP "Supremes A Go-Go" that also contains the top ten single "Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart". Listen and you'll hear the Funk Brothers along with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. The Phil Collins cover of "You Can't Hurry Love" peaked in the top ten in 1983. The…

CBC radio host Ed McCurdy composed the anti-war classic " Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream". It's has been recorded in seventy-six languages. In November 1989, as Tom Brokaw stood on top of the Berlin Wall, he directed his NBC-TV cameras towards the school children on the East German side of the Berlin Wall, to show the children singing "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream" en masse as the wall was being dismantled. The Weavers featuring the vocals of Fred Hellerman sang the tune on thei…

Hildegarde (Hildegarde Loretta Sell) with Patrick et son Orchestre and "Darling Je Vous Aime Beaucoup" (Anna Sosenko) featuring a solo by the incredible Django Reinhardt. The 1935 recording was made in Paris and featured here in it's entirety simply for the artistry of a song seldom heard in this form. It was introduced in the film "Love and Hisses" by Hildegarde and peaked at twenty-one in 1943. Despite the European "feel" Hilegarde was born in Wisconsin and the composer in New Jersey. Anna Sos…

"Up, Up and Away" (Jimmy Webb) was recorded in 1967 on the album "Happy Is The Sunshine Company". A version as Linda Kaye Henning (Betty Jo on Petticoat Junction) and The Sunshine Company was shelved until 2011 when the cd "The Girls From Petticoat Junction" was released. Composer Jimmy Webb did the arranging for this and the Fifth Dimension versions and probably explains why they sound almost identical. About one week later in 1967 The Fifth Dimension (Marilyn McCoo, Billy Davis Jr., Florenc…

Thomas "Fats" Waller recorded "Lookin' For Another Sweetie (Confessin')" (Chris Smith - Sterling Grant) in 1929. Two years later Al Neiburg rewrote the lyric and suddenly the music was composed by Doc Dougherty and Ellis Reynolds. Australia's yodelling Frank Ifield released "I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)" (Neiburg - Dougherty - Reynolds) in 1963. This topped the U.K. charts but only reached number 58 on the U.S. chart.

"The Whistling Gypsy" aka "The Gypsy Rover" was supposedly composed by Dublin songwriter Leo Maguire around 1950 although it can be disputed that this was a traditional song called "The Raggle Taggle Gypsy". The Clancy Brothers serve their version here. All members of The Highwaymen (Dave Fisher, Bob Burnett, Steve Butts, Chan Daniels, and Steve Trott) made the Dean's list at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. They had a 1961 top forty hit with "The Gypsy Rover" from the album "Standing Room…

The late Keith Whitley recorded the album "Don't Close Your Eyes" complete with the track "When You Say Nothing At All" (Paul Overstreet - Don Schlitz) in 1988 and the original topped the country chart. Alison Krauss and Union Station (Dan Tyminski, Ron Block, Adam Steffey, Barry Bales and Larry Atamanuik) recorded the Randy Scruggs produced "When You Say Nothing At All" for the album "Keith Whitley: A Tribute Album". In 1995 the song reached the country top five and top fifty on the pop char…

In 1967 Bob Dylan recorded the demo of "Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)" but actual commercial copies of that session didn't show up until the 1975 "Basement Tapes" album. Dylan's version here was issued on the 1970 LP "Self Portrait". Manfred Mann's (Manfred Mann, Mike d'Abo, Tom McGuiness and Klaus Voorman) recorded "Mighty Quinn" (Bob Dylan) at the beginning of 1968 with the single peaking on almost all issued charts in the top ten. It's from the U.K. album "Edwin Garvey" released in t…

Singer/composer and actor Hughie Lewis (Hugh Anthony Cregg III) and his group the News released the well received album "Sports" in 1984 and the second single from that album was "I Want a New Drug" (Hayes - Lewis). The song peaked at number six on Billboard. If you remember the hits: "Jack and Jill", "That Old Song", "You Can't Change That" and "A Woman Needs Love" then you remember the group Raydio (Ray Parker, Jr., Vincent Bohnam, Arnell Carmichael and Jerry Knight). Ray Parker Jr. left the…

Based on the fiddle tune "The Eighth of January", the date the battle was fought, high school principal and history buff Jimmie Driftwood (Morris) wrote "The Battle of New Orleans" and recorded it in 1958 for his album "Newly Discovered Early American Folk Songs". Not only did Johnny Horton hit the number one spot with "The Battle of New Orleans", it was the number one song of the year 1959! The single is on the album "The Spectacular Johnny Horton". The next year it was the Grammy Award Song…

Once a member of The Three Chuckles when they had a top twenty hit with "Runaround", Teddy (Alessandro) Randazzo wrote and recorded "Pretty Blue Eyes" (Randazzo - Bobby Weinstein). Emmy winner Steve Lawrence (Sidney Liebowitz) peaked in the top ten with his version of "Pretty Blue Eyes" in 1959. The talented Mr. Eydie Gorme is also a noted actor winning the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and a Tony Award nomination for his performance as Glick in What Makes Sammy Run? and has a great s…

"Just Like Me" (Rick Dey) was issued by the Wilde Knights" (Rich Brown, Rick Dey, Dean Adair, Roger Huycke) in 1965. The Wilde Knights issued only a couple of singles. They had played under the names of The Furys and Pipers IV from 1962-63. Stars of Dick Clark's "Where the Action Is", Paul Revere & the Raiders (Mark Lindsay, Freddy Weller and over thirty other members through the years) had their first big hit reaching to number eleven with "Just Like Me" (Rick Dey - Rich Brown) in 1966. It's…

Rick Nelson's "I Rise, I Fall" (Paul Hampton) is from the 1963 album "Rick Sings For You". Between the Imperial and Decca labels Rick had fourteen singles released that year although "I Rise, I Fall" was not issued as a single. An entertainer who should have been even greater a success is Florida's Johnny Tillotson who had his biggest hits with Archie Bleyer's Cadence label. When it folded he went to MGM and the hits continued. From the album "The Tillotson Touch", "I Rise, I Fall" cracked…

Barbara Mason recorded and hit with "Yes, I'm Ready" (Barbara Mason) and reached Billboard's Top Ten in the summer of 1965. It came from the "Yes, I'm Ready" album. Teri DeSario with K.C. (Harry Casey) hit the top ten with their "Yes, I'm Ready" issue when it peaked at number two in 1980. The duet's single topped the AC chart. K.C. of "K.C. and the Sunshine Band" produced the album "Moonlight Madness".

Written in 1971 "How Long" by J. D. (John David) Souther came out on his debut album "John David Souther" the next year. Yes this is the same "Souther" from the celebrated Souther Hillman Furay Band. Along with "How Long" J.D. co-wrote "Best of My Love", "Victim of Love", "Heartache Tonight", and "New Kid in Town" for the Eagles. The Eagles (Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit) album "Long Road Out of Eden" featured the single "How Long" in 2007. It won the Grammy Award fo…

Nashville A Team member and one of the performers responsible for the Nashville Sound, the self-taught pianist, studio musician and performer Floyd Cramer composed and recorded "Fancy Pants". Al Hirt's "Fancy Pants" is a track from his 1965 album "That Honey Horn Sound". The single got into the top fifty and top ten on the Adult Contemporary charts. Al Hirt was once first trumpet and soloist with the Horace Heidt Orchestra.

"Hot Diggity" is based on Frenchman Alex-Emmanuel Chabrier's 1883 composition "España". M. Chabrier was friends with painters Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Édouard Manet. Perry (Pierino) Como's "Hot Diggity" (Al Hoffman - Dick Manning) topped the chart in 1956. That's Mitchell Ayres orchestra featured on the record. The same Mitchell Ayres was his orchestra leader on Perry's successful television show.