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Birth Name |
Gene Francis Alan Pitney |
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Also Known As |
Gene Pitney, Billy Bryan, Jamie in Jamie & Jane (Gene
Pitney and Ginny Arnell) |
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Born |
February 17, 1940 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA |
| Died | April 5, 2006 (aged 66) Cardiff, Wales, UK |
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Genre |
Pop, Country rock |
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Occupation |
Sing, Songwriter, guitarist, pianist, drummer, and skilled sound engineer |
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Instruments |
Vocals, guitar, piano, drum |
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Years Active |
1960s – 2006 |
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Labels |
Musicor |
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Website |
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Gene Pitney (February 17, 1940 – April 5, 2006) was an American singer and
songwriter. He was also an accomplished guitarist, pianist, drummer, and
skilled sound engineer. In 2002, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. Through the mid-1960s, he enjoyed considerable success as a recording artist on both sides of the Atlantic. As a performer, he charted 16 Top 40 hit singles in the US, 4 of which reached the top ten. In the UK, the figures were even more impressive: 22 top 40 hits, and 11 top tens. As a songwriter, he also penned the big early 1960s hits "He's A Rebel" by The Crystals, and "Hello Mary Lou" by Rick Nelson. Pitney was among a small group of early 1960s American artists and acts such as Roy Orbison, The Beach Boys, The Four Seasons, Jan and Dean and Jay and the Americans that continued to enjoy big radio hits after the British Invasion arrived in the United States in 1964. Pitney is also well remembered for "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", which was associated with the 1962 John Ford film of the same name, starring Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles and Lee Marvin. Pitney gave a strong and distinctive vocal performance of the song, penned by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Although it was a certified Top 10 hit for Pitney, it was never used in the movie due to a publishing squabble between Famous Music and Paramount Pictures. His 1963 hit "Mecca" is considered by some to be a precursor to psychedelia in its use of Indian musical influences, at least three years before The Beatles began incorporating these influences. His ongoing popularity in the UK market was ensured by the chart success of "Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa" at the end of 1963/beginning of 1964, when in January the Burt Bacharach/Hal David song peaked at #4. "Tulsa" was also a big hit in the US and would become the song that opened up Pitney's career to the international markets. In the mid-Sixties, Pitney crossed over to the country charts by cutting two albums with honky-tonk legend George Jones and one with Melba Montgomery. All the while he toured the world extensively and even recorded entire albums in Italian and Spanish for the lucrative and loyal foreign market. Pitney was actually voted Italy’s top singer in a 1964 poll, and he became enormously popular in Britain. He’d tour the U.K. twice a year, often for a month at a time, Long after the hit streak faded in his homeland, Pitney continued to tour the continent with great success. He died, of
natural causes aged 66, on April 5 2006, in Cardiff, Wales in the middle
of a UK tour. |
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(I Wanna) Love My Life Away