Wrapping up the hits from 1962! Quiz

Answer: Do You Love Me

The Contours were formed in 1958 by Joe Billingslea and Billy Gordon and eventually grew to a quintet by the time they signed up with Motown Records in 1960. "Do You Love Me" was written by Motown founder and chief exec Berry Gordy and both The Contours and The Temptations were considered as options to record it. Gordy wasn't satisfied with The Contours' audition so The Temptations were tabbed to record the song. Due to a miscommunication, they were not at the studio on the recording date. The Contours, however, were at the studio preparing to record other material. Gordy was so anxious to get the song on vinyl, he decided to use them instead and the result was a gold record!

Subsequent recordings did reasonably well on the R&B chart but not on the Hot 100 and the group began to fall out of favor at Motown. Part of the problem stemmed from their somewhat raucous style which ran counter to the slick format of such groups as The Temptations, The Four Tops and The Miracles. These creative differences eventually led to Billingslea leaving the group (and the entertainment business altogether) in 1964 and by 1968, the group disbanded when their contract with Motown expired.

Billingslea reformed the group with new personnel in 1971 and became a perennial presence on the oldies circuit right to the present day, 2019 as this is being written. They experienced a career boost in 1988 when "Do You Love Me" was featured in the movie "Dirty Dancing". A new generation of fans drove the song back up the Hot 100 charts when it was re-released, ultimately peaking at Number 11, ironically the same charting position that The Dave Clark Five achieved with their cover version in 1964.

Answer: Twist and Shout

The Isley Brothers - Vernon, O'Kelly, Ronald and Rudolph - initiated their musical career in the mid-1950s in their hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. Reduced to a trio in 1955 with the accidental death of Vernon, they graduated from Gospel to Doo-Wop to R&B music by the time they scored their first minor Number 47 hit in 1959 with their composition, "Shout". Three years later, Joey Dee and The Starlighters covered it resulting in a Number Six smash hit, then in 1978, it was introduced to a younger generation when it was featured in the movie "Animal House" as performed by Lloyd Williams. Always a favorite over the decades in dance clubs, it apparently has, over the years, sold enough copies to have been accorded Gold Record status.

"Twist and Shout" was written by Phil Medley and Bert Berns and was originally recorded by The Topnotes in 1961. It went nowhere but the Isleys recognised how much it jibed with their song "Shout" in style and quickly recorded their cover to capitalize on the twist dance craze that had captivated the world in 1962. Like their label mates at Motown, The Contours, they felt constrained by Motown's approach and direction and formed their own label, T-Neck, in the late 1960s. Introducing two younger brothers into the fold, Ernie and Marvin, they modernized their sound and image and got "funkified". The new approach yielded three Top Ten hits in the ensuing years: "It's Your Thing", Number Two in 1969, "That Lady", Number Six in 1973, and "Fight the Power", Number Four in 1975.

With the new millennium, the group, now consisting of just Ronald and Ernie Isley with assorted back-up musicians, is still active on the oldies circuit and in collaboration with Santana, released a CD in 2017, "Power of Peace".

Answer: Wolverton Mountain

When I first heard "Wolverton Mountain" as a young teenager in 1962, it never once crossed my mind that a place by that name existed, never mind that a knife wielding and gun toting Clifton Clowers lived there and defended the virtue of his lovely daughter from nefarious troubadours intent on stealing her away! Well, at least some of that was true.

Indeed, the mountain, actually named Woolverton, exists about 60 miles north of Little Rock, Arkansas and a fellow named Clifton Clowers was a long-time resident there on his acreage. But rather than someone to be feared, he apparently was a wise and gentle man, a WW I veteran, a deacon in the Baptist Church and pillar of his community before passing at the age of 102 in 1994. In fact, he had two daughters, no doubt beautiful, but never thwarted potential beaux with weapons.

The song was written by Clowers' nephew, Merle Kilgore, whose original version was meant to be a tribute to his uncle. Kilgore attempted to have Johnny Horton record the song but he thought it was awful. Eventually, Claude King agreed to do it but insisted that he would have the authority to re-write the song and Kilgore agreed. Apparently, it took King's adjustments to the lyric for it to become a successful hit even though it portrayed the noble and retiring Clowers as something of a varmint. Clowers didn't mind the characterization and was actually amused by it. For years after the song became a hit, curious tourists in the hundreds would drop by hoping to meet him and he would graciously receive them, obviously enjoying the notoriety.

Kilgore would later write, along with June Carter, a song that would become a big hit for Johnny Cash, "Ring of Fire". Eventually, he became Hank Williams Jr.'s long-time business manager, a position he maintained up to his death in 2005 at the age of 70. Claude King never had another Top 40 Hot 100 hit in his career but ultimately ended his country charting days in the mid-1970s with 29 hits to his credit. He was an active performer into the early days of the new millennium but passed away in 2013 in his 91st year.

Answer: The Wah Watusi

When the year-end ranking of Billboard Hits was finalized for 1962, it wasn't surprising that dance songs constituted approximately 20% of the first 40 songs on that list. What was surprising, to me at least, was where this song placed on those rankings... Number 39. I thought it would be much higher. For the record, this is how the dance songs lined up:

1. The Twist - Chubby Checker
4. Limbo Rock - Chubby Checker
5. Peppermint Twist - Joey Dee and the Starliters
9. Mashed Potato Time - Dee Dee Sharpe
22. The Locomotion - Little Eva
26. Monster Mash - Bobby (Boris) Pickett & the Crypt Kickers
33. Slow Twistin' - Chubby Checker
39. The Wah-Watusi - Orlons

The Orlons formed in 1960 in their hometown of Philadelphia and consisted of lead singer Rosetta Hightower, her junior high friends Marleena Davis and Shirley Brickley, and Stephen Caldwell who abandoned a rival group to sing with them. The girls were either 15 or 16 years old, Stephen 17, when they started out. They performed back-up duties for Dee Dee Sharpe's first two hits, "Mashed Potato Time" and "Gravy (For My Mashed Potatoes)", earlier in 1962 before Cameo records gave them the opportunity to record "The Wah-Watusi". They would have two more Top Ten hits, the Number Four, "Don't Hang Up", in 1962 and the Number Three, "South Street", in 1963. Thereafter, the group started to splinter with Davis and Caldwell the first to bail out in 1964 and when Hightower decided to remain in England following a tour there in 1968, the group officially disbanded. The founding members are now deceased except for Caldwell who reformed the group in the late 1990s or early 2000s to tour the oldies circuit.

Answer: P.T. 109

"P.T. 109" was the name of the patrol boat that Lt. John F. Kennedy was commanding when it was sliced in half by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri in the South Pacific on August 2, 1943. Despite suffering a significant back injury that would plague him for the rest of his days, Kennedy personally was responsible for rescuing three other injured shipmates and led the eleven survivors to safety by swimming to a deserted island. They were first assisted with food and water by native allied Melanesian coast watchers then rescued by other P.T. boats six days later. The incident was only partially recounted in the song but the whole episode was more fully dramatized in a movie with the same title in 1963 which featured Cliff Robertson as Kennedy. It was released in June, a mere five months before his assassination in Dallas.

Although I haven't devoted a lot of energy into research, I believe that this song and "The Battle of New Orleans" by Johnny Horton are the only two songs that became Hot 100 Top Ten hits extolling the exploits of military men who later became U.S. presidents. Horton's Number One hit in 1959 was about Andrew Jackson's victory at that site at the end of the War of 1812.

Jimmy Dean was born in Plainview, Texas in 1928 and after his own stint with the military ended in 1948, he hung around the Washington, D.C. area forming a C&W band that became quite popular in the region. He parlayed this exposure through local then national TV programs. Musically, he hit the big time in 1961 with his immensely popular composition "Big Bad John" recorded in a spoken, rather than sung, narrative which became his trademark style. "P.T. 109" was his only other Top Ten hit on the Hot 100 and he cleverly referenced and musically sampled his earlier hit with that last line - "Which proves it's hard to get the best of a man named John"!

Essentially, Dean would soon abandon his music career to follow other pursuits. First, as an actor on TV and in the movies, most notably in the "James Bond" flick, "Diamonds Are Forever", then as a business man and entrepreneur in smoked sausages, an enterprise he later sold to Sara Lee Foods. He passed away in semi-retirement in 2010 at the age of 81.

Answer: Cotton Fields

Stimulated by the success of The Kingston Trio and the burgeoning folk music scene across the USA in the fall of 1958, five freshmen at Wesleyan University in Connecticut decided to form a folk group themselves, The Highwaymen. They were Dave Fisher, Steve Trott, Steve Butts, Chan Daniels and Bobby Burnett. The goal for most of the members was to have some fun, make a bit of spending cash then get on with their lives upon graduation in 1962.

The group was good enough to be signed by the United Artists label in 1959 and released their first album and single in the autumn of 1960. Neither did much until the "B" side of their single started attracting attention in early 1961. "Michael (Row the Boat Ashore)", was a negro spiritual dating back to the civil war. It was revived by a Boston folksinger, Tony Saleton, in the mid 1950s and he taught it to Pete Seeger, then a member of The Weavers. They performed but never recorded the song. Dave Fisher, the lead singer and music arranger for The Highwaymen, discovered it and their recording would slowly climb the charts until it reached Number One in September 1961. Their follow-up release was to be the old traditional ballad, "The Gypsy Rover", but again the flip side of the disc, "Cottonfields", turned out to be more popular with DJs. As noted, it peaked at Number 13 while "The Gypsy Rover" topped out at Number 42. With the success of "Michael" their original album started selling as well, as did a second album feeding off the success of "Cottonfields".

The trouble was that all this was happening just as the group members were set to graduate. So what happened?

Steve Trott's mind was made up. He left the group in 1962 and commenced law studies at Harvard. Ultimately, he became an Appeals Court Judge for the 9th District, a position he has maintained into 2019. He was replaced by Gil Robbins, Tim Robbins' father, and the group members moved to Greenwich Village and became a big part of the folk scene there with the likes of Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs and Joan Baez. But then, in 1964, the other original members, Butts, Daniels and Burnett, felt they had delayed their post-graduate studies long enough and left to pursue their true vocations. For Butts, it was earning a PhD in Chinese Politics at Columbia U. and becoming a professor. Burnett also graduated from Harvard Law School and had a long career in law and banking. Daniels studied acting for a while but eventually graduated from Harvard Business School and became an exec with Capitol Records. Sadly, he died of pneumonia in 1975, aged 35. Music was Dave Fisher's life. He carried on with Robbins and new members of The Highwaymen until 1967 at which time the group disbanded. Fisher moved to Hollywood and wrote scores for movies and TV shows.

In 1987, the surviving group members had a series of reunion concerts celebrating their successes of 1962. Now secure in their real vocations, they would get together periodically over the next twenty years for a limited touring schedule and recording dates. When Fisher passed away in 2010, followed by Burnett's demise a year later, Butts and Trott decided to permanently cease group operations.

Answer: Run To Him

Maybe some of you pop music historians will cry "foul" here because "Run to Him" actually peaked at Number Two on the Hot 100 chart dated December 25, 1961. However, when Billboard charts are used to calculate year end rankings, normally the hit will be assigned to the year during which it accumulates most of its "scoring points" based on various performance factors on the Hot 100. In this instance, it achieved more of those points in the 1962 calendar year.

"Run to Him" was written by Gerry Goffin and Frank Keller and would prevail as Bobby Vee's second biggest hit of his career after the hit that preceded it by three months, "Take Good Care of My Baby", Vee's only chart topper. Vee would later have another Top Ten success in 1962 with the Number Three "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes".

In 1964, Beatlemania and the British Invasion changed the musical landscape. With few exceptions, the artists that achieved stardom in the late 1950s and early 1960s struggled for relevance in the ensuing years and Vee was no exception. He dabbled in movies for a time and experienced a brief musical resurgence in 1967 with his last Top Ten hit, the Number Three "Come Back When You Grow Up". Later releases would only be minor hits and he gradually gravitated to the "oldies" circuit. He remained active until about 2011 when he was diagnosed with the early onset of Alzheimer's. He succumbed to the disease in October 2016 at the age of 73.

Answer: All Alone Am I

Brenda Lee (nee Brenda Mae Tarpley) was all of twelve when she recorded her first charting discs in 1957. A native of Georgia, those songs were Rockabilly in nature, a sub-genre combining Country and Rock that was popularized in the American south by such seminal artists as Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Bill Haley. But by 1960 and now fifteen, the timbre of her voice and expressive, emotive delivery were perfect for material that dealt with teenage angst, lost love and loneliness. It resonated with her age peers but also with young adults who remembered what those emotions felt like not that long ago. What followed was a steady stream of Top Ten hits like "I'm Sorry", "I Want to Be Wanted", "Fool #1" and "Break It to Me Gently". "All Alone Am I" was her tenth and penultimate Top Ten hit, her last being the Number Six "Losing You" in 1963.

Another victim of the British Invasion, she continued to record for several years but as her successes on the Hot 100 chart diminished, she gradually re-focused her career and concentrated on the Country Music market and was a relevant force in those circles throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Toward the end of the last century, Lee was afflicted with career threatening nodules on her vocal cords but with rest, rather than surgery, she fully recovered. Now in semi-retirement, she performs and tours on an occasional basis.

Answer: Cindy

"Cindy's Birthday" was Crawford's song and he sang about her again in 1963 with the Number 72 "Cindy's Gonna Cry". Sadly, that's when he breaks up with her. The other song, noted as a clue in the question, was "Cindy, Oh Cindy". As performed by the Tarriers, it was a folk song given a Calypso treatment while Fisher's version was a straight-ahead Pop ballad.

Crawford was born in L.A. in 1946 and his family had ties to the movie industry through his father who was a film editor. In 1955, he was chosen to be one of the original 24 Disney Mouseketeers but was one of the casualties when Disney decided to reduce the number to 12 the following year. He appeared in many TV shows from 1956 to 1958 until he was cast in the plum role of Chuck Connor's son in the hit series "The Rifleman". In that era, it was de rigueur for teenage idols to hit the recording studio and release a record or two to capitalize on their fame. Among the teenage stars who did so were Annette Funicello, Haley Mills, Fabian, Shelley Fabares, Paul Peterson, Frankie Avalon and, of course, Ricky Nelson. Nelson and Avalon had legitimate singing talent, most of the others were passable vocalists but a couple of those others, who will not be named, were like Maddogrick in the shower... not that good! Crawford was among the middle-of-the-road bunch but after his follow-up releases, the Number 14 "Your Nose Is Gonna Grow" and the Number 12 "Proud", he chose to abandon his singing career.

He would continue to act, largely in bit parts, throughout the 1970s and 1980s but did have a starring turn in the 1973 movie "The Naked Ape". Starting in the early 1990s, he returned to music as the leader and drummer of an old-fashioned dance band named JCO (Johnny Crawford Orchestra) that would perform at various functions in the L.A./Hollywood area. Regrettably, in February 2019, it was announced that he was suffering from Alzheimer's, a condition which obviously will impact his further involvement in that enterprise at some point.

Answer: Silver Threads and Golden Needles

In 1960, Mary O'Brien was singing in an all girl trio while her brother, Dion, was performing as half of a folk duo with friend Tim Feild. They decided to form a trio named The Springfields and to complete the transition, the O'Briens became Dusty and Tom Springfield.

After breaking through on the British charts in 1961 with a couple of modest entries, they became popular enough to have their own 15-minute TV show on BBC. Feild left the group in 1962 to attend to family issues and was replaced by Mike Hurst. Their next two releases in Britain were even bigger hits, both peaking at Number Five, but failed to crack the Hot 100 in America where they might not have even been released. Instead "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" became their debut Billboard hit at Number 20. Oddly, it failed to chart in their homeland but was Number One in Australia for three weeks and climbed up to Number Four in Canada. To capitalize on their American breakthrough, they went to Nashville to record an album which was moderately successful. Unexpectedly, however, Dusty was introduced to American Soul Music and was hooked - that was the musical genre she wished to pursue contrary to the ambitions of the fellows. Feeling that Dusty was integral to any future success that they might have and with no apparent replacement options available, The Springfields simply folded.

Of course, we're aware of the tremendous success that ensued with Dusty. She became an iconic entertainer especially in her homeland until her death from cancer in 1999. Tom would go on to become a songwriter and producer and was very influential in the career of The Seekers. He wrote their biggest hits, the Number Four "I'll Never Find Another You" and the Number 19 "A World of Our Own" and co-wrote their biggest hit, the Number Two "Georgy Girl" in 1967. It's safe to assume those would have been hits for The Springfields had things evolved differently in 1962. And whither The Seekers then?

Answer: Lover Please

Largely a forgotten afterthought today, Clyde McPhatter was the first double inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, initially as a solo artist and then as a member of The Drifters.

He was born in Durham, N.C. in 1932, the son of a Baptist minister. He was a member of the church chorus from age five and as a teenager living in New Jersey, then N.Y.C., formed a Gospel group, the Mount Lebanon Singers. Turning to secular music in 1950, he was invited to be the lead singer for one of the top R&B outfits in the country, Billy Ward and The Dominos. Although he was learning a lot from Ward, he resented being the star of the group but earning a pittance while Ward pocketed most of the cash. Feeling he could do better elsewhere, he left the group in 1953 and formed his own group, The Drifters, which also became renowned in R&B circles. He was obliged to fulfill commitments to the Armed Forces in 1954, but rather than returning to the group upon his discharge in 1955, he opted instead to pursue a solo career. The loss of McPhatter to The Drifters was catastrophic and it took them four years to fully recover, primarily due to Ben E. King's emergence as their lead singer.

Meanwhile, McPhatter's progress to anticipated fame and fortune did not unfold as he thought it might. From 1956 to 1964, he charted a commendable 21 entries on the Hot 100 but only seven achieved Top 40 status with only two Top Ten hits, the previously noted Number Six "A Lover's Question" in 1958 and the Number Seven "Lover Please" in 1962. Certainly his impact on the R&B charts was more significant but in his mind's eye, this was not the stuff of legends and that's what he aspired to. Becoming depressed and despondent regarding his career arc, he abused drugs and alcohol and became undependable, missing concert dates and unable to perform competently in recording sessions. Even The Drifters were doing better than he was! Hoping to resuscitate his career in Britain where R&B music was in resurgence, he lapsed into old habits after a promising start and he made his return to the U.S. in the early 1970s. In an interview with a music critic, he lamented that "he had no more fans left" but whether he was aware of it or not, his legacy was lasting as the singing model to Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke and countless other young R&B vocalists. After years of abusing his body with drugs and booze along with the stress of depression, he died in 1972 after a heart attack, aged 39.

Answer: Venus in Blue Jeans

Jimmy Clanton was born in 1940 in Bayou country, Cut Off, Louisiana, but grew up in the Baton Rouge area. He formed his first band, The Rockets, in 1956 and were friendly rivals of groups fronted by John Fred and Johnny Rivers. John Fred and His Playboy Band went on to record the Number One hit "Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)" in 1968 while Johnny Rivers had a number of Billboard hits from 1964 to 1977. But Clanton's group was the up-and-comer in 1958 and were invited to a recording session for Ace Records at Cosimo Matassa's studio in New Orleans, one of the few white acts to be so privileged. The result was the Number Four (Number One on the R&B chart) "Just a Dream". His unassuming charm and good looks induced Alan Freed to make him the lead actor in the 1959 Rock & Roll movie "Go, Johnny, Go!" which featured such heavy hitters as Chuck Berry, Jackie Wilson and Ritchie Valens. Clanton recorded "Go, Jimmy, Go" that year which peaked at Number Five and then was obliged to enter the U.S. Army for a two year stint. "Venus in Blue Jeans", a Sedaka composition, seems to have been recorded while Clanton was on leave.

By the time he returned to civilian life, the momentum he built up earlier was dissipated and the arrival of The Beatles, et al, didn't help. He continued to record unsuccessfully for the rest of the decade before becoming a DJ during the 1970s then joining the oldies circuit thereafter. His website notes that he still performs periodically as of early 2019.

Answer: It Keeps Right on a-Hurtin'

Johnny Tillotson was born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1938. He started performing as a child at local events but didn't display overt evidence that he intended to pursue a career as an entertainer until starting university as a journalism/communications student in 1956. He competed in a talent contest in 1957 and although he didn't win, he attracted the attention of Archie Bleyer, the owner of Cadence Records, who signed him to a contract. His initial six recordings, all his own compositions, were good enough to chart in the mid-ranges of the Hot 100, but not successful enough to induce him to abandon his education and he ultimately graduated with a B.A. in 1959.

Finally, in late 1960 he broke through with a Kaufman/Anthony composition "Poetry in Motion" which shot up the charts to peak at Number Two. He followed that up with the Number Seven "Without You" in 1961 before scoring big for the first time with one of his own compositions "It Keep's Right On A-Hurting". Although it appears from the lyric that it speaks to a failed love affair, Tillotson actually wrote it as he was grieving for his gravely ill father who was fighting a losing battle with cancer. This was the first of Tillotson's hits that would cross over to the Country charts, which actually was his first love. Thereafter, most of his recordings would do better on the Country charts than on the Pop charts but because he sang his songs without a pronounced drawl or twang common to country music, he remained influential in both genres. Some of his later successes highlight his emphasis on Country oriented standards like "Send Me the Pillow that You Dream On", an old Hank Locklin number, Hank Williams' "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love With You)" and his last Top Ten hit in 1963, "Talk Back Trembling Lips", which was a Country Number One for Frank Ashworth that same year.

A common thread in these information dialogues was the effect that the British Invasion had on home grown North American artists in 1964 and thereafter. Tillotson was another casualty of the changing musical landscape and he slowly faded from charting relevance, even in the C&W genre. He continued to tour worldwide on the oldies circuit, up to 230 dates per year as the new millennium dawned. A glance at his web page indicates that he will be active up to 2020 at least, joining many of his age peers on Caribbean cruises that focus on nostalgia.

Answer: Speedy Gonzalez

Pat Boone was born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1934, moved to Nashville with his parents two years later, and essentially grew up there. None of the resources I've researched suggest he was musically active growing up but following graduation from university in 1954, he won a talent contest which earned him the opportunity to perform on the "Ted Mack Amateur Hour" TV program and later, the "Arthur Godfrey Show" in 1955, the same year he initiated his recording career with Dot Records, the label he stuck with for over a decade.

Most of his early material consisted of sanitized cover versions of hits originally performed by black singers. In those days, music by black artists that "rocked" was classified arbitrarily as a "race" record and would normally not be played by commercial, white radio stations. Hence, his first Number One hit in 1955 was "Ain't That a Shame", originally released by Fats Domino. Domino's version, which was largely limited to radio stations that played black R&B music, stalled at Number Ten even though it probably was a superior recording. In 1956, Boone doubled down with two Little Richard hits, "Tutti Frutti" at Number 12 and "Long Tall Sally" at Number Eight and then took Ivory Joe Hunter's 1950 hit "I Almost Lost My Mind" to Number One for four weeks. By 1957, the color barrier seemed to break down and hits became hits regardless of the color of the artist's skin. Boone then turned to romantic ballads and had no less than three of them top the Hot 100 in 1957; "Don't Forbid Me" for one week, "Love Letters in the Sand" for seven weeks, and "April Love" for six weeks. It was at this point that Boone seriously rivalled Presley as the dominant artist in pop music. Of course, it was of interest since they were artistically polar opposites. But then, Presley pulled away in a landslide. For the rest of the decade, Boone was a constant chart presence and holds the record for most consecutive weeks, at 220, in which he had at least one release on the Hot 100 chart. His sixth and final chart topper was in 1961 with "Moody River".

I'm not sure why Boone recorded a novelty song about the fastest mouse in all of Mexico, "Speedy Gonzalez", as it certainly stands out as unique in his catalogue. Perhaps he knew his time as a star was up and wanted to go out with a wink. Speedy Gonzalez was a Warner Brothers cartoon character and Mel Blanc provided Speedy's voice in the song just as he had on film.

As noted, Boone would have no more significant Hot 100 hits and spent the rest of the century singing religious and Gospel music, hosting Christian radio shows and promoting conservative political causes.

Answer: Johnny Get Angry

Joanie Sommers (Nee Joan Drost) was born in 1941 in Buffalo, N.Y. but moved with her family to California in 1955. She had been performing since the age of ten and sang with high school bands before being signed to the Warner Brothers label in 1959. She recorded several songs during the 1960s but only "Johnny Get Angry" made any significant impression on the Hot 100 at Number Seven. Two other releases staggered to Numbers 54 and 94 on the chart. She did sing on numerous Pepsi commercials during the 1960s but essentially left show business in 1972 when her husband of eleven years died unexpectedly leaving her three children to raise on her own. She resumed her career in the 1980s but it seems that nothing particularly noteworthy has come of it.

For those unfamiliar with "Johnny Get Angry", Sommers chastises her boyfriend for being too meek and mild, that she needs a guy to show her who's the boss. Somehow, I'm not sure that sentiment would fly among modern females.