When we were doing the “Huckabee” show on TBN, we often asked the musical guests to tape a second song that would be a “digital exclusive,” appearing online only. These didn’t get seen as much as the performances that aired on TV, and they represent a treasure trove of material you might not have seen before. For our weekly look back, here’s a great digital exclusive, “I’m the Lucky One,” from Pure Prairie League.
By HP pop culture guru Pat Reeder
A few weeks ago, we lost the late actress Shelley Fabares. I wanted to pay more of a tribute to her, but it happened the same week we lost Dolly Parton. So I decided to circle back to Shelley.
As co-author of the book “Hollywood Hi-Fi,” a humorous history of unlikely celebrity recordings, I think of Shelley as one of the prime examples of the “Reluctant Teen Idol.” Due to the meteoric success of Ricky Nelson of “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” every cute teenager on a pre-Beatles TV series was forced into the recording studio to see if lightning would strike twice. In Shelley’s case it did, with her #1 1962 hit, “Johnny Angel.” Here’s a remarkable colorized restoration of her miming it on her sitcom, “The Donna Reed Show.”
Shelley didn’t go on to a major singing career because...well, she couldn’t really sing. That tune was assembled from dozens of takes edited together. When it hit and the producers called to tell her she was going to sing it on the Ed Sullivan show, she nearly had a nervous breakdown. She eventually performed it “live” occasionally by lip-syncing to the record. She said her worst experience was when she was “performing” it on a local TV show, the needle stuck, and “I think I went into a coma.”
The genre produced a number of hits for TV heartthrobs such as Shelley’s co-star Paul Peterson, Patty Duke, Johnny Crawford of “The Rifleman” (“Cindy’s Birthday”) and even Edd “Kookie” Byrnes (“Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb.”) Interesting trivia: Johnny Crawford was a very nice guy whom I spoke with a couple of times. He led a 1920s big band in Los Angeles. And Patty Duke, whose career began with a shocking level of child abuse, hated being forced to cut her albums. She called them “a painful extraction from my psyche” and felt sick when people asked her to autograph them.
Of course, not all of these musical experiments worked out. Dwayne Hickman has a funny chapter in his memoir “Forever Dobie” about his flop single, “School Dance.” But my favorite “What Were They Thinking” song has to be this 45, which we loved so much, we tracked down the rights and put it on a “Hollywood Hi-Fi” soundtrack CD. It’s “Leave It To Beaver” star Jerry Mathers with the hilariously awful “Wind-Up Toy.” Dig the “Shoo-be-do-be-bop” backup singers.
I am VERY sorry. To make it up to you for inflicting that on you, let’s finish with the greatest of this genre, and the father of it, Ricky Nelson with the classic, “Hello, Mary Lou.”
The weekend means it’s time to take a break from the real fake news for the even better fake news from the Babylon Bee.
