We're all about the history of rock & roll at BoomtownAmerica.com!

Every week, we present “ROCK REMEMBERED,” where we take a deep dive into the hidden history of rock & roll, the stories behind the artists and songs that changed the world. Join host, “Boomtown Bill” Cross each Wednesday at 7 pm (Eastern) with an encore broadcast on Saturday at noon (Eastern).

Join us this Saturday as we explore "The Greatest Frauds in Rock & Roll History!"

A singer who landed 16 songs in the Top 40 and 4 in the Top 10… 22 songs in the British Top 40… a songwriter who penned Top 10 hits for 3 other artists… an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame… yet he is almost forgotten today.

He is Gene Pitney.

Pitney was born in 1940 in Hartford, Connecticut. By high school he was singing with a local doo-wop group called the Embers. By 1959, he was recording with a young woman named Ginny Arnell under the name Jamie & Jane.

Pitney also started working as a songwriter and actually had his first success there, writing “He’s a Rebel” for Darlene Love & the Blossoms (recording as the Crystals), “Rubber Ball” for Bobby Vee and “Hello, Mary Lou” for Ricky Nelson.

Curiously, Pitney only wrote one of his own singles, “(I Wanna) Love My Life Away,” which gave him his first taste of Top 40 success in early 1961. He achieved his real breakthrough by singing the title song for the movie “Town Without Pity.” His follow-up was also supposed to be from a movie. However, a dispute over publishing rights caused the studio to cut the song from the film. It didn’t matter. “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valence” was the first of Pitney’s songs to break into the Top 10.

“Liberty Valence” and many of Pitney’s next records were written by a young songwriting duo also just getting started, Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

Pitney was one of the few American artists who continued to perform strongly even after the British invasion. In fact, Pitney was in the UK and sat in on the recording sessions for the Rolling Stones first album, where he contributed some work on the piano. He also had success on the country charts recording with George Jones.

However, as the 60’s wore on, the hits became less frequent. Gene last reached the Top 40 with an up-tempo rocker called “She’s a Heartbreaker” in 1968.

He continued to release singles that charted overseas where he was more popular (particularly in the UK and Australia).

Gene married his high school sweetheart, Lynne Gayton. Together, they had 3 sons.

Pitney continued to tour, finally reaching the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. Just 4 years later Pitney died of an apparent heart attack while on tour in Cardiff, England. The night before, he received a standing ovation at his final concert when he closed the show with “Town Without Pity.”

Few rock singers had his vocal range or his understanding of music. At Boomtown America, Gene Pitney will always be remembered as one of the greats!

Pits Hits

• “(I Wanna) Love My Life Away” (1961) #39
• “Town Without Pity” (1961) #13
• “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valence” (1962) #4
• “Only Love Can Break a Heart” (1962) # 2
• “Half Heaven Half Heartache” (1962) #12
• “Mecca” (1963) #12
• “True Love Never Runs Smooth” (1963) #21
• “Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa” (1963) #17
• “It Hurts to Be in Love” (1964) #7
• “I’m Gonna Be Strong” (1964) #9
• “I Must Be Seeing Things (1965) #31
• “Last Chance to Turn Around” (1965) #13
• “Looking Through the Eyes of Love” (1965) #28
• “Princess in Rags” (1965) #37
• “Backstage” (1966) #25
• “She’s a Heartbreaker” (1968) #16

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What was the first made-for-TV animated holiday special? Oh, alright. The title of this post sort of gives it away.

Yes, before Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, before A Charlie Brown Christmas, there was Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol!

Magoo had made the jump from theatrical cartoons to his own TV series in 1960. The success of that show convinced UPA (owners of the character) to make a 60-minute adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic.

First broadcast on NBC on December 18, 1962 with the sponsorship of the Timex watch people, the special took on an unusual “show-within-a-show concept.” Magoo was a great actor, returning to his theatrical roots by appearing on Broadway as Ebenezer Scrooge in a musical version of the famous tale.

Why this gimmick? We really don’t know. Maybe the network suits thought Magoo too familiar a character for the audience to simply buy as Scrooge without first establishing WHY he was playing Scrooge. In any event, they kept the near-sighted gags and Magoo’s already cantankerous personality lent itself very well to playing fiction’s most famous miser.

Jim Backus (best remembered as Thurston Howell III on Gilligan’s Island), as always, voiced Magoo. Also lending their talents to the production were Morey Amsterdam, Jack Cassidy, Jane Keen, and veteran voice talent Paul Frees.

The songs are much better than you would ever expect them to be, written by the accomplished team of Jule Styne and Bob Merrill (who would write the songs for Funny Girl together and many more hits working with other collaborators).

The animation was supervised by Abe Levitow, who worked as part of Chuck Jones’ unit making Looney Tunes at Warner Brothers for many years. Cartoon nerds also recognized UPA’s other cartoon star, Gerald McBoing Boing, pressed into service as Tiny Tim.

The show was very well received when it was first broadcast. In fact, its success led to the creation of an entirely new TV series, The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo – with Magoo playing other famous characters from literature, but never as well-cast as he was as Scrooge.

Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol was a TV perennial right up to 1980. Then, for reasons unknown, it was dropped from network television’s holiday line-up. It made its home video debut in 1994 and was first released on DVD in 2001 and Blu-Ray in 2010. It reappeared on NBC in 2012 and was broadcast on the CW in 2014 and 2015.

The special’s original running time was 53 minutes. Scenes have been frequently cut for additional commercials (most often, the Broadway scenes that open and close the show) since it was first broadcast. Indeed, some footage is still missing from the version available on home video.

Besides jettisoning Scrooge’s nephew Fred from the plot and switching the order of appearance for the Ghosts of Christmas Present and Past, this adaptation is surprisingly faithful to the Dickens original and remains one of the most beloved versions of “A Christmas Carol” for those of us who grew up in the first age of television.

In 2009, animation director Darrell Van Critters published an excellent book about Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol that gives you the whole story of how the special was produced as well as tons of rare animation art and behind-the-scenes photographs. Unfortunately, that book is out of print now and commands a pretty hefty price tag on the second-hand market. But if you drop by the house, we’ll let you look at our copy.