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| What? So they didn't get billing... |
For the record, the concept beyond this series is the thought that inspired A Project of Self Indulgence.
The simple existence of the One-Hit Wonder just doesn’t sit right with me. If a band/artist got famous enough to make that one massive hit, surely, they did something before that and kept trying until they got there, right? This series looks beyond that one slim (massive) hit to check in on the hopes/dreams of the people who made them. I drew the list of candidates come from (where else?) a Wikipedia page devoted to these artists and I’ll be using Spotify for the research. (Love it or hate it, Spotify definitely made me a little crazy. But I digress…)
Bobby Day, born Robert James Byrd, 1930, came up in the greater Fort Worth, Texas metropolitan area. Wikipedia lists 1958’s “Rockin’ Robin” as his signature hit, but Day wrote three famous songs. The other versions eclipsed his originals in each case, but he garnered enough attention to play major, miles-out-of-market gigs and with a handful of artists whose names stuck to their famous songs for the long haul - e.g., The Penguins, with “Earth Angel.” Even if his name didn’t follow all of the songs he wrote, Day enjoyed a decade-plus career in the Los Angeles music scene bouncing between this act and that, typically as the starring member.
Day left Texas for Los Angeles fame at the young age of 15 (which, for context, puts his move at 1945). Day came in and out of an act called The Hollywood Flames for most of his career, but he had a complicated relationship with that anchor act. The group chased fame in a remarkably “throw-it-at-the-wall” spirit, including a number of name changes* and creative alliances that shifted as other performers came in and flew out of The Hollywood Flames’ orbit. (* Some treated the backing band as so many inter-changeable parts - The Turks became The Jets became The Sounds - while others treated the front-man as an after-thought. For instance, when Day led the group, they went with Bobby Day & the Satellites, but that switched to Earl Nelson & The Pelicans when his future collaborator in Bob & Earl, Earl Nelson, took lead vocals.) Day managed to stay on top of that shifting pile long enough to record a couple dozen songs as a solo artist. That same period also happened to be his most fruitful as a songwriter.
The fact Day borrowed “Rockin’ Robin” from a man named Leon Rene (writing, perhaps unsurprisingly, as Jimmie Thomas) makes his career into something like a karmic cycle. Day wrote songs that made other bands famous several times over his career, e.g., The Dave Clark Five for “Over and Over” and Thurston Harris for “Little Bitty Pretty One.” A fun footnote about the latter: “Little Bitty Pretty One” was a loving nickname for Day's wife, Jackie.
