关于山顶乐队
In April 1952, Billy Vaughn, local musician and WKU alumnus, asked three WKU students to help him record one of his compositions. Jimmy Sacca, Don McGuire and Seymour Spiegelman joined Vaughn at Van Meter Auditorium, where they paid a campus security guard $10 for access to the facility and then recorded 尝试 using a piano and a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder. 这是在帮助下完成的 of football player Bill Ploumis, who lay on the floor and lifted the piano pedal whenever 它卡住了.
When local WLBJ deejay Bill Stamps played 尝试 on his evening radio program Whistling In The Dark, his listeners requested the song 15倍.
As a former employee of Dot Records, Stamps convinced music executive Randy Wood to 听录音. Wood then brought a professional recording crew to Van Meter Auditorium where they worked for six hours to get the right take. 一旦被捕获, 另一面 你决定了我的决定 只录了30分钟.
突然的成功
尝试 was released May 25, 1952, but it did not sell well at first. 当伍德组装 Hilltoppers to break the news that their musical career would be brief, a Cincinnati distributor called to request 1,000 copies of the record as soon as possible. 8月 16th, 尝试 在公告牌排行榜上!
Distributed by Dot Records of Gallatin, Tennessee, 尝试 达到了没有. 7 on 广告牌's best selling pop records list. 很快就取得了巨大的成功. On October 26, 1952 的Hilltoppers appeared on Ed Sullivan's nationally syndicated CBS television show, Toast of the Town. The Juke Box Operators of America voted The Hilltoppers the best vocal combination of 1953 in a 投币箱 杂志的调查.
的Hilltoppers now faced the difficult task of balancing college course work and 一夜成名. While still students, they performed on eight nationally syndicated television programs and flew to countless weekend engagements in cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, 辛辛那提,波士顿,圣. 路易斯和纽约. For three of the boys, the collegiate attire of beanies, letter sweaters, gray flannels and white bucks was more than just a gimmick; missing performances due to scheduled exams was a necessary part of their 双重生活.
1954年3月, P.S. 我爱你 成为他们的第一张金唱片. 两年后, 只有你 stayed on the British Best Selling Pop Records list from January to June 1956, paving the way for 的Hilltoppers' ten-week tour of England that summer.
留下他们的印记
From 1952 to 1957, 的Hilltoppers charted 19 hits on 广告牌美国有一半进入前10名. In the late 1950s, 的Hilltoppers expanded their repertoire of love ballads with the calypso hit 玛丽安 and an original rhythm and blues number called 小丑. Another style of music, however, was gaining national popularity. 11月/ 12月 1957 issue of the fan club newsletter Hilltoppers主题 included a round-table discussion of Rock and Roll, which Seymour found "unimaginative 和重复性."
的Hilltoppers managed their careers around military service for three of the four vocalists, canning music for release while Sacca was in the South Pacific and recruiting others to tour in McGuire and Spiegelman's place. Having given the group their start, Billy Vaughn turned his attention to his career as a composer and orchestra conductor with Eddie Crowe and later Doug Cordoza serving as his replacements.
Successful quartets not only recorded popular tunes, but they sang whenever given the opportunity, be it a national television guest appearance, a night club engagement, a radio deejays' program, a state fair or a store grand opening. 整个20世纪50年代, 的Hilltoppers kept a teenage and college following but were also a big draw for popular nightclubs like the Casa Loma in St. Louis, the Castle Farms Ballroom in Cincinnati 还有休斯顿的翡翠屋. Tours abroad to Great Britain (1956), Germany, France & England (1958) and the South Pacific (1959) brought them international recognition.
最出名的还是 P.S. 我爱你, which sold over 3 million copies, 的Hilltoppers secured fame for themselves and 他们的母校. From Van Meter Auditorium to stages around the world, Jimmy Sacca, Don McGuire, Seymour Spiegelman, and Billy Vaughn promoted a clean-cut image of 1950s 大学生活和浪漫的爱情. Their music is time-dated, yet timeless. 从它的 beginning at WKU, 的Hilltoppers' music will forever exemplify the sounds of a wonderful 美国音乐时期. WKU salutes 的Hilltoppers for having enhanced America's 丰富的音乐传统.
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