gold star for USAHOF

Young Love

Young Love
03 Feb
2016
Not in Hall of Fame
February 16 – March 29, 1957
Tab Hunter
Young Love



I feel like I have been giving lessons or at the very least, generalizations of what makes a hit in the 1950’s. Since, I am feeling very scholarly at the moment, now is a perfect time to summarize successful pop culture songs in the 1950’s, as the next number one fits all of the criteria.

1. Artists with names sounding remotely ethnic will not sell.

2. Not only can the same song be recorded by multiple acts at the same time, it is not uncommon for them both to chart at the same time.

3. If that happens, the song with the least amount of “edge” and/or performed by the best looking singer will more likely be the one most successful.

Tab Hunter proved all of those three lessons true when he went number one with “Young Love” in early 1957, which would be not only be his only number one, but also his only top ten hit. Coincidentally, we will learn lessons #4 and #5, one of which still takes place today, the other is slowly being phased out based on how we have grown as a society.

Starting with lesson one, as Hunter was born Arthur Kelm, which may not sound that ethnic but was of German and Jewish extraction, neither of which were mainstream palatable as of yet. His agent Henry Willson bestowed the Hollywood moniker of Tab Hunter upon him, his manager being where another new fact of the era (new for this anthology anyway) comes from a place definitely worth exploring.

Willson had multiple clients, the most famous being movie legend, Rock Hudson. Willson, who was gay, assembled a huge roster of good looking men, many of which like Willson was of the same sex persuasion. This wasn’t the most talented crop of actors, but they were the best-looking, and with movies slowly going to color and actors also appearing in the medium of television, what you looked like was more important than ever.

This didn’t mean that all of Willson’s clients were gay, but Tab Hunter and his matinee idol looks preferred…other men with similar attributes. We have come a long way since 1957, but openly gay actors were never going to sell movie tickets in that time frame. Closeted ones, like Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter however could, which is another lesson (we’ll say lesson #4) to be learned from the 1950’s.

In 1957, Tab Hunter’s career had progressed significantly since being discovered in 1950. Hunter broke through in 1955 with a series of high profile supporting roles in the films, and was definitely a star on the rise, leading his agent to secure him a record deal, even though he was not exactly a great singer, or really even a good one.

He would release “Young Love”, which had already been recorded by Sonny James (going back to Lesson #2) and furthermore was released by the original writer, Ric Cartey in 1956 to little fanfare and no chart success. James would go #2 on the main charts, though he would go number #1 on the Most Played by Jockey’s List in February of 1957.[1] What replaced it on that list?   Tab Hunter’s version, which would also go number #1 on the main chart that week.

It wasn’t that Tab Hunter’s version was the better of the three, it wasn’t, and though the arrangements were nearly identical, Hunter’s voice was by far the weakest. The difference that put Hunter over was that significantly more young women were attracted to Tab Hunter, a man they had seen in the movies and magazines, which made the difference in sales. We’ll call this a rare successful case of Lesson #5, where movie stars attempt singing careers, whether they should or not, though the difference in our era is that there is no manager pushing their acting talent to sing, rather it is the actors who think they can, though beyond minimally sold vanity albums, they are easy to ignore.[2]

Considering the amount of times in the 1950’s that the same song would appear on the charts via different artists, a scenario that would not happen today, shows the lack of ready choices that were available to the pop culture crazed public and that it was a lot easier to force feed people on mediocrity.

Actually, that latter statement still rings true.

As mentioned earlier, Hunter never would become a fixture on the top ten of the Pop Charts again, but in 1958, he would have his biggest movie role in the screen adaptation of Damn Yankees, where he played the lead role and would reach the apex of his career. He would have a steady decline until he enjoyed a bit of a career renaissance in the 1980’s when he would appear in cult director John Waters’ films, Polyester[3] and Lust in the Dust, which personally for me was the first time I had ever heard of Hunter, and considering his career had been MIA for a couple of decades, I wasn’t alone in discovering Tab in the back nine of his career.

As for Hunter’s sexuality, he would admit in memoirs about relationships with Psycho star, Anthony Perkins and 1956 Olympic Silver Medalist figure skater, Robbie Robertson prior to meeting his partner of many decades, and as opposed to other closeted celebrities from the 1950’s who passed away before they could see how the world changed in terms of same sex acceptance, he is as of this writing still alive and has become somewhat of an icon in that community.

Though not because of his music…

Other Notable Songs that charted but did not go to number one in this time period: February 16, 1957 – March 29, 1957

2/16/57: Jim Dandy by Lavern Baker went to #17 and to #1 on the R&B Chart.
2/23/57: Without Love (There Is Nothing) by Clyde McPhatter went to #19 and to #4 on the R&B Chart.
3/2/57: The Girl Can’t Help It by Little Richard peaked at #49 and went to #7 on the R&B Chart.
3/9/57: Blue Monday by Fats Domino went to #5 and made it to the top on R&B.
3/16/57: Fools Fall In Love by The Drifters peaked at #69 and went to #10 on the R&B Chart.


[1] This would be Sonny James’ biggest mainstream hit, but he was a staple on the Country Charts for years.
[2] Over the past thirty years, we accuse the following actors of thinking they can (and should) sing that polluted the audio landscape: Don Johnson, Bruce Willis, Joaquin Phoenix, Corey Feldman and John Travolta.
[3] I have a vague recollection of watching that as a tween in “odorama”, where when a number comes up, you scratch a portion of the card that emitted an appropriate aroma. I actually think those cards were picked up at a convenience store just for the promotion when it first appeared on television.
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