Obituary: Sonny James

Famed country singer Sonny James, 87, has died. He had a number of hits, but perhaps the most famous was one of the best songs of the 1950s:



A live version:



More:

During the 1950s, Mr. James was a regular on “The Ozark Jubilee.” In 1961 he became the first country recording artist to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He also appeared in multiple films, including “Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar,” “Nashville Rebel,” “Las Vegas Hillbillies” and “Hillbillies in a Haunted House,” and guested on “The Ed Sullivan Show” multiple times.

In 1962 Mr. James was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry, and five years later, he would begin an unprecedented streak of chart dominance. From 1967-71, he notched 16 straight No. 1 country singles on the Billboard charts, beginning with “Need You” and ending with “Here Comes Honey Again.”

Many of those — such as “Born to Be with You” and “Only the Lonely” — were covers of pop hits. Others, including “Since I Met You, Baby” and “It’s Just a Matter of Time,” were countrified covers of classic R&B songs previously recorded by artists such as Brook Benton and Etta James, a nod to his diverse musical tastes (Mr. James was a lifelong admirer of Nat King Cole. The two later met in the early 1960s when both were on Capitol Records; a photo on James' website shows the two men sitting side by side in the recording studio). In 1967 Mr. James co-hosted the first CMA Awards alongside Bobbie Gentry.

He retired from show business in 1983 and spent much of his retirement fishing.

Time for Something

else, this time from Sonny James:




And from Conway Twitty:



Twitty singing the same song in his later years. He could still belt it out:

I

returned to Reno from going the "long way" through Sacramento and up I80 over Donner Summit. It takes two hours longer than going the shortcut through McCloud and Susanville, but I felt like going that way.

I somehow managed to get up enough energy to go down to Best Buy and pick up the first season set of Father Knows Best, a show I haven't seen since it was syndicated in the 1960s. I have heard some of the episodes are edited ones because the available unedited prints were not very good. I guess Sony owns the rights to the original prints, but it won't release them, so we consumers are stuck with imperfect copies. Still, this is the only way to get it.

One of the actors in the show, Lauren Chapin, who became a born-again Christian quite a few years ago after having many personal problems, has an official website up on the series.

I also spent some time picking up some compilations of 1950s and 1960s hits. I have tons of CDs, which I won't get rid of, and I intend on continuing to buy them even as I do have iPods and such. I like the tangible. Anyway, there were some songs I wanted on them, including "Time Won't Let Me," by the Outsiders; "Do Wah Diddy Diddy," by Manfred Mann; "It's Only Make Believe" by Conway Twitty; and both hit versions of "Young Love" by Sonny James and Tab Hunter. Since I have a wide variety of songs and genres on my iPod, I thought by having both versions of "Young Love" would cover both kinds of young love, though Hunter's version didn't change the lyrics of James' version. If I have to explain this, well, shit, take a look at this site.

Anyway, that's about it for me. I am feeling pretty faint.