I know, I know.  I can hear you already, "Oh man, Vera, you've really lost it this time.  Pat Boone?  Mr. White Bread?  The
world's biggest square?  I mean, really.  Pat Boone?"  Well hold on, if you'd just slow down a minute.  I don't want you to overwork that pacemaker you got there.  Just read on, and maybe by the end of this piece, you'll be saying, "Pat Boone...hmm."

What led me to start thinking about Pat Boone was running into him the other night, at my son's high school play.  I was talking with the actor Andy Garcia.  We used to be in acting class together and his daughter was also in the play, as was the daughter of Debbie Boone, Pat's daughter.

As I was finishing my catching up with Andy, Pat walked by and I reintroduced myself, thinking he probably wouldn't remember me.  "Sure, you did a couple of our Easter Telethons.  Man, that song of yours is the greatest love song ever written."  Embarrassed by his flattery in front of my ex-wife and my stepson, I quickly changed the subject.

"And my mom used to sing on your show in the 50s," I said, "She was so impressed with you; she used to come home and tell me, `You know, Pat makes hit records, does a TV show four days a week and is a straight A student at Columbia University.'"  Pat's wife, Shirley, the daughter of country star Red Foley, piped up, "Yes, and he was raising four daughters and graduated Magna Cum Laude, too!" 

For a moment there, I started to feel the same inadequacy I felt at thirteen with my mother's feeble attempt at motivating me to similar excellence.

Just then, to save the day, my eighteen year old stepson, Lee, exclaimed, "Dude!  Pimpin' shoes!"  Pat, you see, was
still wearing his trademark white shoes, no longer white buck, but as white and bright as if they just came out of the shoe store.  He laughed and said, "Yeah, I've always liked looking down at my feet and seeing white."

I mentioned that I'd always liked his version of "I'll Be Home."  After all these years of hearing himself put down as some sort of interloper and being accused of everything from stealing rock'n'roll from the "real" rockers to "ripping off" black
entertainers and keeping them from selling more records than they might've, his answer was a little defensive and, I thought, unnecessarily modest.

"Oh," he replied, "but the Flamingos really sang that song beautifully, didn't they?"  "Sure," I said, "But you did a great job on it, too.  And the reason, I think, is that `I'll Be Home' is essentially a pop song and you sang it as a pop song."

And herein lies the essence of why Pat Boone has gotten a bad rap over the years.  Pat Boone is a pop singer who has been judged as a rock'n'roll singer, which is precisely what he is not.  You wouldn't slam B.B. King for being a bad pop singer (ever hear B's lame attempt at the Platters' "On My Word Of Honor?").  It makes no sense to judge a man for what he's not.  We should judge him for what he is and, as a crooner of sentimental pop ballads, Pat Boone ranks with the finest.

Nor should we include him with the hip popsters, like the Sinatras and Darins.  Pat Boone does not swing.  No, his specialty is the smooth and soothing love song, like "Love Letters In The Sand" or "April Love."  When it comes to that kind of thing, no one of his generation does it better.  Can you imagine even a singer as versatile as Bobby Darin on one of those?  Forget it, Bobby's too hip, too cynical to give himself over to such sweet sentiment.

It takes a certain kind of courage to reveal that kind of vulnerability in song.  It is rare among us manly men to acknowledge feelings of this sort.  We're too "butch."  Sinatra could do it; he could go either way: be the cocky swinger or play the loser.  But, his vulnerability was always that of the hipster who fell unwisely and too hard.  Pat Boone played the innocent who walks through the world, almost unaware of the dangers which abound.  In his world, it's just him and you, the person he's singing to.

We should remind ourselves here that, during the early years of rock'n'roll, Pat was the only real rival Elvis Presley
had.  The rest were those who would be Elvis.  As Pat reminded me the other night, "You know, Elvis was once my opening act.  It was in Cleveland, at a show for Bill Randall, the disc jockey."  Like Bill Haley, Boone had been having national hit records for about six months prior to Presley's breakthrough with "Heartbreak Hotel."  After that, Elvis was nobody's opening act.

His memory thus jogged, Pat reflected, "Elvis, of course, was the handsomest guy who ever lived and had all that sex appeal, but I think my strength was my sincerity."  I hadn't thought about it, but I think he's right.  As big a fan as I am of the pre-army Elvis, one does walk away from a Presley performance with the feeling that it was just that: a performance, a great show by the greatest showman of his time, while, with Pat, you feel that he really means everything he's singing...to you, rather than at you.  There's no manipulation, no playing for the reaction, for the screams and the applause.  This is no needy, neurotic Judy Garland type, desperate for approval.  Pat Boone exudes the confidence of one who speaks the truth.

Then, there's the issue of the cover records.  Among his critics, especially those who came up after the early rock'n'roll years, there is an angry indignation, a self-righteous rage, regarding the cover record.  This reveals only the writers' ignorance of the inner workings of the music business as it was prior to the 60s, when the song and the record became one in the mind of the public, and only the "original" versions were deemed worthy in their authenticity.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Song was King.  People fell in love with a song, rather than a performance.  Records were made of a hit song to appeal to different markets.  For example, a label, say Decca, might put out a male version by Bing Crosby, a female version by Ella Fitzgerald, a vocal group version by the Andrews Sisters or the Mills Brothers, a version by Louis Jordan for the "race" market or one by Red Foley, Pat Boone's future father-in-
law, for the hillbilly market.  If a song was really adaptable, there might be foreign language or even polka versions.

It is only natural that, when rock'n'roll came along, record people would continue the same, time-tested formula.  A&R men approached songs as "material," to be matched with the artists on their roster which, depending on their popularity, needed to be recorded two or three times a year in order to supply those juke boxes.

A tune like "Two Hearts-Two Kisses," Boone's first hit, was one such song.  Originally released by the Charms, it was the kind of simple ditty that could be sung in a variety of styles.  Among those who covered it were Doris Day, the Crew-Cuts and even Frank Sinatra, in one of his rare attempts at chasing the rock'n'roll dollar.

Contrary to the rantings of the uninformed, covers were not part of some racist plot designed to keep black entertainers down.  Rather, they were a recognition of the marketplace.  Radio stations which played Eddie Fisher, Nat King Cole and Patti Page looked for records by artists who fit into that format and who sounded like they belonged in that company.  It was all about Sound, compatible sounds.

Radio stations always want records which have a similar sound so that we won't press those buttons on the car radio.  Records by a Fats Domino or a Hank Williams were a little too rough around the edges for those listeners, which is why you'd hear Hank's songs covered by Tony Bennett ("Cold Cold Heart") and Jo Stafford ("Jambayla"), rather than his originals, on pop stations.

The top 40 radio of the day simply wasn't ready for the sounds of a Fats Domino, much less those of a Little Richard.  To keep the smooth sound going, radio preferred music recorded in more professional, cleaner sounding studios and sung by singers with few traces of either a hillbilly or a Southern Negro dialect.

Although from Jacksonville, Florida, Pat Boone had discarded all but the slightest trace of his Southern dialect.  His producer, Dot Records owner Randy Wood, also ran a record store, Randy's Records in Gallatin, Tennessee, which advertised heavily on WLAC, a powerful station with a signal that covered several states. 

From his mail order business, Wood discovered, early on, teenagers' growing interest in rhythm & blues.  Starting in 1951, to
capitalize on the coming trend, he put out records by the Virginia-based Griffin Brothers band, featuring Margie Day, a singer in the Ruth Brown mold.  Hits like "Little Red Rooster," featuring Margie, and "Weepin' And Cryin'," featuring Atlanta blues singer Tommy Brown, put Dot on the R&B map.  The label furthered its R&B success with hits by the Counts and tenor saxophonist Rusty Bryant.

By 1954, Wood felt strong enough to enter the pop market.  To this end, he managed to sign the Fontane Sisters, a group who'd recorded for RCA Victor with middling success, with and without Perry Como, and were regulars on his radio and TV shows.  The group's second Dot record, a cover of the Jewels' "Hearts Of Stone," also covered by the Charms, went all the way to #1 in the latter part of 1954.  Randy Wood had found the path to riches: cover records by TV-friendly faces.

Pat Boone had made several unsuccessful records for Nashville's Republic label, but Wood heard something in his sincere delivery, and probably sensed the intelligence and drive necessary to achieve success, perhaps even the decency which leads to a loyalty rare among most narcissistic performers.  In a word, a winner.

Pat put his faith in Wood's plan, recording cute versions of songs like Fats Domino's "Ain't That A Shame," his first #1
smash in 1955.  Both Bing Crosby and Perry Como had made a number of hits with, not only R&B, but other cute novelties, in addition to the love songs that made young girls sigh.  Also, it couldn't have escaped Pat's notice that his father-in-law had sold more than a few records covering both R&B hits, like "Shake A Hand," and other singers' country hits, like "Birmingham Bounce."

More top ten covers, like the El Dorados' "At My Front Door" and Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" appealed to an
audience not quite ready for the real thing.  It should be remembered that covers, by Boone, the Fontanes and others, brought in big bucks for the songwriters, who, in many cases, were the very artists being covered.  Also, acts like Pat and the others, served as John the Baptists, preparing the way for the rock'n'roll explosion to come.

Such a radical change in popular culture does not happen overnight.  What is needed is a bridge to the mass acceptance of such a revolutionary change.  Perhaps more than any other artist, Pat Boone was that bridge.

The #4 success of "I'll Be Home" and his #1 revival of Ivory Joe Hunter's 1949 "I Almost Lost My Mind" showed that teens
would respond to Pat singing a ballad.  It also reminded pop A&R men that pop love songs could be written by black songwriters.

This is no small matter.  Although Eubie Blake, with his "Memories Of You," was writing love songs back in the 20s and Jessie Mae Robinson, with Patti Page's "I Went To Your Wedding" and Jo Stafford's "Keep It A Secret," had been more recently been penning ballad hits, black songwriters weren't usually the first place A&R guys tended to look for hit pop material.  The same was true of country writers like Hank Williams.

But, these were proven R&B hits.  Even more unusual was the choice of an unknown, and untested, song by a black writer who'd previously scored only with black artists.  That writer was Charlie Singleton, a tunesmith from Boone's home town of Jacksonville.  The song,  written without his usual partner, Rose Marie McCoy, was "Don't Forbid Me," another #1 for Pat.

Singleton later recalled, "Pat Boone did more for me than anybody. Not only did he record my songs and put me on the pop charts, but when he played in Jacksonville, he brought me out on stage, introduced me and put his arm around me, right in front of all those rednecks."  This was still a big deal in the unenlightened 50s. Jacksonville was no sophisticated city like Miami, with a large contingent of vacationing New Yorkers; it was still the Deep South and all that implied at the time. 

"When I came to New York," Singleton remembered," I wanted [to write songs for] Bing Crosby, Nat Cole and Frank Sinatra...and I wound up with Nat and Frank.  I have Pat Boone to thank for that." Charlie was later co-lyricist on Sinatra's biggest record ever, "Strangers In The Night."

Boone wasn't only covering R&B hits; he made #5 with a revival of George Jones's "Why Baby Why."  I recently found a copy
of white country gospel singer Lee Roy Abernathy's original version of "Gospel Boogie," with which Pat hit #4 several years later as "A Wonderful Time Up There."

Soon came the movies and their title songs, "Bernadine," "April Love" and "Friendly Persuasion," turning Pat Boone into a
full-fledged, across-the-board star.  In the 60s, the hits were more sporadic, although the #1 "Moody River" and "Speedy Gonzales" both reached the top ten, but by the end of the decade, his chart days were past. At this same time, the career of his one time rival, Elvis, was seeing a resurgence with hits like "In The Ghetto" and "Suspicious Minds," but Pat didn't have the John Lennon seal of approval, so the Boomer generation, not to mention the Las Vegas suckers, never got to see Pat Boone in a white, sequined jump suit at the garish MGM Grand.

In the end, you think, whose life would I rather have had?  That of Elvis, surrounded by a bunch of dumb sycophants and yes men, paid "friends," who gave in to his every self-destructive whim?  And a wife who was banging his karate instructor?  Manipulated into making those awful movies, drugged out to the point where he didn't care anymore what stupid songs he sang, as long as he and the Colonel had the publishing?  To wind up a fat blob of rotting flesh, face down on the bathroom floor, his bloated body loaded with more drugs than a pharmacy?

Or a life like that of Pat Boone, still alive, healthy and slender, happily married to the same woman for almost fifty years, father of four loving daughters, surrounded by people who actually care about you?

No, Pat Boone wasn't the hippest or the coolest.  Far from it.  But he was one of the top stars of his era.  As my mother drilled into my head so many times, he was a good example, not only of success, but of how to achieve that success without hurting others and by living a clean and decent life.

And, while you're at it, take another listen to him singing "I Almost Lost My Mind."  A pretty good pop singer, that Pat Boone.





~~~ Billy Vera