Teen angel
Teen Angel is the title of an English-language pop song , the music and lyrics of which were written by the American couple Jean and Red Surrey. Sung by Jean's brother Mark Dinning , Teen Angel became a number one hit in the US.
History of origin
The idea for the headline of Teen Angel came to Jean Surrey while reading a magazine article about juvenile offenders, in which the author suggested calling innocent young people “teen angels”. Jean Surrey born In the 1940s, Dinning and two of her sisters founded the vocal trio Dining Sisters, which achieved a million-seller with the song Buttons and Bows . Jean's text is about a tragic story in which a teen angel is pulled from a car parked on the railroad tracks by her boyfriend. When she tries to get her high school ring out of the car, she is run over. The lyrics placed them in the category of Death Disc songs, the morbid content of which was a fad in the United States of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
MGM recording
Jean Surrey persuaded her nine years younger brother Mark Dinning to put Teen Angel on record. Mark had been under contract with MGM Records since 1957 , but had not yet released a successful song. On October 15, 1959 Dinning took on the title Teen Angel under the direction of producer Jim Vinneau in the Nashville Bradley Film & Recording Studio. MGM brought Teen Angel to American record stores together with the track Bye Now Baby in December 1959 with catalog number 12845. Initially, numerous radio stations boycotted the title Teen Angel as Death Disc, only when a Chicago disc jockey was the first to put the song on the radio did the breakthrough come. On December 21, Teen Angel appeared for the first time in the Hot 100 of the US music magazine Billbord , and on February 8, 1960, the title reached number one on the Hot 100. The top spot was held by Mark Dinning for two weeks and a total of 18 weeks with Teen Angel in the Hot 100. The song was sold 3.5 million times and was awarded a gold record .
MGM sold a single with Mark Dinning's Teen Angel under catalog number 1053 in Great Britain. The press reacted with the headline "Blood Runs in the Grooves", the title got on the index and was not played on the radio. Nevertheless, Teen Angel was registered by the music magazine New Musical Express , but only received 28th place as the highest value. Teen Angel also appeared on MGM in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In 1973, Mark Dinning made a late comeback with Teen Angel when he appeared on his hit song in American Graffiti .
Cover versions
Despite the British ban, two more contemporary versions of Teen Angel appeared on the island with Garry Mills (Top Rank) and Alex Murray aka Alex Wharton (Decca). In Germany, Polydor produced a version with a German text by Ralph Maria Siegel under the title Blondengel , sung by Tino Albertini. In 1962, a cover version appeared in the USA with Dickey Lee on his long-playing record The Tale of Patches .
literature
- Fred Bronson: The Billboard Book of Number One Hits , Billboard Publications New York 1988, p. 65, ISBN 0-8230-7545-1
- Günter Ehnert: British Chart Singles 1950-1965 , Taurus Press Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-922542-32-8
Web links
- Production data at countrydiscography.blogspot.de
- Discography at www.45cat.com
- Cover versions at www.coverinfo.de
proof
- ↑ Fred Bronson: The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. Billboard Publications, New York 1992, 3rd Edition, ISBN 0-8230-8298-9 , p. 65