Wooden Heart
Wooden Heart is the English adaptation of the German folksong Muss i denn (zum Städtele out) . The adaptation is attributed to Bert Kaempfert and Kay Twomey; the English text was written by Fred Wise and Ben Weisman .
Number one hits
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley became aware of Muss i denn ... during his army service in Germany from 1958 . In April 1960 he sang Wooden Heart with his house producer Steve Sholes with English lyrics and some German passages, accompanied by tuba and organ. Fred Wise / Ben Weisman / Kay Twomey / Bert Kaempfert are registered as composers for this revision because the original composition was no longer subject to copyright protection as a traditional or public domain .
Wooden Heart was initially only included on the album GI Blues for the film of the same name , which was released on October 1, 1960 in the USA. The film was released on November 23, 1960 in the USA and on December 23, 1960 in Germany as Café Europa . Here Elvis Wooden Heart sings together with the wooden puppets during a puppet show . RCA Records had initially decided not to release the song as a single in the USA. They were not convinced of the hit potential of a German polka folk tune.
A different decision was made for the European market. Teldec had taken over the song under license as a distribution partner of RCA and brought it to the market as the single Mus i denn ... / Tonight's All Right For Love . On November 26, 1960, the single came into the German charts, where it took second place for three weeks on January 21, 1961. On March 9, 1961, the title hit the British charts, where it rose to number one. From March 23, he stayed there for six weeks until the beginning of May 1961 in the top position. In Germany the title was sold over 400,000 times, in England more than 500,000 copies went over the counter. In the USA they waited with the release until November 1964 as the B-side to the single Blue Christmas , which ranked 102nd.
Elvis Presley was joined on this recording by Scotty Moore and Tiny Timbrell (guitar), Raylf Siegel (bass), Dudley Brooks (piano), Jimmie Haskell (accordion), Hoyt Hawkins (tambourine) and Frank Bode / DJ Fontana (drums).
Joe Dowell
While Elvis Presley's version was the better known in Europe, it wasn't released as a single in the US at the time. An early hit for the record label Smash Records, which was only founded in March 1961 as a sub-label of Mercury Records , was the Wooden Heart by Joe Dowell, produced by Shelby Singleton . His first recording session as a singer for the new label took place on May 26, 1961 at Bradley Film & Recording Studios in Nashville .
Singleton had seen the Elvis film GI Blues in the cinema the day before the recording date and had a premonition that Wooden Heart could be a hit. So he suggested Dowell record the song with Ray Stevens on organ and Jerry Kennedy (bass guitar). Together with the Merry Melody Singers, Shelby Singleton produced a version that was vocally very similar to the Elvis recording.
In both versions the singers sing a few lines of the original German text. Joe Dowell learned this line in three hours: "A man named Eddie Wilson " came into the office to teach me what to sing. I had no idea what I was singing, I just learned the lyrics phonetically. The piece became Dowell's only number one hit ; his recording Wooden Heart (Muss I denn) rose to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in August 1961 and sold over a million copies.
Other versions
From Muss i denn ... or Wooden Heart least 42 cover versions exist. There were other versions by Dave Kennedy (on Jim Kirchstein's Cuca label) and by Bobbi Martin on Coral. Bobby Vinton recorded a version in 1975 that replaced the German lines with Polish text. 1965 sang Robert Redford few lines of the song in the film Situation Hopeless - But Not Serious ( Situation Hopeless - But Not Serious ). There is a 2003 version of the US country and folk singer and songwriter Nanci Griffith on her album "The Complete MCA Studio Recordings".
In Germany, Gus Backus reached fourth place on the German charts with his version in March 1960 .
There are also two songs that were written as an "answer" to Wooden Heart and sung by women and published: Linda Hall sang You Don't Have A Wooden Heart and Rhea Renee I, Too Have No Wooden Heart . Both leaned musically on the hit.
literature
- Fred Bronson: The Billboard Book of Number One Hits . 3. Edition. Billboard Publications, New York 1992, ISBN 0-8230-8298-9 (English).
- Tim Rice , Jo Rice, Paul Gambaccini : The Guinness Book of Number One Hits . 2nd Edition. Guinness World Records Ltd, Enfield 1988, ISBN 0-85112-893-9 (English).
Web links
supporting documents
- ↑ Ben Weisman (born November 16, 1921 in Providence / Rhode Island, † May 20, 2007 in Los Angeles / California) wrote the most songs for Elvis compared to other composers with 57 titles
- ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, pp. 145 f.
- ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, p. 152.
- ↑ According to SWR Legends of Pop , it was Armin Edgar Schaible from Ludwigsburg who had been a country singer in Nashville since 1960
- ↑ Fred Bronson: The Billboard Book of Number One Hits . Billboard Publications, New York 1992, ISBN 0-8230-8298-9 .