Gene Pitney

Gene Pitney's emotional voice and extensive range made him one of America's biggest pop stars of the 1960s specialising in big, dramatic, heartbreaking ballads like 24 Hours From Tulsa and I'm Gonna Be Strong - though he was also a talented songwriter too. Raised in Connecticut, Pitney formed his first band Gene & the Genials while still at school, before forming a duo Jamie & Jame (with Ginny Arnell) and in 1959 recorded under the name Billy Bryan. He wrote, played various instruments and sang multi-tracked vocals on his first hit (I Wanna) Love My Life Away in 1961, then had a major breakthrough with the title song from the film Town Without Pity, which won a Golden Globe Award. In 1962 he had an even bigger hit with the Bacharach-David song The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, while his own songs He's A Rebel, Today's Teardrops, Rubber Ball and Hello Mary Lou became major hits for the Crystals, Roy Orbison, Bobby Vee and Ricky Nelson respectively. Ironically, Pitney's version of Bacharach/David's Only Love Can Break A Heart was kept off the Number 1 spot by the Crystals' version of one of his own songs, He's A Rebel. He had a worldwide smash with another Bacharach/David song 24 Hours From Tulsa, followed by a succession of major hits, including That Girl Belongs To Yesterday, It Hurts To Be In Love, I'm Gonna Be Strong, Backstage and Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart (which he re-recorded in a 1989 chart-topper with Marc Almond). Pitney played piano on the first Rolling Stones album and duetted with George Jones and Melba Montgomery and remained popular into the 2000s until his sudden death from heart disease in a Cardiff hotel room following a successful concert at St David's Hall in 2006.