Joanie Sommers

There was this parade of girl singers hitting the pop charts one after the other during the years before The Beatles, all singing wistfully of love and romance and blissfully unaware of bodily fluids. In the 50s they barely existed. Instead we had adult singers like Jane Morgan and Gogi Grant. When Connie Francis came along she brought teen sensibility to the genre.

Annette may have been the real prototype, though she was a bit more chipper than most and her big screen presence made her unique. Later came Connie Stevens, Joanie Sommers (are heroine for today), Shelley Fabares, Little Peggy March, Marcie Blane.

Then when Dusty Springfield arrived in late 1963 she blew them all out of the water, but that’s a story for another day.

Joanie was a light hitmaker, having put 3 singles into the top 100, one in 1960, two in 1962.

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Joanie Sommers:

• One Boy – Ann-Margaret sang this in the movie version of Bye Bye Birdie, and Joanie’s hit version didn’t make it any higher on Billboard than 54. It’s a whimsical romantic song about specialness, not necessarily about quantity. From the summer of 1960. Bobby Vee had a crack at One Last Kiss.
• Johnny Get Angry – We could do a dissertation on this one. The song really isn’t about anger; it’s about indifference, about caring enough to get angry when the situation warrants it. Stand up for me, says Joanie, stand up for yourself, stand up for us. Heavy stuff for a song about a boy names Johnny. From the summer of 1962.
• Never Throw Your Dreams Away – I wrote down When The Boys Get Together on the label, but that’s not what I’m hearing. I can’t explain it. I must be subject to temporary blackouts.