Skeeter Davis

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Skeeter Davis
RCA Victor
  • Mercury
  • 51 West
  • Tudor
  • Red Rooster
  • Atlantic
    • Formerly ofThe Davis Sisters
    Spouse(s)
    Kenneth DePew
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1956; div. 1959)​
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1960; div. 1964)​
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1987; div. 1996)​

    Skeeter Davis (born Mary Frances Penick; December 30, 1931 – September 19, 2004) was an American

    RCA Victor
    . In the late 1950s, she became a solo star.

    One of the first women to achieve major stardom in the country music field as a solo vocalist, she was an acknowledged influence on Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton and was hailed as an "extraordinary country/pop singer" by The New York Times music critic Robert Palmer.[1]

    Early life

    Davis was born Mary Frances Penick on December 30, 1931,[2] the first of seven children born to farmer William Lee and Sarah Rachel Penick (née Roberts), in Glencoe, Kentucky.[a] Because her grandfather thought she had a lot of energy for a young child, he nicknamed Mary Frances "Skeeter" (slang for mosquito), a name she carried for the rest of her life.[4]

    Davis in a school photo, at the age of ten

    When Davis was a toddler, her great-uncle was convicted of murdering her maternal grandfather (his brother) in Indiana.[5] After this incident, Davis recalled that her mother became a "bitterly depressed woman".[6] Throughout her childhood, Davis's mother made multiple suicide attempts, several of which Davis herself prevented from being carried out: "I once slapped a bottle of Clorox she was drinking out of her mouth and sat on her hands to keep her from reaching for a butcher knife," she recalled.[7] On one occasion, her mother attempted to leap from the family's apartment window with Davis and her infant brother in her arms.[7] Her relationship with her mother remained strained throughout much of her life, and by Davis's account, she "couldn't seem to win my mother's respect and affection, [so] I turned my attention toward my daddy."[8]

    In the mid-1930s, the Penick family relocated to

    Benedictine nuns.[15] Davis became fascinated by the sisters, and for a time considered becoming a nun.[16]

    While attending Dixie Heights High School in Erlanger, Skeeter met Betty Jack Davis, and the two became close friends, bonding over their love of music.[17] They began singing songs and playing guitar together during breaks at school, which drew attention from their classmates,[18] and they performed in several school talent shows.[19] On a trip to the Grand Ole Opry, the two convinced a stage manager to allow them backstage, where they met Hank Williams and Chet Atkins.[20]

    Career

    1948–1956: The Davis Sisters; rise to fame

    Main article:
    The Davis Sisters (country band)

    During her junior year of high school, Skeeter and Betty Jack won a local

    Detroit radio station WJR's program Barnyard Frolics.[23] After graduating from high school in 1949, Davis relocated to Detroit with Betty Jack, where they completed demonstration recordings for Fortune Records; among these were the song "Jealous Love", which was released as a single in 1953.[24]

    Steve Sholes heard their demos and was impressed by their harmonies. In the spring of 1953, Skeeter and Betty Jack met with Sholes at the RCA headquarters in New York City, who offered them a recording contract.[25] After signing the contract, they left New York to begin recording material in Nashville, Tennessee.[26] On May 23, 1953, they recorded "I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know", a song that had previously been recorded by Sonny James.[27] The Davis Sisters toured regionally to support the single on live broadcast radio programs, though Davis recalled that both "were so insecure and uninformed about the [music] business."[28] The single was a significant success, spending eight weeks at number one on the country charts in 1953,[29] as well as making the top 20 on the pop charts. The record ranks number 65 on the Top 100 Country Singles of All Time, according to Billboard historian Joel Whitburn
    .

    On August 1, 1953, the Davis Sisters performed on the WWVA evening show in Wheeling, West Virginia.[30] After midnight, the two left Wheeling en route back to Covington. Around 7:00 am on August 2, near Cincinnati, a passing motorist fell asleep at the wheel, crashing head-on with the car in which Skeeter and Betty Jack Davis were riding.[31] Betty Jack was killed in the collision, while Skeeter sustained serious head injuries.[31][32] The driver of the car also survived.[33] Newspaper bulletins at the time erroneously reported that both the Davis Sisters had been pronounced dead at Our Lady of Sorrow Hospital in Cincinnati.[34]

    Following the accident, Davis moved in with Betty Jack's mother, Ollie, while recovering from her injuries. She recounted in her autobiography that Ollie "took advantage of this tragic situation to suit her own ends," alleging that she had kept Skeeter sedated with drugs administered from a local dentist and sequestered her in the house, where she repeatedly played the girls' records.[35] Once Skeeter recovered, Ollie could "hardly wait for her chance to re-create the Davis Sisters," suggesting that Betty Jack's younger sister, Georgia, take her place in the singing duo.[36] Davis reluctantly agreed, and six months after the accident, she resumed singing in the duo with Georgia Davis.[37] In her autobiography, she wrote that she felt she had been brainwashed by Ollie and coerced into resuming the musical duo.[38]

    Between 1954 and 1956, Skeeter and Georgia released a total of nine singles for RCA as the Davis Sisters, which they recorded in New York City and

    June), and Elvis Presley.[41] Davis recounted her friendship with Presley in her autobiography.[42] The Davis Sisters formally disbanded in 1956, shortly after Davis's first marriage to Kenneth DePew.[43]

    1957–1962: Early solo career

    Davis in a publicity photo c. 1960

    In the late 1950s during her marriage to DePew, Davis suffered from

    Grammy Award nomination for best country recording.[45] Sometime during this period, c. 1958, Davis and DePew were divorced, and she relocated to Nashville.[46] The same year, Davis recorded "Lost to a Geisha Girl", an answer song to Hank Locklin's hit "Geisha Girl", which reached the country number 15 and became her first solo hit.[47] Atkins worked with Davis as a guitarist on all of these sessions. At Davis's suggestion, Atkins frequently multiple-tracked Davis's voice for harmony vocals to resemble the sound of the Davis Sisters.[48] This echo can be found on several of her early solo hits, such as "Am I That Easy to Forget".[49]

    She subsequently co-wrote and recorded another top-20 hit called "

    June Carter, and the two became good friends.[51]

    From 1960 to 1962, Davis had top-10 hits with the songs "

    My Last Date (With You)", "Where I Ought to Be", and "Optimistic".[52][53] "(I Can't Help You) I'm Falling Too" marked Davis's first entrance as a solo artist onto the Billboard pop charts in 1960[54] and resulted in her being invited to perform on Dick Clark's American Bandstand.[55] The song went all the way to the top 40, unheard of for a female country singer at the time. In 1961, she scored a second pop hit with a lyric version (written by Skeeter) of Floyd Cramer's instrumental country pop smash "Last Date" called "My Last Date (With You)" which did even better, making the top 30 on the pop charts. Both of these songs did exceptionally well on the country
    charts, peaking at number two and number five, respectively.

    1963–1976: Crossover and critical accolades

    In 1963, Davis achieved her biggest success with country pop crossover hit "

    gold disc.[57] "The End of the World" soon became Davis's signature song. Davis achieved one other country-pop hit with the Gerry Goffin and Carole King-penned "I Can't Stay Mad at You", which peaked at number seven on the pop charts and number two on the Easy Listening chart in 1963.[58] In 1964, she was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for her recording of "He Says the Same Things to Me".[59]

    Davis's success continued with "

    British invasion. In 1965, she recorded a duet with Bobby Bare called "A Dear John Letter", which just missed the country top 10.[60] The following year, she earned her third Grammy nomination for "Sun Glasses", which peaked at number 30 on the Hot Country Songs chart.[61]

    In 1967, Davis was back in the top 10 with "What Does It Take (To Keep a Man Like You Satisfied)". Davis only achieved two other major country hits the rest of the decade, "Fuel to the Flame" (written by Dolly Parton, to whom Davis paid tribute with an album called Skeeter Sings Dolly in 1972), and "There's a Fool Born Every Minute". She received her fourth Grammy nomination for 1967's "What Does It Take".[62]

    In the late 1960s, she recorded several full-length albums, including two tribute works: Skeeter Davis Sings Buddy Holly (1967) and I Love Flatt and Scruggs (1968).[63] Davis's recording of the anti-war song "One Tin Soldier", released in 1972, earned her an appearance on The Midnight Special.[64] The single was a major success in Canada, peaking as a top-ten hit on RPM country and adult contemporary charts.[65]

    In 1970, Davis had another top-10 hit with "I'm a Lover (Not a Fighter)" and another duet with Bobby Bare with "Your Husband, My Wife". The following year, she had a hit with the autobiographical "Bus Fare To Kentucky". Subsequently, however, her chart success began to fade. Singles such as "It's Hard to Be a Woman" and "Love Takes a Lot of My Time" failed to crack the country top 40. Her last major hit was 1973's "I Can't Believe That It's All Over", which peaked at number 12 in country and number 101 on the pop chart. In the 1970s, she began regularly touring foreign countries such as Barbados, Singapore, and Sweden, where she retained a following.[66]

    Davis had the first and only controversy of her career when, during a 1973 Grand Ole Opry performance, she dedicated a gospel song to a group of young church workers whom she noted in her introduction had been arrested for evangelizing at a local mall. The Opry suspended her from membership after receiving complaints from some local policemen.[67] She was reinstated at the Opry more than a year later.[68][69] After losing several bookings during that period, Davis became active singing with a number of religious ministries and spent an extensive period evangelizing in Africa.[70]

    1977–2004: Later life and career

    Davis returned to the recording studio in 1976 with a brief stint on Mercury Records, which produced two single releases, including her last song to make the national charts, 1976's "I Love Us". In 1978, she recorded the first of several albums for minor record labels which she did on occasion into the 1990s.

    She recorded the album She Sings, They Play with her third husband, bassist Joey Spampinato and his band, NRBQ.[71] Her autobiography, Bus Fare to Kentucky (named after her 1971 song), was published in 1993. In 1998, she wrote a children's book, The Christmas Note, with Cathie Pelletier.

    Personal life

    Relationships and marriages

    In 1956, Davis met Kenneth DePew, a railroad worker and acquaintance of Georgia.[72] The two began dating and married shortly after, though Davis would later state that he had married her for her income: "He saw the nice new furniture my money had bought the Davises; he saw the Oldsmobile and knew I had money in the bank. I could be a short cut to easy street."[73] According to Davis, their marriage was not consummated until eight days into their honeymoon.[74] The couple divorced in late 1959.[75]

    In 1960, she married WSM disc jockey Ralph Emery in Franklin, Kentucky.[76] Their marriage was tumultuous, with Davis recalling that Emery was jealous and controlling of her, refusing to let her work more than several days per month, obsessively calling her while she was on tour, and recurrently accusing her of infidelity: "Ralph accused me of being with everybody from guitar players to agents to producers to my hairdresser and believe it or not, to my brother and sister. Male or female, it made no difference."[54] The couple resided in Ridgetop, Tennessee, for a time, before Emery had a home built for them in the Brentwood area.[77] In 1964, after four years of marriage, Davis divorced Emery after finding he had been unfaithful to her and conceived a child with another woman.[78]

    Davis later married NRBQ bassist Joey Spampinato in 1987. The couple divorced in 1996.[71]

    Vegetarianism

    Davis became a vegetarian in 1974, and remained so for the rest of her life.[79] She chose to abstain from eating meat after performing at a benefit concert in Kenya, where the concert organizers had killed and roasted a goat for the artists' banquet. "I really connected with that goat," she recounted, "and I couldn't bear to eat it."[79] She declined to participate or allow her music to be used in several lucrative advertising campaigns for meat and meat-related products.[79] Davis partly attributed her vegetarianism to her Christianity, as she felt killing animals for consumption was incongruent with her religious beliefs.[79]

    Illness and death

    In August 1988, Davis was diagnosed with breast cancer.[80] She underwent a mastectomy of her right breast to treat the cancer[81] and was in remission for several years before having a recurrence in 1996.[80]

    In 2001, Davis became incapacitated by her breast cancer, which had metastasized. The following year, she made her final performance at the Grand Ole Opry, performing "The End of the World". She died of breast cancer in a Nashville, Tennessee, hospice on September 19, 2004, aged 72.[82] She is interred at Williams Memorial Gardens in Franklin, Tennessee.[82]

    Legacy

    Davis's song "The End of the World" has been named as a major influence on several artists: Among them are Lou Reed,[83] and 21st-century singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey, both of whom named it among their favorite recordings of all time.[84] Bob Dylan also recorded a version of "I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know" featuring the Davis Sisters' arrangements on his 1970 album Self Portrait.[28] "The End of the World" was also used in the popular video game Fallout 4.

    Nina Gordon, formerly of Veruca Salt, also covered the song on her 2000 album Tonight and the Rest of My Life.

    Davis penned nearly 70 songs over the course of her career, and earned two

    BMI awards: for "Set Him Free" and "My Last Date With You", the latter also recorded by Ann-Margret, Pat Boone, Kay Starr, Joni James, and several others, in addition to Davis' original hit version. Deborah Harry recorded a remake of Davis' version in 1993 featuring Michael Stipe, a long-time Davis fan. (Conway Twitty wrote new lyrics for the instrumental in 1972 as "Lost Her Love (On Our Last Date)", which reached number one on the country chart, as did Emmylou Harris
    ' remake of Twitty's version in 1983 retitled "Lost His Love (On Our Last Date)".)

    Discography

    Main article: Skeeter Davis discography

    Notes

    1. ^ Some sources list Davis's birthplace as Dry Ridge, Kentucky, where she spent her early childhood.[3] However, in her 1993 autobiography, she states that she was in fact born in a small cabin along the bank of Eagle Creek in Glencoe, Kentucky.[2]

    References

    1. ^ Palmer, Robert (December 15, 1985). "Critics' Choice; Pop Music". The New York Times. Retrieved August 5, 2018. Closed access icon
    2. ^ a b Davis 1993, p. 7.
    3. ^ Deaths, The Tennessean, September 21, 2004, p. W11, retrieved November 10, 2013
    4. ^ Davis 1993, p. 33.
    5. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 10–11.
    6. ^ Davis 1993, p. 20.
    7. ^ a b Davis 1993, p. 21.
    8. ^ Davis 1993, p. 57.
    9. ^ Davis 1993, p. 22.
    10. ^ Davis 1993, p. 47.
    11. ^ Davis 1993, p. 54.
    12. ^ Davis 1993, p. 55.
    13. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 64–66.
    14. ^ Davis 1993, p. 87.
    15. ^ Davis 1993, p. 94.
    16. ^ Davis 1993, p. 108.
    17. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 99–104.
    18. ^ Davis 1993, p. 103.
    19. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 103–105.
    20. ^ Davis 1993, p. 107.
    21. ^ Davis 1993, p. 117.
    22. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 117–118.
    23. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 122–123.
    24. ^ Davis 1993, p. 127.
    25. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 128–130.
    26. ^ Davis 1993, p. 130.
    27. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 133–134.
    28. ^ a b Davis 1993, p. 139.
    29. ^ Whitburn 2006, p. 101.
    30. ^ Davis 1993, p. 145.
    31. ^ a b Davis 1993, p. 149.
    32. ^ Feldman 2000, p. 66.
    33. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 148–150.
    34. ^ Davis 1993, p. 150.
    35. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 150–153.
    36. ^ Davis 1993, p. 157.
    37. ^ Davis 1993, p. 158.
    38. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 158–160.
    39. ^ a b Davis 1993, p. 160.
    40. ^ Davis 1993, p. 161.
    41. ^ Davis 1993, p. 165.
    42. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 165–169.
    43. ^ Erlewine 1997, p. 116.
    44. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 174, 183.
    45. ^ a b Davis 1993, p. 183.
    46. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 186–187.
    47. ^ Whitburn 2005, p. 108.
    48. ^ Davis 1993, p. 163.
    49. ^ a b Davis 1993, p. 197.
    50. ^ "Homebreaker – Chart History". Billboard. Archived from the original on September 11, 2018. Retrieved September 10, 2018.
    51. ^ Davis 1993, p. 195.
    52. ^ Whitburn 2006, p. 135.
    53. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 210–213.
    54. ^ a b Davis 1993, p. 213.
    55. ^ Davis 1993, p. 224.
    56. ^ Gilliland, John (1969). "Show 10 – Tennessee Firebird: American country music before and after Elvis. [Part 2]" (audio). Pop Chronicles. University of North Texas Libraries.
    57. ^ Murrells 1978, p. 145.
    58. ^ Whitburn 2002, p. 73.
    59. ISSN 0006-2510
      .
    60. ^ a b Whitburn 2002, p. 90.
    61. ISSN 0006-2510
      .
    62. ^ "Skeeter Davis". Grammy Awards. The Recording Academy. Retrieved September 10, 2018.
    63. ^ Davis 1993, p. 331.
    64. ^ Davis 1993, p. 244.
    65. ^ "Search results for "Skeeter Davis" under Country Singles". RPM. Archived from the original on January 6, 2014. Retrieved September 10, 2018.
    66. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 254, 326.
    67. CMT
      News. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
    68. ^ Wolfe 1996, p. 144.
    69. ^ Kingsbury 2004, p. 138.
    70. ^ "An Interview with Skeeter Davis". Linda Ronstadt Homepage. January 1975. Retrieved 18 January 2020.
    71. ^ a b Wadey, Paul (September 22, 2004). "Skeeter Davis: Country diva who sang 'The End of the World'". The Independent. London. Retrieved July 9, 2018.
    72. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 171–173.
    73. ^ Davis 1993, p. 173.
    74. ^ Davis 1993, p. 175.
    75. ^ Davis 1993, p. 187.
    76. ^ Davis 1993, p. 206.
    77. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 221–222.
    78. ^ Davis 1993, pp. 227–229.
    79. ^
      ISSN 0164-8497. Archived
      from the original on October 16, 2007.
    80. ^ a b "Skeeter Davis, 72; Singer of Pop Hit 'End of the World'". Los Angeles Times. September 21, 2004. Retrieved September 9, 2018. Closed access icon
    81. ^ Davis 1993, p. 303.
    82. ^ a b Wilson 2016, p. 182.
    83. ^ Silverman, Gary (October 31, 2013). "My silent night with Lou Reed". Financial Times. Retrieved August 28, 2018.
    84. ^ Beat Staff (November 22, 2011). "Lana Del Rey Picks Her Top Eleven Tracks". Beat Magazine. Archived from the original on December 22, 2017. Retrieved September 10, 2018.

    Sources

    External links

    Wikimedia Commons has media related to Skeeter Davis.
    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Skeeter_Davis&oldid=1194029344"