Today, March 25, is Elton
John’s birthday.
The singer, who went from a Hollies sideman to one of the most popular and successful pop stars ever, is 74 years old today.
You can read about Elton John all over the place, and I will bet that there will be many tributes to him on his birthday.
But I would like to talk about another singer who was born on this day who you probably won’t be able to read much about.
Although successful, he never reached the top of their game like Elton John did, but his special day should be noted.
The other singer I am going to talk about is Ronnie McDowell, a very successful country singer, who turns 71 years of age today.
(Some sources list his birth date as March 26, but we will go with March 25 as his date of birth—I don’t know which one is correct.)
If you are a country music fan, you certainly know who McDowell is, as he has racked up numerous top hits on the country charts for the past couple of decades.
He did have one major pop crossover song, and it was a memorable one.
In September 1977, just a few weeks after Elvis Presley died, McDowell had a hit with “The King Is Gone,” a tribute to Elvis that went up to No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Of all the recorded tributes to the King, his was the most commercially successful, and he earned a gold record for his song.
I bought many of these tributes, and this one was the real deal. McDowell even sounded like Elvis a bit on the record, which received tremendous airplay not just on Top 40 stations, but also on album rock stations tike WNEW-FM.
He had just one more pop hit—“I Love You, I Love You, I Love You,” which hit No. 81 on the Hot 100 the next year,
Other than those two songs, he was pretty much unknown to the music-listening public that did not listen to country music,
And “The King Is Gone” is such a maudlin song that it doesn’t get played on too many oldies stations, so it is sort of a forgotten song of that era, although it got tons of airplay back then.
But he was very successful as a country singer.
In fact, two of his singles--"Older Women" and "You're Gonna Ruin My Bad Reputation"--reached the top spot on the country chart, while eleven other of his singles reached country’s Top Ten.
McDowell has also released more than 20 studio albums, mostly on the country-oriented Curb Records and also on Epic Records.
The singer, who went from a Hollies sideman to one of the most popular and successful pop stars ever, is 74 years old today.
You can read about Elton John all over the place, and I will bet that there will be many tributes to him on his birthday.
But I would like to talk about another singer who was born on this day who you probably won’t be able to read much about.
Although successful, he never reached the top of their game like Elton John did, but his special day should be noted.
The other singer I am going to talk about is Ronnie McDowell, a very successful country singer, who turns 71 years of age today.
(Some sources list his birth date as March 26, but we will go with March 25 as his date of birth—I don’t know which one is correct.)
If you are a country music fan, you certainly know who McDowell is, as he has racked up numerous top hits on the country charts for the past couple of decades.
He did have one major pop crossover song, and it was a memorable one.
In September 1977, just a few weeks after Elvis Presley died, McDowell had a hit with “The King Is Gone,” a tribute to Elvis that went up to No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Of all the recorded tributes to the King, his was the most commercially successful, and he earned a gold record for his song.
I bought many of these tributes, and this one was the real deal. McDowell even sounded like Elvis a bit on the record, which received tremendous airplay not just on Top 40 stations, but also on album rock stations tike WNEW-FM.
He had just one more pop hit—“I Love You, I Love You, I Love You,” which hit No. 81 on the Hot 100 the next year,
Other than those two songs, he was pretty much unknown to the music-listening public that did not listen to country music,
And “The King Is Gone” is such a maudlin song that it doesn’t get played on too many oldies stations, so it is sort of a forgotten song of that era, although it got tons of airplay back then.
But he was very successful as a country singer.
In fact, two of his singles--"Older Women" and "You're Gonna Ruin My Bad Reputation"--reached the top spot on the country chart, while eleven other of his singles reached country’s Top Ten.
McDowell has also released more than 20 studio albums, mostly on the country-oriented Curb Records and also on Epic Records.
But to pop radio, he is nothing but a one-hit wonder, a song memorializing a singer who had more hit singles than anyone else in the United States.
The story is that McDowell was a huge fan of the singer, and when he died, he wrote the song—with Lee Morgan--as a tribute to his hero.
What made its success even more unusual is that the song did not come out on a large record label, but on a small one, Scorpion Records, so it had to catapult over numerous releases from larger labels to get into the top 20 on the singles charts.
To date, the record has reportedly sold more than 5 million copies worldwide since its original release.
I bought one of them when it first came out—as well as purchasing other Elvis tributes—and yes, this one is the real deal, far and away the best of the lot, and it fully deserved its success.
McDowell became so famous as an Elvis sound-alike that Kurt Russell lip-synced to his voice in the 1979 TV film “Elvis.”
He also provided “Elvis-like” vocals for a couple of other Elvis-related TV movie projects during this period.
If you are interested, he has a website at https://www.ronniemcdowell.com/
There really isn’t much more to say about McDowell, but he cemented his place in recording history with “The King Is Gone.”
Unlike other supposed one-hit wonders, he actually has had a long and successful career, but pretty much in the country genre, so while he never attained the fame and success of Elton John, he did pretty good for himself.
And if you forgot the song, or perhaps never heard it, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iac57mZQcU
Happy birthday to Ronnie McDowell, whether his birthday is today or tomorrow.
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