How Pat Boone Became Famous

On this episode of Our American Stories, many know that Elvis grew up singing in his church choir - and he would lead the charts with hit songs through many years. Hear from another music legend, Pat Boone - who grew musically by leading a large church choir, a capella - and would top the charts for an even longer stretch than Elvis.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, a
story from a man who has sold more than forty
five million records and has thirty eight top forty hits
to his name. We're talking about Pat Boone. When we
interviewed Pat, the first question we asked him was undeniably basic,
but he answered it beautifully. We asked him how he

(00:32):
became famous. Let's get into the story. Take it away,
Pat Well.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm a country boy.
My dad a building contractor, Mama registered nurse, very practical professions.
But we were, as so many people in Middle Tennessee
were and are. We were church goers. We were church members,
and I grew up believing and was baptized when I
was barely thirteen. So in my teens, I was thinking

(01:01):
of myself, seeing myself as a Christian, a child of God,
and really living a good, wholesome life, and dating Shirley Foley,
the daughter read Foley the Country Music Hall of Fame.
He wasn't then, but he was hosting the Grand Old Ockry,
having replaced throy Acuff after many years. And I was
not a big country music fan till I met Shirley Foley.

(01:25):
She came to our high school. Her mom was not
well and so she had to be in the dorm
at the Lipscomb and at sixteen we met and really
a romance began then that continues to this minute. But
we were just teenagers. And then her mom died when
Shirley was sixteen seventeen. Her mom was young, but rheumatic

(01:47):
fever and heart condition, first open heart surgery ever in
Nashville at Vanderbilt Hospital, but she didn't live long after that.
So then her mom's death brought us even closer together.
And so when Red Foley was given the opportunity to
go to Springfield, Missouri to start the Ozark Jubilee, which

(02:09):
would become the first and huge a nationwide country music
show on Saturday nights from Springfield, Missouri, but he hadn't
done it yet, and he was taking his three widowed daughters,
including Shirley, to Springfield, and I couldn't stand to let
her go. We were nineteen then, so I asked if
she would marry me, and I asked him and he

(02:31):
tearfully gave us permission and bought our rings. So we
married at nineteen and I was on my way now
to being a preacher teacher. But I had won, seemed
like incidentally. I had won the Ted Mac Amateur Hour
three weeks in a row, and it was the forerunner
of shows like You Know The Voice and America's Got Talent.

(02:53):
The winners were selected by the viewers with cards and letters.
The show would appear on Saturday night. By Thursday, the
votes were counted, and if you won one week, you
would come back for another. And I won three weeks
in a row. Well, I was thinking of being a
singer at that point, but nothing came up, no contracts,

(03:14):
no offers. So now I'm married, I'm in Texas and
I get a call from New York and they're assembling
all the three time winners to come back and compete
with each other. Well, I was one, So I flew
back to New York. And I was expecting our little,
our first baby by then, and so I was on

(03:35):
that show and they told me I was winning. But
while I was having to wait in New York, I
couldn't afford to go back to Texas and then back
to New York again. So I waited in a seedy
little hotel off Times Square until they let me know
if I was winning or not. So while I was waiting,
I went on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Show on a Monday

(03:58):
after being on the Talent Show Saturday, and auditioned for
the Arthur Godfrey Show, which was a Monday night, and
they put me on that Monday night and I won. Well,
that disqualified me from the Ted Macamateur Hour because you
can't be a professional winner on Monday. And then me
declared an amateur winder the following Saturday and I blew

(04:20):
it and it was over. I went back to Texas,
and again I came that close to being having a
career in music, but it hadn't happened. Now, as we're
expecting our second child, I get a call from Randy
Wood of Dot Records outside Nashville. He'd seen all of this.
I was a homeboy, you know, winning these national contests,

(04:43):
and he said he had a new record company called
Dot and he thought that I could make some hit records.
And he asked if I'd like to come to Chicago
and record, and of course I did, not knowing what
to expect, and he had me singing a rhythm and
blues song called two Hearts Two Kisses Make One Love.

(05:04):
It was an R and B record by the Charms
on the dutone label, but it was not known on
pop radio at all, and I didn't know what R
and B was. But I listened to that record, and
I picked up on the flavor of one Heart's Not
and a Baby B Two Hearts to make you Feel Crazy,
one kiss so make you feel so nice, two kisses

(05:25):
take you to Paradise, Two Hearts, two kisses make one Love.
And that song that we recorded immediately sold a million records.
That was in March of fifty five. My second baby
had come and number three was on the way already,
and I had to do a follow up record. So

(05:45):
in May of fifty five, I recorded Fats Domino's Ain't
That a Shame? His had been number one R and B,
which was a separate genre called race music, sold one
hundred and fifty thousand. I did his song my way
you made me cry when you said goodbye? Ain't That
a Shame? And I did my version of rock and

(06:06):
roll as we were calling it. Mine sold a million
and a half, ten times what Fats had sold with
his own song and his own record, and he was
thrilled and he said many times, I made more money
with Pat Boone's record of my song than from my
own record, because he was the writer and publisher of
his song, and he actually made more royalty from my

(06:29):
version of his. Ain't that a shame that I made
from mine? I was getting like a beginner three percent
royalty and he was making twice that as the writer
publisher of the song. So people had the crazy idea
in latter years that I was somehow taking something from
the original performers, the R and B performers like Little

(06:50):
Richard and others, that I covered their songs. But I
took their songs, which meant were already hits R and
B selling a modest out of records, and I'd do
their song and sell a million or million and a
half of their song, and they made more money from
my versions than from their own. So, now as I

(07:12):
say this all happened, I wasn't seeking it. It all
just fell on me. But from that time March of
fifty five, for four and a half years, I was
never off the single chart. I hold that record in
the record business two hundred and twenty consecutive weeks without

(07:33):
ever being off the single chart. Everything I recorded from
then on. I had forty one chart records in the fifties.
Elvis had forty forty. I had forty one, and he
was my opening act. The first time we met. The
kids didn't know who he was, but they liked the
way he looked. They didn't like the way his song
sounded because it was a Bill Monroe bluegrass song, blue

(07:55):
Moon of Kentucky keep on Shining. Well, that wasn't rhythm
and blue, but he tried to make it sound like
it was. And he got lots of applause when he
left the stage that night. And then I went on,
I got all the screams because I had three million sellers,
so from then on. This is a very long winded

(08:16):
answer to your question, but I'm just trying to let
you see how what was happening to me was not
something I was orchestrating. It was just happening to me.
And as a Christian kid in Nashville, I realized that that,
you know, I had some talent as a singer. I
could sing anything anybody put in front of me. I

(08:37):
didn't have any voice lessons to speak of, but I
sang in church as a teenager into my early grown years,
I would lead singing in church. In our church didn't
have instruments of music. It was all a cappella, So
I could stand up and lead three or four or
five hundred people and congregational singing, sing no Russ Love

(09:01):
of Jesus, and just weighed my arms like I knew
what I was doing, counting time. I didn't know how
to count time. But what I didn't know at the
time was it was great vocal exercise. Leading a cappella singing,
congregational singing for four or five hundred people at a time,
with or without microphone made it possible for me to

(09:24):
sing rhythm and blues or big band swaying or anything
I wanted to sing without any worry. I could just
sing it. Whatever you put in front of me, I
could do it. But it wasn't through training, that is consciously.
So that's a very long winded answer. It all happened
to me. But I always had the sense from that

(09:45):
time on that it was for a reason that I
was going to be a teacher preacher originally, and I
was being given a different kind of platform and as
a rock and roll singer, not as a pre and
a teen Idol.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
And a terrific job on the editing, production and storytelling
by our own Monte Montgomery. And a special thanks to
Pat Boone. Forty five million records sold and astonishing two
hundred and twenty consecutive weeks on the singles charts. Even
Elvis didn't do that. And what Pat Boone had to
say about his career being thrust on him, well, it

(10:24):
happens to some people. And that he had all that
preparation in the pulpit and doing worship and leading it
a cappella. There was nothing Pat Boone hadn't sung before
he was a big time singer. The story of how
Pat Boone came to fame here on our American Stories