Profile
Gene Pitney
Singer and Songwriter
Male
Born
Feb 17, 1940
Hometown
United States
Died
Apr 5, 2006
Death Place
Cardiff
Other Names
Pitney, Gene Fran...
Gene Francis Alan Pitney, known as Gene Pitney, was an American singer-songwriter, musician and sound engineer. Through the mid-1960s, he enjoyed success as a recording artist on both sides of the Atlantic and was among the group of early 1960s American… Read More
Photos
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Mar 13, 196114 Photos -
COMING SOON -
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COMING SOON
News + Updates
Browse recent news and stories about Gene Pitney.
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Sean Martinfield: Tenor Noah Stewart Debuts With Berkeley Symphony In World Premiere Of New Work By Steven StuckyHuffington Post - Mar 19, 2013
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Bob Purse: A Halloween Treat The Elusive Thurl Ravenscroft Single: A 30 Year Search Comes To An EndHuffington Post - Oct 30, 2012
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I'm Messing With My Head, Says HarringtonYahoo News - Jul 21, 2012
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70s Legends David Cassidy, Leo Sayer, Hot Chocolate And Smokie Announce Uk TourDoncaster Free Press - Apr 17, 2012
Timeline
Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of Gene Pitney.
CHILDHOOD
1940
Birth
Born on February 17, 1940.
TEENAGE
1959
19 Years Old
He made records as part of a duo called Jamie and Jane with Ginny Arnell (who in late 1963 had a solo hit, "Dumb Head"), and in 1959 recorded a single as Billy Bryan.
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TWENTIES
1961
21 Years Old
Signed to songwriter Aaron Schroeder's newly formed Musicor label in 1961, Pitney scored his first chart single, which made the Top 40, the self-penned "(I Wanna) Love My Life Away", on which he played several instruments and multi-tracked the vocals.
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Pitney performed the song at the Oscars ceremony on April 9, 1962 (honoring the film year of 1961).
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1963
23 Years Old
The use of Arabian music in Pitney's 1963 hit "Mecca" anticipated The Beatles' psychedelic sound experimentation.
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His popularity in the UK market was ensured by the breakthrough success of "Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa", a Bacharach and David song, which peaked at #5 in Britain at the start of 1964. "Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa" was only Pitney's third single release in the UK to reach the singles chart and the first to break into the Top Twenty there. "Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa" was also a hit in the U.S, peaking at #17 on the Hot 100.
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1965
25 Years Old
In 1965, Pitney recorded two successful albums with country singer George Jones.
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1966
26 Years Old
Pitney's career in the U.S. took a downturn after mid-1966, when "Backstage" ended another run of Top 40 hits.
1968
28 Years Old
He returned one last time to the Top 40 with "She's a Heartbreaker" in mid-1968 and placed several singles in the lower reaches of the Hot 100 after that, but by 1970 he was no longer a hit-maker in the U.S.
THIRTIES
Pitney maintained a successful career in Britain and the rest of Europe into the 1970s, appearing regularly on UK charts as late as 1974.
1976
36 Years Old
Pitney continued to place records in the Australian charts through 1976, including the hit "Down This Road", written and produced by distant relation Edward Pitney.
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FORTIES
Pitney's last hit on the UK charts came in 1989, after an absence of 15 years, when he and Soft Cell singer Marc Almond recorded a duet version of "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart" by British writers Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway.
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FIFTIES
1993
53 Years Old
On 26 February 1993, Pitney performed at Carnegie Hall in New York on the day of the first World Trade Center bombing.
LATE ADULTHOOD
2000
60 Years Old
In 2000, he re-recorded "Half Heaven, Half Heartache" as a duet with Jane Olivor on her 'comeback' album Love Decides.
2002
62 Years Old
On 18 March 2002 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Original Authors of this text are noted on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Pitney.
Text is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Text is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.