The Free Spirit

Success In The Making, 1958 (Part Two)

"Heart and soul, I begged to be adored and I lost control..."

The year 1958 wasn't just about mine and Don's wedding, of course, and important things happened before and after the wedding, I just felt that they deserved to be given their own moment to shine in a separate chapter. In February, we were approached by the Everly Brothers' songwriter, Boudleaux Bryant, with news that he had held a contest throughout England and America for someone to write a song and the winner would have their song recorded by the boys. "That's a lot of songs to go through," I said, sitting beside my husband on the couch in our home in Madison.

"We've had numerous people on staff listening to them and weeding through them until they found the best ones, and then I went and listened to the recordings until Felice and I found one we liked best," Boudleaux said to the three of us.

"So which one won?" said Phil from an armchair beside the couch.

"A song called 'All I Have To Do Is Dream' written by a couple of teenagers from England," Boudleaux replied.

"Ooh, whereabouts in England?" I asked.

"I think... the city of Cardiff, although I don't know where that is," Boudleaux replied to me.

"Oh, love, that isn't England, that's Wales! But how interesting! Do you know their names?" I asked excitedly.

"And how old are they?" asked Don.

"A lot younger than you two, and I'm not entirely sure... I think one of them's called... Edward? And the other, a girl, I think her name was Ginger. I don't know, but you'll meet them in a week," Boudleaux said as he tried to recall the information.

"It'd be nice to know their names before we meet 'em, ya know," Phil said. Eventually, we did learn that their names were Ginger McAllistor and Elton Macfadyen, whom would go on to found the infamous and extremely influential band, the Noble Steeds, in the sixties. Later on in the year, they released a single with the songs, 'I'm So Young' on the A-Side and 'I Found A Dream' on the B-Side, both of which were extremely popular in the U.K. and were even played at mine and Don's wedding. Unfortunately, they only recorded the two songs in 1958 and were unheard from until they released another single in 1960 and then an album in early 1961. They were fourteen and sixteen years old and had known each other since youth, having been neighbours, and both were very kind. Ginger was a bit more on the quiet side and Elton did most of the talking.

"Don't mind Ginger, she doesn't talk much," Elton had said to us.

"Or I don't have much to say," she replied quietly. She was a pretty girl with gorgeous red hair pulled up into a ponytail and striking blue eyes. She was very small for a fourteen-year-old and when we met again in 1962, I found that she had not grown much. Elton, on the other hand, was nearly as tall as Don and still growing, also with striking blue eyes and charming brown curls in a teddy boy hairstyle. The song they gave us was an absolutely gorgeous ballad that became a major hit for the boys later in the year. It reached the number one position on all of the Billboard singles charts simultaneously, which was absolutely unheard of, and ended the year on the brand new Billboard Top 100 at number two, only being topped by Domenico Modugno's 'Volare (Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu)', which had the advantage of being performed at the Eurovision Song Contest and placing third; England hadn't gone that year, of which I was upset about, but we would go on to place second in the Eurovision Song Contest the following year (Don never understood why I followed it).

Also before our wedding, in late April, we were touring with a group of musicians, including young Dion DiMucci and his group, the Belmonts. I was walking back to the tour bus behind the Belmonts, having gone ahead to the bus while my husband and brother-in-law were still inside the venue packing their things, and saw a group of teenage boys all of a sudden jump poor Dion and start attacking him and the Belmonts. A couple of the Belmonts escaped into the bus, but the remaining members were getting beat up by those young kids - I was a young kid, too, but they were all younger than me. When one started attacking Dion with a plank of wood, my defensive East End instincts kicked in and I raced over to the group, snatching the wood from the kid's hand as he raised it over his head to strike again, grabbing it from him and whacking him on the elbow with it. He let out a cry of pain and stepped back away from me.