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“It was the greatest place to grow up in the world. “Everybody knew everybody, and everybody liked everybody,” he said in the 2010 Journal-Constitution interview. He remembered his time there, before national fame, with fondness.
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In 2010, he announced he would end his last official tour with a concert in Marietta, not far from the school that once banned him. Royal went on to do well with country songs such as “I’ll Pin a Note on Your Pillow,” “Tell It Like It Is” and “‘Till I Can’t Take It Anymore.” The song had nothing to do with space travel, but given its title, radio stations stopped playing it.
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It looked like he might have a big hit in 1986 with “Burned Like a Rocket.” But just as the song was gaining in popularity, the Challenger space shuttle tragedy occurred. Royal moved back to Georgia and eventually landed in Nashville, where he worked to revive his career. “Kenny Rogers lived down the street from me,” Royal recalled, “and Kenny was tearing the world up singing country music. But he noticed that other singers who had pop hits had successfully switched genres. I was getting a divorce,” he told the Journal-Constitution. Royal moved to Los Angeles, but his brand of pop music was falling out of favor. He graduated to bigger live shows, including tours produced by Dick Clark, and in 1970, Royal played Las Vegas, where he met and even hung out with Presley. It was the highest he ever reached on the pop charts, but Royal also found success with other songs in that era, including “Cherry Hill Park” and “Hush.” With its repetitive, “down in the boondocks” reframe that got stuck in listeners’ minds, the song reached No. We cut it on a three-track machine - the most primitive thing in the world.” “I guess people related to poor people,” Royal told the Chicago Tribune in 1990.
#Youtube billy joe royal down in the boondocks plus#
Sleeve Condition: Sleeve: Very Good Plus (VG+) Original rare version LP in great condition. Most importantly to his career, he worked with songwriter and producer Joe South, who wrote “Down in the Boondocks” - a song about a pair of young lovers from opposite sides of the tracks. Billy Joe Royal - Down In The Boondocks (LP, Album, Mono) Label: Columbia Cat: CL 2403 Media Condition: Media: Very Good Plus (VG+) Will show some signs that it was played and otherwise handled by a previous owner who took good care of it. So I imagine there are probably earlier examples of records that 'quote' from older recordings in a one off fashion, but it's hard to imagine anything earlier using a sample in this integral manner.“For a kid, I can’t tell you how that felt.” Maybe I'm betraying my ignorance here, but if the above is correct, surely this must count as one of the first, if not the first usages of 'sampling' of an older track in the construction of a hit song? It seems particular analoguous to 'modern' (80s onwards) day uses of sampling in hip hop and EDM etc as the sample is repeated and utilised as the basis for the rhythm of the new song. Anyway, I was intrigued to read in it's wiki entry ( Down in the Boondocks (song) - Wikipedia ) that apparently it 'samples' from Gene Pitney's 1963 hit '24 Hours From Tulsa', and indeed it does sound like it could indeed be a direct 'sample' of the earlier record rather than a recreation. I had never heard this record until today (I'm UK based, so it's one of untold US chart smashes have didn't hit big over here, only reaching #38) when I looked it up after Bob Dylan referenced it in 'Murder Most Foul'.