Loudermilk is probably best known for three big hits: "Indian Reservation," a Number One hit in the U.S. for Paul Revere and the Raiders in 1971, "Ebony Eyes," a Number One hit in Britain for the Everly Brothers in 1961, and "Tobacco Road." That last one wasn't as big of a hit, although the Nashville Teens did have a hit with it in 1964. But its one of those songs lots of musical acts love to cover. Wikipedia says it "has since become a standard across several musical genres."
However, he wrote many more hits than just those three, and his songs have been widely covered. He had a reputation for writing songs that were a little bit quirky and different from the usual.
Loudermilk was born in 1934, and grew up in a musical environment in North Carolina. In fact, two of his cousins made up the Louvin Brothers, a very famous country music duo. The first big hit of one of his songs, "A Rose and a Baby Ruth," happened in 1956, while he was 21 years old and still going to college. After that, he tried having his own career as a performing musician, and he ended up releasing many singles and albums. However, he only saw modest success that way. He had two songs that barely made it into the Top Forty in the U.S., "Sittin' in the Balcony" in 1957, and "Language of Love" in 1961, and some smaller hits. He found much more success having other musical acts record his songs.
Most of his successes came in the late 1950s and all through the 1960s. He wrote many hits for many different musical acts. This album includes most of his best known songs, but there are plenty more that I didn't include. For instance, he wrote lots of country hits, and I was more selective with those since I'm not such a big country fan.
Most of the songs here are the original hit versions, if they were hits. I've included a couple of lesser known songs performed by Loudermilk himself, "Road Hog" and "The Jones'," to show some of the diversity of his songwriting talent. The last really big hit he had was "Indian Reservation" in 1971. The four songs that come after than on this album are covers of songs that generally were first released a lot earlier.
It seems he retired from songwriting in the 1970s, and apparently was able to live on royalty checks. That freed him up to pursue passion projects, and he had many. For instance, in the 1990s, he devoted himself to traveling, studying ethnomusicology, chasing hurricanes, and doing research on Native American burial mounds!
Here's the Wikipedia entry about him, if you want to know more:
John D. Loudermilk - Wikipedia
But here's a better article that sums up his career:
LifeNotes: Songwriting Great John D. Loudermilk Passes - MusicRow.com
This album is 48 minutes long.
01 A Rose and a Baby Ruth (George Hamilton IV)
02 Ebony Eyes (Everly Brothers)
03 Road Hog (John D. Loudermilk)
04 [He's My] Dreamboat (Connie Francis)
05 Norman (Sue Thompson)
06 Watch Your Step (Brooks O'Dell)
07 Windy and Warm (Ventures)
08 Abilene (George Hamilton IV)
09 Tobacco Road (Nashville Teens)
10 Bad News (Johnny Cash)
11 This Little Bird (Marianne Faithfull)
12 I Wanna Live (Glen Campbell)
13 The Jones' (John D. Loudermilk)
14 Indian Reservation [The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian] (Paul Revere & the Raiders)
15 Break My Mind (Wreckless Eric)
16 You Call It Joggin' [I Call It Runnin' Around] (Mose Allison)
17 Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye (Maria McKee)
18 Turn Me On (Norah Jones)
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There are very few color photos of Loudermilk from when he was young. So I had to resort to using the cover photo from the album "Blue Train." I don't know when the photo was taken because it's an archival album.
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