Sunday, April 29, 2012

Conway Twitty Silhouette at Guitar Walk

I came across this interesting article a few minutes ago. The story broke a couple of days ago, April 25th, but it's all about a project that will honor the early days of Rock-a-Billy music with life-size silhouettes of various artists that at one point or another incorporated the rock-a-billy style in their performances. Conway Twitty will be among the artist silhouettes on display at what's being called a Guitar Walk in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas in Lawrence County. The site of the Guitar Walk will officially be called Cavenaugh Park, named after the top donators.

You can read all about it in the following links:

The Times Dispatch

Guitar Walk

In Conway's career he took 55 singles to #1. In 1958 he hit #1 on the pop chart in America and #1 on several charts overseas with "It's Only Make Believe", the song you hear in the video clip above. He would have several more big rock 'n' roll hits between the years of 1959 and 1961 (with "Lonely Blue Boy" becoming his second Gold record and a Top-10 on the Hot 100) but ultimately Conway switched to country music in 1965 and eventually reached the Top-10 on the country charts for the first time in 1968 with "The Image of Me", followed by his first country #1, "Next In Line". This set the stage for Conway's incredible streak of #1 and Top-10 singles that went uninterrupted for ten years, 1968-1978.

It's important to note that music popularity, subjective as it is, was kept track of by several weekly music publications. Billboard Magazine's chart statistics are the ones most quoted and it's the publication that's been around the longest (more than 100 years!) but other publications became major competitions of Billboard through the years...the two that were the most successful early-on were Record World and Cashbox. In the '70s, '80s, '90s, and most of the 2000's the main rival of Billboard was Radio and Records. There was also the Gavin charts and those furnished by other lesser-known entities. If a single reached the #1 position on any of these publications then it was promoted, marketed, and hyped as a "#1 hit".

Since Billboard's data is the most quoted, only the singles that reached #1 in their publication are what music historians refer to when they total up Conway's chart-toppers. In Billboard, 41 of those 55 singles reached #1...leaving 14 additional singles achieving their #1 accomplishment by way of Billboard's rival publications. I've listed his #1 hits already as well as his Top-10 hits. I've also listed the singles that reached the Top-40...and the very few that charted below #40.