Conway Twitty was born 87 years ago today.
Born as Harold Lloyd Jenkins, Twitty was a country music artist, who also had success in early rock and roll, R&B and pop music. He held the record for the most #1 singles of any act. He had forty #1 Billboard country hits until George Strait broke the record in 2006.
From 1971 through 1976, Twitty received a string of Country Music Association awards for duets with Loretta Lynn.
He was never a member of the Grand Ole Opry, but was inducted into both the Country Music and Rockabilly Halls of Fame.
Born in Friars Point, Mississippi, he was named by his great uncle, after his favorite silent movie actor, Harold Lloyd.
The Jenkins family moved to Helena, Arkansas when Harold was ten years old. In Helena, Harold formed his first singing group, the Phillips County Ramblers. Two years later, Harold had his own local radio show every Saturday morning. He also played baseball, his second passion.
He received an offer to play with the Philadelphia Phillies after high school (Smiths Station High), but he was drafted into the Army. He served in the Far East and organized a group called The Cimmerons to entertain fellow GIs.
Wayne Hause, a neighbor, suggested that Harold could make it in the music industry. Soon after hearing Elvis Presley's song "Mystery Train,” Harold began writing rock and roll material. He went to the Sun Studios in Memphis and worked with Sam Phillips, the owner and founder, to get the "right" sound.
Accounts of how Harold Jenkins acquired his stage name of Conway Twitty vary. Allegedly, in 1957, Jenkins decided that his real name wasn't marketable and sought a better show business name.
In "The Billboard Book of #1 Hits," Fred Bronson states that the singer was looking at a road map when he spotted Conway, Arkansas and Twitty, Texas and chose the name Conway Twitty.
Another account says that Jenkins met a Richmond, Virginia man named W. Conway Twitty Jr. through Jenkins' manager in a New York City restaurant. The manager served in the Army with the real Conway Twitty. Later, the manager suggested to Jenkins that he take the name as his stage name because it had a ring to it.
In the mid-1960s, W. Conway Twitty subsequently recorded the song "What's in a Name but Trouble,” lamenting the loss of his name to Harold Jenkins. Using his new stage name, Conway Twitty's fortunes improved in 1958, while he was with MGM Records.
For a brief period, some believed he was Elvis Presley recording under a different name. In 1960, he appeared in three feature films: College Confidential, Sex Kittens Go to College and Platinum High School.
Twitty became ill while performing in Branson, Missouri, and was in pain while he was on the tour bus. He died in Springfield, Missouri, at Cox South Hospital from an abdominal aortic aneurysm, two months before the release of what would be his final studio album.
He was 59 years old.
Here, Twitty performs “I See The Want To In Your Eyes”