Not birthday related, but hands up to everyone who knows that one of the biggest hits of the early R&B/rock and roll era
was written by a man destined to become the vice president of the United States.
Charles G. Dawes---eventually to be Calvin Coolidge's running mate, when Coolidge ran for his own full term after finishing
that of Warren G. Harding---had an early passion for music, teaching himself the piano and becoming something of a composer.
In 1911, he wrote a piece for piano and violin called "Melody in A Major." It was a smallish hit for a few artists over the coming
years, but in 1951 Carl Sigman wrote lyrics for it. Several popsters including Dinah Shore, Carmen Cavallaro, and Sammy Kaye
recorded it that year, the year Dawes died. Even Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole took a shot at it, having modest success
with their versions.
It was also recorded in 1951 by a young black singer in a conventional pop style. He had a few minor hits but was otherwise going
nowhere with his label, MGM, prepared to let him go after his last scheduled recording session of 1958. With MGM preparing to
use him on their first stereo-recorded single, a staff arranger named Leroy Holmes suggested the singer revisit the song . . . with a
rhythm and blues ballad arrangement and accompaniment, including piano triplets and guitar and more pronounced snare drum off-
beat.
That did the trick. The new take was a smash. It hit number one on the pop and R&B charts and stayed there for six weeks in 1958;
it may have been the first stereo single to hit number one. (I've been unable to confirm that.) It gave the singer a new lease on life,
for at least two or three more years, before---reputedly---he entered a battle with the bottle that would end with his death of a brain
neurysm in 1969.
The singer who took that second shot and hit the bull's eye was Tommy Edwards. And future Vice President Dawes's "Melody in A
ajor," with Sigman's lyrics, became . . .
Tommy Edwards, "It's All in the Game"
! No longer availableThanks to Edwards, Dawes has three singular distinctions in music history:
* He's the only U.S. Vice President ever to have written a number one hit.
* He's the only songwriter other than Sonny Bono to have written a number one hit
and served in either the Senate or the
House of Representatives.
* He's the only songwriter other than Bob Dylan to have won a Nobel Prize. (Dawes won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925 for his
plan---subsequently abandoned in favour of a different one---to help Germany restore and stablise its post-World War I
economy; Dylan, of course, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016.)
You could add a fourth distinction to Dawes thanks to Edwards---the only U.S. Vice President ever to have written a smash hit
that eventually showed up frequently in movie soundtracks such as
American Graffiti,
Diner,
She's Having a Baby, and
others.
As for Carl Sigman, he isn't exactly lacking for a place in music history. Among others, he was also the lyricist for such songs as
"Ebb Tide," "Pennsylvania 6-5000," "Answer Me," "What Now, My Love," the latter-day Frank Sinatra hit "The World We Knew (Over
and Over)," "Where Do I Begin (Love Story)," and "Crazy He Calls Me" . . .
