Entertainment Features

Pat Boone: The Last Ride of a Rock'n'roll Pioneer

Pat Boone: The Last Ride of a Rock'n'roll Pioneer

By David DeRocco

 The first thing you notice when talking to Pat Boone is the voice. Even when simply speaking, those velvety vocal chords – the ones responsible for selling over 45 million records – are instantly recognizable to anyone who knows anything about the early years of rock and roll.

 

“That’s true,” laughs Boone, the singer, movie star and TV host whose resume also includes credits as producer, songwriter, author, motivational speaker, radio personality, record company head, TV station and sports team owner and respected family man and humanitarian. “I’ve had to come to realize it. I’ve said to people I could never become a criminal because I’d never get away with it. I could change my face but people would still know me from my voice.”

 

That voice was inescapable during Boone’s mid-1950s heyday when he established himself as one of the most successful recording artists in American history, scoring 38 top 40 hits and rivaling Elvis as the most popular singer of his day. Boone still sits at #10 on Billboard’s all-time top recording artists – and in his acting prime was 1957’s third biggest movie draw, starring alongside such notable female stars as Shirley Jones, Ann Margret and Debbie Reynolds. Now into his seventh decade as a performer, Boone is one of the last survivors of the early rock and roll era, a living legend who is now admittedly on his farewell tour – one that brings him to Fallsview Casino for three shows this week.

 

For Boone, a tennis-playing 83-year-old who occasionally suits up in the 80+ age division to play basketball with the Virginia Creepers, the tour dates are a nightly chance to share a sentimental journey with fans and relive what he readily admits is a rather unparalleled career.

 

“I don’t know of any life that matches it,” says an appreciative Boone, whose mind is an encyclopedic treasure of facts and stories from the most seminal time in American musical history.  “Elvis for example was my opening act when we first met in Cleveland at a sock hop. He wasn’t known yet and had been brought up to do the sock hop by Bill Randle, the #1 DJ of the era. I already had three million selling hits. I was going to lip sync them. It was at Brooklyn High School October 22nd, 1955. Elvis and his entourage arrived from Shreveport where he was known as a rockabilly artist. The first song he did was a Bill Munroe song, “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”  It wasn’t really a rock and roll song and the kids didn’t know how to react. Then he said ‘I’d like to do another song’ and sang “That’s Alright Mama” and they liked that. He was really a naïve young beginner but with real talent. That’s all the music he had. I got all the screams that night. But I had the good sense never to follow him on stage again!”

 

Boone’s ascent to superstar teen idol started innocently enough. As a talented 12 year old who loved to perform, Boone would sing at any venue that would allow him, from Rotary and Kiwanis halls to the hallowed halls of the local Ladies Shakespeare Club. After winning a talent show at his Nashville high school, Boone made TV appearances on both the Ted Mack Amateur Hour and the influential Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scout Show. Between his TV exposure and a string of early hits featuring genteel cover versions of R&B songs by artists like Fats Domino and Little Richard, Boone’s career took off; by age 22 he was the youngest person ever to host his own TV show.

 

“I’ve said I’ve owed my career to the fact I’ve never been able to say no,” laughed the singer, who hosted The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom on ABC-TV from October 1957 through June, 1960. “I’m 22 and I’m hosting Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Perry Como, Johnny Mathias and Little Richard. All these top artists were coming in and singing.”

 

After helping to kick-start the rock and roll era, Boone fell victim to the rapidly expanding musical and cultural influence the music was having on America and the world. With the sonic assault of the British invasion, the bright stars of artists like Boone and Presley quickly faded from the charts; Boone turned to recording gospel music, eventually recording more than 20 albums and winding up in the Gospel Music Hall of Fame – an honour he calls his most important accolade of achievement. Ironically, Boone has yet to receive a nod from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame despite being one of the founding voices, although it's not something he's losing sleep about.

 

 

“I’m not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nor do I care to be because it’s become just a personal feast for (founder) Jann Wenner and his clique that just inducts people they like that they think deserve to be there. I had more rock and roll hits and was on the rhythm and blues and pop charts than many others in the Hall. My recording of “Ain’t That A Shame,” the Fats Domino song, went to number eight or nine on the R&B charts after he took it to number one. I was a legitimate rock and roll and rhythm and blues artist, but because I recorded gospel and patriotic and country and other genres Jann and the group that decides don’t consider me a rock and roller. Plus they seem to spread the falsity that when I recorded rhythm and blues songs that I was somehow impeding or taking something from the original artists, which of course is not true. Their records were not getting played on pop radio but my versions and Elvis’ version of their songs actually helped them emerge and become better known. There are people in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that aren’t even rock and rollers. Brenda Lee was not a rock and roll singer. Johnny Cash was not. Gene Pitney was lot. Even Paul Simon was not, he was uptown New York pop. Being in the Gospel Music Hall of Fame is truly more important to me.”

 

Boone jokingly attempted to re-establish his rock cred in 1997 when he released In A Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy, a campy collection of heavy metal covers done in big-band jazz style featuring the hits of artists from from Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple to Ozzy, Alice Cooper and Metallica. To promote the album he appeared at the American Music Awards decked in spiked black leather, a move that got him dismissed from his role with Gospel America. After explaining that he was simply parodying himself, Boone was eventually reinstated.

 

For this week's set of shows in Niagara Falls, Boone says it’s all about the classic hits, although “Smoke on The Water” may find its way into the set list as he takes his fans on a musical trip down memory lane. It’s a journey that includes exclusive video footage of artists like Cole and Fitzgerald taken from Boone’s own TV show archives. Fans old and new will be treated to a loving performance from an artist who has genuine appreciation for the career he’s been lucky enough to enjoy for over five decades.

 

“Each time I appear I know it’s the last time around, and I accept that. I get goosebumps myself just thinking about it. I’m enjoying it, I’m enjoying every minute of it. In some ways it’s unprecedented. I just know I’ve lead a very blessed life.”