SONGWRITER
TRIVIA TRAIL

In 1920, Sylvia Dee wrote a song as a private tribute to her recently deceased father, then put it away and forgot all about it. Forty years later, trying to comfort her friend Skeeter Davis who was in mourning following the death of her singing partner B.J. Davis, Sylvia showed her the words that had given her so much comfort when in her own loss. Skeeter recorded it, and the song, "The End Of The World" became one of the greatest country classics of all time.
(Contributed by Gina Hope, Trenton, New Jersey, USA).

In 1958, when Johnny Cash recorded his famous "Ballad Of A Teenage Queen". the Canadian publishers came up with the idea of having a "Teenage Queen Contest" in each town Johnny was due to visit - the prize being a meeting with the great man himself. The winner in Saskatoon was a fourteen year old beauty - Joni Mitchell!

Richard Nixon played a mean old piano, and Bill Clinton is no slouch on the saxaphone, but it was left to Vice President Charles Dawes to write one of rock music's great classics. He penned the Tommy Edwards 1958 hit - "It's All In The Game"!

The day after President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, songwriter Bobby Hebb's brother died. As a result of these two tragedies, Bobby, whose parents were both blind, was inspired to write the song "Sunny" - described once as "a happy song with melancholic lyrics".

When he was a teenager, Neil Sedaka practised songwriting by penning a new tune every day for one year. Not one of those early songs was ever recorded by him afterwards.

Were it not for Campbell's Soup, songwriter Paul Anka might never have made it to the top. When he was 15 in his native Canada, he collected the most labels from cans of soup. The priize was a trip to New York. While there, he met the Canadian folk group The Rovers, who introduced him to Don Costa, head of ABC Records. Paul played him a song he had written some years earlier about his baby-sitter. Her name was "Diana", and that song made Paul Anka his first million dollars. 
[Contributed by Joe Forrest, New York, USA]

Frank Sinatra [speaking at the start of rock and roll in 1956]
"Elvis Presley's kind of music is deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac"

Frank Sinatra [speaking after Presley's death in 1977]
"There have been many accolades uttered about Elvis Presley's talent over the years, all of which I agree with wholeheartedly"

And on that truly trivial note - Trivia Trail fades away...