two detours on the way to tulsa
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Artist:
"24 Hours From Tulsa" sounds like the title of a '50s movie western, but it's one of Bacharach & David's most curious '60s hits, originally done by Gene Pitney.Here are just four things you ought to know about Pitney:1. His single "Every Breath I Take" was one of the first Spector wall-of-sound productions (and a great Goffin-King song).2. He was the first artist to have a U.S. chart hit with a Jagger-Richards song ("That Girl Belongs To Yesterday").3. He cut country duets with George Jones.4. He wrote "He's A Rebel" for The Crystals and "Hello Mary Lou" for Rick Nelson.But I digress. "Tulsa" is sung as a letter, written to the girl he left behind. He goes into exhausting detail about how, on his way home, he stopped for the night, grabbed a bite at a cafe with a local girl, started to dance with her, and decided then and there that he can "never, never, never go home anymore." Just like that (she must've been some dancer). "Tulsa" came on my iPod this morning (so did Pitney's Spanish-language version of his tale of economically-separated lovers, "Mecca"), and it occurred to me that while everyone acknowledges that Dionne Warwick's string of hits put Bacharach & David in the pop pantheon, you don't hear much about Pitney, who cut a slew of B&D songs: "Only Love Can Break A Heart," "True Love Never Runs Smooth," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"...Dusty Springfield did "Tulsa" from the female perspective, singing it flawlessly, as expected. Somehow, her retelling of her romantic detour sounds more like, "please try and understand what happened," than "oh, by the way honey, I met someone else, here's my forwarding address."
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