SKEETER DAVIS

Sometimes a story can seem a little confusing. This one involves a trio of female singers named Davis, though the most famous member wasn't born with that name and the three only performed together in pairs. An "end" came early, while another "End" made a huge impression near the midway point. Skeeter Davis (the odd one out, surname-wise) became the last girl standing and she carried her adopted moniker throughout her professional career. One of her songs is, perhaps, better-known to much of the population than she is, due largely to its massive "crossover" success. But Miss Davis didn't mind...and contrary to public perception, she wasn't "selling out" when she recorded it.

Raised in and around the northwestern region of Kentucky between Lexington and Cincinnati, Ohio, Mary Frances Penick lived with her grandparents, parents and six younger siblings during the depression years. Her tobacco-farmer granddad had a strange sense of humor; when she was two or three he began calling her "Skeeter" and it caught on. She embraced a slang term for a mosquito as a forever name! In 1947, her family moved to Covington, Kentucky, just south of Cincy, separated by the Ohio River. While attending nearby Dixie Heights High, she struck up a friendship with Betty Jack Davis who, like Skeeter, loved to sing. They hadn't planned on being a music act, yet their voices complemented each other (and Betty Jack was a very good guitar player). They sang at Covington's Decoursey Baptist Church and constantly practiced together. Soon they were performing as The Davis Sisters on Cincinnati's channel 7, WCPO-TV. A Philadelphia-based gospel group with the same name (five sisters named Davis) had been established in 1945, but it never seemed to be a problem; seems there was room enough for both without causing confusion.

After graduating from high school, the duo moved to Detroit to take advantage of an opportunity to sing on WJR-AM 760, a powerhouse 50,000-watt station with a wide reach throughout middle America. Between morning show stints on the station in 1951 and '52 and a spot as semi-regulars on Big Barn Frolic, a wildly popular show featuring top country acts and square dancing (tickets were a buck apiece!) broadcast every Saturday night on WJR, the not-related-by-blood sister act became widely known. Soon they were performing regularly at county fairs and auditoriums, while avoiding the nightclub scene. One Frolic act, The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, recommended they approach Steve Sholes, the head of A&R at RCA Victor Records. They flew to New York to attempt an audition, which wasn't as easy as hoped. Sholes, uncertain as to their potential, told them to come back and see him at a later date.

A Detroit label, Fortune Records, was run by Jack Brown and his wife Devora; they specialized in rural artists, mainly blues singers and hillbilly bands. The Davis girls came in with the intention of cutting audition discs; Devora had them record "Jealous Love" (a song she'd written with Patti Page in mind). The finished result, with backing by Georgia-based band Roy Hall And His Cohutta Mountain Boys (who also supplied the flip side) was pressed and copies were sent to local stations; it received smatterings of airplay in the spring of 1952, yet Skeeter and Betty Jack didn't get a penny out of it. Word of the disc trickled up to Sholes, who was suddenly interested in signed them, especially with staff producer Chet Atkins' encouraging reaction to the duo's record.

Skeeter Davis, Betty Jack Davis

Once they were signed to RCA, the Davis Sisters recorded "I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know," a song penned by West Virginian Cecil Null, featuring Atkins on guitar. A minor pop entry, it became one of the biggest country hits of the year, its significance amplified by the unfortunate reality of how difficult it was for any female country act to have success making records in those days. Demand to see them live was overwhelming, a thrilling turn of events that quickly led to tragedy. On August 2, 1953, after a show in Wheeling, West Virginia while driving back to Kentucky in the early morning hours, the girls were involved in a head-on collision. Skeeter was seriously injured...Betty Jack was killed. Skeeter had serious bouts of depression while recuperating over the next few months. It was during that time the song reached number one on the country charts, staying there through most of October and November.

Betty Jack had an older sister, Georgie Davis, and it was suggested by family members, and the duo's manager, that she could step in and keep the act going. Skeeter had misgivings; her best friend was gone and she blamed herself for her death (though it wasn't her fault, as an investigation revealed the other driver had fallen asleep at the wheel). But the suggestion made sense and she and Georgie took to the road, getting adjusted to a new version of the original act, however surreal it may have seemed. "You're Gone," a song penned by Skeeter and Betty Jack and recorded during their brief time at Fortune, had already been released by RCA Victor. Another of these early songs they'd written together, "Takin' Time Out for Tears," was issued in early 1954.

Starting that year, Skeeter and Georgie began recording new songs, many of them more uptempo than early efforts with Betty Jack, such as "The Christmas Boogie" and "Everlovin' (A One Way Love)." A midtempo tune written by the pair, "I've Closed the Door," appeared in the summer of 1955. While struggling to get airplay, the act performed for willing crowds and established themselves at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. In early 1956 they decided to separate, Georgie opting to focus on family while Skeeter considered a solo career. The Davis Sisters' final release in the spring of '56 was "Lonely and Blue."

After some time off, Skeeter resumed recording for RCA Victor as a solo act, working closely with Atkins. Her first single, "He Left His Heart With Me," sounded similar to the sisters' work yet seemed like a step in the right direction. Its follow-up, Lawton "Slim" Williams' "Lost to a Geisha Girl" (a "jilted lover" answer to Hank Locklin's hit "Geisha Girl") became her first solo effort to reach the country charts and second ever, since the duo had never managed a successful follow-up. In early '59 she released "Set Him Free," a mostly-spoken track (penned by Skeeter with Helen Moyers and Marie Wilson) that put her in the role of the "other woman" trying to convince a judge to grant a divorce to the man she loves. The single was her first top ten C&W hit as a solo act. "Homebreaker," an answer to the song (also written with Wilson), found her talking directly to the ex-wife. Fans ate it up.

1960 rolled in with her version of Carl Belew's "Am I That Easy to Forget?" and another Locklin ("Please Help Me, I'm Falling") answer song, "(I Can't Help You) I'm Falling Too," a number two country smash and top 40 pop hit, her first to reach Billboard's Hot 100. In the fall of that year, she made a permanent move to Nashville. Suddenly her personal life seemed like the subject of some of her songs. Her first marriage to Kenneth DePew in '56 had been a disaster (she later said he only married her for her money...or, more accurately, the bankroll he thought she had) and they divorced three years later. Going from the frying pan into the fire, she married WSM disc jockey Ralph Emery, who verbally abused her, often flying into fits of jealous rage for no valid reason.

Her career, on the other hand, continued to escalate. "My Last Date (With You)," a vocal version of Floyd Cramer's huge instrumental pop hit "Last Date," went top ten country and competed with a version by Joni James on the top 40 pop charts in early 1961 (while Cramer's original was still in the top ten). Other hits in '61 ("The Hand You're Holding Now," "Optimistic") took an upbeat approach, perhaps as a professional antidote to her nightmare marriage with Emery. By 1962, the "Nashville Sound," using strings for a pop crossover kind of appeal, had been gaining favor with many country artists (while being reviled by so-called purists). Producer Chet Atkins had been a big proponent of the trend. This musical adjustment paved the way for Skeeter's greatest hit.

"The End of the World" was composed by Arkansan Sylvia Dee (whose main claim-to-fame was as a cowriter of Nat (King) Cole's massive 1951 hit "Too Young") and New Yorker Arthur Kent (who'd most recently cowritten "Take Good Care of Her" for Adam Wade). Dee's lyrics deliver an unwavering all-hope-is-lost narrative ('Why do the birds go on singing? Why do the stars glow above? Don't they know it's the end of the world? It ended when I lost your love...') that connected with millions of fans. Skeeter later admitted that during the recording, she channeled some of the sadness she felt over losing her closest friend and collaborator Betty Jack. A runaway smash in the early months of 1963, it ranked high on the pop, country, R&B and easy listening (then called "middle of the road") charts, something no other recording has achieved.

Skeeter Davis

She followed it with another top ten country hit, "I'm Saving My Love," written by Alex "Snap Your Fingers" Zanetis and produced by Anita Kerr in place of Atkins, who'd helmed nearly every song since the start of Skeeter's solo stretch. The next move was even less predictable; in an effort to get on the teen girl-pop bandwagon that had reached new heights in '63, Atkins went with a song by Brill Building composers Gerry Goffin and Carole King (who'd already scored that year with top ten girl group hits "Don't Say Nothin' Bad About My Baby" by The Cookies and "One Fine Day" by The Chiffons). What he got was "I Can't Stay Mad at You," an upbeat 'Do-do-do-shoo-be-doo-be-do-bop-down-down-de-doo-be-doo-be...' tune (shades of Neil Sedaka!) that placed Skeeter (who was actually 31 years old at the time, a minor detail) in the N.Y. girl-pop pantheon despite its Nashville recording location, giving her a second top ten Hot 100 hit in November.

There were a few more charting pop singles in '64: "He Says the Same Things to Me," "Let Me Get Close to You" (another Goffin-King tune) and the Milton Kellem standard "Gonna Get Along Without You Now" that placed her in head-to-head competition (that ended in a draw) with Tracey Dey. But her biggest release that year was getting divorced from Ralph Emery (after he'd gotten another woman pregnant). Having the freedom to associate with other men, she did so in strictly platonic ways through a series of duets. The first: a remake, with Bobby Bare, of "A Dear John Letter" (made famous in 1953 by Jean Shepard the singer and Ferlin Husky the heartbroken soldier). She wrapped '65 early with "Sun Glasses," a positively summery pop tune penned by John D. Loudermilk and delivered sweetly (as usual) by Miss Davis.

Atlanta-born Felton Jarvis, who took over production duties on most of Elvis Presley's output starting in 1966, did the same for Skeeter, often juggling their schedules in the same Nashville studio. Some of her hits from this three-year period include "Fuel to the Flame," a longing ballad by Bill Owens and his up-and-coming niece, Dolly Parton, "What Does it Take (To Keep a Man Like You Satisfied)," penned by Jim Glaser, a duet with Don Bowman ("For Loving You") and the Paul Parnes-Paul Evans tune "There's a Fool Born Every Minute." Singer-songwriter Ronny Light took the production reins late in the decade and the good/bad relationship-centric hits kept coming; Light's "I'm a Lover (Not a Fighter)" was a top ten country hit at the beginning of 1970 and is one of her signature numbers. "Bus Fare to Kentucky," originally issued in 1971, became a significant part of Skeeter's catalog when she used it as the title of her 1993 autobiography, wherein she shared many life stories and got into the details of her tumultuous marriage to Ralph Emery (rebuking statements made in his self-penned bio Memories, published two years earlier).

She left RCA in the mid-1970s and made only a handful of recordings aftwerwards, including "I Love Us" for Mercury in 1976. Regular performances at the Grand Ole Opry kept her in the public eye for the remainder of her life. One notable recording was the album Skeeter and NRBQ in 1985, a collaboration with the famous Kentucky-based band. Its liner notes made reference to (but didn't agree with) the perception some had that she'd abandoned her country roots for a career in pop music. Country and pop fans alike cherish her most famous recording, which still resonates years after her life ended in 2004. 'Why does my heart go on beating? Why do these eyes of mine cry?' I suppose it's because, like so many others, I have a soft spot in my heart for this great, career-defining song by Kentucky country girl Skeeter Davis.

- Michael Jack Kirby

NOTABLE SINGLES:




MORE ARTISTS

I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know The End of the World I Can't Stay Mad at You

    Way Back Attack trademark and content Michael Jack Kirby. All rights reserved.