One Hit Wonders: Ketty Lester & Kathy Young

Welcome to Rock and Roll Flashback!  Throughout the '50's and '60's, there were numerous Rock and Roll bands, vocal groups and solo artists. Many went on to have successful music careers, but unfortunately for others, lasting popularity did not always materialize. Some groups managed to achieve brief recognition, sometimes with just one hit, only to vanish from the music scene. A few managed to achieve some success, but only regionally, never quite gaining significant national attention. Those artists have come to be known as One Hit Wonders. During the 1950's and 1960's several artists attained that label.
I'm Bill Price and in this edition of One Hit Wonders, I will focus on two solo artists of the early 1960's, Ketty Lester and Kathy Young.

All podcasts on the Rock and Roll Flashback Podcast are produced by brothers-in-law Bill Price and "Jumpin' John" McDermott. The Podcast Theme Song, "You Essay", was written by John, and the basic track was recorded by Bill and John on April 1, 2004.
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Transcript

Through out the 50s and 60s, there were numerous Rock and Roll bands, vocal groups
and solo artists. Many went on to have successful music careers, but unfortunately for
others, lasting popularity did not always materialize. Some groups managed to achieve
brief recognition, sometimes with just one hit, only to vanish from the music scene. A
few managed to achieve some success, but only regionally, never quite gaining
significant national attention. Those artists have come to be known as One Hit Wonders. During the 1950s and 1960s several artists attained that label.
In this edition of One Hit Wonders, I will focus on two solo artists of the early 1960s,
Ketty Lester and Kathy Young.

Ketty Lester whose real name is Revoyda Frierson was born on August 16, 1934 in Hope, Arkansas. She began singing as a young girl in her church and later in school choirs. In the early 1950s she won a scholarship to study music at San Fransisco State College in California. She then began performing at San Francisco’s Purple Onion club using the name Ketty Lester. Later Ketty toured in South America and Europe with Cab
Calloway’s orchestra as a vocalist. In 1957 she made a television appearance as a
contestant on the “You Bet Your Life” show. After touring she returned to California and
recorded her first single titled “Queen for a Day” which was released on the Everest
record label. Later she got a contract with Era records in Los Angeles and in 1961
recorded and released the single “Love Letters” with the b-side “I’m a Fool to Want
You”. In early 1962, the single climbed to number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 2
on the Rand B chart and number 4 on the UK Singles chart. The record sold over one
million copies and received a gold disc by the Recording Industry Association of
America. “Love Letters” was ranked 176 in the RIAA list of Songs of the Century.
She performed as the supporting act for the Everly Brothers’ UK tour in 1962. After the
tour the follow up release “But Not For Me” reached number 41 in the US and number 45 in the UK. An album was released which featured two songs “You Can’t Lie to a Liar”
and a cover of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land”. Both songs were later
released as singles. The album was also nominated for a Grammy in the Best Female Pop Performance category.

Additional recordings for Era records failed to generate any success, and in 1964 she
signed with RCA records and released several singles and two albums that were not
successful. At this point she started to venture into other performing opportunities. In
1964 she won a Theater World Award for her performance in “Cabin in the Sky” an off-
Broadway show. After leaving RCA records she signed with the Tower record label,
subsequently releasing the single and album “When A Woman Loves A Man” which was
an answer to Percy Sledge’s “When A Man Loves A Woman”. Another change to the
Pete record label also failed to generate any success.

As the 1960s came to an end Ketty stopped recording and turned to acting. She appeared in several movies including “Uptight” in 1968, “Blacula” in 1972, “Uptown Saturday Night” in 1974 and “The Prisoner of Second Avenue” in 1975. During the 1970s and 1980s she became a television actress appearing in several roles including “Days of Our Lives” from 1975 to 1977 and “Little House on the Prairie” from 1977 to 1983. She also appeared in the film “The Night the City Screamed” in 1980. In 1984 she recorded a gospel music album titled “I Saw Him”, then resumed movie acting appearing in “Street Knight” in 1993 and “House Party 3” in 1994.

Kathy Young was born on October 21st, 1945 in Santa Ana, California. In 1960 Indigo
Records producer Jim Lee arranged for the Innocents, a Sun Valley band to provide vocal backup for 15 year old Kathy on a cover of “A Thousand Stars”, a song originally
recorded by the Rivileers in 1954. In 1958 Jim put together The Innocents for a television performance on the Wink Martindale music program.

Two months after her 15th birthday in December 1960, “A Thousand Stars” by Kathy
Young and The Innocents reached the number 6 position on the R and B singles chart and number 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100. The next single to be released was “Happy Birthday Blues” which reached the number 30 position on the Hot 100 in 1961. “Magic Is the Night “ and “The Great Pretender did not manage to make it into the Top 40.

In July 1961 she made an appearance on Alan Feed’s American road show. By 1962 Jim
Lee left Indigo Records and went to Monogram Records, Kathy also moved to
Monogram where she recorded as a solo artist and duo with singer Chris Montez.
By 1964 her career was beginning to stall, most likely as a result of the British Invasion.
She then traveled to London where she married John Maus an American singer
songwriter also known professionally as John Walker the founder of the Walker Brothers. However the marriage only lasted 3 years and in 1969 Kathy returned to the US. Two years later she remarried and over the next 20 years raised her children and helped run the family’s citrus ranch in California. In 1994 she moved back to Los Angeles and resumed her interest in music. In the 2000s she appeared in several shows such as the Greek Theater in Los Angeles and the Izod Center in New Jersey.

On October 12, 2014 Kathy was induced into the Doo-Wop Hall of Fame at the North
Shore Music Theater located in Beverly, Massachusetts.

This has been a look back at the careers of Ketty Lester and Kathy Young, two of Rock
and Roll’s one hit wonders of the early 1960s.