John D. Loudermilk

→ Click to start the video of John D. performing his signature song, Tobacco Road (BBC-TV, 1984) →

On this page:     JDL writes his Bio      Recent news     and more...
Visit my complete (uhmm.., as far as I could, but you could help me to make it more complete!) discography with "all" of the songs Loudermilk has written and "all" the covers, in 4 parts.

part 1: 1956-1960 The Colonial, Columbia, Universal-Cedarwood years

part 2: 1960-1963 RCA, Hickory, Nashville, teen, hillbilly and novelty

part 3: 1963-1969 RCA, Hickory, Nashville, bizarre and open minded, country and singer-songwriter songs

part 4: 1970 & later MIM, England, back in the US, years of retirement

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RECENT NEWS

Loudermilk postage stamp issue


Since US Mail issued an Elvis stamp in 1993, many singers and artists have been featured on stamps.
Now a special John D. Loudermilk has been issued, November 2008 by TNT Post, the Royal Dutch Postal Union. In a special, limited edition of sheets of 10 of 44 cents for domestic mail..

New lyric to Abilene

Jim Jenkins, columnist for newsobserver.com, reports about George Hamilton IV singing new lyrics to the JDL-song Abilene:
Gasoline, gasoline, highest prices I've ever seen
What on Earth is going on with gasoline?
Gasoline, gasoline, oh, gasoline ...
Filled my tank just the other night
watched that meter just spin out of sight
Don't I wish they would lower the price of gasoline, oh, gasoline....
Read the complete story in Jim Jenkins' column.

Change of website address

This year I have changed provider, so these Loudermilk pages will be moved. New URL will be short and easy: www.ihesm.com (don't ask me where 'ihesm' stands for, I haven't a clue). This new domain is on-line now. The change will be definite September 29, 2008. Until then, the Loudermilk pages still can be accessed using the old URL members.chello.nl, afterwards the old links will be dead and access is only possible using the www.ihesm.com based addresses. So change your links and update your favourites. Sorry for the trouble.

I added two new video clips, of John D. performing songs he never recorded himself for one of his albums: Windy and Warm and Break My Mind. Performed on June 23, 2007, Ford Theatre in Nashville TN, in the Poets and Prophets Series organised by the Country Hall Of Fame And Museum.

Click images to see the video-clip.

John D. being interviewed by William Friday in the recent UNC TV Show "North Carolina People". In this section, John tells about the origin of "A Rose and a Baby Ruth".

Click image to see the video-clip. (sorry, I've got the sound volume recorded too low on this uploaded clip)

Sue Thompson interview

In the recent radio show of Ronnie Allen, Sue Thompson. In an 1 hour show, Sue talks about her recordings and of course her Loudermilk penned hits like Sad Movies, Norman, James and Paper Tiger.
Ronnie's interview was recorded especially for the website Jersey Girls Sing!, a site created by Denise Ferri and Bernadette Carroll to celebrate the fabulous music of the 50s and the 60s.
To hear the show, click.

Pic left: Sue in the early 1950s, at the start of her career.

In the CHoF-Museum, Nashville

On June 23d, 2007 John D. was guest in the Nashville Country Music Hall Of Fame Museum in Nashville.

Pictures and commentary, see Hall of Fame Museum site.

JDL visited Chapel Hill, Feb 27+28th - performing with George Hamilton IV
On Tuesday, February 27th, John and George Hamilton IV were guests of a UNC class on the "History of Country Music" They presented some of their memorabilia such as notes, letters etc. to the University.
February 28th, John D, his son, Mike and George IV and his son, George V performed in concert at the University Baptist Church in Chapel Hill.

Picture by Mike Spicer.

Picture: John D. and George Hamilton IV performing last year in Chapel Hill, NC, June 17th 2006. To commemorate that they recorded their first hit, A Rose and a Baby Ruth 50 years ago.

Picture by Mike Spicer. Higher resolution format to be found at Flickr.

Canetoad cd release of Loudermilk songs!
Now released: cd Volume 1 with covers of Loudermilk songs.
Australian Canetoad Records has released a cd containing 31 tracks of covers of JDL-songs. This first cd focuses on rockabilly, country and folk artists. A volume 2 of probably will follow later this year.
The cd contains all original fifties and sixties recordings by artists like The Browns, The Chordettes, Bob Luman, Roy Acuff Jr., The Everly Brothers, Norro Wilson, Jimmy Newman, Skeeter Davis, Arnie Derksen and many more. Some obscure songs and hard to find vinyl now for the first time on cd.
Great cd with 28 page full color booklet, including a recent interview with John D. about the songs and artists on this cd!
The cd can be ordered from Australia for 29 OZ$ (equals circa 20 US$, 15 Euro or 10 GBP) at rockin rooster or NL online NL Store, etc etc.

Track listing:

October 28, 2006 - Songwriter Marijohn Wilkin died.
Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member Marijohn Wilkin died this morning at age 86. She was the co-writer of such classics as The Long Black Veil and One Day at a Time.

Born Marijohn Melson in Kemp, TX on July 14, 1920, she was the grandchild of a country fiddler who learned to play piano as a child. She was signed as a staff songwriter by Jim Denny's Cedarwood Publishing company and scored her first major hit as a songwriter when she and John D. Loudermilk created Waterloo in 1959. Stonewall Jackson's recording of the song topped the charts. She was also a prolific 'demo' singer and formed The Marijohn Singers as a backup vocal group on Nashville recording sessions.

Besides Waterloo John D and Marijohn wrote another 20 songs in 1959, 13 of those have been recorded and released. Amongst the published songs that still wait for its first recorded release, is Maco Light, a moving tale of the old North Carolina legend, and The Tender Touch, an unpublished song, of which John D has said,
"the most important song that we wrote together, it wasn't real succesful but it was very special to us. Marijohn and I had a releationship similar to a brother-sister one, and she would tell me at times of very important feelings that women would have. She said that the touch -a man's touch- was the most important thing about a man; so this song kinda sums up her feelings what's important in a man-woman relationship." (from Darryl E. Hicks book "Marijohn", 1978).

October 1, 2006 - Reissue of the "Open Mind" album on cd.
Australian Omni Recording Company has put together a cd containing the tracks of John's 1969 LP "The Open Mind". A good idea! It's a great album but most of these songs weren't available on cd till now. All songs remastered from original tapes and the cd goes with a 16 page booklet, that reprints some of the liner notes of his LP's for RCA and WB.
Besides the 12 album tracks, the cd is completed with other tracks that were released before by the excellent Bear Family compilations. But I would have prefered to include the few other fine JDL 1960s 45rpm and album tracks that still are not available on cd instead, like The Guitar Player, I Hear It Now, Odd Folks of Okracoke, La La Mop Away, Thou Shalt Not Steal. They're Tearing Away The Old Place. Now these still wait for a cd-release...

Unknown song found...!
This summer I stumbled on a South African LP that contains a unique Loudermilk song, that I had never heard before! The LP is called "Presenting John D. Loudermilk" and was released locally when John D. toured South Africa in December 1963.
For the album, John had recorded half a dozen of new songs in Nashville a month before. The album was completed with some tracks of his 1961 and 1962 US albums. Most of the new songs were later also released in the US, some for a 45 single release and some for his late sixties albums.
But one track has remained unreleased since. It isn't even included in the Bear Family compilation cd's of Loudermilk's oeuvre.
The song is called "La La Mop Away". I knew of the existence of the composition, as it is mentioned by BMI and in the Loudermilk songbook. When I asked John D. about the song, he told me that Norro Wilson had recorded it. But he probably did not release it. So JDL may have forgotten about his own South African release!
Besides "Mop Away", the album also contains an early recording of Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye. This version has lots of strings arrangement and Anita Kerr chorus. Different from the version that would later emerge on the 1967 "Suburban Attitudes" album, where Loudermilk restricted it to a simple version, with minimal instruments. Which was to be the best version, actually.

Listen to a sample of La La Mop Away. The album still is available in the second hand market at fair prices. You could try http://lea.gemm.com/ or http://www.musicstack.com/

Fifty years ago, June 1956, the first Loudermilk song was recorded: A Rose And A Baby Ruth, by George Hamilton IV. On June 17th this has been commemorated in Chapel Hill NC. George Hamilton IV, John D and Mike Loudermilk performed that day.
John handed memorabilia for presentation to the Southern Folklife Collection at the University of North Carolina.

Left: George's sheet music edition, right the label of the 78rpm release: George Hamilton IV and The Country Gentlemen, featuring Joe Tanner on Guitar & Henry Haltman on Bass.

A LITTLE BIO

As published by JDL, telling about the start of his career, source the Acuff Rose Song Folio Book, publ. ca. 1964

Back in 1934 on the last day of March... I was born.
It all happened in Durham - a small half university, half industrial town in central North Carolina. I grew up around cigarette factories and hosiery mills and played roller-bat in the street like everyone else. Dad was 50 and mother was 40 when I was born so my two sisters were already grown and away from home by the time I came along.
Dad could neither read nor write so I used to go with him to the grocery store on Saturday afternoon and sign his pay check for him... (I always did believe that's why he gave me the same name as his). He was a carpenter all his life and never changed occupations. Mother was a housewife and a sweet and wonderful mother but, bless her heart, she liked to move a lot. She seemed happiest when the big moving van was backing up to the porch and the pasteboard boxes started to move. From the time I can first remember to the time I left home we had moved 19 times and never got out of the same school district.
Sending off for a Lone Ranger Mask, a scooter made out of an old rusty roller skate, Batman comic books, Mother teaching me to play her old guitar, and my own private tree house are all fond memories of my childhood.

My early religious influences were mostly along the gospel or holiness line. Singing to the accompaniment of "Stringed Instruments", Horns, Tamborines, Hand Clapping and the Big Bass Drum was my first conception of music... and a lasting one. Shouting at prayer meetings and giving one's own personal testimony was The Rule Of The Day.
Aside from the religious music, I also liked folk music (back then they called it "Hillbilly Music"). Sunday school came awfully early after staying up all night listening to The Grand Ole Opry on the radio.

My folks had always wanted me to become a preacher, but when I became a teenager instead, they became aware that I had become aware of a certain thing called social pressure. So I turned in my Christmas bell and uniform and started singing and playing more "Pop" type stuff on the guitar... the guitar that mother and the Salvation Army had taught me how to play.
Yea, Ivory Joe Hunter, Fats Domino and Lloyd Price were what was happening.
I later got hung up on concert guitar and all through high school I was playing and singing a combination of Jimmy Reed, Eddy Arnold and Andres Segovia.

On graduation from high school I went to work at my hometown television station painting sets and doing commercial art work. I was also on the air an hour a day playing bass fiddle in the Studio Combo and doing an occasional tune with my guitar on camera. It was during this time that I discovered the works of Kahlil Gibran, the Far Eastern poet and philosopher, who inspired me to try my hand at writing.
One night after work I wrote a poem about A Rose And A Baby Ruth candy bar. It sounded pretty good, so I put a tune to it with my guitar. I sang it on the show the next day and the phones started ringing... people wanting to hear it again.
George Hamilton IV (who was a student close by at UNC) was one of the ones who called. Before I knew it, he had recorded the thing and bam!... overnight the record was a hit.
George was a star and I was a songwriter!!

I had always wanted to go to college so off I went -down to a little junior college in the eastern part of the state. It was here that I wrote "Sittin' In The Balcony" (which was later to become Eddie Cochrans first hit record.)
I began to get offers from publishers in New York and Nashville, so before long I went home to pack. I had a whole bunch of songs by then and a little bit of royalties left so I headed on out to NashviIle, Tennessee.

John's saturday night's band in the early 1950s: the Carolina Pinetoppers. Young John D in the center with fiddle.

"The popular orchestra is shown here during a rendition of one of their tricky hillbilly numbers". Other group members Burton Spicer, Eddie Hill, Donald Boswell and Philip Forest.

Picture from a local NC newspaper (picture courtesy Mike Spicer).

SONGS

John D. only had 2 hit songs in the US:
Sittin' in the Balcony as "Johnny Dee", peaked at #38 Billboard in 1957,
Language of Love #32 in 1961.
Internationally, Loudermilk had his highest chart position in Finland, where Callin' Dr. Casey was a #7 hit. John D. was very succesful in Canada (two #10 records and two #11 hits!), in England (one #13) and he reached top 30 positions in Germany and South Africa (with Blue Train) and Queensland, Australia (Midnight Bus).

His own chart results seem nothing though, compared to what other artists made out of his compositions, covering the songs.

Million sellers like Norman, Indian Reservation, "A Rose & a Baby Ruth", Sad Movies, Waterloo, This Little Bird, and evergreens like Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye, rock classics like Tobacco Road, country favourites like Break My Mind, the guitar standard Windy and Warm and recently Norah Jones' Turn Me On

Other successes include Paper Tiger, Torture, Sunglasses, Bad News, Google Eye, It's My Time, Big Daddy, Angela Jones, I Wanna Live, Talk Back Tremblin' Lips, Road Hog (big seller in the Latin world) and The Great Snow Man (hit in Sweden).

Some statistics...

Most covered songs...

as far as I found covers, updated Dec 2007:
1. Tobacco Road (196 covers)
2. Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye (117)
3. Abilene (113)
4. Break My Mind (88)
5. Windy & Warm (79)
6. Sad Movies (62)
6. Talk Back Tremblin' Lips (62)
8. Indian Reservation (52)
9. Norman (38)
10. Bad News (34)
11. I Wanna Live (28)
12. The Great SnowMan (26)
12. This Little Bird (26)

Most covering artists...

1. Sue Thompson (26 covers, an idea to put out a cd with those songs?!)
2. George Hamilton IV (23)
3. Bob Luman (13)
4. Chet Atkins (12)
4. Jana Louise (12)
6. The Browns (10)
7. Kris Jensen (7)
8. Everly Brothers (6)
8. Mark Dinning (6)
8. Carmel Quinn (6)
8. Kitty Wells (6)
8. Clarence Gatemouth Brown (6)
11. Jimmy C Newman (5)

Some links:

BMI database contains all the songs registered by BMI. Don't trust each song claimed to be John D Loudermilk's to be a real JDL song though, some songs of other Johnnie Dee's (there are at least two more singers by that name) are mixed up with JDL-products!
The Library of Congress on-line copyright database has been another great source to me for songs written by JDL
The extensive and impressive C&W Discography, mainly 1950s and 1960s artists, set up by Vladimir Pikora et al.
The impressive and extensive Rockin' Country Rockabilly discography's, by Terry Gordon.
The fabulous discographies of rockin' and blues artists compiled by Pete Hoppula,
A fantastic discography project of record labels by Global Dog,
A great overview of many US soulful labels and artists,
The Songwriters Hall Of Fame,
The site of Arnold Rijpens, that gathers all the original versions of tophits and popmusic. Through his radio program on BRT-Belgium in the 1980s I got hooked on the original music of singer-songwriters like Loudermilk.
Great site of Lyn Nuttall: originals of Australian pop hits.

Similar pages on the net "Songographies", great songwriters and all their covers:
Gordon Lightfoot,
P.F. Sloan,
Mickey Newbury,
Bobby Charles,
Ray 'Kinks' Davies

Other netware I made:
a little note on Paul Siebel...
about Kate Wolf's first album...
and the Guckenheimer Sour Kraut band...
some of my pictures on Flickr...
a tiny blog .

Many thanks for giving additional informations and corrections: Bill Aldred, Tommy Bengtsson, John W Beveridge, Jens Bohn, Mark Bridgland, Kees Brinkerink, Josh Brown, Jim Callahan, David Caudell, Art Chartrand, Vic Chinn, Glenn Dean, John DeAngelis, Phil Dirt, Enrique Dufau, Hans Evers, Record Exchanger, Stuart Fraser, Rob Giesbertz, Marco Giunco, Henk Gorter, Rich Grunke, Bob Hayden, Dietrich Heitz, Paul Hennessey, Rainer Holzhauer, 'Butcher' Pete Hoppula, Richard Huet, Cathy Illman, Ruud de Jonker, Ben Joosten, Albert Keijser, Gene Kennedy, Klaus Kettner, Corey Kleinbauer, Kåre and Edvin Kristiansen, Alexander Kurochko, Andre Landgraf, Sven Libaek, Bill Littleton, Sandy Mason, Hugh Moore, Barry Nostradamus Sher, Julio Niño, Joe Novak, Zbigniew Nowara, Ulf Reissberg, Neil Packman, Fred Poet, Johannes Potgieter, Paul Robin, Peter Roberts, Åke Roos, Hans De Ruyck, Sandy Samples, Erwin Schapendonk, Siegfried Schneeweiß, Hartmut Schulla, Jan Sigurd, Henri Smeets, Joe Specht, Ed Steklasa, Ad 'Big O' Swart, Mike Turner, Henrik Uhlin, Paul Urbahns, Tapio Vaisanen, Jaroslav Vener, Jerry A. Veneskey, Jukka Voudinmäki, Wilfried Weiler, Peter Vreeburg, Wolfgang Wittmann, Bob Wynne, Greg Zechman, Ben Zehnder
and special thanks for the big contributions of Nerissa Cassell, Philippe Edouard, René Ferri, Mike Spicer and Thieu van de Vorst.

And sure a lot of thanks for the kind help of John D, Susan C and Rick Loudermilk!

Mail to Kees van der Hoeven

Last update Sept 2008

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John D Loudermilk Londermilk, John Dee Loudermilk, John E Loudermilk, JD Loudermilk, J D Loudermilk, John D Laudermilk, John D Lowdermilk, Loudemilk, J Loudermilk Lowdemilk Lautemilk Lautermilch Lowdemilk