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Our plan was to try to sing like Gene Pitney. Royal himself would deny any intent to pitch the song to Pitney - (Billy Joe Royal quote:)"We would've never a song to him.
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It has been reported that Royal's recording of "Down in the Boondocks" was intended to serve as a demo to pitch the song to Gene Pitney, the song being evocative of Pitney's trademark hit sound with an especial resemblance to Pitney's 1963 hit " Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa": reportedly Bill Lowery, South's music publisher and Royal's manager, was so impressed with Royal's own recording of "Down in the Boondocks" as to pursue a major label release for it.
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The song's writer, Joe South was a longtime friend and professional associate of Royal: South had played guitar for Royal since the singer had begun performing in local venues at age 14, and from 1961 South had produced Royal's recordings of demos and low-budget singles. In the summer of 1965, "Down in the Boondocks" launched the top 40 career of Billy Joe Royal, who had recorded the song a year earlier. Essentially the same theme appeared some twenty months earlier in the lyrics of Joey Powers' "Midnight Mary". The singer proclaims that "one fine day, I'll find a way, to move from this old shack", presumably to be able to join the higher class members of society and finally be able to date the girl openly. The girl's father is the singer's boss, which, along with the social division, prevents him from proclaiming his love and connecting with her, despite their shared feelings (which is the basis for the line "but I don't dare knock on her door/for her daddy is my boss man"). The people who live or are born in the boondocks are suggested to be a lower class than those in the city. He continued to have minor hits into 1992, and toured throughout the decade.The song is sung from the perspective of a self-proclaimed "boy from down in the boondocks." He sings of a girl who lives nearby, for whom he feels love and steals away with occasionally. By 1990, Royal’s style of pop-inflected country had been replaced by neo-traditional honky-tonk at the top of the charts, and his popularity declined. For the next two years, he had a string of Top 40 hits, breaking into the Top 10 in late 1987 with “I’ll Pin a Note on Your Pillow.” In 1989, he released the album Tell It Like Is the title cut became his biggest hit, peaking at number two, while the album itself stayed in the Top 15 for over a year. The single became a hit and reached the country Top Ten in early 1986. In 1984, he finally got a break when he recorded Gary Burr’s “Burned Like a Rocket ” it was picked up by Atlantic Records, who signed Royal to the label. In 1978, he recorded a cover of “Under the Boardwalk” and scored a minor hit.ĭuring the early 1980s, Royal worked on establishing himself as a country artist, but had trouble finding a label. He also did a bit of acting on television, in feature films, and commercials. Following its success, Royal had a string of lesser hits, including the Top 40 pop singles “I Knew You When,” “I’ve Got to Be Somebody” and “Cherry Hill Park.” By the end of the decade, Royal’s star waned, and he became a regular performer in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe. The song became his breakthrough single, reaching number nine on the pop charts and making the vocalist into a teen idol. The demo ended up at Columbia, and they signed Royal to a six-year deal. Royal flew to Atlanta and recorded “Down in the Boondocks” inside the studio’s septic tank, which had been converted into an echo chamber. Three years later South contacted him with a song he wanted Royal to sing as a demo, in the hope that Gene Pitney would record it. In 1962, he recorded an independent single which went unnoticed. Royal had his own rock band during high school and was regularly singing around Atlanta by the age of 16. The following year, he learned to play steel guitar and joined the Atlanta Jubilee at age 14, performing with Joe South, Jerry Reed, and Ray Stevens, among several other artists. Royal was born into a family of musical entertainers in Valdosta, Georgia, and debuted on his uncle’s radio show at the age of 11. Although he never had another hit as large as “Down in the Boondocks,” he racked up a number of successful country singles over the course of the 1980s. Best-known for his pop/rock hit “Down in the Boondocks,” Billy Joe Royal had a long career that saw him shifting his attentions toward country music in the ’80s.