Sonny Curtis, a classic rock ‘n’ curler who wrote the uncooked traditional “I Fought the Law” and posed the enduring query “Who can turn the world on with her smile?” because the writer-crooner of the theme music to “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” has died at 88.
Curtis, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Crickets in 2012, died Friday, his spouse of greater than a half-century, Louise Curtis, confirmed to The Associated Press. His daughter, Sarah Curtis, wrote on his Facebook web page that he had been all of the sudden unwell.
Curtis wrote or co-wrote tons of of songs, from Keith Whitley’s nation smash “I’m No Stranger to the Rain” to the Everly Brothers’ “Walk Right Back,” a private favourite Curtis accomplished whereas in Army primary coaching. Bing Crosby, Glen Campbell, Bruce Springsteen and the Grateful Dead have been amongst different artists who lined his work.
Born through the Great Depression to cotton farmers exterior of Meadow, Texas, Curtis was a childhood pal of Buddy Holly’s and an lively musician within the adolescence of rock, whether or not jamming on guitar with Holly within the mid-Nineteen Fifties or opening for Elvis Presley when Elvis was nonetheless a regional act. Curtis’ songwriting contact additionally quickly emerged: Before he turned 20, he had written the hit “Someday” for Webb Pierce and “Rock Around With Ollie Vee” for Holly.
Curtis had left Holly’s group, the Crickets, earlier than Holly grew to become a serious star. But he returned after Holly died in a aircraft crash in 1959 and he was featured the next 12 months on the album “In Style with the Crickets,” which included “I Fought the Law” (dashed off in a single afternoon, in response to Curtis, who would say he had no direct inspiration for the music) and the Jerry Allison collaboration “More Than I Can Say,” successful for Bobby Vee, and later for Leo Sayer.
Meanwhile, it took till 1966 for “I Fought the Law” and its now-immortal chorus “I fought the law — and the law won” to catch on: The Texas-based Bobby Fuller Four made it a Top 10 music. Over the next a long time, it was lined by dozens of artists, from punk (the Clash) to nation (Johnny Cash, Nanci Griffith) to Springsteen, Tom Petty and different mainstream rock stars.
“It’s my most important copyright,” Curtis advised The Tennessean in 2014.
Curtis’ different signature music was as uplifting as “I Fought the Law” was resigned. In 1970, he was writing industrial jingles when he got here up with the theme for a brand new CBS sitcom starring Moore as a single lady employed as a TV producer in Minneapolis. He known as the music “Love is All Around,” and used a clean melody to finally serve up lyrics as indelible as any in tv historical past:
“Who can turn the world on with her smile? / Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile? / Well it’s you girl, and you should know it / With each glance and every little movement you show it.”
The music’s endurance was sealed by the pictures it was heard over, particularly Moore’s triumphant toss of her hat as Curtis proclaims, “You’re going to make it after all.” In tribute, different artists started recording it, together with Sammy Davis Jr., Joan Jett and the Blackhearts and Minnesota’s Hüsker Dü. A industrial launch that includes Curtis got here out in 1980 and was a modest success, peaking at No. 29 on Billboard’s nation chart.
Curtis would recall being commissioned by his pal Doug Gilmore, a music trade street supervisor who had heard the sitcom’s builders have been on the lookout for a gap music.
“Naturally I said yes, and later that morning, he dropped off a four-page format — you know ‘Girl from the Midwest, moves to Minneapolis, gets a job in a newsroom, can’t afford her apartment etc.,’ which gave me the flavor of what it was all about,” mentioned Curtis, who quickly met with present co-creator (and later Oscar-winning filmmaker) James L. Brooks.
“James L. Brooks came into this huge empty room, no furniture apart from a phone lying on the floor, and at first, I thought he was rather cold and sort of distant, and he said ‘We’re not at the stage of picking a song yet, but I’ll listen anyway,’” Curtis recalled. “So I played the song, just me and my guitar, and next thing, he started phoning people, and the room filled up, and then he sent out for a tape recorder.”
Curtis would finally write two variations: the primary utilized in Season 1, the second and higher identified for the remaining six seasons. The unique phrases have been extra tentative, opening with “How will you make it on your own?” and ending with “You might just make it after all.” By Season 2, the present was successful and the lyrics have been reworked. The producers had needed Andy Williams to sing the theme music, however he turned it down and Curtis’ easygoing baritone was heard as an alternative.
Curtis made a handful of solo albums, together with “Sonny Curtis” and “Spectrum,” and hit the nation Top 20 with the 1981 single “Good Ol’ Girls.” In later years, he continued to play with Allison and different members of the Crickets. The band launched a number of albums, amongst them “The Crickets and Their Buddies,” that includes appearances by Eric Clapton, Graham Nash and Phil Everly. One of Curtis’ extra notable songs was “The Real Buddy Holly Story,” a rebuke to the 1978 biopic “The Buddy Holly Story,” which starred Gary Busey.
Curtis settled in Nashville within the mid-Nineteen Seventies and lived there along with his spouse, Louise. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1991 and, as a part of the Crickets, into Nashville’s Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2007. Five years later, he and the Crickets have been inducted into the Rock Hall, praised as “the blueprint for rock and roll bands (that) inspired thousands of kids to start up garage bands around the world.”
Associated Press journalist Mallika Sen contributed reporting.
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