How Pat Boone Became Famous

Welcome to 500 Greatest Songs, a podcast based on Rolling Stone's hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list. I'm Brittany Spanos.

And I'm Rob Sheffield. We're here to shed light on the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them so great. From classics like Fleetwood Mac's Dreams to the Ronettes' Be My Baby, and modern day classics like The Killer's Mr. Brightside.

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Find your perfect Philips Roku TV today online or at your local Walmart and Sam's club. And we return to our American stories. Up next, a story from a man who has sold more than 45 million records and has 38 top 40 hits to his name. We're talking about Pat Boone. When we interviewed Pat, the first question we asked him was undeniably basic but he answered it beautifully. We asked him how he became famous. Let's get into the story.

Take it away, Pat. Well, I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm a country boy.

My dad, a building contractor, mom, a registered nurse, very practical professions. But we were, as so many people in middle Tennessee were and are, we were churchgoers. We were church members. And I grew up believing and was baptized when I was barely 13. So in my teens, I was thinking of myself, seeing myself as a Christian, a child of God, and really living a good wholesome life and dating Shirley Foley, the daughter of Red Foley, the Country Music Hall of Fame.

He wasn't then but he was hosting the Grand Ole Opry, having replaced Roy Acuff after many years. And I was not a big country music fan till I met Shirley Foley. She came to our high school. Her mom was not well and so she had to be in the dorm at Lipscomb. And at 16, we met and really a romance began then that continues to this minute.

But we were just teenagers. And then her mom died when Shirley was 16, 17. Her mom was young, but rheumatic fever and heart condition.

First open heart surgery ever in Nashville at Vanderbilt Hospital. But she didn't live long after that. So then her mom's death brought us even closer together. And so when Red Foley was given the opportunity to go to Springfield, Missouri, to start the Ozark Jubilee, which would become the first and huge nationwide country music show on Saturday nights from Springfield, Missouri.

But he hadn't done it yet. And he was taking his three widowed daughters, including Shirley, to Springfield. And I couldn't stand to let her go. We were 19 then. So I asked if she would marry me. And I asked him and he tearfully gave us permission and bought our rings.

So we married at 19. And I was on my way now to being a preacher, teacher. But I had won, seemed like incidentally, I had won the Ted Mac Amateur Hour three weeks in a row. And it was the forerunner of shows like, you know, The Voice and America's Got Talent. The winners were selected by the viewers with cards and letters. The show would appear on Saturday night.

And by Thursday, the votes were counted. And if you won one week, you would come back for another. And I won three weeks in a row. Well, I was thinking of being a singer at that point, but nothing came up.

No contracts, no offers. So now I'm married. I'm in Texas. And I get a call from New York.

And they're assembling all the three-time winners to come back and compete with each other. Well, I was one. So I flew back to New York. And I was expecting our little, our first baby by then. And so I was on that show and they told me I was winning. But while I was having to wait in New York, I couldn't afford to go back to Texas and then back to New York again. So I waited in a seedy little hotel off Times Square until they let me know if I was if I was winning or not. So while I was waiting, I went on Arthur Godfrey's talent show on a Monday after being on the talent show Saturday and auditioned for the Arthur Godfrey show, which was a Monday night. And they put me on that Monday night and I won.

Well, that disqualified me from the Ted Mac amateur hour because you can't be a professional winner on Monday and then be declared an amateur winner the following Saturday. And I blew it. And it was over. I went back to Texas. And again, I came that close to being having a career in music, but it hadn't happened. Now, as we're expecting our second child, I get a call from Randy Wood of Dot Records outside Nashville. He'd seen all of this.

I was a homeboy, you know, winning these national contests. And he said he had a new record company called Dot. And he thought that I could make some hit records. And he asked if I'd like to come to Chicago and record. And of course, I did, not knowing what to expect. And he had me sing a rhythm and blues song called Two Hearts, Two Kisses, Make One Love. It was an R&B record by the Charms on the Dewtone label, but it was not known on pop radio at all. And I didn't know what R&B was, but I listened to that record.

And I picked up on the flavor of it. One heart's not enough, baby. Two hearts make you feel crazy. One kiss will make you feel so nice. Two kisses take you to paradise.

Two hearts, two kisses, make one love. And that song that we recorded immediately sold a million records. That was in March of 55.

My second baby had come, and number three was on the way already. And I had to do a follow-up record. So in May of 55, I recorded Fats Dominoes, Ain't That a Shame. His had been number one R&B, which was a separate genre called race music.

Sold 150,000. I did his song, My Way. You made me cry my way. You made me cry when you said goodbye.

Ain't that a shame. And I did my version of rock and roll as we were calling it. Mine sold a million and a half, ten times what Fats had sold with his own song and his own record. And he was thrilled, and he said many times I made more money with Pat Boone's record of my song than from my own record, because he was the writer and publisher of his song, and he actually made more royalty from my version of his Ain't That a Shame than I made from mine. I was getting like a beginner three percent royalty, and he was making twice that as the writer producer or publisher of the song. So people had the crazy idea in latter years that I was somehow taking something from the original performers, the R&B performers like Little Richard and others, that I covered their songs. But I took their songs, which were already hits, R&B, selling a modest amount of records, and I'd do their song and sell a million or a million and a half of their song, and they made more money from my versions than from their own. So now as I say, this all happened.

I wasn't seeking it. It all just fell on me, but from that time, March of 55, for four and a half years, I was never off the single chart. I hold that record in the record business 220 consecutive weeks without ever being off the single chart. Everything I recorded from then on, I had 41 chart records in the 50s. Elvis had 40. I had 41, and he was my opening act the first time we met. The kids didn't know who he was, but they liked the way he looked. They didn't like the way his song sounded because it was a Bill Monroe bluegrass song.

Blue moon of Kentucky, keep on shining. Well, that wasn't rhythm and blues, but he tried to make it sound like it was, and he got lots of applause when he left the stage that night, and then I went on. I got all the screams because I had three million sellers.

So from then on, this is a very long-winded answer to your question, but I'm just trying to let you see how what was happening to me was not something I was orchestrating. It was just happening to me, and as a Christian kid in Nashville, I realized that, you know, I had some talent as a singer. I could sing anything anybody put in front of me. I didn't have any voice lessons to speak of, but I sang in church as a teenager into my early grown years. I would lead singing in church. We didn't, in our church, didn't have instruments of music. It was all acapella, so I could stand up and lead three or four or five hundred people in congregational singing. Sing the one trust, love of Jesus, and just wave my arms like I knew what I was doing, counting time. I didn't know how to count time, but what I didn't know at the time was it was great vocal exercise. Leading acapella singing, congregational singing for four or five hundred people at a time, with or without microphone, made it possible for me to sing rhythm and blues or big band swing or anything I wanted to sing without any worry. I could just sing it.

Whatever you put in front of me, I could do it, but it wasn't through training, that is consciously, so that's a very long-winded answer. It all happened to me, but I always had the sense from that time on that it was for a reason, that I was going to be a teacher, preacher, originally, and I was being given a different kind of platform, and as a rock and roll singer, not as a preacher and a teen idol. And a terrific job on the editing, production, and storytelling by our own Monty Montgomery, and a special thanks to Pat Boone. Forty-five million records sold, an astonishing 220 consecutive weeks on the singles charts, and even Elvis didn't know. And what Pat Boone had to say about his career being thrust on him, well, it happens to some people, and that he had all that preparation in the pulpit and doing worship and leading it a cappella. There was nothing Pat Boone hadn't sung before he was a big-time singer. The story of how Pat Boone came to fame here on Our American Stories. Welcome to 500 Greatest Songs, a podcast based on Rolling Stone's hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list. I'm Brittany Spanos.

And I'm Rob Sheffield. We're here to shed light on the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them so great. From classics like Fleetwood Mac's Dreams to the Ronettes' Be My Baby, and modern-day classics like The Killer's Mr. Brightside.

Listen to Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ready to celebrate International Women's Day? M&Ms and iHeart present Women Take the Mic, sharing empowering stories of women supporting and celebrating each other. And of course, there is a smooth and creamy companion for your listening pleasure, Peanut Butter M&Ms, because they're just another way to help treat yourself in situations where you deserve a little added delight, like listening to your favorite podcast. So savor the deliciousness of Peanut Butter M&Ms and spread some positivity. From breaking glass ceilings to dominating in sports and entertainment, women truly are unstoppable.