Bo Weevil - Teresa Brewer ~ 1956

Описание: Teresa Brewer (Theresa Veronica Breuer) was born on May 7, 1931 in Toledo, Ohio. Her singing career began almost immediately when he mother enrolled her in "The Uncle August Kiddie Show" on a local radio station at the age of two. At seven, she entered "The Major Bowles Amateur Hour" and began touring around the country with that show. at 12, she would get pulled from the road to finish school. Again, she entered a contest around the age of 16 and won a week's performance at the Latin Quarter Club in New York City. After the week was done, she decided performing is what she wanted to do and decided to drop out of school and stay with her Aunt and find more gigs.

Talent agent Richie Lisella heard one of her performances and signed her with London Records. From her first ever recording session in 1949, she managed to get a Number 1 hit and a million seller with a B-side tune "Music! Music! Music!". She would chart a couple more times, but ultimately switched to the Coral label in 1951. She would do fairly well with Coral, exploring different genres of music, maintaining good sales numbers and getting minor hits almost yearly. The last charting hit she had came in 1961 although Brewer would continue to release albums throughout the 1960's. Sadly by then, the British Invasion had changed audience's taste in music and her sales began dwindling.

In her heyday, she topped Paramount Studios surveys as America's favorite female singer three times and was chosen based on popularity along with Pat Edmonds to play in the 1953 film musical "Those Redheads from Seattle". Although her hair was naturally brown, it was died red for the movie and she kept it that way for many years after. Fast forward to the 1970's and 80's, she found a niche covering jazz greats like Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller Count Basie, etc. This found her singing and even producing an album into the early 1990's! She even appeared on "The Statler Brothers Show" in 1993. She even has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame. Sadly her husband passed away in 1996 and she never recorded after that. She would pass away in 2007.

Today's song, "Bo Weevil" comes from her Coral Records days. The song was famously written and performed by Antoine "Fats" Domino along with Dave Bartholomew. Teresa's version wasn't too far behind, releasing at the tail end of January 1956, the same month as Fats' release. Although her version of Bo Weevil did make some waves (making No. 17 on the US charts), it was the flip side that got her the most air play from this record reaching all the way to No. 5!



, which is the flip side of today's song, "Copenhagen". Originally written by Charlie Davis and Walter Melrose way back in 1924, and heard here backed by "The Dixieland All Stars", this version was recorded sometime in December 1949 and released in January 1950.