Saturday, October 09, 2010

Jango Song Of The Day-Joe Hinton

Artist:Joe Hinton
Song:Funny (How Time Slips Away)
Album:#1's: '60s Soul





This Willie Nelson song has been recorded by many artists and is considered a standard today. But soul singer Joe Hinton had the most success with the song in 1964. Unfortunately he wasn't as successful with his other recordings and he died prematurely so he's mostly forgotten. He was born Nov. 15, 1929 in Evansville, IN and started out as a gospel singer with the Chosen Gospel Quartet. In 1957, he moved to Memphis and was lead singer of the gospel group Spirit Of Memphis Quartet. They were on Peacock Records and Peacock owner Don Robey convinced Hinton to sing secular music. So he moved Hinton to Peacock's Back Beat label. After charting with a couple of singles, he reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1964 with Funny (How Time Slips Away). Of course Willie Nelson wrote the song and recorded it on his 1962 debut album. But it was originally recorded by Billy Walker and he had a top 30 country music hit with it in 1961. Narvel Felts also had a top 20 country hit with it in 1975 and Dorothy Moore hit the R & B top ten with Funny in 1976. I believe Hinton's is the definitive version. There is a Joe Hinton comp available but I think it's too expensive and I also think most folks will only be interested in the one song. So I recommend the #1's various artists comp from Hip-O that has a lot of great 60s soul hits. Joe Hinton continued to record for Back Beat until his death from cancer on Aug, 13, 1968 at age 38. Here's a video for Funny (How Time Slips Away) by Joe Hinton.

No comments:

Post a Comment