AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Paul Evans

Artist:Paul Evans

Song:Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Backseat

Album:Happy Go Lucky Me: The Paul Evans Songbook

The 1959 single Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Backseat was one of two top ten hits for singer songwriter Paul Evans. He went on to have his greatest success as a songwriter. He was born Mar. 5, 1938 in Queens, NY. His mother was a piano teacher and his sister taught him to play guitar. Evans performed in high school shows and attended Columbia University on an engineering scholarship. He also hosted a radio show and that gave him the music bug and he quit school. He started singing in clubs. But what really got him into the music business was singing on demos and pitching songs to publishing companies in The Brill Building. He got a publishing deal which led to a record deal with RCA. When that didn't work out, he recorded for Decca and Atco. Then Evans was hired by veteran songwriters Bob Hilliard and Lee Pockriss to record a demo of Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Back Seat and that led to a record deal with Carlton Records. Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Backseat was released on Carlton's Guaranteed label and it reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. They released the demo with no changes. This was followed by a second top ten hit Happy-Go-Lucky Me. Evans continued to record and perform as a folksinger. But he already had success as a songwriter with the 1958 Kalin Twins top five hit When. Then he hit the jackpot when Bobby Vinton topped the charts with the 1962 single Roses Are Red written by Al Byron and Paul Evans. That is his most memorable song. Evans continued to record. He charted in country music in the late 70s. This budget comp from the British label Castle is like an audio biography and includes an interview. Evans published an autobiography in 2021. Here's Paul Evans performing Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Back Seat on American Bandstand 1959.