Live/Living Top Ten: What Am I Living For (#4)

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Happy Opening Day!!!! Beat the drums and hold the phone, it’s baseball season! Oh, it’s still “live song” season, too, and here’s another one of the great songs with “live” in the title. Oh, and for those with a country music aversion, there’s only one country song left…and this ain’t it. #4: What Am I Living For - Chuck Willis Another one of those rock and roll tragedies. Chuck Willis was dead at 32. A combination of drinking and stomach ulcers led to peritonitis, which took his life in 1958. Willis was a popular R&B singer, but his pop successes were limited to this song (released a month before his death), his version of “C.C. Rider,” and popularizing the dance known as the Stroll. In a different time the peritonitis probably could have been easily diagnosed and treated. Sad stories like this make me thankful for our medical advances. I’m also thankful we got this song in the much-too-short career of Chuck Willis. What Am I Living For Written by Fred Jay and Art Harris Recorded by Chuck Willis Released as a single, 1958 Nobody else will do: