1960 Songs: Wheels

Tweet

No, Pony, not the Gram Parsons song! Tomorrow the top ten starts for songs from the year I was born. Today it closes out with another instrumental. Those were good times for instrumentals, weren’t they! And yes, we had this 45 when I was little, or I’d probably never have heard it. Wheels - The String-a-Longs The story of a band you’ve never heard of and a song that sold sixteen million copies that you’ve never heard. The String-a-Longs were produced by Buddy Holly’s producer, Norman Petty, who shared co-writing credit on this song with band members Richard Stephens and Jimmy Torres. It was released as a single, and it sold seven million copies. Covers of the song, ranging from Billy Vaughn to the Ventures, sold another nine million copies. The band should have been rolling in dough. Nope. The record label folded when the band went to collect their royalties. Guitarists Stephens and Torres should have split about $700,000 for the success of the song. Instead, they got nothing. Oh, back to the Gram Parsons joke for a moment: another song The String-a-Longs did was called “Brass Buttons.” The Horse will find that humorous. So let the “never heard of it” begin. Another sad story from the sometimes very underhanded, deceitful way the business was run then. Wheels Written by Richard Stephens, Jimmy Torres, and Norman Petty Recorded by The String-a-Longs Released as a single, 1960 Subtle Latin beat, which was quite popular then: