Half Past Midnight

Tommy Love and the Deadbeats

Half Past Midnight

D.Hecht-D.Carroll, Jupiter Music ASCAP

1962

A blues number already issued the previous year on Dondee Records, but with a different song on the flip side (Stop Stop). The Orbit flip is Wow! Wow!, a rocker a la Larry Williams available on a few compilations. But Tommy Love's voice is much more comfortable with the slower sides.

Two or three dozen of Orbit labels blossomed in the fifties and the sixties. On this one, located in Los Angeles, I know only one other release (Carolina rockabilly Ray Whisnant).

★

Don Hecht is perhaps best remembered for writing the Patsy Cline 1957 hit, "Walkin' After Midnight.", a song that she reluctantly recorded on November 8, 1956 :

Trying to sound like Kitty Wells wasn't working and she didn't want to be recorded pop. In '57 she was about to lose her contract when she reluctantly recorded a song called "Walkin' After Midnight." According to the Don Hecht who wrote the song, Patsy balked at recording the tune yelling, "It's nothin' but a little old pop song!" Like most female artists of the time who had no control over the songs they recorded, Patsy relented and was soon glad she did. Before the song was released, she used it to audition for the nationally broadcast Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts show. She ended up singing that song and winning the contest.

But that's Lynn Howard who was the first artist to record "Walkin' After Midnight (Accent Records #1044) reviewed in Billboard (October 6, 1956). A song that I have still to hear. While her "Red Thunderbird" is available on a few comps, her "Walkin'" version remains stubbornly uncomped.

★

Tommy Love made perhaps his recording debut on Federal Records through Ralph Bass and was certainly a Los Angeles artist. I didn't find much info about Tommy Love and no discography. So, here is a draft compiled by myself.

DISCOGRAPHY
Tommy picture is taken from the picture sleev of Bagdad 113

58 Federal 12331 : Tell Me, Tell Me / My Crazy Heart
58 Federal 12342 : Ice Cream, Soda Pop / My One True Love

61 Dondee 1937 : Half Past Midnight / Stop Stop

62 Orbit 4889 : Half Past Midnight / Wow ! Wow !

62 Dondee 1941 : Just Walking (My Blues Away) / Big Black Blotch
-- Dondee 1946 : Forbidden Love / Loneliness, Meet Emptiness
-- Dondee 1947 : Dreams Upon Dreams / Slokum
?? Dondee (EP) Tommy Love 10836 Big Black Botch (Plus 5 more)

62 Rev 1001 : Love Bug Is Buggin' Me / Your Heart Is Like A Swingin' Gate

64 Bagdad 1002 : Take My Hand / Dream In A Dream
64 Bagdad 113 : Lost Dreams / Green Door