![]() ![]() She played the song for her brother Mark at a family dinner, and he recorded it that night.” Dinning continued to record, but he never again found the success he did with “Teen Angel.” Complicating matters, his alcohol addiction kept him from performances and contributed to his fading from public view, sources say.ĭinning died in 1986 at the age of 52 at his home in Jefferson, Missouri. ‘Being a songwriter, I said, ‘That’s a title,’’ Dinning said in The Billboard Book of No. ![]() “The piece suggested that good teenagers should be called teen angels. “ Dinning was inspired to write the song – which was recorded by her brother Mark – after reading a magazine article about juvenile delinquents,” Rolling stone wrote in an obituary about Jean Dinning after her 2011 death. It sold more than a million copies, and it was later featured in the “American Graffiti” movie soundtrack as well. banned the tune t that didn’t stop it from being a hit. ![]() According to The Daily Doo Wop musical history website, some radio stations in the U.S. The morbid nature of the song drew scorn. The song is performed from the boy’s perspective as he asks, almost prayerfully, “Teen angel, can you hear me?” The girl ran back to the car to retrieve the boy’s high school ring, and she was struck and killed by a train. The song tells the story of a young couple whose car stalled at a railroad crossing. 1 spot on the Billboard Top 100 for weeks, according to The Los Angeles Times. That song was “Teen Angel,” which held the No. He didn’t have much success until 1959, when a heartbreaking song his sister Eugenia “Jean” Dinning wrote put him at the top of the charts. In 1957, he signed a deal with record producer Wesley Rose under the stage name Mark Dinning. “His sisters, however, encouraged him to use his talents and he later signed with MGM after three years in the Army.” “Dinning at first turned down a chance at a singing career, preferring to remain on the farm,” the Associated Press reported after his death in 1986. He and his family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, the home of country music, sometime during his youth. Unclear is how long Dinning, the youngest of nine children, lived in Oklahoma. Mark Dinning was born in Manchester, about 57 miles northwest of Blackwell, on August 17, 1933. The Dinning family got its start in northern Oklahoma and made its mark on the entertainment world. But people who danced the night away in the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s saw those names on the covers of popular musical albums and the silver screen. To people under the age of 60 or so, those names may not ring a bell. Unfortunately, the lackluster liner notes still make the previously available Best of the Dinning Sisters a better first buy, but those who are already fans of their music or anyone with a favorable ear for their contemporaries the Andrews Sisters and the Boswell Sisters should seek out Almost Sweet and Gentle without hesitation.Editor’s Note: This is the second installment in The Journal-Tribune’s series “Famous and Forgotten: The Untold Stories of Entertainers from Northern Oklahoma.” The series highlights entertainers of the past who had connections to the region.įrom the same family in a tiny Grant County town came a one-hit wonder pop singer and a competitive vocal trio: Mark Dinning and the Dinning Sisters. More than doubling the amount of Dinning Sisters material available at the time, the two-disc set reveals a whole bushel of bright and romantic harmony songs somehow left off of Collectors' Choice's 1997 collection, like the "Harlem Sandman" who "makes you count Basie instead of countin' sheep," and the sultry big band romp "I Love My Love." Neglected gems like "Brazil," "Love on a Greyhound Bus" and their million-selling biggest hit "Buttons and Bows" all make appearances here, as do previously unavailable "Western Sweet" numbers like "Lolita Lopez," "Oh Monah," and "I Get the Blues When It Rains." Fun novelties like "Hawaiian War Chant" and the bizarre "Iggity Song" are fun distractions, but the real gems are the intimately whispered love songs like "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now," "Once in a While," and their cradling, definitive version of "The Way You Look Tonight," which all showcase the Sisters' flawless, inviting harmonies. Fans of the tragically underrated '40s harmony group the Dinning Sisters were delighted by the release of the terrific compilation oddly entitled Almost Sweet and Gentle on the Jasmine Records label in late 2001. ![]()
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