Well, maybe he wasn't QUITE as cool as Roy Orbison, but he had something of that same vibe, and I liked a bunch of his songs when I was a kid, and when a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame checks out, it deserves at least a little diary at dKos. RIP Gene Pitney, who was found dead on his hotel room bed, age 65, while touring in Cardiff, Wales.
Pitney was born in 1941, the son of a mill worker. He's probably best known for songs he recorded in the early 1960s, notably "It Hurts To Be in Love" and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence." He wrote a number of songs recorded by others, including the Crystals' "He's a Rebel" and Bobby Vees' "Rubber Ball" which are still in rotation on oldies stations. He covered at least one Jagger-Richards tune, and recorded with (among many others) country deity George Jones. He charted one song in the US as late as 1989, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Talking Heads and others in the class of 2002.
Pitney (as a singer) had 16 chart hits in the US, mostly in the early and mid-1960s. Although his star waned after that in the US, he remained a hitmaker in the UK (I think he charted 40 songs all told in Britain) and also recorded albums in Italian and in Spanish. He toured regularly for more than 40 years. He died after performing in Wales on his current 23-date UK tour, and was thought to be fit and in good health. The cause of death is as yet unreported but is not thought to be "suspicious."
Pitney leaves a wife and three sons in Connecticut. You've probably heard him sing, but he had that high, sort of wavery and intense tenor voice, and recorded somewhat overwrought ballads, that kind of put him in a class in my view with the late Roy Orbison. OK, he wasn't in the Beatles, but I thought he was pretty cool when I was an adolescent. And I kind of dig it that performers whose day came and went in Merka could still not just get gigs, but sell records and fill substantial venues, overseas (see "The Ventures," the late '50s-early '60s instrumental surf group who recorded "Walk, Don't Run," "Secret Agent Man," and "Telstar," in Japan, where they have continued to knock 'em dead well into geezerhood. Yeah, I'm old enough that I say, "Fuck Yeah").
RIP, Gene. Only love can break a heart, only love can mend it again.