Gene Pitney was a slight oddity in pop history, more at the Roy Orbison end of things for operatic drama. He had plenty of hits, all sung in that melodramatic high tenor that I generally found rather difficult to listen to: 24 Hours from Tulsa, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, It Hurts to Be in Love, Looking Through the Eyes of Love, Something’s Got a Hold of My Heart, a re-recording of which with Marc Almond in 1990 gave him his only no.1 hit ever. He was much more popular in Europe and Australia than the States, where the hits dried up fairly quickly. He had a brush with the Stones in 1964, playing piano at some of the sessions for their first LP and recording the first-ever cover of a Jagger-Richards song, That Girl Belongs to Yesterday. Like a lot of his peers, he had a vague stab at progressive cred in the late 60s, but it didn’t lead anywhere and after spending the 70s being popular in Australia he contented himself with the oldies circuit, finally dying of a heart attack after a gig in Cardiff in 2006. He was also something of a songwriter, turning out » Continue Reading.