As the years go by, its getting more and more difficult to pick a record of the year as there is much to choose from. For 1969 I have decided it should be "Maria Elena" by Gene Pitney.
I first heard Gene Pitney when he did the re-issue of "Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart" in 1989 with Marc Almond unaware that it was an old song at the time. Marc Almond would continue to have more hits but I heard nothing more of Gene Pitney.
A few years later I was listening to a mates Happy Hardcore mix tape on my Walkman. It was a 60s minute mix on a 90 minute tape and he told me that the remaining 30 minutes was Gene Pitney. Having not heard anything of him for a few years, I was intrigued to hear what else he had done and when I heard it I quite liked it.
When I decided to listen to music other than rave in the late 90s, Gene Pitney was one artist I started listening to when I saw a compilation CD of his with 28 tracks on it for something like £3 or £4.
I did get a lot of stick from people for listening to Gene Pitney, mainly because he was old and because of his high pitched voice. It did bother me at the time and I pretended to stop listening to him, but carried on it secret until I stopped caring and have openly admitted to listening to Gene Pitney for years.
This tune came out when Gene Pitney's popularity was in decline which probably started after he had his final top 10 hit with "Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart" a couple of years earlier. I would say however some of his best tunes came out during this period. As well as "Maria Elena" there was "Somewhere in the Country", "A Street Called Hope", "24 Sycamore" and "Shady Lady".
In true Gene Pitney style, this is a sad song, but its uplifting at the same time. It's about a soldier saying farewell to Maria Elena as he is going to war and may not come back.
Gene Pitney continued to tour right up until his death in 2006 when he was on tour in the UK.
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