![]() It struggled for about half a year on an independent label until Atlantic Records picked it up. So I moved back to Georgia, started coming to Nashville and eventually cut the country single, Burned Like A Rocket. “I was working and still doing okay financially after the pop career slowed down,” Royal says. Royal released nine pop singles from 1965–1978 including, “I Knew You When,” “I’ve Got To Be Somebody” and “Cherry Hill Park.” Here I was touring with all these wonderful people that I’d heard on the radio and all of a sudden we were becoming friends. “We did a show every night for 3 months straight with stars like Tom Jones, Neil Diamond and The Shirelles. ”The first thing I did of any consequence after Boondocks hit is tour with ‘The Dick ClarkCavalcade of Stars,’” Royal says. It was just a great place to learn and develop your voice.”Īfter releasing a few local singles that failed to take off, Royal became a hot national commodity with the Joe South penned tune, “Down In The Boondocks.” We had some big name R&B and country acts play there like Roy Orbison, Fats Domino, The Isley Brothers, Sam Cooke, Ray Price, Marty Robbins and George Jones. “We played six nights a week, five hours a night. When the Georgia Jubilee broke up, Royal landed a job at the Bamboo Ranch in Savannah, Ga. Royal appeared on his uncle’s radio show in his hometown of Valdosta, Ga., at the age of eleven.īy fourteen, Royal became a regular on the Friday night Atlanta-based radio show, “Georgia Jubilee,” with the likes of Ray Stevens, Jerry Reed, Joe South, Freddy Weller and various Grand Ole Opry stars. You’d get a country thing during the afternoon, then black gospel until sundown and at night you’d get rhythm and blues. And the local radio stations would play three or four different formats a day. “My uncle had a band, my grandmother played, my whole family played. ”I was really lucky to always be around music as a kid,” Royal says. Royal grew up in a musical family and listened to a variety of styles on the Georgia radio stations. ”I never thought I was going to have another hit record,” says Royal, who will perform at the Little Nashville Opry in Nashville, Indiana, on Saturday, March 20 at 8 p.m. The cover was actually marketed with its title combining the first two words of the original's (" Cherryhill Park").Billy Joe Royal at Little Nashville Opry March 20īy Tamela Meredith Partridge When Billy Joe Royal recorded the 1965 debut pop hit, “Down In The Boondocks,” the Georgia singer/songwriter had no idea he’d top the country charts twenty years later with the 1985 smash, “Burn Like A Rocket.” ![]() He and the Classics IV's manager Paul Cochran were two of the four owners of Studio One. Buie also produced its cover version performed by the Classics IV which was released by United Artists Records in 1971.It was on Royal's 1969 album Cherry Hill Park. Its original by Billy Joe Royal was a hit in 1969 reaching #15 on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the Cash Box chart, and #8 in Canada. Mixes ĭifferent mixes of this song exist, some with additional background vocals in the song's bridge, others in varying lengths, the longest version available being 3:17, with an extended finale running 33 seconds longer than the common single version. ![]() Royal came up with the song's title after a friend described seeing Cherry Hill, New Jersey, on a visit to nearby Pennsylvania. As a result, she stopped coming to Cherry Hill Park. However, she "married away" to a "man with money". During the day she acts as a tease to the boys in the park but at night when they return to the park she “pleases” them, as noted in the barely disguised suggestive lyrics. The subject of the song is one Mary Hill, a girl who frequents the titular Cherry Hill Park. " Cherry Hill Park" is a song written by Robert Nix and Billy Gilmore, arranged by Buddy Buie, James Cobb, and Emory Gordy, Jr., and produced by Buie and Bill Lowery. 1969 single by Billy Joe Royal "Cherry Hill Park"
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