P.S. I Love You: The Story of the Singing Hilltoppers

The Hilltoppers: Two Appreciations

ix The Hilltoppers Two Appreciations I was pleased to be asked by Carlton Jackson to write an introduction about Billy Vaughn and the Hilltoppers. I knew each of them personally, and we were classmates at Western Kentucky University together. I had known Billy Vaughn and played with his group before I met the other guys. Billy was an older musician who played with Ace Dinning’s band at the Boots and Saddle nightclub on the edge of Bowling Green. Billy’s daytime job was cutting hair to support his family. Billy’s big talent was arranging and composing. At Western in my sophomore year (1948), I reorganized the Red and Grey dance band and this group played for many parties, dances, and other functions on and off campus. In my last year at Western (1951), Jimmy Sacca came in as a freshman music major on a football scholarship. I hired him to sing in the Red and Grey Band, but I had to replace him because he would not learn any new songs. Seymour Spiegelman was also a music major. Don McGuire played on Western’s basketball team. After I graduated in 1951, I moved to the University of Kentucky, Frankfort, the state’s capital, and Ohio State Uni- x versity and then back to Western to be on its music faculty. My relationship resumed with Billy Vaughn as before, doing many gigs, including tours to Japan with his Hollywood band in 1986 and 1987. The Hilltoppers recorded their first song with a portable tape recorder in Van Meter Auditorium. The song was “Trying ,” a ballad that made them famous. It was just my luck to have missed out on their early years, but I kept up with the group and was very proud of their making the hit parade numerous times. Their beautiful and original songs and arrangements made them a national hit. I still have a dance orchestra and I still get requests for Hilltoppers’ songs. The author, Carlton Jackson, wanted me to try to compare the contemporary popular music of today to yesterday’s Hilltoppers . To me, there is no comparison. I’ve found that the older generations (myself included) still like the tunes that the Hilltoppers sang back then. Doc Livingston Jimmy Sacca, Lockport, New York; Don McGuire, Hazard, Kentucky; Billy Vaughn, Glasgow, Kentucky; and Seymour Spiegelman, Seneca Falls, New York. How did four guys with such diverse backgrounds get together to begin singing? The common ground, of course, was Western Kentucky University, where they were students. It was easy for the four to get acquainted on Western’s campus . In 1952, there were about fifteen hundred students, and since two of the four were scholarship athletes (Jimmy Sacca, football, end; and Don McGuire, basketball, guard), everybody Doc Livingston and Lee Robertson xi knew them from the beginning. Because of Western’s rich tradition in athletics, especially basketball, students, faculty, and staff alike attended all the games. Western had some great moments and outstanding accomplishments through its evolution from 1906, when it was founded as Western Kentucky State Normal School, to 1966, when it became Western Kentucky University, and beyond. Let me mention a few that are my favorites: number one in the world in debate; number one in the world in journalism; more than $100 million contributed in the very first capital campaign, Investing in the Spirit; national champion female gymnast; an astronaut (Terry Wilcutt) with a red towel (recalling basketball coach Ed Diddle’s waving a red towel during games) in the cockpit on his trips into space; national champion football team in 2002; NCAA Final Four in men’s basketball in 1971; and the NCAA championship game in women’s basketball in 1992. (This is a random listing and certainly not necessarily in order of importance .) None of these ranks any higher than the Hilltoppers’ appearance that Sunday evening in 1952 in New York City on Toast of the Town, hosted by Ed Sullivan. It was with great anticipation that the student body and Westerners everywhere waited for the four guys with their striped beanies crowning youthful faces to appear onstage. Television was in its infancy, and black and white ruled the screen. Very few homes were blessed with television sets, and sets were really scarce around campus, so groups assembled to watch the Sullivan broadcast. Simultaneous roars echoed across “the Hill” as our heroes appeared from behind the stage curtains...