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

Introduction

 Introduction My interest in the singing Hilltoppers goes back at least to 1986. I was at a social function one night, and Doc Livingston was in attendance. The conversation got off onto the Hilltoppers, and a guest remarked, “Somebody ought to write a book about them.” Doc pointed his finger straight at me and said, “Carlton, you write books. Why don’t you do it?” I replied, “Set me up with them, and we’ll see what happens.” This was the prelude to a long lunch with Billy Vaughn at Bowling Green, Kentucky’s, Parakeet Restaurant that went deep into the afternoon. He told me about his musical career, and I expressed the desire to write about him and Jimmy Sacca, Seymour Spiegelman, and Don McGuire, the original Hilltoppers . After I agreed to look further into the subject, other things intervened. I was working on a couple of other projects at the time, and the Hilltoppers would have to wait. Then, not all that long after the lunch, I learned that Billy had moved back to California. The singing Hilltoppers, though, always stayed in the back of my mind as a most worthy subject to write about. Then in 2003 I learned that BobbieAnn Mason, the Hilltoppers ’ first national fan-club president, had loaned her Hilltopper materials to the archives at Western Kentucky University. And there was this wonderful exhibit at the Kentucky Museum P.S. I LoveYou  about the Hilltoppers organized and arranged by Sue Lynn McDaniel of the University Archives. Also, a new Hilltoppers CD was released, and Jimmy Sacca came to campus. All this activity put me into a frame of mind to pick up where I had left off back in 1986. This book is the result. By early 2004, both Jimmy Sacca and Don McGuire lived in Lexington, Kentucky, and were most cooperative in granting interviews, answering my numerous letters and e-mails, and allowing me to visit them in their homes. I have now had the privilege of meeting three of the original four Hilltoppers (Billy Vaughn, Jimmy Sacca, and Don McGuire). Seymour Spiegelman is the only one I never met personally, but through his daughters, Penny and Sueellyn, and his brother, Irwin, I have come to know quite a bit about him. I asked two old friends and colleagues at WKU, Doc Livingston and Lee Robertson, to write forewords for the book. Doc and Lee knew the original Hilltoppers. Doc knew them primarily from a musical viewpoint, playing with them in various bands. Lee probably knows more about the internal workings of Western than anyone else on campus. He joined Kelly Thompson early on in befriending and publicizing the singing Hilltoppers. I believe Doc and Lee help considerably in putting my book into a campus perspective. I thank both of them for honoring me with their forewords. While I was working on this manuscript, I told a friend that I had written enough sad books in my career. I wanted this one to be a happy book. I sincerely believe it is. I hope to reach several levels of reading audiences. Of course, local readers, especially those with connections to Western Kentucky University and Bowling Green, should have an interest here. I believe this  Introduction book will also resonate with readers in south-central Kentucky and throughout the commonwealth. I do not, however, intend this book to be labeled only as local , or even as regional. It has a universal subject. One must remember that the singing Hilltoppers enjoyed worldwide fame. Many fans still actively pursue their music in England, Germany , France, South Africa, Australia, and Japan, to say nothing of the United States. Also, the fact that one of the original Hilltoppers, Billy Vaughn, went on to great prominence as a bandleader and music arranger helped to keep the group in the spotlight. How do the Hilltoppers speak to us today? As I try to explain in subsequent pages, singing groups like the Hilltoppers always benefit from the waves of nostalgia that wash over the country from to time. In the eighties, manyAmericans pined for the fifties; in the nineties, the seventies were looked back upon with fondness, and so far in the first decade of the twenty-first century, the eighties in retrospect look like good years. Music is always a part of nostalgia, and this is where the Hilltoppers come in. Who knows what the next episode of...