Wooden Heart

Wooden Heart is the English adaptation of the German folk song "must I then (for Städtele addition ) ". The adaptation is Bert Kaempfert and Kay Twomey attributed; the English text written Fred Wise and Ben Weisman.

Number - one hits

Elvis Presley

During his time in the army in Germany since October 1, 1958 Elvis Presley is " because i .. must" to hear. The entire, twisted by his military Elvis movie GI Blues is a reminiscence of his time in the army in Germany, first musical tribute was the song Frankfurt Special, recorded on 27 April 1960. The following day, he sings under his house producer Steve Sholes then Wooden Heart with English text and some German passages, accompanied by tuba and organ. As a composer for this revision Fred Wise / Ben Weisman / Kay Twomey / Kaempfert are registered, because the original composition by copyright already as Traditional or public domain subject to any more copyright protection.

Wooden Heart was initially only included on the album appeared on the film GI Blues, which was released on 1 October 1960 in the United States. The film was released on 23 November 1960 in the United States and on 23 December 1960 in Germany ( as " Café Europa " ) in the cinemas. Herein Elvis Wooden Heart sings along with the wooden dolls during the screening of a Punch and Judy show. RCA Records had initially decided not to publish the song in the U.S. as a single. They were not convinced of the hit potential of a German polka folk tune.

For the European market has been decided otherwise. Teldec had taken the song to license as a distributor of RCA and it was a single Mus ... because i / put Tonight 's All Right For Love on the market. On November 26, 1960, the single entered the German charts, where she finished in second place on 21 January 1961, three weeks. On March 9, 1961, the title entered the British charts in which he penetrated up to rank one. From 23 March, he remained there for six weeks until the beginning of May 1961 the top position. In Germany, the title has sold over 400,000 copies in England were more than 500,000 copies over the shop. In the U.S., they waited with the release to November 1964 as a B- side to the single Blue Christmas, which occupied only rank 102.

Elvis Presley was accompanied on this recording by Scotty Moore and Tiny Timbrell (guitar), Raylf Siegel ( bass), Dudley Brooks ( piano ), Jimmie Haskell (accordion), Hoyt Hawkins (tambourine ) and Frank Bode / DJ Fontana (drums).

Joe Dowell

While in Europe the version of Elvis Presley was the better known, it was then not released in the U.S. as a single. This fact owes Joe Dowell his only number -one hit; its inclusion Wooden Heart ( Must be because I ) increased in August 1961 on the top position of the Billboard Hot 100

Previously established as a hit for the sub label of Mercury Records until March 1961 record label Smash Records was the Shelby Singleton produced Wooden Heart by Joe Dowell. Its first recording session as a singer for the new label was on 26 May 1961 in the Bradley Film and Recording Studios in Nashville instead. Singleton had seen on the day before the admission date of the Elvis movie GI Blues in the cinema and a premonition that Wooden Heart could be a hit. Therefore, he suggested Dowell, record the song with Ray Stevens on organ and Jerry Kennedy (bass guitar). The studio was booked from 11:00 clock, and Dowell had three hours to rehearse the song based on the phonetic transcription. Together with the Merry Melody Singers produced Shelby Singleton, a vocal recording of Elvis strongly similar version, enacted by over a million times

In both versions of the singer to sing a few lines of the original German text. Joe Dowell got this text within three hours: " A man named Eddie Wilson came into the office to teach me what I should sing. I had no idea what I was singing, I learned the text only phonetically ..

More versions

In Germany and in the USA, Gus Backus brought a version of Wooden Heart in the hit parade. More versions there were, among others, Dave Kennedy ( to Jim Kirch stone Cuca label) and Bobbi Martin on Coral. Bobby Vinton took 1975 version, which replaced the German lines by Polish text. Robert Redford in 1965 sang a few lines of the song in the film hopeless situation - but not serious ( situation Hopeless - But Not Serious).

In addition, there are two songs that were written as " answer" to Wooden Heart and sung by women and published: Linda Hall sang "I Do not Have a Wooden Heart " and Rhea Renee " I, Too, Have a Wooden Heart ". Both refused to musically on the hit.