This Day In Music History: Buddy Knox and Party Doll

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[via FoxyTunes / Buddy Knox]

On this day in music history,March 30, 1957, Buddy Knox had the #1 hit in the country on Billboard with Party Doll. Buddy attended West Texas State University on a sports scholarship. There he met Jimmy Bowen and Don Lanier and they formed a group called the Serenaders. Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison performed on campus and Knox became friendly with them. He showed them his songs he wrote. They liked them and said he should go to Norm Petty's studio and record them. ONe of those songs was Party Doll. Buddy said he wrote the song in 1948 out on a farm behind a haystack. Buddy said other then Fats Domino he didn't know too many songs when he entered college. It was then that he started listening to Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry.
Buddy and his friends went to the studio and recorded their songs. It was with a makeshift band. They needed a bass player and hired a guy in town to play for them. Dave Alldred played drums but there wasn't a full set in the studio so they made one out of a cardboard box and stuffed it with cotton and a microphone. Buddy's sister and her friends sang background. It took 3 days to record them and Petty gave Buddy, Jimmy and Dan each an acetate of the recordings.

Buddy said that they didn't know anything about the business and didn't know what to do with the tapes. A farmer named Chester Oliver asked if he could press 1,500 copies and sell them locally. They let him and Party Doll was played on the local station KDDD and the song become a local hit.

Dan's sister called Roulette Records in New York City and they flew the 3 members to New York to sign the group to a contract. They called them the Rhythm Orchards. As soon as Roulette released Party Doll 3 other artist covered it. Two of them only charted in the bottom part of the hot 100 but Steve Lawrence's version went to #5.


With only a few months to go to get his Masters degree Buddy quit college to become a full time entertainer. He toured 11 months out of the year and lived on a farm in Canada with his wife. Buddy Knox passed away in February of 1999.

Below you can see a video of Buddy preforming the song and another hit Hula Love on the Alan Freed Show on WNEW in New York.

Buddy Knox - Party Doll/Hula Love (1957)

[via FoxyTunes / Buddy Knox]