Perhaps the thread title is a misnomer, as I’m not even sure these guys were American, though they sang American music.
Years ago, there were several music performers who were direct-marketed to the American public as “having sold millions of records in Europe”. Among them were Slim Whitman, Boxcar Willie, and Roger Whittaker. I’m sure there were more, but these stuck in my mind.
Were they actually big in Europe? Why?
What proof do you have that they were bad musicians?
You have to be doing something right to sell “millions of records.” And this was back before any of this MTV foolishness.
Slim Whitman was a country singer who did have a number of hits in the US, but was more popular in Europe. He was an American.
Boxcar Willie was an Americna who played country music and was massivley successful in England because to the English, the image he portrayed personified America.
Roger Whittaker is British. He was born in Kenya. He is one of the most popular easy listening artists in the world.
European tastes are perhaps less mass-market oriented than American tastes. For example, a number of jazz artists make a decent living performing in Europe. But listening to and appreciating jazz generally requires some effort on the part of the audience. Said audience isn’t big enough in the U.S. to support jazz musicians (with a few exceptions). In contrast, the latest boy band or girl singer, while ususally artistically lame, can clean up selling recordings in America.
I would say that American musicians that do well in Europe but poorly in the U.S. aren’t (necessarily) bad, but they lack significant commercial appeal.
Well, what did Jesus say about a prophet never being appreciated in his home town?
Not that Slim Whitman is exactly a prophet, of course. It’s just that his style of country music, which seemed awfully corny and dated to most Americans (even to country music fans) might have seemed new and exotic to people in other countries.
It works in reverse, too. Loads of English and Irish bands that sold millions of records here in the States are regarded as talentless wankers back home.
Massivley successful? Hardly. Perhaps amongst the Country & Western fanbase (rather a small group really) but nowhere near mainstream. I have seen him on TV maybe twice. I always thought he was a novelty act, what with all those train noises & stuff.
Jimi Hendrix would be a good example of someone that had a tough time getting started in the US but found a willing fan base in Europe. It really wasn’t till Woodstock that folks began to notice he put on a pretty good show. And it wasn’t till after he died that a lot of folks realized the music was pretty good too.
[quote]
It works in reverse, too. Loads of English and Irish bands that sold millions of records here in the States are regarded as talentless wankers back home.
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such as?
The chief difference with European & US success is that the markets are smaller in Europe. It is therefore easier for a new/different act to get noticed. So it’s not unusual for a US act to have success there prior to any significant recognition in the US.
Sometimes an American act just has something that appeals to fans in a particular foreign country far more than it does to their homeland. Sometimes it just never happens for them in the US and they continue to concentrate on the market where their fans are.
This happens in both directions. An example of big in the US, couldn’t get arrested back home, is Bush.
The OP is, of course, being quite condesending in suggesting that because an act sells in Europe, and not in the US, it is naturally ‘bad’.
Yes, but why is it that:
<Norm MacDonald>
Germans love David Hasselhoff.
</Norm MacDonald>
Gary T, if I understand your point, you’re saying Europeans like Slim Whitman and Boxcar Willie because their musical tastes are more sophisticated than American ones.
My copies of the Guinness Book of Hit Singles (1992 ed.) and Guinness Book of Hit Albums (1994 ed.) are little out of date for contemporary artists, but they’ll do for the purposes of answering the OP.
Slim Whitman
10 hit singles (including re-entries), nine of them between 1955-57. Happy Anniversary also reached #14 in 1974. He had a #1 with his first single, Rose Marie, and three other top tens.
6 hit albums between 1974 and '79, including two #1s in '76 and '77 and a #2 in '77.
Boxcar Willie
No hit singles mentioned.
1 hit album. King of the Road reached #5 in 1980.
Roger Whittaker
7 hit singles, six between 1969-75 plus one in '86. Three of those were top tens; his highest was The Last Farewell, which got to #2 in 1975.
10 hit albums between 1970-89, including a #5 place in 1975.
Given the absolute trash that is filling UK chart, I seriously doubt the UK musical tastes at that level are sophisticated at all.
Slim Whitman came around at a time in UK music when there were lots of balladeers such as David Whitfield, Perry Como, Sinatra, Guy Mitchell, and others.
You are talking around 1950 to 1955 which is before Rock and Roll reached UK shores and changed things.
Young folk went either for folk or skiffle at the time, teenagers as a commercial demographic with buying power didn’t exist, so UK music reflected the tastes of those who did have the buying power, and that tended to be folk over 25.
Slim Whitman wasn’t particularly popular anyway, nothing like as big as Frankie Lane.
Boxcar Willie is not and has not ever been considered mainstream or popular in the UK, in fact that style of country music has been uncool forever to anyone under 50 years old.
I am surprised you didn’t make mention of the one true phenomenon who had to leave the US and come to the UK before he could make it major big, Jimi Hendrix.
Why he could do it here and not in the US is a good question, perhaps its because he was part of a scene that typecast him and he needed to be taken out of it by a British impresario so he could find his own style.
You see lots about Hendrix, and the chronology of his road to the top, but not much at all about why it happened.
One thing I’ll give the europeans credit for is that they seem to respect Neil Young a bit more than americans (at least americans nowadays) do. And of course, nobody is more deserving of respect as a musician.
Not exactly what I was saying, though I wouldn’t argue against the characterization of their tastes (obviously we’re generalizing here). I don’t see Slim and Willie as appealing to sophisticated tastes (whereas jazz probably does), but I can understand their doing better in countries that have less of the widespread homogenous mass marketing of entertainment than the U.S. does. Sophisticated or not, if you don’t fit the current mainstream model for American popular music, it’s hard to get much exposure and to make much money.
A performer who went from the States to Europe was Roy Orbison. While he was not a consistent “star” in Europe, he was able to make a living on his overseas appearances and song sales when he could hardly get any playtime outside the Memorial Day oldies marathons in the U.S. for around 15 - 20 years.
While some of his stuff beginning in the late 60s was beginning to sound repetitive, he didn’t actually lose his talent so much as have his American audience wander away from him. If not for his heart attack, I suspect that he had the talent to become a steady, low volume producer in the U.S. to this day.
Since my source for the info about Boxcar Willie was allmusic.com and I’m sure they have more knowledge and insight about Boxcar Willie then you do, I’ll just ignore that part of your post.
I believe that Slim Whitman is the artist that Martians just lose their heads over.
[d&r]
The allmusic site’s article on Boxcar Willie does not actually mention the demographics of his audience, so I am not sure that we have established that anyone younger than 50 enjoyed him. (They may have, but we do not yet have the evidence for that.)
I don’t know about the others, but my wife thinks the world of Roger Whittaker’s music - and I can’t stand it. He sings (to me) boring ass tunes with programmed synthesizers as backup. That’s right, him and a bunch of MIDI files. Not my thing at all.
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Wyld Stallyn your nick makes me want to watch Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure again
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