Here's a song that made The National Top 20 TWICE ... yet STILL doesn't get played on the radio anymore!!!
Back in 1960, film actress Debbie Reynolds took her version of Am I That Easy To Forget to #19 on The Cash Box Chart. Next to her #1 smash Tammy (from the film "Tammy And The Bachelor", in which she also had a starring role), it was the second biggest pop hit of her short recording career. Her version was actually a remake of a song that topped Billboard's Country Chart the year before for an artist named Carl Belew. (Before we get a ton of letters, we should point out that Reynolds also had a #3 hit back in 1951 thanks to a duet she did with Carleton Carpenter. The track was called Aba Daba Honeymoon, and it was featured in the film "Two Weeks With Love", which also co-starred the pair. That song was a remake of a song that first hit #1 for the duo of Arthur Collins and Byron Harlan way back in 1914! Because Forgotten Hits primarily covers The Rock Era, circa 1955 - 1980, that makes Debbie's version of Am I That Easy To Forget her second biggest pop hit in OUR book!)
Reynolds was a beautiful film actress whose career, in retrospect, seems to be overshadowed by her marriage to Eddie Fisher and the ensuing battle with Elizabeth Taylor (who reportedly stole her man as part of Liz's never-ending marriage-go-round) and the fact that Star Wars actress (and latter-day author) Carrie Fisher is their daughter. In reality, Debbie starred in over thirty films,
including "Singing In The Rain", "How The West Was Won", "The Tender Trap", "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" and, profiling another singer, "The Singing Nun".
Eight years later, British crooner Engelbert Humperdinck took his remake of Am I That Easy To Forget to #18 on The Billboard Chart. It was one of FIVE Top 20 Hits that Engelbert scored between 1967 and 1970 ... yet you're not likely to hear ANY of them on oldies radio anymore. Tracks like Release Me (#3, 1967); There Goes My Everything (#20, 1967); The Last Waltz (#21, 1967); Am I That Easy To Forget (#18, 1968); A Man Without Love (#18, 1968); Les Bicyclettes De Belsize (#22, 1968); The Way It Used To Be (#26, 1969); I'm A Better Man (#38, 1969); Winter World Of Love (#13, 1970); My Marie (#27, 1970); Sweetheart (#38, 1970); When There's No You (#37, 1971); Another Time, Another Place (#40, 1971) and his Top Five comeback hit, After The Lovin' (#5, 1977) were pure Middle-Of-The-Road, Adult Contemporary Fluff, but ALL scored well enough to make The Top 40 on The Pop Charts, too! (While it's true that Engelbert's music appealed more to our Moms than to us young rock and rollers, certainly at least a COUPLE of these ought to get a spin on the oldies channel every once in a while!) To this day, Engelbert is still quite a drawing attraction in Las Vegas ... a quick check of his schedule shows Humperdinck performing in casinos and show lounges all over the world!
Click here: Tour Schedule
Am I That Easy To Forget??? Apparently so!!!
