U2 - Until the End of the World

Johnny Rivers - The Tracks Of My Tears

baby I need your lovin

Johnny Rivers - "Memphis" (1964)

Johnny Rivers (born John Henry Ramistella, November 7, 1942, New York) is an American rock and roll singer, songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. His styles include folk songs, blues, and revivals of old-time rock 'n' roll songs and some original material. Rivers's greatest success came in the mid and late 1960s with a string of hit songs (including "Seventh Son", "Poor Side of Town", "Summer Rain", and "Secret Agent Man"), but he has continued to record and perform to the present.

The Ramistella family moved from New York to Baton Rouge, Louisiana when John was five years old. Without any formal music lessons, he began playing guitar, which he learned from his father, at the age of eight, and was influenced by the distinctive music of Louisiana.

Ramistella formed his own band, The Spades, in junior high school and made his first record at age 14, while still a student at Baton Rouge High School.[citation needed] Some of their music was recorded on the Suede label as early as 1956.

On a trip back to New York in 1958, he met Alan Freed who advised him to change his name, so Johnny Ramistella had the Baton Rouge attorney Arthur J. Cobb change his name to Johnny Rivers after the Mississippi River that flows near Baton Rouge.[citation needed] Freed also helped Rivers score some recording contracts on the Gone label. From March 1958 to March 1959, Rivers released three records which did not sell well.

Rivers continued recording into the 1980s (e.g., 1980's Borrowed Time LP), although his recording career decreased. Despite his music not having reached the best seller charts for quite a while, Rivers is still touring, doing 50 to 60 shows a year. Increasingly he has returned to the blues that inspired him initially.

In 1998, Rivers reactivated his Soul City imprint and released Last Train to Memphis.

In early 2000, Rivers recorded with Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, and Paul McCartney on a tribute album dedicated to Buddy Holly's backup band, "The Crickets".

In all, Rivers had nine Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and 17 in the Top 40 from 1964 to 1977. In total, he has sold well over 30 million records.

Rivers is one of a small number of performers such as Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Pink Floyd (from 1975's Wish You Were Here onward), Queen, Genesis (though under the members' individual names and/or the pseudonym Gelring Limited) and Neil Diamond who have their name as the copyright owner on their recordings. (Most records have the recording company as the named owner of the recording.) This noteworthy development was spearheaded by supergroup The Bee Gees after their successful $200,000,000 lawsuit against RSO, which remains to this day the largest successful lawsuit against a record company by an artist/group.

On June 12, 2009, Johnny Rivers was inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

In 1959, Rivers returned to Baton Rouge. While playing throughout the American South, in Birmingham Rivers met Audrey Williams, the first wife of Hank Williams.[citation needed] She took Rivers to Nashville, where he recorded two more records. They were not successful either, but Johnny stayed in Nashville as a songwriter and demo singer for $25 a demo. While in Nashville, Rivers worked alongside Roger Miller. By this time, Rivers' self-esteem about his singing diminished, and he thought he would never make it as a singer, therefore writing, and not singing, moved to the forefront.

Chuck Berry - Memphis