LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Conway Twitty
built 668 days ago
Conway Twitty was born Harold Lloyd Jenkins on September 1, 1933 in Friar's Point, Mississippi, and raised mostly in Helena, where he attended high school. His grandfather taught him guitar, and he was performing on KFFA by the time he was twelve. Soon enough he was a regular, appearing on Sunday mornings with two high school pals as the Phillips County Ramblers. Jenkins ... played baseball well enough to be scouted by the Philadelphia Phillies. He was drafted into the Army during the Korean War, and when he got out in 1956, he recorded eight unreleased songs for Sun before signing with Mercury as a rockabilly act.
Source:
Conway Twitty, born Harold Lloyd Jenkins, (September 1, 1933 – June 5, 1993) was one of the United States' most successful artists of the 20th century. Twitty had the most singles (55) reach Number 1 on various national music charts. Conway Twitty's across the board totals were greater than that of Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles and Garth Brooks. Most notably known as a country music singer, Twitty ... enjoyed success in early Rock and Roll, R&B, and Pop music (among others).
Source:
During his lifetime, Conway Twitty had more #1 country records than any artist in history, his stardom having endured through five decades of changing fashions. He was ... one of country music’s most diverse stylists and a major songwriting talent; eleven of his #1 hits were self-penned.
Source:
Originally a '50s rock & roll singer, Conway Twitty became the reigning country superstar of the '70s and '80s, racking up a record 40 number one hits over the course of two decades. With his deep, resonant down-home voice, Twitty was one of the smoothest balladeers to work in Nashville during the country-pop era, but he was ... one of the most adventurous. More than any other singer, he was responsible for selling country as an "adult" music, slipping sexually suggestive lyrics into his lush productions, yet never singing misogynist lyrics -- by and large, his songs were sensitive and sensual, which is part of the reason why he achieved such a large success. Once Twitty reached the top of the country charts in the late '60s, he stayed there for years on end, releasing a consistent stream of Top Ten hits that both defined and expanded the limitations of country-pop by adding subtle R&B, pop, and rock & roll influences. Though he had some pop success, Twitty remained country to the core -- occasionally, his song titles were simply too corny -- which was why he retained his popularity until his death in 1993. The son of a riverboat captain, Twitty (born Harold Lloyd Jenkins, September 1, 1933; died June 5, 1993) was born in Mississippi and raised in Helena, AR, where he learned to love not only country, but also blues and gospel.
Source:
Conway Twitty cut his musician's teeth in the 1950s as a rock 'n' roll singer, but eventually found home in the rootsy, yet accessible, country music that gave him celebrity in the 1970s and 1980s. His deep, rural vocal inflections gave Nashville some of the most amazingly sung ballads of the Country Pop era. Lyrically ladened with double entendre, Twitty's sensual songs made him the Tom Jones of country music (rhinestone panties, anyone?). Of greater importance was his courageous risk-taking in a city that hardly tolerates experimenting with musical crosses. Twitty's personalized country is a slick hybrid of R&B shuffles and steady rock 'n' roll backbeats soaked in note-bending twang and cascading melodies. All engineered to make women swoon.
Source:
Conway Twitty, a life-long workaholic, will ... be remembered as a shrewd businessman. He owned a music promotion company, a minor league baseball team called the Nashville Sounds, and substantial real estate including Twitty City, his Nashville theme park. Ironically, at the time of his death in 1993, he was in the process of divesting himself of his various holdings in order to devote more time to songwriting and enjoying the fruits of his many years' labor. He suffered an abdominal aneurysm and died on his way home to Nashville from a concert in Branson.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Conway Twitty