A liberated woman, tossing her headdress would be an affront to I slam ic teachings
Posted on 09/20/2025 1:28:13 PM PDT by nickcarraway
In addition to “Love Is All Around,” the Texan wrote “I Fought the Law,” “Walk Right Back” and “More Than I Can Say,” hits for The Clash, The Everly Brothers and Leo Sayer, respectively.
Sonny Curtis, the singer and guitarist who played with Buddy Holly, fronted The Crickets and wrote and performed “Love Is All Around,” the indelible theme song for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, has died. He was 88.
Curtis died Friday after a “sudden illness,” his daughter, Sarah, announced on Facebook.
Curtis also wrote the rebellious “I Fought the Law” in 1958 and recorded it with The Crickets following the death of Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. Richardson (“The Big Bopper”) and pilot Roger Peterson in a plane crash on Feb. 3, 1959.
The Bobby Fuller Four took the song to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966, and it also was memorably covered by The Clash, Roy Orbison, Hank Williams Jr., Green Day, the Dead Kennedys and dozens of other acts over the years.
His songwriting credits also included “Walk Right Back” and “More Than I Can Say,” top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 for The Everly Brothers and Leo Sayer in 1961 and 1980, respectively.
To rectify an oversight, Curtis was inducted by special committee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 alongside three fellow Crickets: drummer Jerry Allison, bassist Joe B. Mauldin and rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan. (They were not inducted with Holly in 1986.)
In 1970, Curtis wrote and performed “Love Is All Around” — known for such lyrics as “Who can turn the world on with her smile?” — which accompanied footage of Moore tossing her hat into the air in the middle of a busy Minneapolis intersection for her fabled CBS sitcom that ran from 1970-77.
He had been given a four-page treatment of the show “about a young girl who gets jilted in this small community in the Midwest and moves to the big city in Minneapolis and gets a job at a news station and rents an apartment she has a hard time affording,” he told Mo Rocca on CBS Sunday Morning in 2022.
“I homed in on the part that she rented an apartment she had a hard time affording and wrote, ‘How will you make it on your own? … this world is awfully big, and this time you’re on your own.’”
The second youngest of six children, Curtis was born on May 9, 1937, in Meadow, Texas. His parents, Arthur and Violet, were cotton farmers. He learned to play the guitar when he was 4, inspired by his uncles, Edd, Herb and Smokey, who as The Mayfield Brothers were one of the first bluegrass outfits in Texas.
Curtis was 15 when he first met Holly, and they formed a band with Holly’s high school friend Bob Montgomery. They performed on bills with Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley, and he played lead guitar on Holly’s 1956 song “Blue Days, Black Nights” and on his own composition, “Rock Around With Ollie Vee.”
After high school, Curtis left Holly to tour with Slim Whitman, then joined Buddy Holly & The Crickets in late 1958. He became the frontman after Holly’s death.
The Crickets recorded “I Fought the Law” for their first post-Holly album, 1960’s In Style With the Crickets, but it was not a hit for them. The LP also included “More Than I Can Say”; written by Curtis and Allison, it was a hit for Bobby Vee in 1961 and for Sayer, who took it to No. 2 in 1980.
Curtis had been drafted into the U.S. Army in 1959, and during basic training in California, he wrote “Walk Right Back” and performed it for Allison, then the drummer for The Everlys. The singers recorded it and brought it to No. 7. (Anne Murray also had a hit with it in 1978.)
Curtis moved to Los Angeles after the service and wrote jingles for commercials. He also had a solo career while also playing with The Crickets until the death of Mauldin in 2015.
Other Curtis songs were recorded by the likes of Glen Campbell and Bobby Goldsboro (“The Straight Life”), Keith Whitley (“I’m No Stranger to the Rain,” named the Country Music Association’s Single of the Year in 1989) and Andy Williams (“A Fool Never Learns”).
Curtis lived near Nashville was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1991. Survivors include his wife of more than 50 years, Louise.
I think we’re down to one cricket, a bee gee and a monkey
But have you ever seen them at the same place at the same time?
Time passes way too fast. These are all part of my youth.
He wrote some memorable hits. The MTM theme was beautiful. R.I.P.
All that time, I thought it was lounge singer Jack Jones singing that theme song for Mary’s show.
Or Steve (& Edie) Lawrence.
“I think we’re down to one cricket, a bee gee and a monkey”
... and two Beatles.
One Turtle. Howard Kaylan.
“... following the death of Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. Richardson (“The Big Bopper”) and pilot Roger Peterson in a plane crash on Feb. 3, 1959.”
The day... the music... died.
MTM theme song top five
The Crickets - I Fought The Law (1960) | 2:20
Four Seasons Oldies | 10.3K subscribers | 233,491 views | July 17, 2015The Story Behind the Song: 'I Fought The Law' | 26:03
Tennessean | 56.3K subscribers | 128,930 views | October 3, 2016The Bobby Fuller Four - I Fought The Law HQ | 2:18
TheGrayCat | 20.1K subscribers | 33,822 views | March 20, 2015"I Fought the Law" is a song written by Sonny Curtis of the Crickets and became popularized by a cover by the Bobby Fuller Four, which went on to become a top-ten hit for the band in 1966 and was also recorded by the Clash in 1979. The Bobby Fuller Four version of this song was ranked No. 175 on the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004, and the same year was named one of the 500 "Songs that Shaped Rock" by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
After enjoying regional success in Texas, Bobby Fuller and band decided to switch to a major label—Del-Fi Records under Mustang Records—and they became known as the Bobby Fuller Four. While producing minor hits, the band broke the national top ten when they re-recorded "I Fought the Law" in 1965 with Bobby Fuller (vocals, guitar), Randy Fuller (backing vocals, bass guitar), Jim Reese (backing vocals, guitar), and DeWayne Quirico (drums).
Just six months after the song made its first appearance on the Billboard Top 100 chart, Fuller was found dead from asphyxiation in his mother's car in a parking lot near his Los Angeles, California apartment. The Los Angeles Police Department declared the death an apparent suicide, but others believed him to have been murdered. Fuller was 23 years old.
I’m thinking of a gif I once saw.
Mary is tossing her hat. A thug rushes in and knocks her down stealing her purse.
Pure Minneapolis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLTKkxf25Tc Sonny sings the MTM theme song.
Mary became a conservative late in life.
This is a sentiment that I think many of us are sharing right now.
“Just six months after the song made its first appearance on the Billboard Top 100 chart, Fuller was found dead from asphyxiation . . . Fuller was 23 years old.”
I always thought Fuller’s death was a tragic loss for pop music.
I read that Bobby Fuller apparently died from ingesting gasoline. His death was ruled a suicide, but this has been hotly disputed. He, or perhaps Bob Keene, the prexy of his record company, may have come into conflict with mobsters.
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