Paul Anka has been successful
as a teenage singing star, a teen idol, a songwriter, an actor, and an
entrepreneur.
As a performer he has
placed songs in the top forty in four different decades.
He was born in Ottawa
in 1941. He took an interest in music at an early age and began performing
when he was 12.
His first recording,
I Confess, was initially financed by his father. Paul went to Hollywood
on vacation and
convinced some record
company executives to record it, resulting in his first release, on RPM
in 1956.
Eventually this led to
his being signed to a contract by Don Costa at ABC. Paul had been infatuated
with his
babysitter who was five
years older than he was and had written a song for her called Diana. He
recorded it for
ABC-Paramount and it
entered the charts in July of 1957, where it remained for eighteen weeks.
The song was a
worldwide megahit and
replaced Debbie Reynolds' Tammy as the number one song on the charts. Suddenly
Paul
Anka was a star. By 1961
sales of Diana would soar past the 9 million mark.
Paul Anka continued to
write and record songs. His next big hit, in 1958, was You Are My Destiny
which made the
top ten. His clean good
looks and fresh image gave the world a teen idol who was an alternative
to the likes of Elvis
Presley. But as things
would turn out, Paul Anka was more than just a pretty face. He was also
a very good
songwriter. Buddy Holly
recorded a song that Paul had written, It Doesn't Matter Any More.
Paul recorded an inspirational
spoken song called The Teen Commandments with two other stars on the
ABC-Paramount label,
George Hamilton IV and Johnny Nash. Continuing to record songs that were
arranged and
conducted by Don Costa,
he had his second number one with Lonely Boy from the film Girl's Town
and followed it
with one that reached
number two, Put Your Head On My Shoulder.
As the new decade approached,
the top ten hits for Paul Anka kept coming: It's Time To Cry, Puppy Love,
and My
Home Town. He had a romance
with teen star Annette Funicello, for whom he wrote the somewhat maudlin
Puppy
Love. He continued to
record, placing 7 songs in the top forty in 1961 and 1962, the most successful
of which was
Dance On Little Girl.
Paul appeared in some movies, the most notable being The Longest Day in
1962, for which
he wrote the title song.
Things began to change,
but his successful career kept going. ABC-Paramount was bringing in newer
stars, and
Paul left and signed
with RCA in 1962. A shrewd businessman, Paul was sharp enough to buy his
own masters and
they have been reissued
from time to time since then. He wrote Johnny's Theme for Johnny Carson
to use on The
Tonight Show. In 1968
he took a song by French singer/songwriter Claude Francois' and translated
it and re-wrote
it for Frank Sinatra,
calling it My Way. He followed up with She's A Lady, a song that he wrote
for singer Tom
Jones.
Paul Anka was one of the
original teen idols, and others who came along in the 70's who fit the
same mold such as
David Cassidy and Donny
Osmond used some of Paul's old songs in their own recording careers. Paul
teamed with
singer Odia Coates in
the 70's and came up with some memorable records in Muscle Shoals on the
United Artists
label in the mid-70's,
including the number one [You're] Having My Baby, One Man Woman/One Woman
Man, and
I Don't Like To Sleep
Alone, all of which were top ten records. He also did well on his own in
the 70's, with hits
such as the top ten Times
Of Your Life. His last record to reach the top forty is Hold Me 'Til The
Mornin' Comes,
in 1983.
Paul Anka is admired and respected in the recording industry. His long and illustrious career continues.