Jo Ann Campbell born 20 July 1938

 

Jo Ann Campbell (born July 20, 1938 in Jacksonville, Florida) is an American pop singer. 

Campbell took music and dance lessons as a child, and was drum majorette at Fletcher High School in Jacksonville, FL. At age 16, in 1955, she did a USO tour of Europe as a dancer -- such tours didn't pay anything, but gave the participants a chance to travel and see the world while honing their skills as entertainers and performers, and this was precisely what Campbell did. When the tour was over, she felt ready for the big time and headed for New York, where she initially joined the Johnny Conrad Dancers. 

It was while in New York that she decided to try singing. She was fortunate enough to get featured on television's Colgate Comedy Hour and The Milton Berle Show, and later proved a huge success at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. In 1956, she was signed to the Eldorado label, which had her record an original song, "Come on Baby," as her debut single. This was followed by a more conventional pop standard, Campbell's cover of "I Can't Give You Anything But Love." 

Neither single was a success, however, and by the end of 1957, Campbell had switched to George Goldner's Gone Records label, most famous as the company for which Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers recorded their hits. Campbell's records took on a more rocking beat at Gone, in keeping with the changes overtaking popular music -- her 1958 singles included "Rock 'n' Roll Love" backed with the far hotter B-side "You're Driving Me Mad.”  She cut one more original that year, "Wassa Matter with You Babe," but neither it nor its follow-up, "I'm Nobody's Baby," managed to chart. 

LtoR, Jo Ann, Frankie Avalon, Inga Freed
Alan Freed and Nate Nelson.

Campbell's singing ability was beyond question, however, and coupled with her extraordinary good looks -- with her creamy complexion, blonde hair, and expressive eyes, she managed to look lustful and innocent at the same time -- she rated a place on the bill at Alan Freed's Brooklyn Paramount show, the biggest rock & roll and R&B stage show in the nation, and on Freed's package tour. In turn, Campbell got a featured spot in Freed's jukebox movie Go Johnny Go, in an appearance for millions of viewers to discover across the generations, introduced by Freed in the film as "our little blonde bombshell," alternately strutting and gliding across screen, pouting sweetly but with a lusty gleam in her eye to the strains of "Mama, Can I Go Out?" It was one of several high points in the movie, even if the single itself, on Gone Records, didn't chart as a result. 

                              

Campbell's subsequent single that year, the teen lament "I Ain't No Steady Date," did little better, despite a great beat and a cute spoken word middle section. By 1960, she had moved to ABC Records, where she finally struck a modest hit with "A Kookie Little Paradise," a strange novelty-type song with a ridiculous Tarzan yell over the intro and outro. Her other records of this period continued to show an astonishing degree of maturity in dealing with sexuality, "Amateur Night" being the best example, her voice displaying innocence and lust all at once, this time backed by a tasteful female chorus. 

Campbell also recorded some slightly harder, bluesier pop, including the Duane Eddy tribute "Duane" (which she wrote) and the late-1958 B-side "Happy New Year Baby"; her voice had a power and a full, throaty rasp when she wanted it that could have made her a rival to Wanda Jackson, but mostly she walked a very fine line between the hard and soft sides of music and her stage persona. Not all of her stuff was that good ("Bobby Bobby Bobby" would have made Shelley Fabares wince), but a lot of it was, and certain lusty numbers like "Beachcomber" deserve to be heard at least by cultural historians of the era. 

Sometime between his romance with Connie Francis and his marriage to Sandra Dee, Bobby Darin was involved with singer Jo Ann Campbell. They were reportedly going to be married, but career conflicts got in the way. Campbell charted two more singles: the sweet country-pop of "I'm the Girl from Wolverton Mountain" (which could have been a Dolly Parton song), which became her biggest hit, getting to number 38 in a seven-week run in the summer of 1962; and "Mother Please," which just brushed the pop charts at number 88 in a three-week run in the spring of 1963. 

By then her life and career were changing rapidly -- she married musician Troy Seals in 1964, and they recorded a couple of singles together for a short time on Atlantic Records, in 1965. "I Found A Love Oh What A Love / Who Do You Love" and "Same Old Feeling / Just Because" for Atlantic records under the name of Jo Ann & Troy. 

After the birth of their son, Jo-Ann appeared for a while on Dick Clark's 1965 rock 'n roll TV show Where the Action Is, but in 1967 she quit the entertainment business for good and refused offers from Richard Nader and other rock n roll promoters to make a comeback in the 1970s. 

While Campbell decided to largely retire from the music business, her impact on rock and roll was lasting. 

(Edited from AllMusic, tims.blackcat.nl &  womeninrockproject)