Johnny Tillotson
Biography
Johnny Tillotson (born 20 April 1938 in Jacksonville, Florida, USA; died April 1, 2025) was an American singer and songwriter remembered for his successes in the early 1960s when he scored nine top-ten hits on the US pop, country and adult contemporary billboard charts including "Poetry In Motion" and the self-penned "It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin".
In 1957 while still in high school, Tillotson was making records and performing on stage; as a student at the University of Florida, he had his own musical variety show on regional television. Following graduation in 1959 with a Bachelors Degree in Journalism and Communications, he signed with Cadence Records and moved to New York City to pursue his music career. In 1960, he recorded his first hit, a composition entitled "Poetry in Motion" (written by Anthony/Kaufman), that went to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. and #1 on the UK Singles Chart.
Read full biography ↓
A "crossover" artist, several of Tillotsons songs were successful on both the country music charts and pop charts. He earned a Grammy Award nomination for another of his own compositions, "It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin," and also for the song "Heartaches by the Number," nominated for Best Vocal Performance of 1965. He also appeared in the 1963 film "Just for Fun" and sang the theme song for the 1965 Sally Field television comedy "Gidget".
In a career spanning more than 40 years, Tillotson has recorded 26 singles that made it onto Billboards charts, and performed at venues across the United States and other places around the globe.
He was featured in the 1966 camp comedy The Fat Spy starring Jayne Mansfield, Jack E. Leonard, Phyllis Diller, Brian Donlevy and Jordan Christopher and the Wild Ones. This film was featured in the 2004 documentary The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made (#46). Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.
