Disco Duck & Other Adventures In Novelty Music
Of all the songs which are regularly played on oldiesformatted stations, "Teen Angel" is the one the current generation finds hardest to fathom. Today's kids can't imagine any girl being stupid enough to race back into a car about to be hit by a forty-ton locomotive just to save her boyfriend's class ring. Besides, most of them point out, why wasn't she wearing it in the first place? If it wasn't important enough to already have on her finger or around her neck, then it certainly wasn't worth a return trip to a death trap. And in all honesty, today's kids are right!
So, of all the teenage "death" songs of the rock and roll era, "Teen Angel" ranks ahead of "Running Bear," "Patches," and even "Tell Laura I Love Wer" as the most inane. Yet this didn't keep the MGM single from becoming not only a #1 record, but one of the most remembered songs of the sixties or any other era.
The song was sung by a young man who seemed destined to make his living as a singer. The product of a large Oklahoma family, this preacher's son had often been turned over to a baby-sitter because his older siblings, the Dinning Sisters, were recording and radio stars. In the forties, Ginger, Lou and Jean placed four songs on the charts, for Capitol, two of which went top ten. The sisters' version of "Button and Bows" was even certified gold. Hence, the Dinning family had experienced the sweet taste of entertainment glory.
Mark's baby-sitter was as impressed with the Dinning musical success as the brother was. Clara Ann Fowler, a local beauty, would leave Oklahoma, change her name to Patti Page, and become the most successful female recording artist of all time. (How much of this was due to Page's personal drive and how much was due to the Dinning inspiration is open to debate.)
With tbe success of the Dinning Sisters and Patti Page, it came as no surprise when the Dinning boys, Mark and Ace, formed a group of their own in the early fifties. Who knows how far they would have gotten if the army hadn't called for Mark. At that point Ace must have drifted back to the family farm, because he never charted as a Dinning.
It was while he was in the service that Mark affirmed that he was going to follow in his sisters' footsteps and become a part of the entertainment field. And with rock and roll opening up new territory for young male acts, Mark's l957 release from the service seemed to be perfectly timed for the young man to accomplish his goal. But a majority of the talent scouts who heard the young man weren't impressed. To most of the folls in Nashville it seemed that Dinning was just one of thousands who thought he was the next Elvis and wasn't.
Wesley Rose, the son of the man who had discovered Hank Williams, finally rescued Mark from oblivion. Impressed with his good looks, sincere manner, and singing voice, the publisher went to work landing Dinning a record deal. The company that would eventually sign the young man was the same one that had taken Fred Rose's advice and placed Hank Williams under contract a decade before. MGM would soon find that it hadn't signed the second coming of "Luke the Drifter," but the signing wouldn't be a complete waste of time and money, either.
For a couple of years Mark played rock and roll, but without much success; he didn't produce anything that hit the top forty. He might never had made an impact if one of his sisters hadn't gotten involved. It seemed that Jean, who had dropped out of music and was now married, had read an article about the need for positive role models among American youth. At this time, many preachers were basing sermons on the belief that rock and roll was creating a nation filled with juvenile delinquents. The author of the magazine story had suggested that good kids should be called "Teen Angels" and recognized for their proper conduct. One look at the popular catchphrases of the time proves that this concept never took off - but it did give Jean an idea for a song.
Jean, writing under her married name Surrey, composed her morbid classic of teenage love in one night. She would later play it for Mark at a family get-together at their folks' home. Mark used his parents' tape recorder and cut a simple version of "Teen Angel" in a plaintive, direct manner at the kitchen table. Jean then had a few demo 45s made from that rough cut. One of these cuts made it to Acuff-Rose publishing in late 1959.
Wesley Rose liked the demo on "Teen Angel" and turned it over to one of the world's best songwriters, Felice Bryant. Felice and her husband had written most of the Everly Brothers' early hits and knew the youth market very well. Felice also liked the song's hit potential, but suggested a few changes in some of the lines. Rose and Dinning agreed to the rewrite and took this slightly changed version to MGM. Needing a hit for Mark, the label took a chance that "Teen Angel" might have wings and put him in the studio for a session.
Even before MGM shipped "Teen Angel," there was talk about the single's being blacklisted. Many felt that the fact that the teenage girl dies in such a tragic, idiotic, and senseless manner might turn off radio programmers (a few did refuse to air the single). Death was a taboo subiect in many markets, and certainly it was the theme of death which drove "Teen Angel." Nevertheless, MGM shipped Dinning's "Teen Angel." As the song hit the charts on January 4, 1960, the label was assured that it had made the proper decision. But as the record really began to take off over the next two weeks, its success shocked even those at the company who had actually liked the morbid song in the first place.
It took just three weeks for "Teen Angel" to make it from its top forty chart debut to #1. In that brief period of time, Mark Dinning went from being a nobody to appearing before screaming, and in some cases crying, teenagers on American Bandstand. For fourteen weeks the singer and the song hung on to the national playlists and became a small part of the history of the "teen idol" era of rock and roll. Then "Teen Angel" died.
His sister's song had finally given Mark Dinning something he had wanted since his early childhood - a hit - but "Teen Angel" might also have doomed his chances for any further musical success. It seemed that the young man was so identified with this tragic and stupid song about a girl who loved a twenty-dollar ring more than she did life itself that he was never taken seriously as an artist. For Dinning, "Teen Angel" might just have been the devil in disguise.