It sounds relatively innocent now, but back in ’69, some stations wouldn’t play it because of suggestive lyrics like, “Mary Hill loved to ride on the merry-go-round….All the guys got eager eyes watchin’ Mary go round…Now, in the daytime Mary Hill was a teaser….Come the night she was such a pleaser….Mary Hill was such a thrill after dark, in Cherry Hill Park.” Go ahead, sing along: “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah….I knew you when…”įinally, his controversial hit from late 1969, “Cherry Hill Park.” This one still gets played on some greatest-hits stations, like Chattanooga’s 95.3 Big FM. I wonder how many millions of guys identified with those great Joe South-written words about being from the wrong side of the tracks: “Down in the boondocks, people put me down ’cause that’s the side of town I was born in….I love her, she loves me, but I don’t fit in her society, Lord have mercy on the boy from down in the boondocks….”īilly Joe also played on some of the WFLI “Jet-FLI Spectaculars” at Memorial Auditorium, which featured about a half-dozen hot recording acts on the same bill, for about 3 bucks! He always sang his other 1965 hit, “I Knew You When.” I heard it about a week ago on Sirius XM 60s on 6, and thought to myself, “I haven’t heard this one in a while.” It sure sounded good. In his honor, let me play you his three biggest hits.įirst, “Down in the Boondocks,” probably his best known song, a top-ten hit in the mid-60s. Just a few weeks ago, he was the headliner at the Whitwell Summer Fest.īilly Joe has passed away at the age of 73. In fact, “TJ the DJ” was usually on hand to introduce him. Later he had a few country hits in the 1980s, and since he was based in North Carolina (raised in Valdosta, Ga), he often played Chattanooga clubs and Lake Winnie. He had those big hits in the 1960s, and most of them were “oldies” to me by the time I really started paying attention to the radio. For what had to be the ten-millionth time, he smiled and told me how much that meant to him. Like everybody else who ever met him for the first time, I told him how much I enjoyed his music, and how those songs played a big part in my youth. In 2013, he attended the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame banquet to honor his friend Tommy Jett, the Chattanooga deejay who was being inducted that night. He is survived by his ex-wife, Michelle Royal, with whom he was still close, daughter Savannah Royal, and two stepsons, Trey and Joey Riverbank. Funeral arrangements will be announced this week.I’m glad I finally got to meet Billy Joe Royal.
Royal had planned to spend some time off the road in the coming weeks in order to spend time with his daughter, a student at NC State University. 24 at the Gwinnett County Fair in Georgia, the state in which he was raised and where he discovered his love of music. Royal's soulful voice was still in fine form, and he continued to tour in recent years. He followed "Rocket" with several country hits including "I'll Pin a Note on Your Pillow," "Tell It Like It Is," and "Till I Can't Take It Anymore." He was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1988. Royal notched his first Top 10 country single with "Burned Like a Rocket," though the song was reportedly pulled from the radio after the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy of January 1986. Royal's career was revitalized when he signed with Atlantic Records and began releasing country songs. In late 1985, Mr. Royal would also find success with his follow-up single: another South-penned song, called "I Knew You When."ĭuring the mid-1980s, Mr. Royal's 1965 breakout single, "Down in the Boondocks," which peaked at No. As a young man he performed on the radio program "Georgia Jubilee," which is where he met artists like Jerry Reed and Joe South. Royal was born Apin Valdosta, Georgia, and began singing at an early age.
Singer Billy Joe Royal, best known for his pop hit “Down in the Boondocks” and a string of country singles in the 1980s, died unexpectedly in his home in North Carolina on Tuesday morning, according to his publicist, Brent Taylor.
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