Gene Pitney

American singer/songwriter, musician and engineer. He was born February 17, 1940 in Hartford, Connecticut and died in a hotel after a gig on April 5, 2006 in Cardiff, Wales, UK. At the beginning of his musical career Pitney cut a few records under different pseudonyms, as Jamie & Jane with Ginny Arnell in 1958 and as Billy Bryan in 1959. Between 1961 and 1964 he recorded 7 songs by songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David, getting into the the U.S. Billboard Top Ten in 1962 twice with songs by the team ("Only Love Can Break a Heart" and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"). Pitney's greatest success as a songwriter came with The Crystals recording of his composition "He's a Rebel," which was number 1 in the U.S. at the same time that Pitney's recording of the Bacharach-David song "Only Love Can Break a Heart" was at number 2. During the mid-1960s, Musicor Records, owned by his manager Aaron Schroeder, frequently paired Pitney in the recording studio with Musicor country artists George Jones and Melba Montgomery. Later in the decade, Pitney found more success in the U.K. and Europe. Inducted into Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 (Performer).