You saw this morning’s blog post headline, and I bet you automatically thought, “Oh yeah, when a Deep Purple falls over sleepy garden walls …”
Yeah, totally understandable.
But what if I told you that the LoTiempo siblings – Nino Tempo and April Stevens – had a very long recording career, with many different radio hits in the 1960’s?
Yeah, there was this one for sure …
But way before “Deep Purple,” April Stevens had her own solo career, including this rather steamy track of her own, “Teach Me Tiger.”
That was the first version; apparently it was re-recorded in 1965 as an “Oh dear, we’ve run out of gas in the car, nothing to do now but start necking until the tow truck gets here” version.
Now after “Deep Purple” became a monster hit, Nino Tempo and April Stevens went back to that formula with the duo singing together – then doing a verse where Nino sings the lyrics and April speaks the lyrics.
By 1966, Nino Tempo and April Stevens returned to the pop charts with “All Strung Out,” which sounds like they spent the weekend with Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios. Wow.
After the duo retired from their performing partnership, Nino Tempo had some success as a jazz musician, including this 1973 track that later became a Northern Soul stomper. That’s him on the horn, if you’re wondering.
The crazy thing is … if you only knew that duo from one cutesy pre-British Invasion pop song, you wouldn’t believe that they enjoyed a long, successful career. Not really a “one-hit wonder,” when you think about it.
Chuck The Writer 
I still recall my first such “dive,” ages ago, when I wondered what became of Tom & Jerry after their ’57 “Hey, Schoolgirl.”
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that’s quite a journey!
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