Virgil Johnson (singer)
Encyclopedia
Virgil Lewis Johnson is a retired African American
deejay
, formerly at radio
station KDAV
in Lubbock
. He was the lead singer of The Velvets
, a 1950s and 1960s vocal quintet
from Odessa
, also in West Texas
. They are best remembered for their 1961 hit "Tonight (Could Be the Night)
", which peaked at No. 26 on the Billboard
pop charts. The song refers to a young woman waiting to fall in love or perhaps for her intended to propose marriage and present her with a ring of commitment. The Velvets can be heard chanting "doo-wop
" as a refrain in a song. Doo wop is considered to have originated in 1955 with The Turbans
' "When You Dance". However, the Velvets were a special type of doo-wop group because their sound was highly polished, and the backing usually included stringed instruments.
KDAV calls itself the Buddy Holly
Station, and Johnson during his tenure there was known as "V.J. the D.J." Prior to his retirement from KDAV, Johnson broadcast on weekdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. KDAV is heard through the Internet
. The station plays primarily rock and roll
songs from the 1950s, the 1960s, and – recently – the first half of the 1970s.
Johnson was born in Cameron
, the seat of Milam County in east central Texas. The family relocated to Lubbock, and Johnson graduated there from the historically black Dunbar High School, an institution known for its outstanding academics and reputation within the community. Later he would be principal of his alma mater
and obtained a graduate degree from Texas Tech University
in Lubbock. He was teaching eighth-grade English
at Blackshear Junior High School in Odessa, the seat of Ector County, in 1959, when he recruited four of his students to form a singing group. They were Mark Prince (bass), Clarence Rigsby (tenor
), Robert Thursby (first tenor), and William Solomon (baritone
). The quintet performed at school dances, with then 24-year-old Johnson as lead tenor singer.
In 1960, the singers impressed the native Texan Roy Orbison
, who heard them while he was visiting Odessa. Orbison recommended the five to Fred Foster, the owner of Monument Records in Nashville
, Tennessee
, who had produced Orbison's hit "Only the Lonely
". Foster originated the name "The Velvets Featuring Virgil Johnson" to distinguish the five from an earlier group called simply "The Velvets". The group recorded That Lucky Old Sun"/"Time And Again" and "Tonight (Could Be The Night)"/"Spring Fever". Orbison wrote the two B-sides, but "Tonight" was the work of Johnson. Their accompaniment came from Boots Randolph
and Floyd Cramer
.
After the success of "Tonight", the group's next release was "Lana"/"Laugh", both written by Orbison and Joe Melson
. Johnson said that it had been a mistake to produce the two songs together. "Laugh" stalled at No. 90, but "Lana" (thereafter recorded by Orbison himself) was No. 1 in Japan
. Until 1966, Monument continued to record nine singles by the Velvets.
Johnson said that the group had no further hits and did not tour the country because the music market was divided into white and black segments in the early 1960s. The Velvets were black but sounded white and were popular with whites but not their fellow African Americans, who preferred explicit R&B sounds. West Texas had few blacks in residence at the time, and the quintet did not have overt black-sounding dialect. Johnson explained the dichotomy this way: "You got to realize, in the early sixties there were two music markets in the U.S. You had a black market, and you had a white market. We were extremely popular with whites, but we were never extremely popular with blacks. We were black and we didn't sound like it. People didn't know we were a black group. We couldn't tour, and that really hurt us."
Johnson resumed teaching. He retired from his job as principal of Lubbock's historically black Dunbar High School (1985–1993) and as principal of Dunbar-Struggs Middle School (1968–1984). In 1993, Dunbar became Magnet
Junior High School Science Academy. In Lubbock, Johnson was a deejay on Radio KSEL before he switched to KDAV after his retirement from education. Clarence Rigsby, meanwhile, died in a car crash in 1978.
In 1994, Johnson was inducted into the Buddy Holly West Texas Walk of Fame, renamed in 2006 as the West Texas Hall of Fame, located at Seventh Street and Avenue Q in Lubbock.
Over the weekend of March 15, 2008, Johnson and another KDAV deejay, Bud Andrews
, were featured on Bob Phillips
' Texas Country Reporter
syndicated television
program.In 2008, he was listed among the "100 Most Influential People" from Lubbock, as part of the city centennial observation.
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
deejay
Deejay
A deejay is a reggae or dancehall musician who sings and toasts to an instrumental riddim .Deejays are not to be confused with disc jockeys from other music genres like hip-hop, where they select and play music. Dancehall/reggae DJs who select riddims to play are called selectors...
, formerly at radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
station KDAV
KDAV
KDAV is an AM radio station licensed to Lubbock, Texas, broadcasting an oldies format which focuses on 1950s and early 1960s pop, rockabilly, mild doo-wop, and country oldies....
in Lubbock
Lubbock, Texas
Lubbock is a city in and the county seat of Lubbock County, Texas, United States. The city is located in the northwestern part of the state, a region known historically as the Llano Estacado, and the home of Texas Tech University and Lubbock Christian University...
. He was the lead singer of The Velvets
The Velvets
The Velvets were an American doo wop group from Odessa in Ector County in west Texas. The African American quintet was formed in 1959 by Virgil Johnson, a high school English teacher, with four of his students. Roy Orbison heard the group and signed them to Monument Records in 1960. Their first...
, a 1950s and 1960s vocal quintet
Quintet
A quintet is a group containing five members.It is commonly associated with musical groups, such as a string quintet, or a group of five singers, but can be applied to any situation where five similar or related objects are considered a single unit....
from Odessa
Odessa, Texas
Odessa is a city in and the county seat of Ector County, Texas, United States. It is located primarily in Ector County, although a small portion of the city extends into Midland County. Odessa's population was 99,940 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Odessa, Texas Metropolitan...
, also in West Texas
West Texas
West Texas is a vernacular term applied to a region in the southwestern quadrant of the United States that primarily encompasses the arid and semi-arid lands in the western portion of the state of Texas....
. They are best remembered for their 1961 hit "Tonight (Could Be the Night)
Tonight (Could Be the Night)
"Tonight " is a 1961 rock and roll song by the quintet called The Velvets. Virgil Johnson, now a deejay at Radio KDAV in Lubbock, Texas, is the lead tenor singer, with backup from Mark Prince , Clarence Rigsby , Robert Thursby , and William Solomon...
", which peaked at No. 26 on the Billboard
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
pop charts. The song refers to a young woman waiting to fall in love or perhaps for her intended to propose marriage and present her with a ring of commitment. The Velvets can be heard chanting "doo-wop
Doo-wop
The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...
" as a refrain in a song. Doo wop is considered to have originated in 1955 with The Turbans
The Turbans
The Turbans were an African American doo-wop group, who formed in Philadelphia in 1953. The original members were: Al Banks , Matthew Platt , Charlie Williams , and Andrew "Chet" Jones...
' "When You Dance". However, the Velvets were a special type of doo-wop group because their sound was highly polished, and the backing usually included stringed instruments.
KDAV calls itself the Buddy Holly
Buddy Holly
Charles Hardin Holley , known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll...
Station, and Johnson during his tenure there was known as "V.J. the D.J." Prior to his retirement from KDAV, Johnson broadcast on weekdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. KDAV is heard through the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
. The station plays primarily rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
songs from the 1950s, the 1960s, and – recently – the first half of the 1970s.
Johnson was born in Cameron
Cameron, Texas
Cameron is a city in Milam County, Texas, United States. The population was 5,634 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Milam County.-Geography:Cameron is located at . It is situated at the junction of U.S...
, the seat of Milam County in east central Texas. The family relocated to Lubbock, and Johnson graduated there from the historically black Dunbar High School, an institution known for its outstanding academics and reputation within the community. Later he would be principal of his alma mater
Alma mater
Alma mater , pronounced ), was used in ancient Rome as a title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele, and in Christianity for the Virgin Mary.-General term:...
and obtained a graduate degree from Texas Tech University
Texas Tech University
Texas Tech University, often referred to as Texas Tech or TTU, is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas, United States. Established on February 10, 1923, and originally known as Texas Technological College, it is the leading institution of the Texas Tech University System and has the...
in Lubbock. He was teaching eighth-grade English
English studies
English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language , English linguistics English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S.,...
at Blackshear Junior High School in Odessa, the seat of Ector County, in 1959, when he recruited four of his students to form a singing group. They were Mark Prince (bass), Clarence Rigsby (tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
), Robert Thursby (first tenor), and William Solomon (baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
). The quintet performed at school dances, with then 24-year-old Johnson as lead tenor singer.
In 1960, the singers impressed the native Texan Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...
, who heard them while he was visiting Odessa. Orbison recommended the five to Fred Foster, the owner of Monument Records in Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, who had produced Orbison's hit "Only the Lonely
Only the Lonely
"Only the Lonely " is a 1960 song written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson. Recorded by Orbison, it became his first major hit. As an operatic rock ballad, it was a sound unheard of at the time, described by the New York Times as expressing "a clenched, driven urgency". It is seen as a seminal event...
". Foster originated the name "The Velvets Featuring Virgil Johnson" to distinguish the five from an earlier group called simply "The Velvets". The group recorded That Lucky Old Sun"/"Time And Again" and "Tonight (Could Be The Night)"/"Spring Fever". Orbison wrote the two B-sides, but "Tonight" was the work of Johnson. Their accompaniment came from Boots Randolph
Boots Randolph
Homer Louis "Boots" Randolph III was an American musician best known for his 1963 saxophone hit, "Yakety Sax"...
and Floyd Cramer
Floyd Cramer
Floyd Cramer was an American Hall of Fame pianist who was one of the architects of the "Nashville sound." He popularized the "slip note" piano style where an out-of-tune note slides effortlessly into the correct note...
.
After the success of "Tonight", the group's next release was "Lana"/"Laugh", both written by Orbison and Joe Melson
Joe Melson
Joe Melson , is an American singer and a BMI Award–winning songwriter.Melson was born in Bonham, the seat of Fannin County in northeast Texas. He was reared on a farm until he was sixteen. He attended high school in Gore, Oklahoma, and in Chicago before he returned to Texas to study at the two-year...
. Johnson said that it had been a mistake to produce the two songs together. "Laugh" stalled at No. 90, but "Lana" (thereafter recorded by Orbison himself) was No. 1 in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Until 1966, Monument continued to record nine singles by the Velvets.
Johnson said that the group had no further hits and did not tour the country because the music market was divided into white and black segments in the early 1960s. The Velvets were black but sounded white and were popular with whites but not their fellow African Americans, who preferred explicit R&B sounds. West Texas had few blacks in residence at the time, and the quintet did not have overt black-sounding dialect. Johnson explained the dichotomy this way: "You got to realize, in the early sixties there were two music markets in the U.S. You had a black market, and you had a white market. We were extremely popular with whites, but we were never extremely popular with blacks. We were black and we didn't sound like it. People didn't know we were a black group. We couldn't tour, and that really hurt us."
Johnson resumed teaching. He retired from his job as principal of Lubbock's historically black Dunbar High School (1985–1993) and as principal of Dunbar-Struggs Middle School (1968–1984). In 1993, Dunbar became Magnet
Magnet school
In education in the United States, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities as school zones that feed into certain schools.There are magnet schools at the...
Junior High School Science Academy. In Lubbock, Johnson was a deejay on Radio KSEL before he switched to KDAV after his retirement from education. Clarence Rigsby, meanwhile, died in a car crash in 1978.
In 1994, Johnson was inducted into the Buddy Holly West Texas Walk of Fame, renamed in 2006 as the West Texas Hall of Fame, located at Seventh Street and Avenue Q in Lubbock.
Over the weekend of March 15, 2008, Johnson and another KDAV deejay, Bud Andrews
Bud Andrews
Curcy Hendricks Andrews, Jr., known as Bud Andrews , is a retired deejay at Radio KDAV in Lubbock, Texas, who in 1970 is said to have "discovered" the Mississippi-based humorist Jerry Clower.-Early career:...
, were featured on Bob Phillips
Bob Phillips
Robert Leon Phillips, known as Bob Phillips , is an American television journalist best known for his long-running program Texas Country Reporter...
' Texas Country Reporter
Texas Country Reporter
Texas Country Reporter is a weekly syndicated television program hosted and produced by Bob Phillips. It airs in all 22 Texas media markets, generally on weekends, and reruns are broadcast nationally on the satellite/cable channel RFD-TV...
syndicated television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
program.In 2008, he was listed among the "100 Most Influential People" from Lubbock, as part of the city centennial observation.