TeachRock

people:
Pat Boone

(b. 1934) Clean-cut singer/actor Pat Boone had a lengthy run as a major recording star in the years prior to the British Invasion, scoring 38 Top 40 hits and becoming a familiar, wholesome presence in films and TV shows. Boone is notable figure in Rock and Roll’s early history for his smooth covers of then-current hits by such black artists as Little Richard and Fats Domino, which critics blasted as “watered down” versions aimed at listeners and radio stations for whom the originals were too musically — or racially — incendiary. While rocking out may not have been Boone’s forte,...