Tragic Stories About One-Hit Wonders

‌While rock n' roll was still finding its voice as a standalone musical genre in the 1950s, it was really rockabilly, with a strong influence of country sounds. It's in this milieu where Ray Smith came up and briefly captured success. 

Born in Kentucky, he won a talent show, formed an immensely popular local band called The Rock 'n' Roll Boys and starred on a Kentucky TV show, and in 1958, signed with Sun Records, the influential label founded by Sam Phillips that provided early career breaks to Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. Two years later, Ray Smith and the Rock 'n' Roll Boys notched its first national hit, with "Rockin' Little Angel." A fast-paced rockabilly number that interpolated the standard "Buffalo Gals," it sold a million copies, was certified gold, and reached No. 22 on the Hot 100. Follow-up songs, including a few ballads that didn't match the band's sound, all flopped, and Smith and company never had another hit single.

Smith remained in the music business. His biggest success: He wrote Conway Twitty's 1970 country No. 1 "Fifteen Years Ago." Frustrated and despondent over his inability to find lasting work as a musician, Smith moved out of the U.S. and settled in Burlington, Ontario. That's where in November 1979, the former hitmaker died by suicide. Smith was 45 years old.

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