John D. Loudermilk
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John D. Loudermilk (born March 31, 1934 in Durham, North Carolina) is an American singer and songwriter.
Loudermilk grew up in a family who were members of the Salvation Army faith and was influenced by the church singing. His cousins Ira and Charlie Loudermilk were known professionally as the Louvin Brothers. As a boy he learned to play the guitar, and while still in his teens wrote a poem that he set to music. The owners of the local television station, where he worked as a handyman, allowed him to play it on air resulting in country musician George Hamilton IV putting it on record. After Eddie Cochran had his first hit record with Loudermilk's song, "Sittin' in the Balcony", his career path in music was firmly set.
Loudermilk recorded some of his songs, including "Sittin' in the Balcony", under the stage name Johnny Dee, and had a British Top 20 hit in his own name with "Language of Love" in 1962, but it was as a songwriter that he made his mark. Working out of country music capital Nashville, Tennessee, John D. Loudermilk became one of the most productive songwriters of the 1960s and 1970s, penning country and pop music hits for the likes of the Everly Brothers, Johnny Tillotson, Chet Atkins, The Nashville Teens, Paul Revere & the Raiders, Johnny Cash, Marianne Faithfull, Stonewall Jackson, Sue Thompson and others.
John D. Loudermilk was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1976.
[edit] Notable compositions
- "A Rose and a Baby Ruth"
- "Ebony Eyes"
- "Google Eye"
- "Indian Reservation"
- "Norman"
- "Paper Tiger"
- "Sad Movies (Make Me Cry)"
- "Talk Back Trembling Lips"
- "Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye"
- "This Little Bird"
- "Thou Shalt Not Steal"
- "Tobacco Road"
- "Turn Me On"
- "Waterloo"
- "Poetry in motion"
