Ken Foote Summer Songs: Summertime, Summertime!

FORT WORTH (CBS11) - If you are reading this, especially from the DFW area, you would agree that it IS summertime, based on the high temperatures we have had this past week!

For this week's Summer Songs, we go back to 1958 with a song with just that name: "Summertime, Summertime," performed by a group from Dorchester, Massachusetts called The Jamies (named for its leader, Tom Jameson).

The Jamies were an early pop/do-wop vocal group who originally started as church singers. The other members included Jameson's sister, Serena, Jeanine Roy, and Arthur Blair. Sherman Feller, who was their manager, took co-writing credit, half of the songwriting royalties, and the publishing rights, which was common practice by music managers in that day.

"Summertime, Summertime" was released in the summer of 1958 and written by Jameson and Feller. It was a popular song with a lot of air play at first but only finished at #26 on the Billboard Top 40 after four weeks on the chart. Several other singles were subsequently released by the group but failed to become hits. The song was re-released in 1962 and charted once again....but only at #38. By that time, pop music trends had dramatically changed and were getting ready to change even more with the advent of groups like American Boy groups, the British Invasion groups, and the Motown groups!

The song has been used in commercial advertising spots over the years for companies like Buick and Applebee's Restaurants.

Running 1:56, the lyrics go like this:

It's summertime summertime sum sum summertime
Summertime summertime sum sum summertime
Summertime summertime sum sum summertime
Summertime summertime sum sum summertime summertime...

Well shut them books and throw 'em away
And say goodbye to dull school days
Look alive and change your ways
It's summertime...

Well no more studying history
And no more reading geography
And no more dull geometry
Because it's summertime"

Tom Jameson passed away on July 19, 2009, at age 72....ironically during the summertime.

Enjoy and stay cool folks!