2/5/11: Featuring Timi Yuro

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In 1961, pop music was in a bit of a holding pattern. The wild rock ‘n’ roll that had exploded in the ’50s had been tamed, and Beatlemania was still a few years off. Lawrence Welk, Pat Boone, and Bobby Vee were scoring #1 hits, making a spin across the radio dial for the most part a rather sedate experience. But right in the middle of this sea of calm, in the summer of ’61, a powerful, emotion-filled, rich voice exploded out of the radio with “Hurt”, leaving listeners assuming that the singer was black or male or both. But “the voice” belonged to a 4’11 eighteen-year-old girl named Timi Yuro.

Timi was born Rosemarie Timotea Aurro in Chicago in 1940. As a child, she spent a lot of her time with her family’s African-American neighbors, listening to Dinah Washington records, attending church, and even sneaking into blues clubs on occasion. She naturally took to singing, but her father harshly discouraged it. On the other hand, her mother arranged for her to take operatic training.

The Aurro family moved to Los Angeles in 1952 and opened a restaurant. Meanwhile, Timi came to the attention of famous vocal coach Lillian Goodman (Frankie Laine, Kirk Douglas), who was so impressed by the twelve-year-old’s talent that she offered to work with her free of charge. Two years later, Timi was singing in Hollywood nightclubs. Her mother did not approve of that career path and once interrupted a performance by yelling from the audience, “This is your last song, young lady!”.

In the interest of peaceful family relations, Timi took her act to her parents’ restaurant. It was a good move for all concerned, with Timi getting great exposure while the eatery became a Hollywood “destination” due to the teenager’s explosive performances. A Liberty Records talent scout caught Timi’s show one night, and awarded her a recording contract in ’59.

Excitement soon gave way to frustration, however, as the label executives spent the next two years choosing lightweight fluff for Timi to record against her will. Her protests fell on deaf ears, so she stalked the label headquarters. Finally, on a Friday afternoon in July of ’61, the secretary went to the ladies’ room, and Timi rushed in to crash an executive meeting, threatening to tear up her contract if she wasn’t allowed to record material more suited to her talents. The suits called her bluff, saying “Well, show us whatcha got”… and she broke into an impassioned delivery of “Hurt”, a ballad that had been a rhythm and blues hit for Roy Hamilton in 1954.

Al Bennett, the president of Liberty, was so impressed that he assigned Timi to producer Clyde Otis, who also worked with Dinah Washington and Nat King Cole. Bennett wanted “Hurt” for a single, and it was recorded post haste after Otis was convinced that a white girl could sing with soul. The song (listen here) was released in early summer of 1961 and climbed all the way to #4 on the Top 100. The flip side, “I Apologize”, got up to #72. (“Hurt” also got into the Top 20 on the national Rhythm and Blues charts.)

Timi was personally chosen by Frank Sinatra for a concert tour of Australia in 1961, winning out over Connie Francis and Brenda Lee. While she was performing to a crowd of 15,000 during the tour, the PA system went dead. Timi asked the audience to let her continue, promising that if everyone was quiet they would still be able to hear her sing. So she continued as the crowd watched and listened in awe. Sinatra walked out on stage and began circling her with a quizzical look. Timi finally asked , “Whatcha doing, babe?” to which Sinatra replied, “Nothing, kid- I’m just looking to see where they plug you in”.

In keeping with their less-than-daring corporate personality, Liberty decided that since “Hurt” had been such a big hit, Timi should stay on the emotional ballad track, preferably with songs with one-syllable titles like “Cry” and “Smile”. But none of her follow-ups generated much interest until “What’s a Matter Baby (Is It Hurting You)”, produced by an up-and-coming Phil Spector, barely missed the Top Ten in ’62. The flip side, “I Ain’t Gonna Cry No More”, didn’t chart at all, but a listen now usually elicits a one-word response: WOW. The singer’s and the producer’s sense of drama seemed to mesh perfectly. Unfortunately, Yuro and Spector would not have the opportunity to work together again.

Next, Timi recorded “The Love of a Boy”, arranged and co-written by Burt Bacharach. It got up to #44, but when Bacharach brought another song to Timi with explicit instructions on how it should be delivered, she balked. Bacharach walked, and “What the World Needs Now” became a big hit for Jackie DeShannon. (In fairness, the gentleness called for by the lyrics were probably not a good match for Timi’s blow-torch vocal style.)

By 1963, Team Timi was getting desperate for another big hit. Producer Buddy Killen called up Hank Cochran and told him that they were looking for a song that could be as big as “Hurt”. Hank had just written “Make the World Go Away”, and he offered it to Timi. She recorded it a week later and was so excited with the results that she phoned up Cochran at three in the morning and played him the finished recording over the phone. A few days later when she was in Nashville, Timi hand-delivered a copy of the record to its author.

Hank thought it was a sure hit, and he played it for his friend Ray Price. Price agreed that it had potential but declared that he could sing it better. He set up his own recording session and duplicated Timi’s arrangement note-for-note. Timi’s version was a Top 30 pop hit while Price’s got to #2 on the country chart. However, when Eddy Arnold released the song two years later, his version became the definitive one.

Eddy was working on an album of songs with “world” in the title, and he thought of “Make the World Go Away”. However, it wasn’t Ray Price’s version that had made an impression, it was Timi Yuro’s. He checked to see how many copies Timi had sold, and when he discovered that she had stalled out at about 50,000, he decided to release it as a single himself. Like Price, he also copied Timi’s arrangement, including the use of strings. The song was a worldwide smash for Arnold, and strings became a trademark of his music from there on out. “Make the World Go Away” became forever associated with Eddy Arnold, and Timi’s version was largely forgotten.

Timi Yuro continued to release top-notch singles and albums throughout the 1960s, but she never did manage to score another hit on the scale of “Hurt”. Nevertheless, she remained a popular live attraction and boasted high-profile fans such as Willie Nelson and Elvis Presley. Elvis always reserved a table up front when Timi played Las Vegas, and he covered “Hurt” for one of his last chart hits in 1976.

Timi exited the music business in 1969 to start a family, and returned around 1980. Shortly after she restarted her career, she was diagnosed with throat cancer. Her final recording was in 1982, just before her larynx was removed.

Timi Yuro died in 2004 at the age of 63.

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