Joanie Sommers

Infobox musical artist


Name = Joanie Sommers
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Background = solo_singer
Birth_name = Joan Drost
Born = Birth date and age|1940|2|12|mf=y, Buffalo, New York, United States
Genre = popular music
Years_active = 1960s-1970s, 1980s
Label =
URL =

Joanie Sommers (born February 24, 1941) is an American singer and actress.

Career

Born Joan Drost in Buffalo, New York, she began using Sommers because she did not think Drost was a good professional name.

She sang "Your Cheating Heart" on a Buffalo television show at age 10 and won a prize for her performance. The family moved to California when she was 14. As a student at Venice High School in Los Angeles, she sang at school dances. By the time she was 18, she appeared on the television series "77 Sunset Strip" and sang a duet with Edd Byrnes ("Kookie's Love Song") and on a solo album ("Positively the Most!").

Sommers was a popular singer during the 1960s. In 1962, she reached #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the single "Johnny Get Angry", released on Warner Bros. Records. (Will Ryan wrote and produced a sequel song, "Johnny Got Angry", for Sommers during the 1990s.) She also charted with "One Boy" from the musical "Bye Bye Birdie", which reached #54 in 1960, and "When the Boys Get Together", a #94 single in 1962. She appeared on numerous television shows as a singer and as an actress, and acted in two films: "Everything's Ducky" (1961) and "The Lively Set" (1964).

Sommers was a game show contestant during the 1960s on such shows as "Everybody's Talking", "Hollywood Squares", "You Don't Say", and "The Match Game", as well as Dick Clark's, "Where the Action Is".

In the early 1960s, she sang "It's Pepsi, For Those Who Think Young" in commercials and came to be referred to as 'The Pepsi Girl'. Years later, uncredited, she sang "Now You See It, Now You Don't, Oh, Diet Pepsi" for the sugar-free companion product.

Her 1965 track "Don't Pity Me" (Warner Bros. 5629 - Don't Pity Me / My Block) became a huge Northern Soul hit in the UK and still fills the dance floors whenever played.

In the early 1970s, she withdrew from the music scene in favor of a family life. She began making public appearances again during the 1980s, including two appearances on KCRW's satirical radio program "The Cool & the Crazy" hosted by Art Fraud (Ronn Spencer) and Vic Tripp (Gene Sculatti).

Album Discography

*1959: "Positively the Most!"
*1961: "Joanie Sommers"
*1962: "For Those Who Think Young"
*1962: "Johnny Get Angry"
*1962: "Let's Talk About Love"
*1963: "Sommers' Seasons"
*1964: "Softly, the Brazilian Sound"
*1965: "Come Alive!"
*1982: "Dream"
*1988: "Tangerine"
*1992: "A Fine Romance"
*2004: "Here, There and Everywhere!"

External links

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* [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,827096,00.html "Sommers Is Icumen On" From the Dec. 15, 1961 issue of TIME magazine]