July 23, 1962 (1 week)
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UK: #37
US (Cashbox): #20
US (Hot 100): #14
Canada: #1
These are some chart positions for "(Girls, Girls, Girls) Made to Love" that I nicked from Wikipedia. (As an aside, I really must make a donation to them) As you no doubt noticed, I have them listed from lowest peak position to highest — or, if I am feeling especially grumpy and/or cynical, from sanest to silliest.
As a child star, it's quite likely that Eddie Hodges wasn't as much of a household name in the UK or Australia as he had been in North America. This tracks with showbiz trends, especially prior to the 1990 release of Home Alone and the subsequent worldwide stardom of Macaulay Culkin. This goes at least someway towards explaining how Hodges wasn't exactly running up the hits abroad. That said, he also only performed modestly in his native America compared to up north. Not many fifteen-year-olds can claim to have had a pair of number ones, even if it was only in Canada.
It's impossible to say what Canadians saw in him though I will admit that "Made to Love" is better than his previous chart topper, 1961's "I'm Gonna Knock on Your Door". While far from brilliant, it's a respectable work. I hadn't been expecting much and my eyes rolled when I discovered that it was a cover of an Everly Brothers' song. Amazingly, Hodges even managed to top the original.
A bit of a qualifier before we move on though: "Made to Love" by Don and Phil Everly isn't all that great. I've expressed my admiration for the duo a few times in this space already but there's a reason this one had been unknown to me until just recently. (Well, I suppose there are two reasons: (a) as I just said, it isn't up to much and (b) it's a deep cut off an album I'm unfamiliar with; like the vast majority of pop stars from the pre-Beatles/Dylan era, the Everlys were a singles band)
The Everlys were still only in their early twenties by the time their fourth album, A Date with the Everly Brothers, came out. Highlights include the magnificent Boudleaux Bryant composition "Love Hurts", their outstanding cover of Little Richard's "Lucille" and the sublime "Cathy's Clown", a Don Everly original. Yet, younger brother Phil didn't take to songwriting as effortlessly. "Made to Love" might have suited them five or six years earlier but they had clearly outgrown such childish stuff by the sixties. (The only possible explanation as to why they chose to have it open their latest album was to get it over with as quickly as possible; the logical thing would have been to bury it in the middle of sides one or two)
Being overly juvenile wasn't a worry for the teenaged Eddie Hodges. Indeed, it's likely that Nashville studio houseband Charlie McCoy and the Escorts played up to the song's naive innocence. Whoever it was playing the piano really seemed to get it. (Judging by the group's info on Discogs, it's unclear they even had a regular keyboardist though McCoy himself was well known for playing multiple instruments at once: he famously played both bass and trumpet on Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35") The twinkling keys really give it a playful atmosphere that you won't find on the Everly original. Plus, Hodges sounds like a boy who has no idea how to talk to girls, something I don't imagine Don or Phil ever having trouble with.
Hodges' time at the top of the entertainment world would slowly start to unwind following "Made to Love". He would only make one more Top 40 appearance in Canada while the hits dried up entirely elsewhere. His film career carried on until the late sixties when he ended up getting drafted into the US army. Soon after his release, he would turn his back on Hollywood. He is now a grandfather living in Mississippi, having spent the bulk of his adulthood as a counselor specializing in mental health. It's nice to know that he didn't become a childstar casualty of the ruthless showbiz world. Hopefully, he has been able to set an example for others that there is life beyond the applause and the cheers.
Score: 5
