Floyd Cramer's The Last Date ?

[basilh]

Who wrote "The Last Date"
Floyd Cramer's hit ?
Please, I've seen it credited as "Traditional" but surely that's wrong !
Anyone who has the record can verify the writer credits from the label ..

[Alan Brookes]

"About Last Date
By Floyd Cramer. Single for solo piano. C Major. 3 pages. Published by Hal Leonard. (HL.351972)"

http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/a/item.ht ... 0&id=79590

I get the impression Floyd wrote it himself.

[basilh]

Thanks Alan, you're a "Brick" !!
Regards,
your friend Basil

[Ray Minich]

One thing I've noticed about that sheet music, and I have it in three different books...

No "guitar chord" entries above the piano notes! ever...

[basilh]

what would you say to someone who recorded it on a CD and gave the credits as "Traditional" ?

[David Tunnell]

Basilh,

I would tell them they didn't research it very well. Any piano player worth his salt knows Floyd Cramer wrote that song.

[b0b]

What key is it in?

[Earnest Bovine]

"Mercy Mercy Mercy" was first recorded in 1958, and "Last Date" in 1960, so I would say that Joe Zawinul wrote it.

[chris ivey]

words and music by floyd but i don't see any words.

john hughey made it come alive with conways singing.

[Barry Blackwood]

Earnest Bovine wrote

"Mercy Mercy Mercy" was first recorded in 1958

According to Wikipedia, Joe Zawinul wrote "Mercy Mercy Mercy" in 1966.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy,_Mercy,_Mercy
However, Zawinul may have written the lyrics to the Conway Twitty version of Last Date, released in 1972.

[Don Sulesky]

In my old Reader's Digest Music book dated 1983
the song in there is "My Last Date (with you)."
Words by Boudleaux Bryant and Skeeter Davis music by Floyd Cramer, copyright 1960.
Don

[Bill Hatcher]

Cramer surely was one of the Nashville A team during the time when Chet Atkins ruled the RCA roost.

He was more than likely not the inventor of the signature sound of the "slip key" piano as his style is called, even though he became the supreme vehicle for it. Atkins had given Cramer a demo tape to a song called "Please Help Me I'm Falling" written by Don Robertson. Atkins told Cramer that he really liked the licks that Robertson played on piano on the demo and to learn them for the recording they would do on the song later. That is probably where Cramers signature sound came from. Cramer himself said on one occasion that he was trying to sound like Mother Maybelle Carters autoharp, but I don't hear that much in his playing. Anyway, that is the ledgend on how Cramer got started with that style. His earlier work in the late 50s sounded totally different, and it is very coincidental that "Last Date" was recorded only a couple of months after he had copied the Don Robertson licks for the "Help Me I'm Falling" session. Food for thought.

He was a hard nose about money. I worked with Atkins conductor Albert Coleman who for many years traveled with Atkins, Cramer and Boots Randolph on their many tours. When Albert was putting together his own recording in the 70s and asked his old friends to make guest appearances on it, Atkins and Randolph were happy to do so for free.....not Cramer. He demanded to get paid.

Another aspect of his playing on sessions was his organ playing. It can be heard on lot's of Nashville sessions mostly mixed back in the track but adding a lot. I was listening to Patsy Cline's "Heartaches" the other day. I never realized that there is an organ in that recording playing some rhythm "jabs" and backbeats. Had to be Cramer.

[chris ivey]

perhaps floyd needed the money....sidemen seem to make noticably less than bandleaders and producers...

[Leslie Ehrlich]

I thought I could remember Floyd doing an organ version of 'Last Date'. And maybe it was on a Hammond Organ.

[Charles Davidson]

Don was playing that style before Floyd,I have an old 45 of Don's,before Last Date,He was already playing the CRAMER style,before it WAS the Cramer style.hE also wrote a LOT of songs.DYKBC.

[Ray Jones]

You can find it tabbed out for steel on Ricky Davis' web site as played by John Hughey.

[basilh]

What key is it in?

b0b it's written AND recorded in "C" as that's the key most conducive to the "Slip Note" technique IMHO..


As usual I've stirred a little excrement in THIS thread ..




For the non French speakering Forumites (Like me):-

The Last Date ... TRADITIONAL .. NO... No... No...
That's "Plagiarism".. No excuse for not finding out the CORRECT Credits, it took me 0.237 seconds on Google to find this ..

It was written by Floyd Cramer..

“It’s been done for a long time on the guitar by people like Maybelle Carter,” Cramer said, “and by lots of people on the steel guitar. Half-tones are very common, but the style I use mainly is a whole-tone slur which gives more of a lonesome, cowboy sound.”

It was at Atkins’s suggestion that Cramer wrote “Last Date” to showcase the slip-note style. It was a bigger pop than country hit, climbing to #2; the only record keeping it from #1 was Elvis Presley’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight,” another record Cramer had played on. By the mid-1960s, Cramer was established as an album act, recording prolifically for RCA and touring widely with RCA labelmates Chet Atkins and saxophonist Boots Randolph.

See this at the Country Music Hall of Fame :- Click Here

[Skip Edwards]

Floyd did an LP of all organ instrumentals. I forget the name of it, but I've got stashed away somewhere.
It's very cool...
He was, and still is, one of my musical heroes.

[Alan Brookes]

Wasn't Black Mountain Rag written by Doc Watson ?

[Alvin Blaine]

Wasn't Black Mountain Rag written by Doc Watson ?

That one has been around for over a hundred years or more. It's also been done under many differant names.

"My Baby Thinks She's A Train" was written by LeRoy Preston, one of the early members of 'Asleep at The Wheel', and it is copyrighted.

[richard burton]

The Last Date, one of my favorite tunes

Check out my version of it HERE