Today’s nearly forgotten classic song of the day is “I Can’t Stay Mad at You” by Skeeter Davis. This single was released in August of 1963 and peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100, #2 on the Hot Adult Contemporary Singles chart, and #14 on the Hot Country Singles chart.
“I Can’t Stay Mad at You” was written by the legendary team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Like many of Goffin and King’s early tunes, it has a distinct Girl Group sound. (Goffin and King wrote a ton of songs for the Girl Groups of the early ’60s, including “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and “Foolish Little Girl” for the Shirelles, “Chains” and “Don’t Say Nothin’ Bad (About My Baby)” for the Cookies, “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss”) for the Crystals, and “One Fine Day” for the Chiffons. ) Some have called out its musical resemblance to Neal Sedaka’s songs of the time, which is notable, especially in the intro’s “do-do-do shoobie doobie doo wop” which sounds suspiciously like the “do-do-do down doobie doo down down” intro in Sedaka’s 1962 hit, “Breaking Up is Hard to Do.”
Neal Sedaka was a former high school classmate of Carole King and, like Goffin and King, Sedaka and his writing partner Howard Greenfield also were signed to Al Nevins and Don Kirshner’s Aldon Records. Aldon was based in the one-stop shop music factory located at 1650 Broadway, located across the street from the famed Brill Building, so it’s likely that Neal and Carole ran into each other frequently as they were writing and pitching songs for others. We know that Goffin/King had a friendly competition with colleagues Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, so it’s not impossible that there was something similar going on with Sedaka and Greenfield.
In addition to the songwriting pedigree of “I Can’t Stay Mad at You,” there were some big names backing up Skeeter Davis on this Nashville-based recording. The studio cats on this record were all country music legends, including Grammy winner Floyd Cramer (he had a solo hit in 1960 with “Last Date”) on piano, Pete Drake on steel guitar, Jerry Kennedy on regular guitar, and Buddy Harman, who played with Elvis Presley, Brenda Lee, Roy Orbison, Patsy Cline, and Roger Miller, on drums. The Anita Kerr Singers did the background vocalizations and the legendary Chet Atkins produced.
Skeeter Davis was a Nashville-based artist. She was 32 years old when she recorded “I Can’t Stay Mad at You” and already had a long career as part of the Davis Sisters and on her own as a solo artist. Her solo hits were mostly aimed at the country market, including “Set Him Free,” “My Last Date (With You),” “(I Can’t Help You) I’m Falling Too,” “Where I Ought to Be,” “I’m Saving My Love,” “Gonna Get Along Without You Now,” “What Does It Take (To Keep a Man Like You Satisfied),” and “I’m a Lover (Not a Fighter),” although she had another crossover hit with 1962’s “The End of the World” which hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. She kept recording into the 1990s; she eventually stopped performing in 2001 due to breast cancer and passed away in 2004, aged 72.
