Pat Boone Celebrates 70th Anniversary with a New Country Music Project and a Love Affair with Chevy’s Corvette
Pat Boone, who hosted a weekly variety show on ABC TV sponsored by Chevy in his teenage years, has had a long partnership with the Corvette. To celebrate their joint 70th anniversaries, he will be releasing a commemorative album called COUNTRY JUBILEE this summer, featuring his own country songs and hits by other music icons. The album will also include a new version of You and I with Crystal Gayle and a new song called “Grits” featuring several country music stars. The accompanying booklet will contain stories and photos from the recording process and a tribute to Pat’s father-in-law, Red Foley, co-founder of the Grand Ole Opry. Read on to learn more.
2023: TWO AMERICAN ICONS & FRIENDS TURN 70:
Chevy Corvette & Corvette Fan-Owner Pat Boone’s Legendary Music Career
(Hollywood, CA)– Pat Boone was barely past his teen years when Chevy made him an offer he couldn’t resist: a weekly network variety show on ABC TV. Many musical performers, who soon after became icons in the industry, made their national TV debut on his ABC show.
Landing Chevy as his first-ever TV sponsor started a love affair between Pat and Chevy’s Corvette that’s lasted over 60 years, and now the always-classy Corvette and the always-classic crooner Boone are both celebrating their joint 70th anniversaries.
As a gift to himself to celebrate his career milestone in show business, Boone, who grew up in Nashville, will release in late Summer a milestone country music project, “COUNTRY JUBILEE,” in a Commemorative Edition 2LP 180 Gram Vinyl, Gatefold, and a 2-CD edition. It includes five (5) Pat Boone Top 100 country recordings, chart hits (All Top 100, 12 #1s) by country legends, plus a NEW recording of the classic duet “YOU AND I” (with Pat and featured guest artist Crystal Gayle), and Pat’s NEW song, “GRITS” (with featured guest artists Ray Stevens, the Gatlin Bros., Lorrie Morgan, Deborah Allen, and Dean Miller). The accompanying commemorative booklet includes The Story Behind the Song, I Remember Red (influence of father-in-law and country music pioneer and Grand Ole Opry co-founder Red Foley), and archival and behind-the-scenes photographs.
Says Boone, who’s been a classic car collector for all his adult life, “Corvettes were magical then and still are. They were elegant and sleek, and I loved their speed and beauty. I’ve had many over the years and was great friends with Malcolm Konner, who for 30 years was the world’s largest Corvette dealer.”
In Boone’s opinion, the Corvette is still as cool as it was in 1952. “They used to call it a ‘chic magnet’ type of car, he jokes. But not for me, as I was married with four kids when I started driving one!”
In the 1989 documentary “Roger & Me,” Boone stated that he was first gifted a Corvette from the Chevrolet product line, but after he and his wife started having children, four in four years, GM supplied him with a station wagon as well.
It was a beautiful Sunday morning in Hollywood, California, in the year 1959. Charles Eugene “Pat” Boone, an internationally famous pop singer, stepped out of his gun metal-grey 1953 Chevrolet Corvette and cast his gaze to the blue, cloudless California sky. He was among the first celebrities to own a Corvette, and he regularly turned heads on the Sunset Strip when he cruised from his Beverly Hills home, which he still owns, to the TV studio, as Corvettes were rare and exotic in those days.
As the Corvette caught on, Chevy’s advertising did, too. The “Dinah Shore Chevy Show” made its television debut in 1956. The ads got even bigger as Chevy sponsored crooner Boone’s variety show and the popular western series “Bonanza.” Chevy even arranged for the Corvette to star in the early 1960s series “Route 66.” Boone’s clean-cut, boyish image won him a long-term product endorsement contract from Chevy’s parent company, General Motors, during the1950s and 1960s.
At the age of 23 years old, he began hosting a half-hour ABC variety television series, “The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom,” which aired for 115 episodes from 1957–1960. Boone’s Chevy showroom shows are currently being restored for a whole new generation of music buffs.
Pat Boone has sold over 45 million albums, had 38 Top 40 hits, and starred in more than 12 Hollywood movies alongside James Mason, Shirley Jones, and Ann-Margret. Boone’s talent as a singer, songwriter, serial entrepreneur, author, satellite radio host, philanthropist, and actor, combined with his old-fashioned values, has contributed to his popularity in the early rock and roll era and has endured up until now.
According to Billboard, Pat Boone is the second biggest charting artist of the late 1950s, behind only Elvis Presley.
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