Johnny Tillotson’s big hit Poetry in Motion, which topped the British charts in January 1961 having reached No 2 in the US the month before, is the song that he will always be remembered for, but he was very far from being a one-hit wonder. Between 1959 and 1965, he scored four Top 10 hits on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, and in a career lasting more than 40 years, he placed a total of 26 singles on the Billboard charts.
Poetry in Motion was written by Mike Anthony and Paul Kaufman, and while its watching-girls-go-by lyric might not wash in today’s transformed social climate, the song was an ideal showcase for Tillotson’s supple, cheerful vocal, backed up by Boots Randolph’s exuberant saxophone and Floyd Cramer’s rippling piano.
