Rock Duo's of the 1960's: Paul & Paula

Welcome to Rock and Roll Flashback!  I'm Bill Price, and in this episode of 60's Duos, I will feature Paul and Paula, who were active from 1962 to 1965 and had a million selling hit in 1962.

All podcasts on the Rock and Roll Flashback Podcast are produced by brothers-in-law Bill Price and "Jumpin' John" McDermott. The Podcast Theme Song, "You Essay", was written by John. It was initially recorded by Bill and John on April 1, 2004 with several revisions since then.
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Transcript

In this episode of 60's Duos, I will feature Paul and Paula, who were active from 1962 to 1965 and had a million selling hit in 1962.

Paul and Paula were a singing duo whose real names were Raymond Hildebrand and Jill Jackson. Raymond was born on November 21st 1940 in Joshua, Texas., and Jill was born on May 20th, 1942 in McCamey, Texas. When both were attending college in Brownwood, Texas in 1962,  Riney Jordan a disc jockey from radio station KEAN  invited listeners to come to the studio and sing songs to support the American Cancer Society. Raymond and Jill sang a song titled “ Hey Paula”. The lyrics, written by Raymond, were inspired by his friend Russell Berry, whose fiancé was Paula.  Jordan suggested the song should be recorded. After the recording, Shelby Singleton of Philips Records signed the duo. However before the singing, Shelby suggested changing the duos’ professional name. He thought that a duo named Ray and Jill singing “Hey hey Paula” and “Hey hey Paul’ did not make any sense, so the duo was renamed Paul and Paula.  The single “Hey Paula became a number one hit, selling over two million copies worldwide, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA in 1963.

They also released two albums plus a Christmas album that charted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in early 1963. The next release was a song titled “Young Lovers” written by Raymond and Jill, which reached number six on the Billboard chart. 

Here is the number six hit from 1963, “Young Lovers”.

Paul and Paula signed with American Bandstand, to perform on Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars national tour. The 15th show at the Memorial Auditorium in Dallas, Texas was scheduled for the night of November 22nd, 1963, however the show was cancelled due to President Kennedy’s assassination.

In 1965, Raymond decided to leave the duo in order to complete his college education.

He also had reasoned that he had no interest in show business. The decision was made in the middle of a Caravan of Stars show, prompting Dick Clark to fill in. Interestingly despite his decision to stop performing, he recorded a Christian album in 1967, titled He’s Everything to Me.  He also had a 1970's hit song titled “Anybody Here Wanna Live Forever?”.  Later he and Paul Land performed comedy and Christian music during the 1980's and 1990's.

After the breakup of Paul and Paula, Jill Jackson pursued a solo career. Raymond and Jill remained friends and in the early 2000's, they would get together to perform as Paul and Paula at oldies shows.  Raymond Hildebrand passed away on August 18th, 2023 at the age of 82.

Here is their number one hit from 1962, “Hey Paula”.

This has been the story behind Paul and Paula’s number one hit from 1962, on Rock and Roll Flashback. And until next time I’m your host Bill Price.