Pat Boone’s timeless appeal

One big musical event that audiences should not miss during this Christmas season is the live performance of Pat Boone.

Boone, one of the greatest and most popular singers of the 1950s, has a concert tomorrow, Dec. 6 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City.

He might not be familiar among millennials but Boone’s songs have not lost their appeal, magic and timelessness that evoke beautiful and sweet memories of yesteryears.

The one-night Christmas show titled A Merry Christmas with Pat Boone, mounted by Ovation Production, will bring back the acclaimed American pop star who continues to awe the crowd with his wholesome personality and the magic of his music. He takes the spotlight in his trademark white buck shoes, perfectly combed hair and a gleaming smile on his handsome, clean-cut face.

Boone will perform his most popular Christmas songs, such as White Christmas, O Come All Ye Faithful, Silent Night, I’ll Be Home For Christmas, God RestYe Merry Gentlemen, O Little Town Of Bethlehem, Winter Wonderland, O Holy Night, First Noel, Silver Bells and many more.

He will also sing his timeless hits, including Love Letters In The Sand, Ain’t That A Shame, Friendly Persuasion, Bernardine, April Love, Speedy Gonzales, Deep Purple, Blueberry Hill, Fascination, Tennessee Waltz, among many others.

Boone made his professional recording debut in 1955 and scored his first No. 1 hit in a cover of Fats Domino’s Ain’t That A Shame. This was followed by many other hits and some 54 chart appearances, such as Moody River, Speedy Gonzales, Bernardine, Lover’s Lane, The Main Attraction, Love Letters In The Sand and April Love, among others.

In 1957, he began hosting his own television variety series on ABC, The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom, which aired for 115 episodes and featured many singers and performers, such as Edie Adams, Andy Williams, Pearl Bailey and Johnny Mathis. He also starred in several feature films, such as Bernardine and April Love.

Boone catapulted to international prominence and became a huge pop sensation, next only to Elvis Presley as the most popular singer in the US in the late ’50s.

He set several new records in music and entertainment that have remained unsurpassed until today. Aside from selling over 45 million records, he has scored 38 Top 40 hits and appeared in more than 15 Hollywood movies.

Considered as the best crooner of his time, Boone has been listed by Billboard as the second biggest charting artist of the late ‘50s, behind only Presley but ahead of Ricky Nelson and The Platters.

He was also ranked at No. 9 — behind The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney but ahead of artists such as Aretha Franklin and The Beach Boys — in the magazine’s listing of the Top 100 Top 40 Artists for 1955 to 1995.

He still holds Billboard’s record for spending 220 consecutive weeks on the charts with one or more songs each week.

Boone continued to make waves in the ‘60s even as he ventured into other fields of activities, such as writing a series of self-help books for adolescents, like Twixt Twelve and Twenty, Between You, Me And The Gatepost and Taking And Feeding Of Parents.

The new millennium saw the singer turning out regular releases featuring a diverse batch of albums that included Christmas songs, most of which are part of his playlist for his concert tomorrow. The album collection also includes patriotic standards, a tribute to the Ink Spots, classic R&B songs and 2015’s Pat Boone’s Favorite Bible Stories & Sing-Along Songs.

Tickets to the concert are priced at P5,810, P5,280, P4,755, P3,700 and P2,640 and are available in all Ticketnet outlets and online at www.ticketnet.com or call 9115555.

— With reports from Almed Garcia and Julian Mauricio