Stay

Maurice Williams - Stay

Just the other day I was in Nukuʻalofa, the captial of the Kingdom of Tonga. One night, I ventured out to a bar where a local cover band was entertaining the revillers. With a seemingly endless series of rotating vocalists, they were mainly dishing out southern rock staples; CCR, Lynyrd Skynyrd, etc. As I found out, swampy tunes suit tropical climes. But, when they slided into a version of today's selection, I knew what my next blog post had to be.

Stay is an absolutely georgeous song, albeit a little brief. It was written by a fifteen year old Maurice Williams after he unsuccessfully tried to convince his date to break her curfew. However, it was seven full years later when Williams and his group, The Zodiacs, climbed all the way to number one with it in 1960. Stay's inclusion on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack -- one of the best selling albums of all time -- ensured that William's gentle and sweet doo-wop pleading reached a new generation of listeners. My sincere hope is that this blog post will have a similar effect.