Dale and Grace

Mixing genteel, innocent ballads with touches of Creole and honky tonk piano, Louisiana duo Robert 'Dale' Houston and Grace Broussard were one of the swamp pop acts of the early 1960s and topped the charts with their debut single I'm Leaving It Up To You. Houston grew up playing piano and singing in churches in Covington County, Mississippi before being spotted in a bar by music entrepreneur Sam Montalbanom who hired him to write for his label Montel Records. Broussard cut her teeth playing at bistros around Louisiana with her brother, and started singing with Houston after they met at a party. When Houston headed for the studio next morning, Broussard tagged along, and they ended up recording a rushed demo of I'm Leaving It Up To You. Unbeknown to the pair, Montalbano brought in studio musicians to finish the track off and was soon playing it on local radio. It went on to become a huge hit and reached number one in the US charts in 1963, propelling the duo on to national TV shows like the Dick Clark Caravan Of Stars and American Bandstand. They followed up with another top ten hit in Stop And Think It Over but, as the US charts were invaded by The Beatles and a host of beats bands, their popularity began to wane. In October 2007 they were inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame, but Houston died on the same night from heart failure aged 67.