ABSTRACT
Some songwriters work purely from inspiration, and can no more write to order than they can find a word to rhyme with orange. Others are pure craftsmen: if you want a song any time about any subject, they can dash it off. Mitchell Torok falls proudly into the latter category. For fifteen years, he was in and out of the charts as a songwriter and performer. Jim Reeves’s “Mexican Joe” was Torok’s song and a Number 1 country hit. His own recording of “Caribbean” was not only a Number 1 country hit but a pop hit several years later. Another of his records, “When Mexico Gave Up the Rhumba,” stiffed at home, but became a huge hit in England. Add to that his salute to bubbadom, Vernon Oxford’s “Redneck,” several songs for Glen Campbell’s movie Norwood, and an album track or two for Dean Martin and you get some sense of Torok’s prolificacy. (As a footnote, he also cut the original version of “Pledge Of Love,” a charmingly innocent teenage ballad that became a Top 20 pop hit in 1957 for the otherwise forgotten Ken Copeland.)
