Terry Gilkyson

Born: Phoenixville, Pennsylvania 17 June 1916
Died: Austin, Texas 15 October 1999

"Terry" Gilkyson, singer and songwriter, wrote several of the biggest hit records of the early 1950s. His "Memories are Made of This" became both a number one song for Dean Martin in 1956 and a clever catchphrase for the nostalgia boom. He recorded two albums of folk songs, The Solitary Singer, volumes 1 and 2, in 1950 and 1951, but had his first hit record in 1951 when he joined [a=The Weavers], with "On Top of Old Smokey".

With his songwriting friends Rick Dehr and Frank Miller, Gilkyson had formed a folk group, [a=Terry Gilkyson And The Easy Riders]. They released the album "Golden Minutes of Folk Music" in 1953.

In 1958 the Easy Riders scored the film [i]Windjammer[/i], and then in the 1960s, Gilkyson wrote music for the long-running television series [i]The Wonderful World of Disney[/i]. In 1967 Gilkyson wrote the song "The Bare Necessities" for the Walt Disney cartoon [i]The Jungle Book[/i], in 1970 he contributed to the score of [i]The Aristocats[/i].

His daughter [a=Eliza Gilkyson] is a singer-songwriter. His son [a=Tony Gilkyson] has played with both [a=X (5)] and [a=Lone Justice].