Log Cabin Stories: Little Dippers on University

The Little Dippers - Two By Four (University U-210), 1959

This record is almost forgotten today, although one side, “Forever”, reached #9 on Billboard’s Hot 100 charts in 1960. It was a smash pop hit back then. A bit unusual for this blog as my selections usually come from the American roots music fields.

The Little Dippers were made up of studio musicians Floyd Cramer, Hank Garland, Buddy Harman, Kelso Herston, Bob Moore, and the Anita Kerr Singers. They recorded both “Forever” and the Duane Eddy styled instrumental “Two by Four” in the fall of 1959 in Nashville. The producer of the session and composer of “Forever” was Buddy Killen, a Nashville record producer and publisher who had some connections to an Arkansas business man.

Killen knew Chevrolet car dealer Harold Sadler from Little Rock, who had founded Unirock Music in 1959 to break into the music business. Sadler also operated the University record label and Killen even cut a single under his own name for the label that year and some of the other productions on the label were Killen productions as well. “Forever” and “Two by Four” were produced at the end of a Smilin’ Eddie Hill session for University and released in December 1959 under the name of the “Little Dippers”. The song became a hit early in 1960, reaching #9 in the US and #13 in Canada. It was also released in many other countries, including New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Germany, France, and some more European countries.

Dick Clark contacted Killen and invited the group to perform on his “American Bandstand” show but there was no real group to appear – most of the musicians had responsibilities in Nashville. A touring group was put together for these purposes. Killen and his session band tried to repeat the success with some more Little Dippers productions, two more for University and one more for Dot, but the success could not be repeated. By early 1961, the University label had folded.