Forever #1 is a Bulletin board series that pays special tribute to recently deceased artists who achieved the highest honor our charts have to offer — a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single — taking an extensive look back at the chart-topping songs that made them part of that exclusive club. Here, we honor the late Maurice Williams, who died on August 5 at age 86, by looking at his lone No. 1, the doo-wop classic “Stay,” which he recorded as frontman for Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs.
Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs meet the most common definition of one-hit wonders, having had just one top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 – but, boy, what a hit. Their doo-wop classic “Stay” reached No. 1 in November 1960, sandwiched between two other top classics, Ray Charles' “Georgia on My Mind” and “Are You Lonesome To-night?” by Elvis Presley.
Hymns of “Residence!From his colleagues, Williams conveys much of the song and its appeal to a girl to stay out longer than she's supposed to. Her dad and mom won't hurt her, Williams argues, not entirely convincingly. Midway through, he steps back and gives the lead to Henry Gaston for one of pop music's most memorable falsetto vocals — “Oh, you won't stay, just a little longer!”
Williams wrote the song in 1953 when he was just 15 years old. The song was inspired by his love for one Mary Shropshire. “[Mary] he was the one I was trying to hang on to a little bit longer,” Williams told the North Carolina publication Our State in 2012. “Of course, he couldn't.” (The more restrictive mores of the 1940s and 1950s inspired other great pop songs like the Academy Award-winning “Baby, It's Cold Outside” and the Everly Brothers' “Wake Up Little Susie.”)
“It took me about 30 minutes to write 'Stay,' and then I threw it away,” Williams told ClassicsBands.com. “We were looking for songs to record as Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs. I was at my girlfriend's house playing the tape of the songs I had written, when her little sister said, “Please play the song in a high voice.” I knew he meant “Stay.” He was about 12 years old and I said to myself, “This is the record buying age,” and the rest is history. I thank God for her.”
Zodiacs producer Phil Gernhard took the demo, along with some others, to New York and played it for all the label representatives he knew. Al Silver of Herald Records was interested, but insisted that the song be re-recorded as the recording levels were too low. He also said that one line, “Let's do another smoke”, would have to be removed in order for the song to be played on commercial radio.
The track runs just 1:38. It's the shortest of the 1,174 singles to reach No. 1 on the Hot 100. You could play the entire song six times in the time it would take to play the longest-running No. 1 hit, Taylor Swift's “All” Too Well (Taylor's Version)” (which runs 10:13, according to the mainstream version the week the song topped the Hot 100 in 2021) only once. But, despite its historical brevity, the record never feels so short. It's just exactly what it needs to tell its story. It's a credit to the group and Gernhard that they didn't just pay it to make it more.
The song entered the Hot 100 at No. 86 on October 3, 1960 – although in a blunder, Williams was credited as a solo artist. The charge switched to Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs in week 2, when the record peaked at No. 40. The record reached the top 10 on November 7 (when another great R&B record, the Drifters' “Save the Last Dance for Me” “, was No. 1). Two weeks later it reached No. 1.
“Stay” was only the third No. 1 in Hot 100 history (which began in August 1958) written and recorded by a black artist. This was followed by Lloyd Price's “Stagger Lee” (which he co-wrote with Harold Logan) and Dave “Baby” Cortez's instrumental smash “The Happy Organ” (which he co-wrote with Ken Wood).
Williams and the Zodiacs' recording of “Stay” was the first major hit for producer Gernhard, who returned to the top five of the Hot 100 in the '60s and '70s as producer of the Royal Guardmen's breakthrough hit “Snoopy vs. Red Baron,” Dion's heart-pounding “Abraham, Martin and John,” “Me and You and a Dog Named Boo” and Lobo's “I'd Love You to Want Me,” “Spiders and Snakes” by Jim Stafford and The Bellamy Brothers' “Let Your Love Flow,” the latter, Gernhard's second No. 1 on the Hot 100.
The Billboard Hot 100 Chart for the week ending November 27, 1960.
Williams and the Zodiacs had two more Hot 100 hits in 1961, but both were minor hits – “I Remember” (No. 86) and “Come Along” (No. 83). The group had broken through near the edge of doo-wop's peak. Few doo-wop artists outside of the 4 Seasons, who had doo-wop roots, had as extensive a pop career as Motown, and beginning in 1964, the British Invasion took over. A 1965 song by Williams, “May I,” looked promising, but the group's record label, Vee-Jay, went bankrupt around the time the song was released. “May I” would become a top 40 hit in March 1969 for a white pop group, Bill Deal & the Rhondels.
Williams had the same frustrating experience, on a much larger scale, in 1957 when his group The Gladiolas released the original version of “Little Darlin'” (which Williams also wrote). The Gladiolas' version reached No. 11 on the R&B Best-Sellers in stores and No. 41 on the Billboard Top 100, a precursor to the Hot 100. But as was customary at the time, a cover by a white group, The Diamonds, became the greater success. The Diamonds' version spent eight weeks at No.2 Best Sellers in stores and was featured in the 1973 film American graffiti – a nostalgic film that was perfectly timed as the Watergate scandal broke wide open. American graffiti it won an Academy Award for Best Picture and was inducted into the National Motion Picture Registry in 1995. The double-disc soundtrack album, a first-rate collection of classics, reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200 in February 1974.
'Stay' was memorably featured in two films – American hot waxa 1978 film about legendary DJ Alan Freed and the 1987 blockbuster; Dirty Dancinganother nostalgic film that provided relief from the ills of the time, such as Iran/Contra and AIDS. “Stay” appeared on Dirty Dancing soundtrack, which topped the Billboard 200 for 18 non-consecutive weeks.
Many artists have recorded successful covers of “Stay”. In November 1963, the song was released by The Hollies, whose bright, effervescent version shifted the focus from doo-wop to rock'n'roll. Their release reached No. 8 on the Official UK Singles Chart, becoming the first of 18 top 10 hits in their country.
Two covers have reached the top 20 on the Hot 100 – one by the 4 Seasons in April 1964 (with Frankie Valli playing Gaston's falsetto) and another by Jackson Browne in August 1978 (with David Lindley handling the falsetto vocals). Browne cleverly rephrased the song from a romantic plea to a plea from the artists to the audience to let them play a little longer. Instead of saying that mum and dad won't mind, he argues that the promoter, union and roadies won't mind (again, not entirely convincing!). Browne's version directly followed his own song “The Load-Out” on his hit album Running on Emptya No. 3 album on the Billboard 200 and a Grammy nominee for Album of the Year. This two-song pairing, which also featured vocalist Rosemary Butler, was recorded live at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland.
There have been many other notable covers of the song. The Dave Clark Five recorded the song for their studio album I'm happy everywherewhich reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 in May 1964. Andrew Gold recorded a version of “Stay” for the 1976 album What's wrong with this picture? which also spawned his only top 10 hit on the Hot 100, “Lonely Boy.” Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band teamed up with Browne, Butler and Tom Petty to record the song at No nukes concert at Madison Square Garden in September 1979. The recording appeared on a triple disc album which entered the top 20 of the Billboard 200 in January 1980.
Maurice Williams did not have enough hits to receive major honors. He's not in the Songwriters Hall of Fame (even though he wrote two colossal hits). He and the Zodiacs haven't even been nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But placing 'Little Darlin' and 'Stay' in such iconic films as American graffiti and Dirty Dancing helps ensure these songs live on forever.
And Williams' place in the Hot 100 record books seems secure: Even as hit songs get shorter and shorter in the age of TikTok, no one has yet surpassed Williams for his 98 seconds of pop perfection.
