| MARK
DINNING (ARTIST BIOGRAPHY)
Mark
Dinning (August 17, 1933 - March 22, 1986[1][2]) was an American,
teen idol, pop music singer.
Dinning was born Max E. Dinning[1] near Drury, Oklahoma but grew up
on a farm outside of Nashville, Tennessee. From a musical family,
three of his sisters formed The Dinning Sisters singing group that
had a Top Ten hit in the late 1940s.
Dinning pursued a career in country music and, in 1957, record
producer Wesley Rose got him a recording contract.[2] His recording
efforts met with limited success until 1960, when he recorded a
45rpm single called “Teen Angel” that was written by his sister Jean
and her husband Red Surrey. The lyrics told of the death of a
teenage love and it went to No.1 on the Billboard Charts in the
United States.
Although Dinning never duplicated the success of “Teen Angel”, he
had three minor hit records in the ensuing years. Mark had a voice
similar to Roy Orbison and so, no surprise, one of his best
recordings, and believed to be better than Orbison’s orginal, is his
version of “Come Back to Me (My Love)” (issued on the other side of
the single “Loving Touch”, which is not the Orbison song of the same
name). Dinning continued to perform in the music industry until his
unexpected death at the age of fifty-two from a heart attack in
Jefferson City, Missouri. |