Last Date (Song)

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“Last Date” is a 1960 instrumental written and performed by Floyd Cramer. It exemplifies the “slip note” style of piano playing that Cramer made popular. It peaked at number 11 on the country chart and at number two on the Hot 100 behind “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” by Elvis Presley. Cramer’s recording inspired a number of successful cover versions, including a vocal adaptation by Conway Twitty.

Charts

Cover versions

• Also in 1960, the Davis lyric version was successfully released as a single by Joni James, charting at #38 on the Billboard’ Hot 100.

• And as an album track by several artists including Ann-Margret

• and Pat Boone.

• In 1961 the Ventures covered the song in their distinct surf-guitar style, on their Dolton album Another Smash!!!.

• Ace Cannon recorded a version for his 1963 album Moanin’ Sax.

• In 1963 Duane Eddy recorded a version of the song, along with Floyd Cramer, when Eddy joined the RCA label.

• The Spotnicks recorded the song, also in 1963, and it was issued as a single. The song appeared later on the band’s Greatest Hits album.

• In 1964 Al Hirt released a version on his album, Cotton Candy.

• In 1967 the Soul Runners released a version of the song as a single which did not chart.

• In 1968 Zal Yanovsky of the group The Lovin’ Spoonful released a version on his solo album Alive & Well in Argentina.

• In 1972 Conway Twitty recorded the song, with new lyrics written by him, and was known as “(Lost Her Love) On Our Last Date” and was his seventh solo number one on the US Country Chart. It spent one week at number one and a total of 13 weeks on the chart.

• In 1975 the song was covered by British reggae singer T.T. Ross in 1975 on a single, produced by Dennis Harris, for the Lucky record label, and also issued on Polydor Records.

• In 1987 R.E.M. recorded an instrumental version of the Skeeter Davis version for the B-side of their single “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)“.

• They recorded a vocal version of it with Debbie Harry for her album Debravation in 1993 using the same arrangement.

• American R&B and boogie-woogie pianist and singer Little Willie Littlefield recorded a version for his 1994 album Yellow Boogie & Blues.

• In 2013 the David Bromberg Band recorded a studio version of “Last Date” which had been a regular part of their live repertoire. The song appears on the album Only Slightly Mad.

• In 2014 Ezra Lee recorded his version on the album, Motor Head Baby.
• Virginia Lee

• On April 8, 2024, St. Louis Musician, Paul Neihaus IV, released a single version.

• Jason Coleman

• Sarah Jory

• The Statler Brothers

• In 1960 Skeeter Davis recorded the song, with lyrics written by her and Boudleaux Bryant, titled “My Last Date (with You)“. The song reached No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 4 on Billboard‘s “Hot C&W Sides” chart.

My Last Date (with You)

“My Last Date (with You)” is a song written by Boudleaux Bryant, Floyd Cramer, and Skeeter Davis. In 1960, Skeeter Davis recorded and released the song as a single for RCA Victor. The song was an answer song to Floyd Cramer‘s country pop crossover hit that year titled “Last Date“.

“My Last Date (with You)” was recorded in October 1960 at the RCA Victor Studio in Nashville, Tennessee. The song was released as a single in December 1960, and it peaked at number four on the Billboard Magazine Hot C&W Sides chart later and number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single became Davis’ second top-10 hit single in a row on the country chart. It also became her second single to chart on the Hot 100 and her second on to chart among the top 40. In the later months, the song was issued onto Davis’ second studio album titled Here’s the Answer.

Charts

• In 1960, Lawrence Welk‘s orchestra recorded an instrumental version of the song for an album of the same title; the piano-dominated arrangement stuck very closely to Cramer’s original version. Welk’s version spent 11 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at No. 21.

Last Date (Lawrence Welk Album)

Last Date is an album by Lawrence Welk and His Orchestra. It was released in 1960 on the Dot label (catalog no. DLP-25350).

The album debuted on Billboard magazine’s popular albums chart on December 19, 1960, reached the No. 4 spot, and remained on that chart for 18 weeks

AllMusic gave the album a rating of four-and-a-half stars. Reviewer Greg Adams called it “a program of piano-based pop instrumentals that rank among Welk’s best work of the ’60s.”

Track listing

Side 1

1. “Last Date” (Floyd Cramer) [2:19]

1. “Sleep” (Earl Lebieg) [2:20]
2. “To Each His Own” (Livingston, Evans) [2:29]
3. “The Green Leaves of Summer” (Theme From “The Alamo”) (Tiompkin, Webster) [2:22]
4. “Temptation” (Freed, Brown) [2:06]
5. “Georgia on My Mind” (Carmichael, Gorrell) [2:26]

Side 2

1. “Please Help Me, I’m Falling” (Robertson, Blair) [2:24]
2. “Chances Are” (Stillman, Allen) [2:17]
3. “Melodie D’Amour” (Salvador, Johns) [2:23]
4. “Night Theme” (Peterson, Cogswell) [2:24]
5. “My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own” (Greenfield, Keller) [2:32]
6. “Misty” (Erroll Garner) [2:11]

• In 1982 Emmylou Harris recorded the Conway Twitty version as “(Lost His Love) On Our Last Date” which was her fifth number one on the country chart as a solo artist.

Last Date (Emmylou Harris Album)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
The Austin Chronicle

Last Date is a live Emmylou Harris album, released in October 1982. Recorded at a series of honky tonks and other small venues on the west coast, Harris conceived the album as a showcase for her Hot Band. It was composed mostly of country standards. Harris reached No. 1 on the U.S. country charts with the title single, written by Floyd Cramer, who originally took it to the top ten on the U.S. pop and country charts, as an instrumental in 1960. In 2000, Eminent Records reissued Last Date for the first time on CD, complete with new liner notes and two bonus tracks.

Track listing

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Personnel

• Emmylou Harris – Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Lead Guitar (12)
• Mike Bowden – Bass
• Steve Fishell – Pedal Steel, Dobro
• Wayne Goodwin – Rhythm Guitar, Fiddle, Mandolin, Sax
• Don Johnson – Keyboards, Harmony Vocals
• Frank Reckard – Lead Guitar, Harmony Vocals
• Barry Tashian – Rhythm Guitar, Banjo, Duet Vocals
• John Ware – Drums

Technical personnel

• Brian Ahern – Producer
• Donivan Cowart, Stuart Taylor, Alan Vachon – Engineer

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Release history

Last Date (Eric Dolphy Album)

Last Date is a live album by jazz musician Eric Dolphy released in early 1965 on Limelight Records. It was recorded on June 2, 1964 in Hilversum, North Holland, shortly after Dolphy had settled in Paris, France, following a tour with Charles Mingus. Dolphy is accompanied by the Misha Mengelberg trio on the album. (It was one of Mengelberg’s first appearances on record). The audience was an invited group of recording executives and studio personnel.

The final track, “Miss Ann”, is followed by a brief excerpt from an interview recorded by Michiel de Ruyter for Dutch radio, in which Dolphy states: “when you hear music, after it’s over, it’s gone in the air, you can never capture it again.”

Following the recording, Dolphy wrote to the members of the trio concerning plans to work with them again. However, he died on June 29 from diabetic shock. Two days after Dolphy’s death, drummer Han Bennink received a letter from him containing details regarding a proposed engagement at the Café Montmartre in Copenhagen.

Despite its title, Last Date was not Dolphy’s last recorded performance, as he participated in sessions with Donald Byrd, Nathan Davis, and other musicians in mid-June 1964. These recordings were issued on Naima, released in 1987, Unrealized Tapes (1988), Last Recordings (1999), The Complete Last Recordings: In Hilversum & Paris 1964 (2010), and Paris ’64 (2018).

Ten years after the recording of Last Date, while cleaning his apartment, Mengelberg found a rehearsal tape containing a recording of an 18-minute runthrough of “Epistrophy” at Cafe de Kroon, Eindhoven, Netherlands from the day before the concert. Mengelberg sent the tape to Bennink, along with a letter requesting that he release it on the Instant Composers Pool label. The track was issued on LP by ICP in 1975, backed by a recording of Mengelberg playing a duet with his parrot, Eeko.

Last Date was the inspiration for the 1991 Dolphy documentary of the same name, directed by Hans Hylkema, written by Hylkema and Thierry Bruneau, and produced by Akka Volta. The film includes video clips from Dolphy’s TV appearances, plus interviews with the members of the Mengelberg trio as well as Jaki Byard, Buddy Collette, Ted Curson, Richard Davis, Roy Porter, Gunther Schuller, and Dolphy’s fiancé Joyce Mordecai.

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings

Dolphy biographers Vladimir Simosko and Barry Tepperman called Last Date “a vital set of performances.” In a review for AllMusic, Michael G. Nastos wrote: “Last Date is one of those legendary albums whose reputation grows with every passing year, and deservedly so… it also marks the passing of one era and the beginning of what has become a most potent and enduring legacy of European creative improvised tradition, started by Mengelberg and Bennink at this mid-’60s juncture.” He stated that Mengelberg’s trio were “performers who understand the ways in which [Dolphy] modified music in such a unique, passionate, and purposeful way far from convention”, “a group who understood his off-kilter, pretzel logic concept in shaping melodies and harmonies,” and wrote that they “played so convincingly and with the utmost courage that they created a final stand in the development of how the woodwindist conceived of jazz like no one else before, during, or after his life.”

The authors of the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings wrote: “the performances are very good indeed and Misha Mengelberg’s trio plays sympathetically… There is much of Dolphy that can never be recaptured, which is what makes that which survives so precious.”

Track listing

All compositions by Eric Dolphy except where noted.

Side 1

1. “Epistrophy” (Monk) – 11:15
2. “South Street Exit” – 7:10
3. “The Madrig Speaks, the Panther Walks” – 4:50 (also known as “Mandrake”)

Side 2

1. “Hypochristmutreefuzz” (Mengelberg) – 5:25
2. “You Don’t Know What Love Is” (Raye/De Paul) – 11:20
3. “Miss Ann” – 5:25

Personnel

• Eric Dolphy – bass clarinet (on “Epistroph” and “Hypochristmutreefuzz”), flute (on “South Street Exit” and “You don’t know what Love is”, alto saxophone (on “The Madrig Speaks, the Panther Walks” and “Miss Ann”)
• Misha Mengelberg – piano
• Jacques Schols – double bass
• Han Bennink – drums

May also refer to :

• “The Last Date“, a 1995 episode of Roseanne

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