Trivia

Country singer.

Had a series of minor country hits with Don Gibson from 1972-1975.

By the age of 7, she was singing and playing the guitar on stage.

She married when she was 17, and had a daughter at 20, but the marriage failed and she and her husband split up after three years. To keep supporting herself after her divorce, she returned to the nightclub scene in California, now using the name Sue Thompson.

Sue Thompson died at her daughter's home in Pahrump, Nevada, on September 23, 2021, at the age of 96.

She also performed mainly at the Las Vegas casinos and at clubs in Hollywood, like the Palomino Club. In the 1990s, she settled in Las Vegas, and continued to periodically perform.

Born in Nevada, Missouri in July 1925, she later moved with her family to live in San Jose, California.

Her last chart single came in 1976 with "Never Naughty Rosie," and she subsequently concentrated on the Las Vegas casino circuit.

In 1971 she worked with country music singer Don Gibson on some albums, and they had minor hits with "I Think They Call It Love", "Good Old Fashioned Country Love", and "Oh, How Love Changes". She recorded further solo singles for the country charts, like "Big Mable Murphy", which made the Top 50 in 1975 and "Never Naughty Rosie", her last chart single in 1976.

Within a year, she divorced Dude Martin, and married Hank Penny, a comedian and singer, in 1953. Penny and Thompson hosted a TV show in Los Angeles together before eventually moving to Las Vegas. Thompson and Penny had a son, Greg Penny, but divorced in 1963.

In the late 1960s, she went back to country music and released the album This Is Sue Thompson Country in 1969.

She was best known for the million selling hits "Sad Movies (Make Me Cry)" and "Norman", both pop hits in the early 1960s, and her 1965 hit "Paper Tiger".

She also appeared on American Bandstand, Where the Action Is, The Buddy Deane Show, and The Lloyd Thaxton Show (1966 visit and performance of "Paper Tiger").

After her contract with Mercury ended, Thompson recorded for Decca Records from 1954-57, again without a commercial breaktrhough.

In 1960, Thompson signed on with Columbia Records, who renamed the singer "Taffy Thomas" and issued one non-charting single under this artist name. Thereafter, the Taffy Thomas monkier was quickly dropped, and Thompson signed with Hickory Records.

In San Jose, she won a talent contest, thus catching the attention of a bandleader and radio/TV host named Dude Martin (real name John Stephen McSwain), who invited her to sing with his band. This led to their marriage. They recorded duets together, including "If You Want Some Lovin'", which helped her get a solo contract from Mercury Records in 1950.

Her early 1960s' hits made Thompson, then in her late-thirties but with a much younger-sounding voice, a favorite among the teenage crowd and briefly a rival to the much younger Connie Francis and Brenda Lee. Two additional hits, also written by Loudermilk, were "James (Hold the Ladder Steady)" and "Paper Tiger." The latter song, in 1965, was her last Top 30 hit, and her biggest hit in Britain and in Australia, where it reached #3.

In 1961, after having issued over a dozen non-charting singles in a decade-long recording career, Thompson's "Sad Movies (Make Me Cry)" became a No. 5 hit on the pop charts. She followed this up successfully with "Norman," which reached No. 3. Both of these hit singles were written by songwriter John D. Loudermilk. They both sold over one million copies, and were awarded gold discs. Both were also chart successes in Australia, reaching #3 and #8 respectively.

During World War II, she worked at a defense plant.

Best known for her breathy, little-girl singing voice, Sue Thompson had several novelty pop hits in the early '60s before reinventing herself as a more mature country singer in the mid-'70s.

She released numerous singles on Mercury between 1951 and 1954, with no chart action.

She's also the mother of producer Greg Penny, known for working with K. D. Lang.

Sue Thompson was an early pioneer for women in country music, and specifically on the West Coast. Her death, along with Don Maddox and Oklahoma's Jude Northcutt, leaves few performers from the earliest era of country music left, including the 98-year-old Rose Lee Maphis.

Sue Thompson gave boosts to the publishing company's writers Boudleaux & Felice Bryant, Bob Montgomery and especially John D. Loudermilk. The honeydew sweetness and innocence in her voice seemed to particularly suit Loudermilk's songs. In addition to her first two hits, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member penned "If the Boy Only Knew," "James," "What's Wrong Bill," "Big Daddy," "Paper Tiger" (a top hit in Australia & Canada) and "Stop the Music," all of which landed on the pop charts for her in 1962-66.

Sue Thompson had a pert bright quality in her voice that made her sound much younger than a 36-year-old when the whimpering ballad "Sad Movies" made her a teen pop star in 1961.

In 2009 Thompson recorded her favourite song "You Belong to Me" with her son, record producer Greg Penny. The demo was given its radio premiere during the 2010 interview on the South Australian radio show "The Doo Wop Corner" by Carmen Kaye.