Terry Stafford

Terry Stafford earned lasting recognition as a one-hit wonder thanks to the Elvis Presley–styled single “Suspicion,” which reached the pop Top Five in 1964 despite the height of Beatlemania. Born November 22, 1941, in Hollis, Oklahoma, he spent his childhood in Amarillo, Texas. After finishing high school he relocated to Los Angeles, where he sang at local dances and social functions while seeking a recording contract. He cut a demo of “Suspicion,” an album track from Elvis Presley’s 1962 LP Pot Luck, and a neighborhood disc jockey played it for Crusader Records. The label remastered the track and issued it nationally that year, sending it to number three on the pop charts during a week when the Beatles occupied the other four Top Five positions. Stafford never matched that success, although the follow-up “I’ll Touch a Star” climbed into the Top 30. He kept performing, appeared in the film Wild Wheels, and wrote songs, among them Buck Owens’ hit “Big in Vegas.” In 1973 he joined Atlantic’s newly established country division and cut the album Say, Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose. The title track reached the country Top 40, while its B-side, the Stafford co-write “Amarillo by Morning,” found regional airplay and was later turned into a major hit by George Strait. Stafford remained with Atlantic through 1974 before leaving the music business. He died of liver failure in Amarillo on March 17, 1996.