April Stevens - Teach Me Tiger

MUSICA&SOM

April Stevens (born Carol LoTempio, April 29, 1936, Niagara Falls, New York) is an American singer. 

She has recorded since she was 16 years old. Her most popular solo recording was her RCA Victor recording of "I'm in Love Again" (music and lyrics by Cole Porter). Accompanied by an orchestra arranged and conducted by Henri René, Stevens' recording peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1951. 

Stevens returned to the U.S. chart in 1959 with the song "Teach Me Tiger", which caused a minor uproar for its sexual suggestiveness and consequently did not receive airplay on many radio stations. The song peaked at No. 86 on the Billboard Hot 100. Stevens' recording of this song is often erroneously accredited to Marilyn Monroe. 

She is perhaps best known for her 1963 Atco Records recording of "Deep Purple" (music by Peter DeRose and lyrics by Mitchell Parish) with her brother Antonino LoTempio (singing under the stage name Nino Tempo). A standard song that Larry Clinton and His Orchestra and band vocalist Bea Wain had popularized in 1939, the Stevens and Tempo version reached No.1 on the Billboard chart in November 1963. The song won the 1964 Grammy Award for Best Rock and Roll Recording. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. 

They also enjoyed a 1964 follow-up hit in the U.S. with the standard song "Whispering" (music by Vincent Rose and lyrics by Richard Coburn and John Schonberger). The recording, which had an arrangement similar to their recording of "Deep Purple", reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. They also had chart success with "All Strung Out", which reached No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966. 

April Stevens - Teach Me Tiger

"In 1959, Nino and April penned a tune slightly reminiscent in theme of (and tagged with an even better punchline than) her early recording "Don't Do It", this one entitled "Teach Me Tiger." This time, however, the singer was a willing young siren, who belies her innocent plea to be 'taught', by sensually coaxing a strangely oblivious young man. Again banned in many markets, "Teach Me Tiger" nevertheless made Billboard's Hot 100 and capped at #86. 

But "Teach Me Tiger" has had many lives in the last 25 years. Re-recorded twice in 1965, the new version became a camp classic in many U.S. and foreign cities. On April 6, 1983, the astronauts aboard space shuttle Challenger requested the song as a wake-up call. NASA obliged the crew, and April was again in the news."