Return to Rock-and-Roll Page.Linda Scott was a high school student from the New York City area who was among the first singers to have success in the "girl group" era of pop music in the early 1960's.
She was born Linda Joy Sampson in Queens, New York in 1945. At age eleven her family moved to Teaneck, New Jersey. In the 1950's she listened to her radio and entertained fantasies of becoming a show business star some day. Linda can recall as a child riding her bicycle to Palisades, looking across at the skyline of New York City, and dreaming about a fabulous career.
Linda auditioned successfully for a place on Arthur Godfrey's radio show on CBS. She became a regular on the show along with several other teens, and could be heard on the air in 1959 and 1960. This exposure led to a contract with Epic Records for whom she made her first recording, In-Between Teen, in 1960 under her real name, Linda Sampson.
Neil Galligan was a wealthy businessman from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. In 1959 he had started a record label with offices in Winnipeg and New York City called, appropriately enough, Canadian American Records. In August of that year a song on his label, Sleep Walk by Santo & Johnny, entered the charts and proved to be enormously popular, eventually reaching the number one position. It was this song that helped to put his recording studio on the map. Linda signed with Canadian American and recorded a song that had been featured in the 1932 stage production and the 1934 musical film Music In The Air. Written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, I've Told Every Little Star was released on the Canadian American label as recorded by Linda Scott, early in 1961. ("Scott" was a name that was given to her by the label.) The flip side was Three Guesses, a song that had been written by Linda.
I've Told Every Little Star took off, reaching number three on the charts, and served to launch her career as a successful pop singer. At age fifteen, Linda had not yet completed her junior year in high school. She continued to record for Canadian American, and followed up with the self-written Don't Bet Money Honey which became her second top ten hit. She also recorded another standard from the 1930's, Wayne King's I Don't Know Why, and it went to number 12 in late 1961.
Linda Scott was talented and was turning out hit songs. She continued recording for Canadian American and its sister label, Congress, and had some records that did not quite make the top forty, such as Bermuda and Count Every Little Star. Along with Chubby Checker, Vic Dana, Gene Chandler, and the Dovells, Linda had a role in the 1962 film Don't Knock The Twist, in which she lip-synced to her Congress recording of Yessiree. Her final chart entry was Who's Been Sleeping In My Bed in early 1964. Then came the British Invasion period in pop music.
In 1965 Linda Scott became the co-host, along with singer Steve Alaimo, of the rock television program Where The Action Is, a stint that she found enjoyable. She continued recording throughout the 60's but had little success commercially, at one point backing up Lou Christie on his 1969 recording of I'm Gonna Make You Mine. Linda became disillusioned with making records and left the business.
She enrolled in the United States Army in 1970 and worked as a medical lab technician, stationed in Texas. On leaving the Army two years later, Linda decided that what she really wanted to do was to take up the study of theology. She proceeded to earn a theology degree from Kingsway Christian College and Theological Seminary in Des Moines. In the 1980's she worked as a music teacher at the Christian Academy in New York.
Linda Scott is a very talented singer and the song with which she is most closely associated to this day is her 1961 mega-hit I've Told Every Little Star.
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