True story, back when we were trying to pick out Twitter handles in 2008, we almost went by @ConwayTwitter, but we instead went for a real name. Now the handle is taken, probably by someone who doesn't even like Conway Twitty, who would have been 77 years old today. He passed away on June 5, 1993, of an abdominal aortic aneurysm at the age of just 59 years old.
And sadly, @KanyeTwitty is also taken.
Fun fact: Twitty's real name was Harold Lloyd Jenkins. Some say he changed it after looking at a map and seeing Conway, Arkansas and Twitty, Texas, while one W. Conway Twitty Jr. from Virginia briefly met Jenkins and his name was taken soon after at Jenkins' manager's urging.
Either way, someone named "Harold Lloyd Jenkins" couldn't get away with singing "I'd like to look inside your soul before I lay you down," without getting pepper spray in his eyes.
Rocks Off grew up listening to Twitty, along with all the usual country legends like Hank Williams Sr., George Jones, and Marty Robbins, and he always seemed hella smooth. Every song was about loving chicks down and generally being a man-whore, cool stuff when you are used to angry grungers crying about pain and misery. You could say Twitty was the country Marvin Gaye, with possibly untold amounts of Southern babies being conceived to his music.
But as fun and suave as his music was, some of the lyrics and song titles wouldn't fly today, unless he was an R&B singer. R. Kelly and Robin Thicke can get away with the raunchy stuff, but modern pop-country is kind of tame, more traditional drinking songs and female revenge than anything else.
Twitty came from an age where a gold necklace, a killer pompadour or perm, a Cadillac, and a pair of tight-fittin' jeans (or slacks) was all a man needed to pick up chicks.
Some of his lines, though, if spoken to a modern 21st-century woman, could get you a good tasering or a restraining order. Rocks Off collected five songs that are especially "sassy" from his decades-long catalog to showcase his bedroom-ready brain.