#16 Hello Stranger -- Barbara Lewis (1963)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-VDbbjIto4

I actually never heard this song until I got to Lebanon Valley College in 1971. The freshman class decided to have a dance marathon, and since I had been elected President of the class (a long story ...) I certainly wasn’t going to miss it. Most of the live entertainment was provided by a freshman-based “grease band”, which played 50s and early 60s rock songs (“Teen Angel”, etc.) along the lines of Sha Na Na. At one point, however, Jane Garlock (a junior) went to the piano and did a version of “Hello Stranger” – I fell in love with the song immediately. Yvonne Elliman and Queen Latifah have both done nice cover versions, but Lewis’s original (she also wrote the song) remains definitive.