Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do — Jivin' Gene and the Jokers Beat Sedaka to the Title

Louisiana Rock and Roll in the Summer of '59

Before Neil Sedaka turned the phrase into one of the defining pop hits of the early 1960s, a teenage Louisiana singer named Gene Bourgeois and his band the Jokers took it to the Billboard Hot 100 and made it stick. Jivin' Gene, as he was known professionally, was a product of the south Louisiana music scene, a region that in the late 1950s was producing a uniquely swampy, untamed brand of rock and roll that sat somewhere between country, rhythm and blues, and the raw energy of early rockabilly. This was not the slick Nashville product or the polished sounds coming out of New York; it was something rawer, closer to the earth, charged with the particular electricity of the Gulf Coast.

The Song and Its Sound

Jivin' Gene's version of Breaking Up Is Hard To Do does not share its title with the Sedaka hit by coincidence; the phrase was simply floating in the pop vocabulary of the era, available to anyone who wanted to hang a song on it. Gene's record is a piece of driving late-fifties rock and roll with a Louisiana accent, built around the kind of simple, propulsive arrangement that the independent labels of that era had perfected. There is no sophistication on offer and none is required; the track communicates its feeling through sheer forward momentum, through the teenage directness of a vocal that does not waste time with elaboration. The Jokers behind him play with a looseness that feels lived-in rather than rehearsed.

Four Weeks on the Hot 100

The record debuted on the Hot 100 on September 7, 1959, at position 83, and moved carefully through its first weeks on the chart. A peculiarity in its chart history, a gap between early October and late October 1959, suggests either a brief radio fade or a reporting irregularity, but the record returned and found its highest point: number 69 on November 2, 1959. It spent four weeks charting in total. For a regional artist on a smaller label, breaking into the Hot 100 at all was a genuine achievement; cracking the top 70 was something to put on a poster. Jivin' Gene had done something that most Louisiana teenagers with a guitar and a dream never managed.

The Geography of Late-Fifties Rock

The American South in 1959 was one of the most fertile territories for rock and roll precisely because it sat at the crossroads of so many different traditions. Country music came down from the hills; rhythm and blues pulsed through the Black communities of every Southern city; Cajun and zydeco sounds percolated through the bayous of Louisiana; gospel underpinned almost everything. A young performer like Jivin' Gene was absorbing all of it simultaneously, and what came out was music that reflected that complexity. The Louisiana music scene of this period produced artists including Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, and Little Richard, all of whom drew on the same cultural wellspring. Gene's moment on the charts placed him in remarkable company.

Small History, Real Sound

Jivin' Gene and the Jokers were not destined for superstardom; the historical record on their later careers is modest. But 32 million YouTube plays tell you that the record has outlived its original context by a considerable margin and found listeners who had no idea what a regional Louisiana chart act from 1959 was supposed to sound like. What they found was a record with genuine life in it. That is not a small thing. Regional rock and roll from this era was often buried under the weight of the national stars; when a track like this one surfaces and still moves people, it is a reminder of how much music the mainstream narrative always left out. Press play and hear what was happening in the parts of America the major labels overlooked.

“Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” — Jivin' Gene And The Jokers' singular moment on the 1950s charts.