"Hey Paula"

It is estimated that the song “Hey Paula” has been played almost every day somewhere in the world since it was recorded in the fall of 1962. The song and its performers, Paul and Paula, exhibited the “Universal Lovers” image and theme that was successful in the mid-1960s. Dubbed the “Sweethearts of the ’60s,” the two entertainers, Raymond (Paul) Hildebrand and Jill (Paula) Jackson, were both native Texans who met while attending Howard Payne College in Brownwood in the fall of 1962.

Raymond Glenn Hildebrand was born on November 21, 1940, in Joshua. He graduated from Harlingen high school and received a basketball scholarship to Navarro Junior College in Corsicana. Soon, he was recruited to play for Howard Payne College. In 1962, as a Howard Payne student, Hildebrand rented a room from the Nettleship family, Jill’s aunt and uncle. Jill, born May 20, 1942, in McCamey, was a sophomore at Howard Payne that fall.

Ray and Jill performed with a local folk group called The Prisoners, and both musicians recorded songs for local radio station KEAN. When Ray played a song for Jill and her mother that he wrote the previous summer about a friend and his girlfriend, they knew it would be a hit. The duo drove to Fort Worth to record the song at Clifford Herring recording studio, in the basement of Radio Station KFJZ. A few weeks later, the song was a smash hit, selling 16,000 copies in one day. The record went on to sell almost two million copies and spent three weeks at #1 on the billboard pop chart in 1963. The song also reached #1 in other countries including Japan, England and Canada. Ray and Jill began a series of television appearances and touring musical shows, and some credit this pairing for inspiring other famous male/female musical duos.