History buffs might know the name Charles Dawes, but to most of us his name will be rather too obscure to recall. So, here’s a refresher: he was Calvin Coolidge’s vice president.
Long before he was Coolidge’s second-in-command, however, Dawes was a pianist and composer. Though Dawes obviously didn’t adopt music as a profession, he definitely made his mark on music in America. In 1912, obsessed by a bit of music he couldn’t get out of his head, Dawes wrote a piano and violin piece called Melody in A Major. It became quite popular, but the Billboard chart was not yet in existence.
It was not until July 1940 that the "Billboard Music Popularity Chart" was first published.
However, the song suddenly became a pop hit after songwriter Carl Sigman added some words to the tune in 1951 and renamed it It’s All in the Game. Tommy Edwards took the song to No. 38 on the Billboard charts that year, but it peaked at No. 1 seven years later when Edwards recorded it again in a rock ‘n’ roll style. Since then, the song has been covered by Elton John, Barry Manilow, Mama Cass, Nat King Cole, Van Morrison and many others.
To date, Dawes is the only Vice President to have a song chart at No. 1, though he sadly missed the whole thing. Dawes died in April 1951, mere months before Sigman added lyrics to his tune.