Gene Allison was the accidental star who became a one-hit wonder in 1957 with his gospel-tinged debut single You Can Make It If You Try.

It’s remarkable how many artists in the history of popular music enjoyed their biggest success with their very first single. Gene Allison is one: he never bettered his 1957 debut You Can Make It If You Try. And the irony is, his record label didn’t even want to sign him.

It was only thanks to the stubbornness of Nashville producer Ted Jarrett that when Vee-Jay Records came calling for his protege Larry Birdsong, he insisted they also sign Allison.

Predictably, it was then the unwanted artist who have greater success than his fellow one-hit-wonder, who had a solitary R&B hit the previous year with Pleadin’ My Love.

Allison, born in Tennessee in 1934, was raised from the age of seven in Nashville, where he sang in the church choir before joining a gospel quartet The Fairfield Four.

Jarrett spotted him there and, during his next stint with The Skylarks, convinced him to switch to secular music and record as a solo artist.

You can still hear elements of gospel in this, his debut single, which was released in 1957 and became a mainstream pop hit early the following year.

Its success was enough for Allison to open his own Nashville restaurant, a 24-hour soul food joint called Gene’s Drive-In, with his mother as manager.

Allison returned to the R&B charts with two more Top 20 hits, the gospel ballad Have Faith and Everything Will Be Alright, but although the raw, soulful power of his voice remained undiminished, he never again matched his initial success.

He died from liver and kidney failure in 2004, at the age of 69.