"Hey Paula"
Brownwood, Brown County, Texas
Marker Inscription
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.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the fall of 1962, two native-Texan students at Howard Payne College in Brownwood, Ray Hildebrand and Jill Jackson, teamed up to record a love song Ray had written the summer before. Cut in a Fort Worth studio and released under the names Paul and Paula, "Hey Paula" exploded into a phenomenon, selling 16,000 copies in a single day and topping the Billboard pop chart in 1963. The "Sweethearts of the '60s" toured and appeared on television, and some credit the duo with inspiring later male-female pop pairings.
Why it matters
The song marks Texas's contribution to the golden age of American pop music and the outsized cultural reach a small-town recording could achieve in the early 1960s.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The early 1960s were a golden age for American pop music. Radio was king, the 45 rpm single was the currency of youth culture, and a catchy song could leap from a small studio to the top of the charts in a matter of weeks. Teenagers had money and transistor radios, and the whole country seemed tuned to the same handful of hits.
Brownwood, Texas, in the fall of 1962, was a long way from the music capitals of New York, Nashville, or Los Angeles. It was a college town in the heart of the state, home to Howard Payne College, where students juggled classes, part-time work, and — for the musically inclined — folk groups and local radio spots. It was exactly the kind of ordinary place that the early-sixties music industry could suddenly turn extraordinary.
This was also an era of a particular romantic sweetness in pop. Songs about young love, sung by wholesome-looking duos, sold by the millions. The "boy sings to girl, girl sings back" formula was pure and enormously popular — and it was about to find one of its defining examples in a Texas college town.
People & events
The two people at the center of this story were both native Texans who happened to land at the same small college at the same time. Raymond Hildebrand, born in 1940 in Joshua, had come to Howard Payne on a path paved by basketball — a scholarship to a junior college in Corsicana, then recruitment to play in Brownwood. Jill Jackson, born in 1942 in McCamey, was a sophomore that fall. In a small-world twist, Ray rented a room from Jill's aunt and uncle.
They were both already musicians, performing with a local folk group and recording songs for a Brownwood radio station. The turning point came when Ray played Jill and her mother a song he'd written the previous summer, inspired by a friend and his girlfriend. They were certain it would be a hit. The three of them were right.
The pair drove to Fort Worth and recorded the song in a studio in the basement beneath a radio station. Released under the stage names Paul and Paula, it detonated: 16,000 copies sold in a single day, nearly two million in all, three weeks at number one on the Billboard pop chart in 1963, and number one abroad in places as far-flung as Japan and England. As the "Sweethearts of the '60s," Ray and Jill toured and appeared on television, and some credit their pairing with inspiring later male-female duos.
Its place in the American story
This is a story about the astonishing reach a small-town recording could achieve at the peak of the American pop era. Two college students, a song written over a summer, a studio in a basement — and the result played on radios around the world, topping charts on multiple continents. It's the democratic promise of early-sixties pop distilled into a single hit.
Texas has long been a wellspring of American music, and this song is one of its contributions to the pop mainstream — proof that the hit factory of the early 1960s could be fed from anywhere, not just the big coastal studios. The "universal lovers" image the duo projected was a template of its moment, and their success helped define the male-female duo as a pop form.
That a song is estimated to have played somewhere in the world nearly every day since it was cut in the fall of 1962 is its own kind of monument. Most local stories fade; this one became a permanent thread in the soundtrack of the twentieth century, carrying the name of a Texas college town along with it.
If you visit
Brownwood invites you to see a college town as the unlikely birthplace of a worldwide hit. This is central Texas, and Howard Payne College remains at the heart of the community — the same campus where two students crossed paths in 1962 and made pop history. Walking the area, it's fun to imagine the everyday scenes behind the song: a rented room, a folk group's rehearsals, a homemade tune played for a mother's approval.
The marker celebrates a moment of pure serendipity, so let yourself feel that. The magic here isn't grand architecture — it's the idea that a smash record can start with a young songwriter, a borrowed hour of belief, and a drive to a nearby studio.
If you're a music lover on a Texas road trip, this makes a delightful stop, a reminder that the state's musical legacy runs far beyond its famous stages. Cue up the song before you go, and you'll hear Brownwood in it — a melody that left a small college town and never stopped traveling.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Ray Hildebrand
- · Jill Jackson
Themes & tags
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