COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio State University community is mourning the loss of John Tatgenhorst, the man who arranged "Hang On Sloopy" for the school's marching band in 1965. He was 85.
Tatgenhorst was an Ohio State graduate and arranged music for TBDBITL for more than 40 years.
In the summer of 1965, Tatgenhorst was on break from school at Ohio State and was working at the Ohio State Fair when he heard the song "Hang On Sloopy" performed by The McCoys playing over the speakers.
He immediately thought the song would be a good fit for a marching band to perform, so he brought the idea to his Ohio State professor Charles Spohn, the band's director at the time. Spohn was initially not interested in the idea but changed his mind in the fall of 1965 when he was putting together a halftime show celebrating the arts.
Tatgenhorst was working and got a call from Spohn telling him to go ahead and arrange the song for the band. But the catch was it needed to be done by the next day.
In just around four hours, Tatgenhorst arranged "Hang on Sloopy" for the marching band. After finishing it, he decided to give it a few more tweaks, including changing the key from F to G-flat and adding a modulation to heighten the drama.
The band rehearsed the song a few days later and loved it. They proceeded to perform it for the very first time on Oct. 9, 1965, exactly one week after The McCoys’ version of “Hang on Sloopy” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 list.
Now nearly 60 years later, "Hang On Sloopy" has become synonymous with Ohio State and even the state itself, with the 116th Ohio General Assembly passing a resolution to make it the state’s official rock song in 1985.
Thanks to Tatgenhorst, "Hang On Sloopy" will live on in infamy in the great state of Ohio and beyond.
