Gene Pitney, who died yesterday at 65 after a performance at a hotel in Wales, was a singer and songwriter whose wailing tenor could be heard in such early 1960s hits as “Only Love Can Break a Heart,” “Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa,” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.”

A songwriter of distinction as well, Pitney wrote “Hello Mary Lou,” a major hit for Ricky Nelson in 1962,and the iconic “He’s a Rebel,” sung by the Crystals, which was no. 1 on the American pop charts at the same time that “Only Love Can Break a Heart” was no. 2.

Pitney was an international star through the 1960s, and recorded albums in Spanish and Italian. Forty of his songs hit the Britain’s top 40, including “That Girl Belongs to Yesterday,” an early Mick Jagger/Keith Richards composition.

Pitney’s hit rendition of “Town Without Pity,” from the soundtrack of the 1961 Kirk Douglas film of the same name, won a Golden Globe for best motion picture song and was nominated for an Academy Award; Pitney performed it live at the Oscars ceremony, and often used its dramatic lyrics as a piercing encore in performance:

How can we keep love alive
How can anything survive
When these little minds tear you in two What a town without pity can do
No, it isn’t very pretty what a town without pity can do

His voice was so expressive that the listener could almost keep a straight face.

Pitney, apparently Connecticut’s greatest contribution to rock ‘n’ roll, was raised in Rockville, a suburb of Hartford, and grew up “collecting stamps and coins, trapping mink and muskrat, and experimenting with electronics,” as he wrote on his Web site. He also played piano, drums, and guitar, and started a teenage band, Gene Pitney and the Genials. While attending electronics vocational school, he recorded a single as half the duet Jamie and Jane, but despite an A&R’s man advice to adopt the moniker “Homer Muzzy,” Pitney decided to use his real name professionally.

Pitney’s first success came as a songwriter, including songs for Steve Lawrence and Billy Bland. After Roy Orbison used Pitney’s “Today’s Teardrops” as the B-side to his hit “Blue Angel” in 1960, Pitney dropped out of school and moved to New York to concentrate on music.

In 1960, Bobby Vee had a 1 million seller with Pitney’s “Rubber Ball,” and the next year Pitney had a minor hit of his own, “I Wanna Love My Life Away,” on which he played all the instruments and used overdubbed vocals. In a 1991 interview with the London Independent, Pitney described his recording technique: “I had two tape recorders. When I’d written a song, I’d set one up and record me singing and playing the piano. Then I’d play that back as loud as it would go, while I sang backing and played the guitar, recording on the second one. Then I would sit back in a chair and think, what a piece of crap. Then I’d start again. That happened with ‘He’s a Rebel’ – I did that in three versions before I happened on the hook, and it came together in about half an hour after that.”

Dubbed by boosterish Connecticutians “The Rockville Rocket,” Pitney’s career took off quickly, and he was soon working with top talent. Phil Spector, producer of “He’s a Rebel,” also produced Pitney’s 1962 hit, “Every Breath I Take.” Pitney collaborated with Burt Bacharach on “Liberty Valance” and “Only Love Can Break a Heart” (both 1963),and was one of the earliest singers to use material penned by Randy Newman, including “Nobody Needs Your Love,” a big hit in Britain in 1966.

Despite having 14 Top 40 hits in America, Pitney was always more popular in Britain, and he toured there frequently in the 1960s, and at one point was presented to the Queen Mother. He played piano on a pair of early Rolling Stones songs. He also made the acquaintance of the Beatles, and told the Hartford Courant that he was hanging out with them at a birthday party when their fabled first performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” first aired in England, in 1964.

“Can you imagine that?” he said. “Me and the Beatles sitting around on the floor watching TV at a party for Ethel Merman.”

Pitney took an extended break from touring in the 1970s, but starting in the early 1980s began again, and toured pretty much incessantly from then until his death. He did extended tours in Australia and New Zealand, where his popularity was astounding. He wasn’t an oldies act, and continued to update his repertoire, while continuing to perform fan favorites. In 1990, he scored a surprise no. 1 hit in Britain, a re-recording of his 1966 hit “Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart,” done as an unlikely duet with electronica pioneer Marc Almond.

Like many others, Pitney was romantically linked with Marianne Faithful in the 1960s, but in 1966 married his high school sweetheart. They lived in rural Somers, Conn., eschewing rock star frippery.

In 2002, Pitney was finally honored for his contributions to rock history. The Courant led the story, “Cleveland, home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, was a town without Pitney for far too long.”

Gene Francis Allan Pitney

Born February 17, 1941, in Hartford, Conn.; died April 5 at a hotel in Wales, of apparently natural causes; survived by his wife, Lynne, and three sons, David, Chris, and Todd.