Among Pitney's most famous hits are "Town Without Pity", "(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance", "Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa", "I'm Gonna Be Strong", "It Hurts to Be in Love", and "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart".

He also wrote the early-1960s hits "Rubber Ball" recorded by Bobby Vee, "Hello Mary Lou" by Ricky Nelson, and "He's a Rebel" by the Crystals.

In early 1959, he released two records on the Decca label, "Snuggle Up Baby" and "Classical Rock and Roll", as part of a duo called Jamie and Jane with Ginny Arnell.

Signed to songwriter Aaron Schroeder's newly formed Musicor label in 1961, Pitney scored his first chart single, which made the Top 40, the self-penned "(I Wanna) Love My Life Away", on which he played several instruments and multi-tracked the vocals.

Meanwhile, Pitney wrote hits for others, including "Today's Teardrops" for Roy Orbison, "Rubber Ball" for Bobby Vee, "Hello Mary Lou" for Ricky Nelson, and "He's a Rebel" for the Crystals (later recorded by Vikki Carr and Elkie Brooks).

"Rebel" kept Pitney's own #2 hit "Only Love Can Break a Heart", his highest-charting single in the US, from the top spot on 3 November 1962, the only time that a writer shut himself (or herself) out of the #1 position.

Because of his success on the music charts, and as he explained to his friend, oldies DJ 'Wild' Wayne, an unknown radio disc jockey at the time gave Pitney the nickname 'The Rockville Rocket', which caught on.

Pitney's popularity in the UK market was ensured by the breakthrough success of "Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa", a Bacharach and David song, which peaked at #5 in Britain at the start of 1964.

Pitney was present with Phil Spector at some of the Rolling Stones' early recording sessions in London, including "Little by Little" and other tracks for their debut album;[6] he played piano, though the extent of this is uncertain.

He returned one last time to the Top 40 in April 1968 with "She's a Heartbreaker" (#16) and placed several singles in the lower reaches of the Hot 100 after that, but by 1970 he was no longer a hit-maker in the United States.

In Australia, after a fallow period in the early 1970s, Pitney returned to the Top 40 in 1974, when both "Blue Angel" (#2) and "Trans-Canada Highway" (#14; production by David Mackay) were substantial hits.

[12] It has been repeated on television over the years, notably on a 2002 episode of BBC One series Room 101,[11] in which host Paul Merton described it as a "very funny moment" in which Pitney came in "unbearably late".

[10] At the height of his fame in 1967, Pitney married his childhood sweetheart, Lynne Gayton, and the couple had three sons, Todd, Christopher, and David.

[14][15] Pitney was touring the UK in the spring of 2006 when his manager found him dead in his hotel room following a concert in Cardiff, Wales, on April 5.