I just sent this email to my old HS bud who is retired in Florida. 
Thought someone might recall the group.
Have a good weekend all.
Sid  (still alive and well in the north woods)

Hi Jim,

Thought this might stir some memories.  I just found this copy of an email that I sent to someone a few years ago (don't recall who).
I'm sure you remember the great songs by the Hilltoppers.  They were four guys who formed their group while students at U. of Kentucky.
The girls who taught me to dance were Carol Vetter and Liz Cheney (I think).

Anyway, enjoy.    Sposed to be a nice sunny weekend here.  Most of May has been cool with much rain.
Take care and have a good Memorial Weekend.

Sid

Poor Butterfly

Sometime before the Hilltoppers' rendition hit the juke boxes in the Cincinnati area in the early 1950s I had heard Poor Butterfly somewhere. On the radio is my best guess.   Anyway it kinda got stuck in my mind.  A great song for jazz musicians.

When Linda and I were on our wedding trip in Newport RI in 1966 we made the rounds of all of my old haunts.  Most of which usually featured a small jazz group or at least a jazz pianist even on weeknights  I'm sure we danced a few times to Poor Butterfly.

When my ship was at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in 1959/60 Some of my shipmates and I frequented a great place in the center of the city called Callahan's.  They sometimes had a small jazz group, and I remember this song being one of their usual numbers.

When I was 16 or 17 some of us kids would go to a place overlooking the Ohio river called Rena's Ranch House.  The girls in our group taught me to dance there.  It was a great place - bar and dining on one end and a large dance floor separate on the the other. Had a big Wurlitzer juke box too with all the favorite songs of the Ohio valley at that time.  Poor Butterfly by the Hilltoppers was just one of many.  The place must have been 'connected' as we could buy beer if we behaved. We were never questioned. There was never a fear of the law at Rena's.

"Poor Butterfly was a popular song inspired by Giacomo Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly and contains a brief musical quote from the act 2 duet Tutti i fior in the verse. The music was written by Raymond Hubbell, the lyrics by John Golden. The song was published in 1916. It was introduced in the Broadway show The Big Show, which opened in August 1916, and was sung in the show by Sophie Bernard. The song became a pop standard, recorded by many artists." - (Wikipedia)

Just something that came to mind yesterday on Linda's birthday.

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YouTube is a fantastic resource.  Many versions here.  I'm sure there are more.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=POOR+BUTTERFLY