The Originals Vol. 42
In the 42nd instalment of The Originals we”ll revisit the originals of three huge hits, two USÂ #1s and one chart-topper in Britain, from the mid-“60s. Remember: if you are looking for particular songs that have been covered in this series, visit the index of The Originals.
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Earl-Jean ““ I”m Into Something Good.mp3
Herman”s Hermits ““ I”m Into Something Good.mp3
Lady Lee – I”m Into Something Good.mp3
In the late 1950s Ethel “Earl-Jean” McCrea was a member of the R&B girl group The Cookies, which was absorbed into Ray Charles” backing band, The Raelettes. Only Earl-Jean didn”t join the backing singer gig, instead becoming part of a new incarnation of The Cookies, which featured before in this series as the original act to record The Beatles” Chains (see The Originals Vol. 25). We also met The Cookies as the first act to record On Broadway, though their version was not released (see The Originals Vol. 33).
As noted in the entry for On Broadway, The Cookies did much demo work for Carole King and Gerry Goffin at Aldon Music (which in the shorthand of music history tends to be conflated with the Brill Building down the road). They also did backing vocals on pop songs such as Little Eva”s The Loco-motion (it was through Earl-Jean”s recommendation that King and Goffin employed Little Eva as a babysitter), Neil Sedaka”s Breaking Up Is Hard To Do and Mel Tormé”s Comin” Home Baby. Along the way, they had a top ten hit with Don”t Say Nothing Bad About My Baby.
Earl-Jean left The Cookies in 1964 to try for a solo career, and it was King and Goffin who wrote her first (and only) solo hit: I”m Into Something Good, released on Colpix Records. It did a creditable job, climbing to #38 in the Billboard charts. Alas, her follow-up single, Randy, didn”t do as well, and when in 1966 Colpix folded, her solo career was over.
In Britain, the record producer Mickey Most ““ fresh from discovering The Animals ““ had heard I”m Into Something Good, and decided it was a perfect vehicle for his new protéges, Herman”s Hermits. Fronted by Peter Noone, a Mancunian with an All-American smile, the other Hermits were allowed to play on some songs, while on others session musicians did the job. Nobody seems to agree about who played on I”m Into Something Good; it is possible that any, all or none of Nicky Hopkins (the Rolling Stones” keyboard man from 1967-76), Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones (later of Led Zeppelin) played on it. Band member Barry Whitwam insists the band did the duties; Noone and Most said they didn”t (though possibly in a fit of pique over contractual wrangles). It does seem that the song was arranged by Hermits guitarist Dereck Leckenby, which would suggest that he would have had the bandmembers perform on it.
Whoever played on it, the single became a UK #1 hit in September 1964, and then went on to reach #13 in the US, ringing in a golden period for Herman”s Hermits, who remarkably became the best-selling act in the United States in 1965, ahead of even The Beatles.
Also in 1964, Billy Fury”s girlfriend Lady Lee, a character with a quite fascinating lifestory, recorded I”m Into Something Good. Later she and Fury split and in 1969 Lee married British DJ Kenny Everett.
Also recorded by: Lady Lee (1964), Don Devil and the Drifters (1964), Sir Henry and His Butlers (1966) Donny Osmond (1971), The Machines (1982), Peter Noone (1988), The Stool Pigeons (1996), Dave Cloud (1999), The Langley Schools Music Project (2001), The Bird And The Bees (2010) a.o.
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Nella Dodds – Come See About Me (1964).mp3
The Supremes – Come See About Me (1964).mp3
This is one of those records where the earlier recording was released later (another instance of that, which I was made aware of only recently, concerns Ruby Don”t Take Your Love To Town; an edit and new file are now up on The Originals Vol. 24). In keeping with the methodology of this series, we go primarily by release date. And here, it seems, Nella Dodds narrowly scooped The Supremes.
Come See About Me was written by Motown”s hugely successful songwriting team Holland-Dozier-Holland, and The Supremes recorded it on 13 July 1964, backed by The Funk Brothers. Somehow the song had come into the hands of the people at Wand Records in New York, who had their singer Nella Dodds record it. While The Supremes were still riding high in the charts with Baby Love, their second chart-topper in a row, Wand put out Dodds” version, a pleasant affair which nonetheless cannot compare to the exquisite vigor of the Supremes” version.
Although Dodds recorded for a New York label, she was a pioneer of Philadelphia soul ““ Kenneth Gamble, future Philly soul supremo, and Jimmy Bishop, who would discover many Philly soul acts, appeared on Dodds” Wand recordings. Gamble later co-wrote a hit which The Supemes would cover with The Temptations (and which will still feature in this series).
Motown were alarmed when they learned that Dodds” record had been issued, and rush-released The Supremes” recording. Dodds” version stalled at #74, and she would never have a breakthrough hit. For The Supremes, Come See About Me became the third in a golden run of five #1 hits.
Also recorded by: Choker Campbell (1964), Gene Barge (1965), The Newbeats (1965), Barbara Mason (1965), Jr. Walker (1967), Mitch Ryder (1968), Bonnie Pointer (1979), Tracy Nelson (1980), Neil Sedaka (1984), Shakin’ Stevens (1987), Afghan Whigs (1992), The Originals (1998), Freda Payne (2001), James Taylor Quartet (2007) a.o.
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The Raindrops – Hanky Panky (1963).mp3
The Summits ““ Hanky Panky (1963).mp3
Tommy James and the Shondells ““ Hanky Panky (1966).mp3
Among the inhabitants of cubicles with pianos at the Brill Building in New York were Ellie Greenwich and her husband Jeff Barry, who together wrote so many of the songs we now associate with Phil Spector”s girl groups. While writing music was their bread and butter, they also wanted to record. Greenwich had already done so in the late “50s, as Ellie Gaye, and while writing hits in the early “60s, she also sang on demos for Brill compositions.
In 1963, Greenwich and Barry recorded a demo of a song called What A Guy. It was intended for a doo-wop group called The Sensations, but the band”s label, Jubilee, was so impressed with demo”s girl-band style (which was in fact Greenwich”s multi-tracked voice, with Barry providing bass voice) that they decided to release it, in the name of the songwriters” band, The Raindrops. Trouble was that Greenwich and Barry had no song for the flip-side, so they thrashed out Hanky Panky in the space of 20 minutes. They were not particularly satisfied with the song, and when a group called The Summits released it soon after as the b-side of He”s An Angel (or it might have been released before What A Guy came out; it”s unclear), it didn”t do brisk business either.
And yet, the song had become popular among garage rock live bands, including one called The Spinners (not the soul band), from whom the teenage musician Tommy Jackson heard it. He recorded it with his band, The Shondells, in 1964 at a radio station in Michigan. It was a local hit, but Tommy decided to break up his band and complete his schooling. The following year he was contacted by a Pittsburgh DJ who had discovered the record and now wanted Tommy and his Shondells to perform it on air. He hurriedly put together a new line-up of Shondells, and changed his name to Tommy James. He then sold the 1964 master to Roulette Records, which released it without remixing, never mind re-recording it. The single went to #1 in July 1966. James later explained in a Billboard interview: “I don”t think anybody can record a song that bad and make it sound good. It had to sound amateurish like that.”
There is a great story of how the small New York-based Roulette label got to release Hanky Panky. It seems that a whole gang of labels, some of them majors, wanted to buy the record. Suddenly, one after another, they withdrew their offers, much to Tommy James” surprised dismay. In the end Jerry Wexler of Atlantic told the singer, still a teenager, what was going on: Roulette”s Morris Levy (on whom The Soprano“s Hesch Rabkin is based) had called all rival labels telling them that Hanky Panky belonged to him. Intimidated, the rivals bought the bluff, and James had to go with Levy.
Also Recorded By: The Junior Mance Trio (1965), Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs (1966), The Outsiders (1966), The Wallflower Complexion (1966), The Ventures (1966), Neil Diamond (1966), , Joan Jett and The Blackhearts (1981), Link Protrudi and the Jaymen (1987), Ellie Greenwich (1999), The Cramps (2004), The Freedoms (2004), Los Hitters (2005) a.o.
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Even without a chorus, Gentle On My Mind made a great impact when it first appeared in the late 1960s. John Hartford, who wrote the song, picked up two Grammys for best folk performance and best country song, but that was eclipsed by Glen Campbell, for whom it became a signature tune (literally; it was the theme of his 1969-72 TV show, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, on which Hartford frequently appeared). Campbell, who discovered the song when he heard Hartford”s record on the radio, also won two Grammy for his version, for best country recording and solo performance). His version was a hit twice, in 1967 and again in 1968. The song also bothered the charts in versions by Patti Page (1968) and Aretha Franklin (1969), and featured on Elvis Presley”s excellent comeback album, From Elvis In Memphis (1969). In Britain, its only chart appearance was a #2 hit for, of all people, Dean Martin in1969.
Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil were among the giants of the Brill Building songwriting collective, although they were based at Aldon Music on 1650 Broadway, not in the actual Brill Building at 1619 Broadway (Aldon Music was co-founded by Al Nevins, one of the Three Suns who recorded the 
In February 1963, Brill bosses Mike Stoller and Jerry Leiber were in need of a song for the Drifters. At their request, Mann & Weil offered their On Broadway. Leiber & Stoller didn”t quite like their arrangement, and revised it overnight with the original composers. Next day the Drifters recorded the song, with Leiber & Stoller protégé Phil Spector on guitar and Rudy Lewis (successor of Ben E. King as the group”s lead singer) making one of his final appearances as a Drifter before his sudden death of a heart attack in 1964. Released in March “63, the Drifters” version became a hit, reaching #9 in the Billboard charts.
As so often in pop history, the story of the song”s authorship is cloaked in controversy. By most accounts, it was written by Bobby Spencer of the doo wop band the Cadillacs, with the group”s manager, Johnny Roberts, getting co-writer credit. Barbie Gaye”s single became a very minor hit, championed by the legendary rock “n roll DJ Alan Freed (the late songwriter Ellie Greenwich styled herself Ellie Gaye in tribute to Barbie on her first single, 1958″s Silly Isn”t It). It was Spencer”s misfortune to come into contact with the notorious record executive and music publisher Morris Levy, who implausibly claimed that he had in fact written My Boy Lollypop, using the moniker R Spencer as a pseudonym. The Cadillacs” Spencer was later reinstated on the credits which nonetheless still list Levy as a co-writer. Levy”s name is attached to other classics which he had no hand in writing, such as Lee Dorsey”s Ya Ya, Frankie Lymon”s Why Do Fools Fall In Love, and later the Rivieras” California Sun.
My Boy Lollipop was resurrected in 1964 by Chris Blackwell, boss of the nascent Island Records in England label which had recorded no big hit yet. He chose young Millicent Small, who as the duo Roy and Millie had enjoyed a hit with We”ll Meet in Jamaica, to record it. Her version changed that: the song became a worldwide hit, reaching #2 in both US and UK. Island, of course, went on to become the label of Bob Marley, Roxy Music, Robert Palmer and U2. Millie”s German version of the song featured 
Got My Mind Set On you was originally recorded at roughly the same time as the Beatles began their ascent. Indeed, Harrison discovered the song at that time when he bought James Ray”s LP during a holiday to visit his sister in the US in September 1963. It was written by Rudy Cark, who also wrote The Shoop Shoop Song (featured 
Twenty years before the unusually named Lutricia McNeal had a European hit with Ain”t That Just The Way, it was recorded by the girlfriend of Playboy honcho Hugh Hefner. Hefner and Benton became a couple, for seven years, after the then 18-year-old pretended to be his girlfriend in episodes of the Playboy After Dark TV series in 1968. Born Barbara Klein (the more Playboy-friendly name was suggested by Hefner, of course) in New York and growing up in California, Benton was primarily an actress, appearing in a few unsuccessful movies as well as in the TV show Hee Haw. Between 1978 and “81, she had three cameos playing three different characters on the Love Boat. In the meantime, she recorded six albums (including a live set) between 1974 and 1988, scoring a country chart top 5 hit in 1975 with Brass Buckles. She also appeared several times in Playboy, making it to the cover in July 1969, March 1970, May 1972 and October 1985 “” but never as a Playmate.
Benton first released Ain”t That Just The Way, which she co-wrote with film composer Stu Philips, as a single in 1976, possibly for the TV series McCloud, which Philips scored. It Appears in an episode of which the song played (the “Park Avenue Pirates” one, fact fans). Benton re-recorded a slowed-down version of the song, produced by Deep Purple”s Roger Glover, for her 1978 album of the same title (the cover of which is pictured here). The version featured here is the 1976 single. Benton today is married to a millionaire real estate developer and apparently works as an interior designer in L.A.
Berns gave Twist And Shout to The Top Notes “” a Philadelphia R&B group which might have been forgotten entirely otherwise “” whose recording was produced by a very young Phil Spector. The result did not please Berns, who accused Spector of “fucking it up”. He was a bit harsh on young Phil; the Top Notes” version is not bad, but Berns had hoped for something a more energetic. So he took the song to the reluctant Isley Brothers”, who had scored a hit two years earlier with the driving Shout, which had the kind of sound Berns imagined for his song. Their Twist And Shout, which Berns produced, became a US #17 hit, and so came to the attention of the Beatles, whose version upped the tempo to produce a joyously frenetic and, indeed, orgasmic version.
It was the last song to be recorded after a marathon 12-hour session which saw ten tracks put down for the Please Please Me album, on 11 February 1963. Lennon had been ill with a cold “” towards the end of the song, if you listen closely, you can hear Lennon cough “” and his voice was already hoarse, soothed by milk and throat lozenges. The first take demolished Lennon”s voice; a second take was recorded but, according to producer George Martin, Lennon”s voice was by then gone (and George Harrison”s hands bleeding). That first take captured one of the great vocal performances in rock & roll “” by a singer who, according to Martin, did not like his own voice, begging the producer to modify it on the recordings. Martin would later recall Lennon asking him repeatedly: “Do something with my voice. Put something on it. Smother it with tomato ketchup. Make it different.” In time, Lennon became adept at using his voice in different ways.
Another US #17 hit found its way on the Please Please Me album, recorded during the same session that produced Twist And Shout and the next song. The Cookies at the time were Little Eva”s back-up singers (and, later, Ray Charles”) who occasionally released singles themselves. Apart from the Top 20 success of Chains, they had a top 10 hit with Don”t Say Nothin” Bad (About My Baby). The Cookies recently featured on this blog (
A Taste Of Honey was the title of a 1958 British kitchen-sink play by Shelagh Delaney (whose picture appeared on the single sleeve of The Smith”s Girlfriend In A Coma). The play was adapted in 1960 for Broadway, with the addition of incidental music. The song that became known as A Taste Of Honey provided a recurring theme. Among the cast of the Broadway production was Billy Dee Williams . Williams recorded the tune set to lyrics in 1960, failing to generate pop music”s crowning moment. Two years later, crooner Lenny Welch recorded the song (some source mistakenly claim that this was the first vocal version). It was Welch”s version which Paul McCartney was familiar with when the Beatles included it in their live repertoire, and then on their debut album, on which McCartney duetted with himself.
Whether or not one would regard this as a lesser-known original depends on one”s interest in showtunes. The Broadway afficionado will know Till There Was You as the song that ends Act 2 in the 1957 musical The Music Man, as the librarian (Barbara Cook) addresses the professor (Robert Preston). The soundtrack of the stage musical “” it was made into a movie in 1962 “” was one of the biggest US sellers of the 1950s, as many musicals were in the days before pop LPs (which, as noted, the Beatles helped usher in).
Having recorded it for their sophomore album, With The Beatles, the group played Till There Was You at the Royal Variety Performance, apparently giving the Queen Mother much pleasure. The old bat probably frowned soon after at Lennon”s exhortation for jewellery rattling (he had planned to say “rattle your fucking jewellery”, but wisely though disappointingly chickened out), and possibly did not dance on top of her seat to the next song, Twist And Shout.
Appearing on Help!, Act Naturally was the Beatles” final cover version, if one ignores Let It Be”s Maggie May. The other remake on Help!, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, had been recorded a month earlier. So we mark 17 June 1965 as the day the Beatles became an exclusively original band.
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