Category: R&B

The Cookies

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“Don’t Say Nothin’ Bad (About My Baby)” was The Cookies biggest hit at #3 on the R&B Chart and #7 on the Hot 100. Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Not to be confused with the Little Eva song that they sang on, “Keep Your Hands off My Baby”.

I debated including this group in my Rarities series but I felt they were likely more well-known, so a separate post it is. There are things about them you may not know. I’ve actually wanted to do a post on The Cookies for a long while and given my recent Forgotten Girl Groups post, now is the right time.

The Cookies were formed in 1954 in Brooklyn and were primarily a back-up vocal group. They released released five of their own singles from 1954 to 1957, but when they were backing Ray Charles on a few songs, it was then some members were transformed into The Raelettes in 1958. The Cookies also backed Big Joe Turner on his amazing version of “Corrine Corrina” in 1956.

The second incarnation was built around original member Dorothy Jones in 1961. It is this formation I wanted to focus on today. The new names were Earl-Jean McCrea and Margaret Ross. Again, they were primarily a backing vocal group, principally under the guidance of Carole King and Gerry Goffin. So they were a part of the Brill Building scene for a time. They would appear on hits for Neil Sedaka, Mel Tormé, and Steve and Eydie (Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé) among others.

They also backed Little Eva on her 1962 smash hit “The Loco-Motion”. They charted four of their own songs on the Hot 100 and three on the R&B chart. Like The Donays and “Devil in His Heart” one of their singles was covered by The Beatles. In that Donays post, I speculated how The Beatles came across such a rare record. So I wanted to thank Lisa from Tao-Talk.com who has since provided me with the answer. You can find her George Harrison story here. And a great link she provided to a Smithsonian.com article here. But for the Cookie’s record in particular George probably picked it up in a London Record Shop.

“Chains” (1962)

“Chains” was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King and was released by The Cookies in November of 1962. The song did quite well and reached #6 on the Hot R&B singles, #17 on the Hot 100, and #4 on the Canadian Charts.

This is the BBC recording of “Chains” from 1963.

The Beatles recorded “Chains” on February 11, 1963 and it was released on the album Please Please Me that came out on March 22, 1963 in the UK. The US release was January 10, 1964 on their first North American album, Introducing… The Beatles, although not labeled this way it turned out to be Version One. It’s a long story but there was a Version Two of the album sent out around February 10, 1964. Depending on the pressing these albums, as you can imagine, are now worth into the many thousands of dollars. And “Chains” appears on both versions.

We know The Beatles loved a lot of American music and they covered other Girl Groups, The Marvelettes, The Shirelles, and technically in that class, The Teddy Bears. A good song is a good song. That’s why we have covers.

While The Beatles were certainly covering The Cookies song, the first to record “Chains” were The Everly Brothers on July 11, 1962, but it was not released until 1984.

Ok sorry for getting a bit off track, again, a bad habit of mine. Back to The Cookies.

Speaking of being the first to record a song, The Cookies recorded “On Broadway” in 1962. It was released on a Compilation LP, Dimension Dolls along with songs by Carole King and Little Eva. Then the song was reworked and we all know the version by The Drifters that came out in 1963 and the amazing cover by George Benson.

“I’m into Somethin’ Good” (1964)

Earl-Jean McCrea was the lead of the group and she left The Cookies and released some singles of her own. “I’m into Somethin’ Good” was written by Goffin and King and Earl-Jean released it in April of 1964. The song made a slow climb but hit a respectable #34 on Billboard and #38 on Cashbox by Summertime. There was a little thing going on at the time and no one realized just how big of a deal The British Invasion would become.

The Herman’s Hermits released a cover in July of 1964 and by September it was #1 in the UK. It entered the top 20 on the Hot 100 on November 21 and peaked at #13.

Earl-Jean released another single but it failed to chart. She would soon after leave the music business. If only they had picked a better name for her last song…

“Randy” was another Goffin-King composition. You just can’t make this stuff up!

The Velvelettes – Randy’s Rarities

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“Lonely, Lonely Girl Am I” the first release was by The Velvelettes in 1965.
The song was first recorded in 1964 by The Temptations as “Lonely, Lonely Man Am I” but not released until 1966.

In 1961 Bertha Barbee-McNeal and Mildred Gill Arbor were students at Western Michigan University and they got the idea to start a vocal group. Then add Mildred’s 9th grade sister Carolyn and her Junior High friend Betty. Bertha asked her cousin Norma to join as well. One of their college friends was Barry Gordy’s nephew and was able to arrange an audition at Motown. Carolyn (Cal) was chosen as the lead singer. They released their first single in 1963 with Stevie Wonder playing harmonica on both the A and B side but the songs did not chart.

“Needle in a Haystack”

Their highest charting song was “Needle in a Haystack” at #45 on the R&B chart in 1964. Their next three chart positions were #64, #95 and #102.

From 1965, the #64 song “He Was Really Sayin’ Somethin'” caught the ear of Bananarama (and the Fun Boy Three), and their 1983 single went to #5 in the UK.

The song was written by Eddie Holland, William Stevenson and Norman Whitfield

More music stuff at Lines by Leon.

Valerie

randydafoe16 Comments

It’s probably not a revelation to many of my readers that this is a song much better known by another artist, but here is a little love for the original by the Zutons. Principally written by Dave McCabe, but credited to the whole band, Boyan Chowdhury, Abi Harding, Sean Payne and Russell Pritchard. First released in 2007 and there are 73 versions of the song.

There are two versions with Amy Winehouse, the first released as Mark Ronson, feat. Amy Winehouse on April 16 of 2007.

The version I very much prefer is the live recording by Amy Winehouse released April 30, 2007, Recorded at BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge, London.

More rare than a leap year day was Amy Winehouse. She did many brilliant covers, speaking of my obsessions, I think I will post a few more of my favorites.

No. 2 “Spanish Harlem”/”Mr. Big Stuff

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These two songs placed #1 on the *Best Selling Soul Singles (R&B) weekly charts and stood out for me (on the #2’s list) because I bet I’m not alone in still listening to them: “Mr. Big Stuff” by Jean Knight and “Spanish Harlem” by Aretha Franklin, both from 1971.

“Spanish Harlem” was a cover of Ben E King’s original hit song, and Aretha peaked at #2 with her version and was #49 at year-end on Billboard’s Hot 100. Her song was stopped by “Go Away Little Girl” from Donny Osmond, (you just can’t make this stuff up!).

“Mr. Big Stuff” finished the year (1971) at #1 on the Best Selling Soul Singles (R&B) year-end charts but peaked at #2 on Billboard’s Hot 100 weekly charts and ended the year at  #18. It was held back by the Bee Gees first American #1 song “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart”.

“Mr. Big Stuff” was released by Stax Records and written by Joseph Broussard, Carrol Washington and Tony Clarke. There are only 23 versions of this song, perhaps because it’s just too distinctive to attempt. However enough of the song was used by Heavy D. & The Boyz (1986) to be classified as a ‘Cover’ as it used too much of the song to be called a ‘Sample’. The video has a long lead in but it’s pretty entertaining.

“Spanish Harlem” was written by Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector. Aretha had changed the “red rose” lyrics to “There’s a rose in Black ‘n Spanish Harlem. A rose in Black ‘n Spanish Harlem.” There were over twenty versions between the original and Aretha’s and the song now has 196 recordings, which includes many dozen’s of instrumentals.

Cliff Richard covered this song in 1962 and also recorded it German “Das Ist Die Frage Aller Fragen”.

*From August 23, 1969, the Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles chart was renamed to Best Selling Soul Singles. It was changed to Hot Black Singles in late June of 1982. Typically we say R&B charts and I think most people understand the reference as there have been a dozen changes over the years. The next name was Hot R&B Singles, then Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and now it’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.

Personally I think if we have the Hot 100, why they did not go with the Hip 100 is a mystery to me. Yes I know the think-tanks will be lining up to ask my advice – not.

More to read about at Music Mondays by Leon.

No. 2 “What’s Going On”

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It was early in 1971 when one of the greatest (#2 or otherwise) songs of all time was released, “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye. It was written by Motown staff writer Al Cleveland (I Second that Emotion), Renaldo Benson of The Four Tops and Marvin Gaye. It topped the R&B charts for five weeks (March/April) and the it crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100 in March and spent three weeks at #2 in April before dropping off the top 20 by the end of May.

It was first stopped at #2 by “Just My Imagination” from The Temptations, another Motown group and the song (ironically) was released under the Gordy label and was written by the Motown writers Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. The following week it was leap frogged by “Joy to the World” from Three Dog Night that stayed at #1 for six weeks.

“What’s Going On” finished at #28 on the Billboard Year End chart. On the R&B chart, it was #2 at the end of the year behind “Mr. Big Stuff”.  For R&B albums it was Isaac Hayes hitting #1 for the second year in a row with “To be Continued” and “What’s Going On” finished at #4.

I would describe “What’s Going On” as having modestly impressive chart numbers, however, this is not the typical performance we might think of for a song that now ranks as the fourth Greatest Song of all time (Rolling Stone Magazine). In truth this is more common than we may think. Many of histories highest ranked and well regarded creations were not #1 songs.

Gaye’s “What’s Going On” is also on the list of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll and ranked by Acclaimed Music as the #1 R&B song of all time. Interestingly, some other lists put Gaye’s 1968 song “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” at #1.  I can’t find any song list from the National R&B Hall of Fame, but Marvin Gaye was inducted in 2014 which was just the second year of this new organization.

Fate has played a significant role in the life of many a song. On the topic of “What’s Going On”, the great Motown founder Berry Gordy is quoted as saying it was “the worst thing I ever heard in my life” and refused to release it. After Marvin Gaye threatened to go on strike until it was released, music executives Harry Balk and Barry Ales (without Gordy’s knowledge) released 100,000 copies in January of 1971. They immediately had to press another 100,000 as it sold out in less than a week.

Currently there are 271 versions. It was first ‘covered’ as a spoken word overlay by Radio DJ Tom Clay. I cannot find it anywhere but his version is on an album released on the Motown label in 1971 called What the World Needs Now Is Love. You may know of his version of “What the World Needs Now Is Love”/”Abraham, Martin and John” where he narrates the lyrics. He also includes responses from questions he put to young children who cannot pronounce words like segregation and bigotry, they can’t give the meaning of the words either. There are also audio clips from the news and also of Martin Luther King Jr. and J. F. Kennedy.

The first actual cover was from another Motown group, The Undisputed Truth in 1972.

There are so many good covers and with all songs with this many versions some not so great. I will leave with this one that I found quite intriguing, the amazing Banjo player Alison Brown has Blues legend Keb’ Mo’ provide the vocals.

You can get more on the story, check this recent post from A Sound Day.