A rare gem of a combination of Southern Rock and Blue-eyed soul. Bobby wrote/co-wrote some great songs, he had a good sound, but a short solo career with just a few singles and two albums, “First Peace” in 1971 and “Rollin’ Man” in 1972. Caught in a battle between record labels and music politics, his albums were not promoted. But there’s some good music here.
Bobby and his older sister Fran Robins wrote some pretty good songs together.
“Central Park Blues” (1959) written by Nina Simone. From her debut album ‘Little Girl Blue’. While best remembered for her vocal talents, Nina shows off her considerable chops at the piano.
On the same album her cover of “I Loves You Porgy” from the opera ‘Porgy and Bess’ (George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin). This would be her highest ranking hit on Billboard at #18 on the Pop chart and #5 on the R&B. The video clip shows how brilliant she was and how effortless her piano playing appears, she was quite remarkable.
Born in North Carolina, Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) she was a student at the Juilliard School of Music. To hide her activity from her family who would not approve, she changed her name when she was performing in nightclubs in Atlantic City. Apparently she was told they would not pay for someone to sing along with her, so she started to add vocals to her own piano playing. She was really only interested in classical music and studies, so performing using pop music and later recording (income) was used to pursue just that.
“My Baby Just Cares for Me” at over 280 documented cover versions is a jazz standard written by Walter Donaldson with lyrics by Gus Kahn. From the film version of the musical comedy ‘Whoopee!’ (1930), the song became a signature tune for Eddie Cantor who sang it in the movie.
The first actual recording was in 1930 by Ted Weems and His Orchestra with vocals by Art Jarrett. It was me who added in Art’s name as in the early days of recording of just about any ‘so and so’ with his orchestra, the vocalists were very rarely mentioned. Lyrics of this song seem to vary quite a bit from recording to recording.
Clearly the best and most well known version of the song is by a 25 year old Nina Simone, recorded in New York in 1957. She was accompanied by Jimmie Bond on bass and Albert ‘Tootsie’ Heath on the drums. It appears on that same debut album Little Girl Blue, released in January of 1959. This is the first recording I found where the names of Liz Taylor, Lana Turner and Liberace show up. Although I can find no reference as to who actually changed some of the original lyrics, it may have been Nina herself.
Nina would have a period of time from 1959 to 1964 when she was in great demand and drew a good sized audience when touring and made appearances on shows like Ed Sullivan. However, “My Baby Just Cares for Me” went somewhat unnoticed until it was used in a perfume ad in 1987 and then had a huge resurgence.
Unfortunately for Nina she had no rights to the song. It’s unproven as to how it happened but she accepted a $3000 dollar payment and unknowingly gave away her performance portion of the song. Therefore she gained little from it’s popularity apart from some increase in her own CD sales. Her version hit many European charts in 1987 gaining a #5 spot in the UK. I have seen several references that claim she missed out on about 1 million dollars in royalty payments.
Usher recorded it in 2015 for a Nina Simone tribute album, however he inexplicably changed the lyrics and arrangement in an effort I suppose to ‘modernize’ the names and references. One would think in a real ‘tribute’ being true to the honoree’s original recording might be the way to go. Particularly because Nina Simone was about the 30th or so artist to record the song and it is her version of the song and her new lyrics that was a turning point for the song itself. Add your style if you like but all is lost here in a so called ‘tribute’ that missed the history entirely. In the end it becomes an ‘Usher’ version added to the many covers of the song.
Simone was deeply involved in the civil rights movement in the early 1960’s and beyond and she produced some powerful protest songs. “Mississippi Goddam”,
“Four Women” and (the above clip) “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” (Weldon Irvine, Nina Simone). Aretha Franklin recorded this last song and it was the inspiration for her Album Young, Gifted and Black released in 1972. “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” was also covered by a young Reg Dwight (Elton John) released in 1970.
Nina Simone produced 40 albums but did not regain significant popularity until a few years just before her death but it did give her some well deserved financial security. On April 21, 2003 Nina Simone died in her sleep after suffering with Breast Cancer for several years.
She recorded more amazing covers of songs such as “Baltimore” originally by Randy Newman, “To Love Somebody” from the Bee Gees and in 1961 “The House of the Rising Sun” made famous by ‘The Animals’ in 1964. In all she covered 174 songs and 42 of her original songs have been rerecorded.
The Animals would have a hit song when they were the first to cover Nina Simone’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”.
Nina was inducted to the The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018. Her autobiography is titled I Put a Spell on You as she had covered that song as the title track to a 1965 album.
The 5th Dimension would cover a total of six Laura Nyro songs and have big hits between 1968 and 1970 as “Wedding Bell Blues” hit #1, “Stoned Soul Picnic” reached #3, “Sweet Blindness” #13, , “Blowing Away” #21 and “Save the Country” #27.
I do recall a high school friend had the 1970 album Stoney End by Barbra Streisand and it would have been around 1976 or so that I read the liner notes (because that’s what one might do in ancient times) and saw her name. Not that the name meant anything to me at the time but I had also seen her name as the songwriter for “Eli’s Coming” on the hit song by Three Dog Night from 1969. Just a point of personal trivia, our now 12 year old Quaker Parrot is named Eli, after the song of course.
It wasn’t until 1994 when I really discovered Laura Nyro. We are coming up on the 30th anniversary of the passing of my father and father-in-law during the same week in February of that year. At the end of the month we were blessed with our second daughter. So during this time there was some introspection going on. A song I had always liked was the Blood, Sweat & Tears version of “And When I Die”.
And when I die and when I’m gone
There’ll be one child born
In this world, carry on, to carry on
Well I could not have found a more appropriate song for the circumstances. Thinking about the lyrics, the words, led me to take a closer look at Laura Nyro and her writing. I was able to find a brief pause in what was otherwise a chaotic time and much more since from her songs. Her voice was full of emotion and her range was very impressive. I was quite sad when I learned of her passing just three years later in April of 1997.
Laura was only 17 years old when she wrote “And When I Die” and it was her very first complete song. There was clearly an old soul already full of wisdom to be able to write such a song, at any age. It is the only one of her 43 songs that have been covered that she did not originally record herself. Her first single that she recorded and released at age 18 is “Wedding Bell Blues”, it is on her debut album More Than a New Discovery (1967).
We need to remember how exceptional it was for a young woman to release an album of her own songs. Certainly there is what I would call a latent appreciation out there for Laura. I won’t refer to her as an ‘unknown’ but during her time she did not sell a lot of albums nor did she chart any singles. As noted there were some significant covers of her songs but in truth if you are not the singer of the song, people don’t pay a lot of attention to the songwriter.
Let me give some examples of some of the greatest female singer/songwriters in history. Billie Holiday was 18 when her first single was released but for any song she had written/co-written it would be in her early 30’s for her first album. The trail blazing Carole King released her first single in 1958 at age 17, focused on songwriting her first album was released when she was 28. In the 1960’s Dolly Parton had written singles released by other artists at age 19 and her first album was at age 20. Nina Simone was in her mid twenties for her own songs to appear on her albums, as was Peggy Lee. Joni Mitchell wrote all her own songs and was in her mid 20’s for her first releases. Aretha Franklin was not as prolific a songwriter but did write a couple of her top ten hits such as “Think”(1968), again she was in her twenties. These are all legendary artists but also exceedingly rare.
Later would come names such as Kate Bush, who at age 19 in 1978 was the first female ever in the UK to have a #1 self written song. Then we would have Adel and Taylor Swift for example with self written releases before age 20. I am perhaps belaboring the point but I just want get across the scarcity of such a person as Laura Nyro.
Here is a song for which I cannot find a cover version, why I have no idea.
The album Angel in the Dark was released in 2001, four years after her passing. The album also contains some incredible cover versions of songs that were of influence to her such as “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” and “Let It Be Me“. While her early work gets the most attention I think songs like these prove her skills as a singer/songwriter did not fade.
I recall hearing this song on the radio, likely around 1979/80. It was the Guy Clark version of a song he wrote that was originally done by another artist I like, Jerry Jeff Walker, who you may know as the author of “Mr. Bojangles” (1967). Clark was one of those shared discoveries that I often had with my friends, this time with (still) my best buddy Steve. We were starting to realize we liked Country Music. As much as we enjoyed Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, Clark drew us to Texas Country/Folk music. His song “Fools for Each Other” was getting a bit of airplay in 1979 and that may have sparked “L.A. Freeway” to get back on the radio. After that Steve and I were buying his albums.
Through Guy Clark we found as I mentioned above Jerry Jeff Walker, but also an appreciation for the likes of Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, Joe Ely, Kris Kristofferson and we already knew of Waylon Jennings through his other connections, namely with Johnny Cash. Part of our group of pals got spurred on by my still great pal David, and we were very seriously into Lyle Lovett and soon buying all of his albums. When Steve Earle came out with Guitar Town in 1986, well we were seriously in love with Texas at this point. A few of my fellow blogging friends have mentioned several of these names lately as well. Hey Dave from A Sound Day actually lives in Texas!
So for this series I needed to pick one artist from the Lone Star State and why not “dance with the one that brung ya” as the saying goes. There’s a depth and sincerity to Clark’s lyrics that really draws me in. Guy Charles Clark (November 6, 1941 – May 17, 2016) was born in in Monahans, Texas, but grew up in Rockport. I’m just going to list a few of my favorites and let the music do the talking. I want to list about 25 songs but I will restrain myself.
I have done several pieces on women songwriters and women in the music industry. The series I just finished on Rock/Country covers started with a Cindy Walker tune, it gave me the thought to look at songs that were written by women, but for a man to sing. We certainly know men have written the vast majority of songs period. This also means historically the majority of songs women sing are written by men. Taylor Swifts and Joni Mitchells notwithstanding. Off the top of my head I could only think of a couple songs that may qualify, apart from the many written by Cindy Walker.
As if women songwriters were not rare enough, I’m going to have to disqualify male/female writing teams such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry and Marilyn and Alan Bergman, these are the names that are most well known to have written many songs together. They as a team of course wrote songs for men and women.
I did check and see if the women in these pairs wrote songs not only by themselves (which some did) but with the intention to be recorded by a male singer. Of the couples above I only found one name that I will reference later.
Hopefully this activity stays in the past but, women songwriters sometimes wrote/co-wrote songs and they were not given any credit. I have run across this several times, for example, perhaps it was a song not co-credited as some of Elsie Williams songs were with the publishing of Jimmie Rogers songs. Then, another likely scenario is, only the a mans name ended up on a song he did not write.
A practice that is almost as old as written music and includes both Male and Female singers, (typically big names or more likely their management) demanding an undeserved song writing/publishing credit. Tom Parker demanded such for Elvis and in one instance Dolly Parton told him to stuff it. A couple years ago a group of song writers openly asked for better treatment in this regard so apparently this activity still continues.
For one, on the case of “Killing Me Softly” I am on the side of Lori Lieberman. I believe her claim that she wrote down a poem on a napkin after hearing Don Mclean singing. She was at the time under a contract with Norm Gimbel and Charles Fox (both credited for the song) but was never given a songwriting credit. She has endured a lot of grief over her attempts to have her name added on the song. Don Mclean believes her but apparently the napkin disappeared and left her with no evidence. She doesn’t want a lawsuit. She worked with Gimbel and Fox and saw the song develop beyond her skill level, but the concept and some of the lyrics she says are her words. There is a good article in the Washington Post.
There are of course many songs that were written by women, but almost always for themselves or with and for other women, for the latter I’m thinking Toni Stern writing with Carole King for example. Lot’s of songs written about or to a man as we know. Again I am looking for songs written specially for a man to sing. Somewhat ironically in the traditionally male dominated Country genre is were I found most of my examples.
There may be some female penned songs that were covered by a man and perhaps became more well known. “That’s Enough” is a song Johnny Cash (1958) was the first to cover. It is a 1957 Gospel song written by Dorothy Love Coates and recorded by the all female group, The Original Gospel Harmonettes. So it was Cash that had the first cover and mainstream version.
Then we have Dolly Parton’s “In the Good Old Days (When Times were Bad) from 1969, which is the title track of her third album. It really is autobiographical but for some reason Merle Haggard was the first to record and released it. I don’t know the full story but she wrote the song with herself in mind. Something similar happened with the recording order of her song “Kentucky Gambler” in 1973. Odd things an happen with the record company.
According to a study by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative that was commissioned by Spotify, “over the past decade, women only make up 12.7% of songwriters”. In some years this was as low as 2.8%. This study looked at the Billboard Hot 100 from 2012 to 2022.
There are similar results when we look at the Hot 100 Country chart, for example in 2020, women had just 23% of the #1 songs (all of which they did not write) and this is the highest percentage in the Country genre since 1994.
Here is a quote from an article on Billboard.com “The USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative study found that women were more likely to appear as songwriters on dance/electronic songs, with 20.5% of these songs written by women over ten years and Pop songs coming in with 19.1% and least likely to work on Hip-Hop/Rap, with women writing just 6.4% of these songs over ten years and R&B/Soul, with women writing 9.4% of these songs.”
If you do a little looking there are more stats and studies that show even more dismal results for women in all genre, so you can include Blues and Jazz as well, and again some references that show women in Pop music fair a bit better. I can tell you historically the numbers for women songwriters in general are worse the farther back in time you go.
There are lot’s of reasons as to why women are unrepresented; culture, bias, systemic issues, access and opportunity would all be at the top of the list I would guess. Ability is not one of them. I did a post on the Most Recorded Women Songwriters and there you will see Dorothy Fields at the top of the list. Dorothy, like another high on that list, Betty Comden, was a lyrist and to my knowledge they hold no solo song credits.
See below for some exceptional women songwriters with some examples of when they wrote for men. By no means is this an exhaustive list.
In an upcoming series I will post the names of the women* that I found to have written songs for men. Just a reminder I am looking at women who wrote the songs, words and music on their own. No that I avoided them but my research did not necessarily include looking at all genre from all decades, but these are the names that surfaced during my general search. Since I already gave it away I will give you one of those names today.
Cindy Walker is someone I have referenced several times in the past, and as noted above the inspiration for the post. It was “You Don’t Know Me” a song she wrote for Eddy Arnold used in the Between a Rock and a Country Place series that got me thinking. In addition to “You Don’t Know Me” she wrote some 60 or so songs for Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, several songs for Jim Reeves, Ernest Tubb, Gene Autry and more. She of course did not write just for men. She had a lovely voice and recorded some covers and her own self written original songs.
Here is an excerpt from an article in the Austin Chronicle were she tells the story of how it all started for her.
No, let me tell you about that. My father was a cotton buyer, and we were in Tucson. We took a trip to Hollywood to sell some pima cotton, and I saw the Crosby Building. I said, “Stop, Papa, stop! I’ve got a song for Bing Crosby, and I want to see him!” And Pop said, “You’re squirrelly, girl. Bing Crosby’s not in that building!”
But I went in and saw Larry Crosby there. I told him I was a songwriter. I couldn’t play the piano and didn’t play guitar very well, so I ran downstairs and got Mama and made her play piano. He said, “Well, what are you gonna sing?” I said, “‘Lone Star Trail.'” He took me over to Paramount the next morning, and I sang it for Bing. His publisher liked it too, so that’s the way that happened!
Here is a excerpt of her talking about writing of “You Don’t Know Me”
She also wrote for Loretta Lynn and Sue Thompson but the truth is there were very few women Country Singers. As a full time writer, she was a lone figure in the male dominated Country Music space but she excelled, and was one of the best in the business. You will all recognize this next song.
I am pretty confident that no other women songwriter has written more songs specifically for male singers. In fact no one has ever come close and it’s unlikely that she will ever be matched in this regard. Cindy Walker was one of a kind.
* The genders in reference on these post reflect the known choices of the persons that I am writing about, my research did not include writers that may or may not have identified themselves differently.
Series Sources: Woman are rare in the Music Industry, Songwriters group…
Mostly Music Covers 