The discipline of church singing served them well. Soon after forming the band, their four-part doo-wop harmonies won them a berth on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, competing against other musical acts. Victorious the first week, they lost the second time around, but they had tasted the fame that television could provide. The next logical step was to record a single. Patrick went to a sheet-music store to look for songs for his band to record. An old Four Lads’ tune called “Book of Love” caught his eye just as the shop’s radio was playing a commercial for a popular brand of toothpaste.
“You’ll wonder where the yellow went,” the radio trumpeted, “when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent.”
Patrick was amused by the jingle, humming it while paying for the sheet music and making his way home. He met with his friends where they worked on new material. Singing together, they came up with a new song based on Patrick’s visit to the sheet-music store. Borrowing the Four Lads’ title and combining it with the hook of the toothpaste commercial, they produced their version of “Book of Love.” The band thought the up-tempo ditty was cute, but they were concentrating on ballads, which they thought were their strong suit. They agreed to play the song live but didn’t consider committing it to tape.
They didn’t consider recording it, that is, until another local band, the Kodacs, decided to release “Book of Love” as a single. The Monotones didn’t want anyone else scoring a hit with their song, so they made a demo and shopped it to record labels. R & B giant Atlantic Records liked the song but wanted another band to sing it. “No way,” they said, walking away from a lucrative recording deal, in search of another contract. Eventually, they came in contact with Ben Casalin, an executive with the smaller firm Hull Records, who agreed to release “Book of Love” with the Monotones.
They cut the tune at Bell Sound Studios in New York City. The instrumentation was kept to a minimum to emphasize the boys’ voices. During the “keeper take” of the song, someone threw a baseball through a window in the studio, causing a loud crash in the recording booth. During playback, the engineer realized the uninvited noise was perfectly in time with the vocal and kept it in as the drum part. “Book of Love” hit the stores a few weeks later in December 1957.
The tiny label was unprepared to deal with the response to the song. Unable to keep up with the demand in the New York area alone, Casalin cut a deal with Argo Records to handle national distribution. Argo smelled a hit and promoted the hell out of the record, sending the Monotones out on an extended tour with teen idol Bobby Darin. The ploy worked, driving the song to the Top Five in April 1958.
However, the band was slow to record a follow-up single, waiting until May to enter the studio again. By then, momentum was lost, and their subsequent singles failed to chart. The Monotones were one-hit wonders, but they continued to perform at rock, roll and remember shows into the nineties.
Three Songs of Amour; Ritchie Valens’s 1958 hit “Donna” was written for Donna Ludwig, a middle-class girl whose family disliked Valens because he was Chicano; “Oh Carol” was Neil Sedaka’s 1958 ode of love to his high-school crush Carol King; “Claudette,” the 1958 Everly Brothers’ hit, was penned by Roy Orbinson in tribute to his first wife. The former Miss Frady was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident.
The Purple People Eater
Sheb Wooley
Sheb Wooley was a successful actor and country musician before a friend told him a childish joke that inspired an unlikely hit. “The Purple People Eater” was Number One for six weeks in the summer of 1958.
The phrase “Been there, done that” could have been coined to describe Sheb Wooley’s career. Born in 1921 near Erick, Oklahoma, Wooley, who is part Cherokee, made his first mark as a rodeo star while still in his teens. Trading in the saddle for a guitar, he next gave country music a try. World War II interrupted Wooley’s burgeoning musical career, stopping it cold. After the war, he briefly worked as a welder in an oil field in California. Tired of the long hours, he decided to give music another shot. Relocating to Nashville, he performed on radio and cut a few sides for the local Bullet label. His big break came in 1946 when he signed on as front man for a national radio show sponsored by Calumet Baking Powder. The success of this show opened doors that Wooley would walk through for the rest of his career.
Hoping to further diversify his résumé, he headed west in 1950, seeking work as an actor and songwriter in Hollywood. He stayed busy in tinsel town, signing a record deal with MGM Records and scoring with a tune called “Peepin’ Through the Keyhole Watchin’ Jole Blon” which became a hit in Texas. Soon others were recording his songs, and film and television work started coming his way. In his big-screen debut, he played opposite Errol Flynn in Rocky Mountain and in 1952, put in a memorable performance as the killer scheming to gun down Gary Cooper in High Noon. Other films followed: Little Big Horn, Distant Drums, Giant and Rio Bravo. With his film career gathering steam, Wooley signed on as Pete Nolan on television’s Rawhide in 1958, costarring with Clint Eastwood.
During a break in shooting on the Rawhide pilot, Wooley had supper with an old friend, songwriter Don Robertson. Over dinner, Robertson told some jokes his young son had heard at school. One riddle was so stupid, so juvenile, that the pair couldn’t help but laugh at it. “What has one eye, one horn, flies and eats people? A one-eyed, one-horned, flying people eater.”
Once they stopped giggling, Wooley proposed that they turn the joke into a song. “Go ahead, that’s more in your field,” said Robertson, aware that Wooley had already written several novelty songs. Wooley wrote the song as a lark, filing it away in his guitar case. Several days later, he had a meeting with the honchos at MGM to audition new tunes. After playing a few new ballads, none of which excited the producers, they asked if he had anything else. Perhaps something more up-tempo. “I do, but it’s nothing you’ll want to hear,” Wooley said, noticing the last piece of sheet music in his case. “It’s the bottom of the barrel.” He played “The Purple People Eater,” expecting to get laughed out of the room. The bigwigs laughed alright, but they loved the song and wanted him to record it.
At the session, producer Neely Plumb used some studio trickery made popular by David Seville on his hit single “Witch Doctor” (and later on the Chipmunks’ records). Recording the voice of the Purple People Eater and the saxophone part at a reduced speed, he played them back at high speed to create the People Eater’s squeaky cry.
The resulting two minutes and eleven seconds of musical mayhem didn’t thrill the MGM sales department. “We’re Metro Goldwyn Mayer!” one salesman griped. “We don’t want to be associated with this.” Cooler heads prevailed, and the tune was released in May 1958. Just three weeks later, it was Number One. “The Purple People Eater” became a national sensation, with spin-off merchandising galore. For a few heady months, teenyboppers snapped up Purple People Eater T-shirts, horns, hats, ice cream and, of course, almost three million copies of the single. Hoping to cash in on the craze, other record companies released “answer” records, the most popular being Joe South’s “The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor” which reached the Top Fifty in 1958.
“The Purple People Eater” was Wooley’s only Top Forty chart entry, under his real name, that is. His alter ego, a good-time drunk named Ben Colder, released song parodies such as “Hello Walls Number Two,” “Harper Valley PTA (Later That Same Day)” and “Lucille Number Two.” None of these songs equaled the success of “The Purple People Eater,” but Wooley was never at a loss for work. He appeared in over forty major motion pictures, played on Rawhide for four and a half years and wrote the theme song for Hee Haw.
A John Wayne movie inspired one of Buddy Holly’s best-known tunes. In The Searchers, Wayne plays an antiestablishment cowboy with an attitude. Wayne intones the film’s most famous line that became a popular catchphrase of the time. “That’ll be the day,” the macho cowboy said, ending a disagreement with a foe. Holly liked the sound of the line, incorporating it into his first Number
One hit.
To Know Him Is to Love Him
The Teddy Bears
The light and airy production of the Teddy Bears’ first single masks its sorrowful beginnings. A teenaged Phil Spector wrote “To Know Him Is to Love Him” in memory of his late father Benjamin. The song hit Number One just before Christmas 1958.
Benjamin Spector came to the United States in 1913. He was ten years old and just one of thousands of Russian Jews who immigrated to the US in the early 1900s. At Ellis Island, his Russian last name Spektor was anglicized by the immigration officer who spelled it with a “c” instead of a “k.” Settling in the Soundview section of the Bronx, young Ben soaked up all things American. At age thirty-one, he married Bertha Spektor, another Russian who made her way to the US via France. They were meant to be together. After all, they already shared the same last name!
They married in 1934 and started a family right away with the birth of Shirley. Six years later, they had another child, Harvey Phillip, born on December 26, 1940. Ben worked hard to support his tightly knit family. Their home life was idyllic. At family dinners, young Harvey would entertain, singing songs of his own composition. Father and son were very close.
Just months before Harvey turned nine, his father changed. He spent more time alone and was silent at the dinner table. He told friends he felt he didn’t make enough money to keep his family as comfortable as they deserved. He felt as though he had failed them. On April 20, 1949, he left for work at the steel plant as usual, kissing Bertha good-bye before he left. He drove a few blocks to Myrtle Avenue. Once there, he attached a hose to the exhaust pipe of the car and poked the other end through the window, rolling it up tightly. He sat in the car and turned on the engine. His lifeless body was discovered half hour later. The official cause of death was listed as “carbon monoxide poisoning — asphyxia; suicidal.”
THE WALL OF SOUND: PHIL SPECTOR’S TOP FIFTEEN
1. “To Know Him Is to Love Him” The Teddy Bears – July 1958
2. “Corrine, Corrina” Ray Peterson – October 1960
3. “Spanish Harlem” Ben E. King – November 1960
4. “Pretty Little Angel Eyes” Curtis Lee – June 1961
5. “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)” The Crystals – June 1962
6. “He’s a Rebel” The Crystals – July 1962
7. “Da Doo Ron Ron” The Crystals – March 1963
8. “Chapel of Love” Darlene Love – April 1963
9. “Not Too Young to Get Married” Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans – April 1963
10. “Be My Baby” The Ronettes – July 1963
11. “Baby, I Love You” The Ronettes – November 1963
12. “Walking in the Rain” The Ronettes – September 1964
13. “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ ” The Righteous Brothers – November 1964
14. “River Deep, Mountain High” Ike & Tina Turner – March 1966
15. “Save the Last Dance for Me” Ike & Tina Turner – April 1966
He was buried in Beth David Cemetery in New York on April 22. In accordance to Jewish law, a headstone was erected one year later. Festooned with a Star of David, there was a personal and touching epitaph from Bertha etched on the lower portion of the large stone.
Flash forward to 1958. Harvey Phillip Spector and family had moved to Los Angeles. At Fairfax High, Harvey took to introducing himself as Phil, a name he considered hipper than his given name. He studied guitar, learning the musical intricacies of Bach and Beethoven by day, and by night, strumming along to the tunes on the black R & B radio stations. He could identify with the raw emotion of those records, having lost his father — his best friend — at a young age. His late-night practices with the radio taught him the rudiments of R & B and rock and roll, while the daily lessons gave him the confidence to write down his musical ideas.
One night as he drifted off to sleep, he had a terrible dream. He saw himself as a young child standing in front of his father’s grave at the Beth David Cemetery back East. Next to him was the ghostly apparition of Ben Spector, goading him, taunting him. Jolted awake, he sat upright, shaken and troubled. Instinctively, he reached for the guitar. Since his father’s death, music had been a great pacifier. He strummed some chords to calm his tormented mind, letting his thoughts wander.
Phil couldn’t shake the dream. As the chords drifted from the guitar, he thought of his father and his final resting place. Tears stained his face as he remembered his mother’s final tribute to Ben — “To Know Him Was to Love Him” — words engraved on the tombstone. To help him through his grief, he began to write a song — more of a dirge, really — to express the profound loss he still felt at his father’s passing. By daybreak, the black mood had passed. It was seven o’clock, and Phil’s therapy was complete. The dark, moody chords had slowly transformed into a light, lilting song Phil called “To Know Him Is to Love Him.” Excited, he called his friend Marshall Lieb, playing him the tune over the phone.
“That’s great, Phil,” yawned Lieb before going back to bed. Phil wouldn’t be put off, and later that day, he and Lieb were hard at work putting together an arrangement for the new tune. Around this time, Phil was dating a girl named Donna whose best friend Annette Kleinbard had a lovely singing voice. Soon, she became the vocalist with the band Phil had formed with Lieb — the Teddy Bears. As Spector and Lieb worked out the arrangement, they shaped it to fit her voice. After intensive rehearsals in Lieb’s garage, the trio secured a record deal with Dore, a small Southern California label. Bertha voiced her concern over her only son’s choice of career. It wasn’t stable. However, Bertha’s concerns were unfounded. “To Know Him Is to Love Him” was released in August 1958 and finally settled in at Number One in December.
It would be the Teddy Bears’ only hit, but the members would have an impact on the charts that would span decades. Phil Spector distinguished himself as a songwriter/producer, creating the famed “Wall of Sound” production technique, becoming one of rock’s great eccentrics along the way. Kleinbard, under the name Carol Connors, became a noted songwriter, penning “Gonna Fly Now” (Theme from Rocky), “With You I’m Born Again” and “Hey Little Cobra” which she claims is the only hot-rod song written by a woman.
Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound” was born in an LA facility called Gold Star Sound Studios. Using dozens of musicians – dubbed “Spector’s Army” – the producer crafted a monolithic clamor, one that threatened to blow radio speakers. The cacophonous sound produced by four guitars, three basses, three pianos, two drums, innumerable percussion instruments and layers of background vocals bounced around the studio’s low ceilings and two echo chambers creating a din that one writer called “not of this earth.” Spector expertly reigned in the clamor, mixing it down, creating something akin to aural poetry. This “Wall of Sound” was an integral part of some of the most exciting pop singles of the 1960s.
The Lion Sleeps Tonight
The Tokens
The debt popular music owes to African music is inestimable. Many of rock-and-roll’s traits can be traced back to the music of that continent — the beats, the call-and-response formation, the use of husky voices rather than the trained clear vocals of European music. The Tokens brought their brand of African music to the hit parade. “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” hit Number One in December 1961.
In the 1930s, a song by Soloman Linda called “Mbube” was a hit in Swaziland. In the Zulu language, “Mbube” is pronounced “wimoweh.” Twenty years later, Miriam Makeba recorded a folk version of the tune, sung in its original dialect. Later, the American folk act the Weavers anglicized “Mbube,” renaming it “Wimoweh,” and included it on their Carnegie Hall live album.
In 1955, Neil Sedaka brought together the best singers in his Brooklyn high school to form a doo-wop group called the Linc-Tones. After Sedaka left for a solo career, the remaining members split, leaving Hank Medress without a band. He quickly regrouped, forming Darrell & the Oxfords in 1958. More personnel changes followed
, leading to the Tokens’ lineup of Medress, Jay Siegal and Phil and Mitch Margo in 1960. Signing a one-off deal with Warwick Records, the quartet scored a doo-wop hit with “Tonight I Fell in Love,” a Number Fifteen hit in 1961.
Later that year, they were offered a chance to audition for RCA Records’ hit makers Hugo (Peretti) and Luigi (Creatore). By then, however, their musical focus had changed. Siegal had discovered The Weavers at Carnegie Hall, and now that doo-wop music was quickly falling out of favor, he had convinced his bandmates to give folk music a shot. Trying to emulate the smooth folk sound of the Kingston Trio and the Highwaymen, they chose “Mbube” for their audition.
Hugo and Luigi enjoyed the lively African melody but felt it needed more lyrics. The Tokens’ version had almost no words, just the rhythmic “wimoweh” chanted over and over to a light guitar backing. Putting their heads together, they came up with the African-themed “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” They didn’t realize it at the time, but the new lyric sheet was very faithful to the original intent of the Soloman Linda tune. Over the years and after many translations of the song, it came to be known as “Wimoweh,” basically a phonetic transcription of “Mbube.” The word “wimoweh” means nothing in Zulu, but its root “mbube” can be translated as “lion.” The Italian/ American producers had unwittingly created an authentic-sounding African folk song.
The band, who by now considered themselves folk purists, didn’t want to record the tune but relented when RCA made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. The session was called for early May 1961 at RCA Studios on East 24th Street in Manhattan. This facility was RCA’s recording headquarters until the end of the sixties. Elvis recorded “Hound Dog,” “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Blue Suede Shoes” here; now it was the Tokens’ turn in front of the microphone. They cut two songs that day — a Portuguese folk tune called “Tina” and the rewritten “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”
Who Wrote the Book of Love? Page 5
