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We Always Seem To Know To Read Between The Lines: “The Mountain’s High” by Dick and Dee Dee

By Marcello Carlin



As I’ve said before, the 1959-64 period, quite far from being a deadwood limbo of time-marking, was liminal in nature. Suddenly there were no rules and it did briefly appear as though anything could get into the charts and sell a million. I am not sure that there is any precedent for “The Mountain’s High,” one of the most extraordinary records ever to become a major hit. Dick and Dee Dee were Richard Gosting and Mary Sperling. Classmates at Paul Revere Junior High School in Los Angeles, they did not meet again until Gosting bumped into Sperling, who was working in a See’s Candies store in Los Angeles (Lena assures me that See’s Candies are amongst the most delicious confectionery in existence, and moreover the company is secretly Canadian, since its founder came from Ontario).

Gosting was looking for work, but the two soon realised that they both wrote and sang songs and so began a professional partnership (there was never a romantic link between the two). “The Mountain’s High” began life as the B-side to a single entitled “I Want Someone,” released on a small indie label in San Francisco (Lama Records). Arranger Don Ralke - who had lately been responsible in part for novelty hits like "Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb)" - was brought in to play piano. The original notion was for Gosting to sing it himself, but upon listening to the duo demo, Ralke convinced Gosting that Sperling should be involved in the final record.

“The Mountain’s High” unexpectedly became a huge local hit in San Francisco (DJ Tom Donahue was especially keen on the song); it was then licensed to Liberty Records for national release - whereupon Gosling and Sperling discovered that their names had been changed to Dick St John and Dee Dee Sperling respectively - and sold a million. As a pop record it is perhaps unprecedented. What is going on in there? The song seems to be an ancestor of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”; separated by distance and circumstance, the singers mutually agree to keep going until one or the other of them “gets to the other side.”

But there are at least four voices audible, and they are not whom you think; the rather pained falsetto vocals and the deep baritone vocals are sung by Dick, whereas Dee Dee sings the middle two parts. This creates an abrasive tension which is to the record’s advantage (even if, at 1:07, Dick abruptly lets out what can only be described as a terrifying burp). The two (times two) decide that nothing can finally keep them apart, and as the record fades, Dee Dee makes cuckoo noises.

I’m not sure whether it qualifies as outsider music on the level of something like The Shaggs or even Wesley Willis, but “The Mountain’s High” feels like the first indie hit in this list. A lot of its impact is due to the compressed production, with an abundance of echo and Alan Brenemen’s snare drum sounding as though it is being played from within your inner ear. Given that Dick and Dee Dee went on to work with the Stones – they opened for the band on their 1964 California tour and later that year travelled to London to contribute backing vocals to three Stones songs – there is a case for saying that “The Mountain’s High” is an unlikely Chuck Berry-type song (given what the nascent Stones did with things like “Come On”) but an even stronger case for arguing that this is a record which transcends any easy genre boundaries. Is it folk or doo wop? Are the artists – if you hadn’t seen them – black or white? Does it matter? But the close-up snare drum work in particular, combined with the steady, patient two central chords of the song and the dissolute nature of the vocals and production, point a couple of years ahead to Spector, for better or worse, but also decades ahead to the Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and even the White Stripes. Had “The Mountain’s High” been released by, say, Ultra Vivid Scene in 1991, it would now be lionised as an indie classic. That it managed to get to number two in the pop charts three decades previously indicated that things were changing, and for the better.

Date Record Made Number Two: 25 September 1961
Number of Weeks At Number Two: 2
Record At Number One: “Take Good Care Of My Baby” by Bobby Vee
UK Chart Position: 37
Other Information: Following the hit, Dick and Dee Dee toured with a backing band which was essentially a bunch of kids from Hawthorne keen on surfing. They called themselves the Beach Boys. One can only speculate how the nineteen-year-old Brian Wilson reacted - as he must have done - to the record.

Comments

  1. Bob Stanley12 November 2017 at 13:53

    Great write up of a very peculiar record. The lyric seems quite literal, unlike Ain't No Mountain High Enough - the couple sing as they have literally been kept apart by a mountain. Also the key change at 1 min 32, with its weight entirely borne by the vocals, is so unexpected that I find it physically disorientating.

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