Raise All Kinds Of Candy To The Stars

For such a singular, inexplicable pop record, there is an awful lot of backstory. Chess producer/A&R man Abner Spector – who was unrelated to any other similarly-named record producers – asked Harlem-based label owner Zelda “Zell” Sanders (she owned the independent J&S label) to come up with a girl group hit for the bigger label. Sanders got together with Spector’s wife, Lona Stevens ( née Leonora Florence Cataldo); they thought about the ominous and ancient nursery rhyme “Ring A Ring O’ Roses” (ominous because it was thought to have been inspired by the Black Death) and came up with “Sally Go ‘round The Roses.” The Jaynetts were nominally a Bronx vocal group, but essentially assembled by Sanders; a five-piece line-up recorded an initial demo. The next stop was to hire Artie Butler as the record’s arranger. He was uncertain of the song’s potential from the demo but thought of things that he could do with it. On the final record he plays most of the instruments, ex...

So, was this an about-turn or a contradiction of “Runaround Sue”? Some might construe it as an answer record, but there were at least two “answer” records (“I’m No Run-Around” by Ginger Davis and the Snaps and “Stay-At-Home Sue” by Linda Laurie, neither of which is recommended). In one sense it’s Dion coming of age, with a new-found swagger and confidence. Musically – if not thematically (at least at first reading) – the record is compelling and swinging, with Mr di Mucci having lots of fun rolling around those “around”s; the swing element is probably not surprising, given that the musicians on the recording included Panama Francis, Bucky Pizzarelli, Sticks Evans (two drummers!) and Jerome Richardson. The stop-start backing vocals – long-held drones followed by abrupt air-catching gulps, as if being dared to hold down quarter of a bottle of tequila – were by the doo-wop group the Del-Satins, who later formed the nucleus of Johnny Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge . Producer Gene...

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...

Not only the first novelty record in this list to get to number two, but also the first number two with an erroneously-credited performer. Parsons, who came from Coalton, Ohio, was pals with the young Bobby Bare and “The All-American Boy” was apparently written by Parsons himself in collaboration with a strange, middle-aged Irish-Cherokee drifter named Orville Lunsford. However, when Parsons and Bare finally made it into a recording studio, Parsons preferred to sing a song called “Rubber Dolly” and asked Bare to do the talking blues narrative on “The All-American Boy.” However, when the single was released, both sides were credited to Parsons. Indeed the booming narrator we hear on this record is Bobby Bare, and it’s a very good and purposeful send-up of the rise and conscription of Elvis; I wonder whether Presley had this record in mind when he recorded “Guitar Man” a decade later. More than that, it’s a useful snapshot of how so many rock careers would go – hence the con...

More pensive angst for Don and Phil here; they seem to be in a similar situation to the protagonist of “Summertime Blues” – love life non-existent, poor grades at school, can’t use the car so much – and they can’t quite work out why. I note the attendant irony of a song with lyrics including “Woe is me, I should have stayed in bed” becoming a hit in a world into which Morrissey was about to be born, but the song’s central mystery is: what exactly is their problem? How do they love this girl – is it unrequited love, is she cheating on them or does she even know they exist? The song is a slower variant on “Bird Dog” with the brothers’ Bo Diddley influence made really plain by the simple effect of turning up the mixing desk fader to accentuate those 12-string scimitars. But what if it’s an answer song to “Bird Dog” – what if this is actually being sung by daydreaming Johnny, who is unlikely ever to know what love is? In Beatles-influencing terms, “Problems” would definitely be a ...

The first one-hit wonder to appear in this list – or would have been, had Bobby Day not had a minor hit in 1957 with his song “Little Bitty Pretty One” (although Thurston Harris had a much bigger hit with his cover). However, as an effective one-shot hit, “Rock-In Robin” – that is how the title is spelt on the label of the original 45 rpm single – is an agreeable and engaging record. Born in Fort Worth, Day – real name Bobby Byrd (no, he was not that Bobby Byrd) – then moved to Los Angeles and worked with some doo-wop groups, including the Hollywood Flames and the Satellites, before going solo. “Rock-In Robin” was written by one “Jimmie Thomas.” In reality this was Leon René, who had been around since 1902 and composed such classics as “When The Swallows Come Back To Capistrano” and “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South.” You might therefore be forgiven for thinking that “Robin” has a dubious reputation. In Britain this is probably down to the fact that Bobby Day’s orig...

Very occasionally there’s a record which does the double, a transatlantic number two. “Bird Dog” is one such record; in Britain it was runner-up to Tommy Edwards’ reworking of “It’s All In The Game” and as such Lena has already written about it . I don’t have much to add to her commentary except to note that, just as Supergrass were in their heart of hearts best when they were writing songs about being told to sit up straight at the back of the bus, Don and Phil work most powerfully when they sing from the perspective of frustrated, hormone-crazed teenagers – their acoustic guitars sting like freshly-harvested shards of nettle. The question does occur as to why all of these songs were sung by two guys, two different (though complementary) voices, but it is quickly realised that the reason we’re hearing two voices is so that their immaculate harmonies, which will define virtually everything and everyone who comes after them in pop, can be shown off, as hormone-crazed teenagers ...