Only in Melbourne: (5) Strawberry Children - Love Years Coming (1967)

Only in Melbourne: tracks that didn't chart Top 40 in their countries of origin but did better in the capital of my home state, Victoria. See also: Only in Oz.

(5) Strawberry Children - Love Years Coming
(Jimmy Webb)
USA 1967
Soul City single (USA) #758 / SCR 758
Liberty single (Australia) #LYK-189955597
Australian charts: #17 Melbourne (#50 Australia)
Released in Australia August 1967, charted September 1967.
US charts: Did not chart Top 100 Billboard or Cash Box.

Survivor of my teenage record collection pile

When I bought this single as a 17-year-old in 1967, the writer credit (J. Webb) meant nothing to me. 

A hit Jimmy Webb composition had already entered the charts here in July, The 5th Dimension's Up, Up And Away (#1 Australia, #7 USA). It carried the same clipped credit on the Australian label (J. Webb) but I didn't own that single and wouldn't have made the connection.

Songwriters can toil away for years creating famous songs for famous artists without ever becoming famous themselves. My feeling is that in September 1967, when Love Years Coming was charting in Melbourne, Jimmy Webb hadn't yet joined the group of exceptions, songwriters who become household names, but the process was well under way. 

After several months at Motown Records, he had been signed to the publishing company owned by Johnny Rivers, also owner of the Soul City label. During 1967 Jimmy Webb compositions dominated albums by The 5th Dimension (Up-Up And Away and The Magic Garden on Soul City), and by Johnny Rivers (Rewind on Imperial). In late 1966 Rivers' album Changes had included the original version of what would become a much-recorded Jimmy Webb classic, By The Time I Get To Phoenix.

In May 1968 came Richard Harris's MacArthur Park, a startling work that inevitably drew attention to its composer. It was followed by Glen Campbell's Wichita Lineman (#5 USA) in the same year then, early in 1969, Brooklyn Bridge's Worst Thing That Could Happen (#3 USA) and Campbell's Galveston (#4 USA). There are many others, and to browse further I recommend the 4-page Jimmy Webb discography by Hiroto Yanagida.

Love Years Coming, which I loved, carries the era's familiar message of peace (the lion shall lie down beside the manchild) and I took Strawberry Children to be another one of those fine American bands that were emerging after the initial shock of the British Invasion, bands like The Association, The Box Tops, The Doors ... 

Years later I had read with pleasure that Jimmy Webb was Strawberry Children. More accurately, though, this is Jimmy Webb with a studio band assembled for the session, a practice that was more widespread than we realised at the time, and certainly not confined to the first recordings of The Monkees.

The team at the Jimmy Webb Facebook page confirms that he is on lead vocals, with Hal Blaine on drums and Larry Knechtel on guitar, both from the ubiquitous LA session team now known as The Wrecking Crew. 

Don't miss the comments and photos at the Facebook page highlighting other personnel on the record including singers Endore’e Lukem, and "J.W. school friends" Glen De Lange and Mike Reilly.

There were no further Strawberry Children releases, so their only other track was the B-side, One Stands Here (J. Webb), a nicely arranged instrumental that could hold its own on a TV or film soundtrack.

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See also Al Wilson - Do What You Gotta Do, another Only in Melbourne song written by Jimmy Webb.

Beauty is the Beast*

Guest post by Philippe Edouard exploring some back streets of Italian beat music.  

Philippe is a longtime friend of PopArchives from France. He has previously contributed accounts of 1960s yé-yé and 40s youth movement the Zazous.

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A little bit of organization in my digital disco wouldn’t be a bad thing. You download too much, and your brain forgets things.

Then suddenly I notice an Italian title that intrigues me. I click on the song, and there, I’m struck as if by a liver-punch, carried away by a frantic tornado of rhythm.

La Ragazza Bruttina is a nugget of Italian beat by I Tipi (= the types i.e. guys, characters ...) from 1967. 

Fuzz guitar and distortion, raw sound, choirs, bursts of machine gun fire from the drummer … This immediately reminds us of The Who. As for the coda, it is monstrous.

In short, I Tipi have assimilated the essence of swinging London, giving birth to this freakbeat italiano.

The lyrics of La Ragazza Bruttina (the ugly girl) are against judging by appearances and gossiping, topics that ring true today. In the song the lovers, the young man and his “ugly girl”, are indifferent to this.

So I set off to investigate the trans-alpine sites and … surprise! We don't know much about this combo.

Originally from Milan, the band was formed around 1964, and comprised Tino Guasconi (harmonica, guitar and vocals), Tonino Cantacessa (drums), Mauro Baroni (bass guitar), Rodolfo Pace (lead guitar and vocals), Franco Mutti (organ and vocals). Another less detailed source also cites Wolfango (guitar) and Secondo (bass).

They recorded at West-Side, a small Milanese label. The single was distributed by MPM, also from the Lombard capital. It is produced by Cesare La Loggia, owner of the label.

The A side, Oggi Sono Tanto Triste is a cover of a Cliff Richard song, 50 Tears For Every Kiss from Cliff’s LP 21 Today (1961), written by Sammy Bella (Wilbur Meshel). It was also the B-side of Cliff's Italian single, How Wonderful To Know (1962), an adaptation of the Tito Schipa standard, Anema E Core.

Oggi Sono Tanto Triste is a typical slow song of the era, adapted by former Samurai guitarist Giuseppe 'Beppe' Cardile and singer-songwriter Dante Pierretti, with an arrangement by Ugo Marino. 

I Tipi's record was not a hit, but another cover of Oggi Sono Tanto Triste appeared on the B-side of Giuliano E I Notturni's single Il Ballo Di Simone on Milan label Rifi (April 1968) a #3 hit in Italy). Did Guiliano's success negatively affect Il Tipi’s sales figures or did it help them? Readers can make up their own minds. We don't know, so we might as well be non-commital. In the following decades other artists recorded this romantic song.

By turning the record over we discover the gem. It is a safe bet that few people heard the masterpiece, La Ragazza Bruttina when it was first released (as La Ragazza), especially since there was an error on the sleeve of the initial pressing.

The wrongly printed title is Il Ballo Di Simone, a title that we saw above, as the hit A side of Giuliano E I Notturni's version of Oggi Sono Tanto Triste, in April 1968.

Should we conclude that the two records were released at the same time, and caused confusion at the printer? Il Tipi’s 45 would then date from 1968 and not 1967. Indeed, on the back of its sheet music, several hits from 1968 are offered to budding musicians.¹

In images found online, a white sticker has been affixed over the erroneous title on the front of the sleeve with la ragazza typed in a similar font. On the back of the sleeve, the title has been hastily struck out with a white marker².

Nevertheless, this famous first edition, with the red-orange label, is sought after by collectors today.

Composer credits for La Ragazza Bruttina are to the conductor Ugo Marino who also arranged the track, and to Tea (Teresa Russo) who had written Lonely Girl (1966), an excellent jerk style record for The Black Stars, a German beat band in Italy that had some critical success on the peninsula. She co-wrote the same group’s Ci Fermiamo Due Minuti (1966).

Bad luck or perhaps inexperience affected Tea.³ She is the co-author of Senza Di Te for the popular singer Fausto Leali, but her name disappears from the credits. The same thing happens with Io Potrei / Je Voudrais, a song in Italian and French by Orietta Berti, an entry for the Festival de la Canción del Mediterráne in Barcelona (1967). Fortunately, Tea has now regained her rights to this title. For La Ragazza Bruttina it's worse, since on the third pressing her name is replaced by that of the band's harmonica-guitarist, Tino Guasconi.

Despite everything, I Tipi recorded a new single. If we follow the logic of record company data, 1968 seems more likely than the 1967 seen everywhere on specialized sites. Un Pensiero... Una Lacrima is a baroque and soaring slow song by the Tea-Marino duo that has aged quite well. This title competes with Lalla Castellano's version.⁴

Once again, it's the B-side that is captivating. I Tuoi Capelli is the cover of Just A Little by The Beau Brummels. The song, using the characteristics of the A-side, is slowed down and the arrangement works wonders. The adaptation is uncredited, which is surprising.

With these interesting attempts, we can't wait to listen to their third opus, knowing that a new title is being recorded. But the group disappears like a meteor lighting up a summer night. Too bad, we would have liked to hear the rebellious and unreleased track, I Ragazzi Della Revolta.

In 1995, the CD Flower Punk Rock was released, compiling several current combos including I Fichissimi, creators of the legendary EP Un Mondo Fichissimo the previous year. They wonderfully covered I Tipi’s La Ragazza Bruttina and then also disappeared, while complaining that some were speculating on the resale of their vinyl record.

In 2010, I Fenomeni recorded the song which was officially released in 2023 on an LP limited to 200 copies.

In 2016 I Tipi Della Casa Occupata paid tribute, as a wink, to I Tipi and I Fichissimi by covering La Ragazza, released via YouTube by “cultural association” Killerdogz Music Factory.

It may be frustrating but ultimately, I Tipi and I Fichissimi did not have time to disappoint us. What do you think?

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FOOTNOTES

1. Il Ballo Di Simone was originally released in December 1967 as Simon Says by 1910 Fruitgum Company but it charted #4 USA in January 1968. Note also that 1910 Fruitgum Company recorded Il Ballo Di Simone for release in Italy, but with the title Semplicissimo (Simon Says), no doubt hoping to benefit from Giuliano E I Notturni's success with the song.

2. The correction may have been made later by the owner of the record. No image of the intact cover has appeared on the net so far.

3. The name Tea/Teresa Russo remains truly mysterious. Who is behind it? Is it a generic or collective name? She can be found in the late 70s and early 80s on series of library music LPs, such as Ball Bearing Group or Horizons on the old label of Abramo Allione (1895-1982). Moreover, at the time of the Black Stars, she was already rubbing shoulders with Allione who is credited under the name of Brolma (or was it his son Italo?).

4. Originally from Candela, in the south of Italy, Lalla Castellano went to Milan for her studies, took singing lessons at the conservatory and played the transverse flute. While she sang as an amateur, she was spotted and signed with Decca. She recorded a series of yéyé tracks and then moved to Italo Allione's Equipe label where she rubbed shoulders with The Black Stars (see Tea).

*A note on the title
Beauty is the Beast, a twist on Beauty and the Beast, works even better in French where the words est (is) and et (and) are homophones, thus creating a play on words. In speech, La Belle et la Bête and La Belle est la Bête sound the same.

 

I Tipi - La ragazza bruttina (1967)

 

I Tipi - I Tuoi Capelli (1967), adaptation of Beau Brummels - Just A Little

 

I Fichissimi - La ragazza bruttina (1994, 1995)

 

I Fenomeni - La Ragazza Bruttina (2010, 2023)

 

I Tipi della casa occupata - La ragazza bruttina (2016)

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BONUS TRACK 1910 Fruitgum Company, Simon Says, Italian version

1910 Fruitgum Company  - Semplicissimo (Simon Says), (1968),
also released by Giuliano E I Notturni as Il Ballo Di Simone (1968)

Obscure Originators (31): The Fun And Games

From my website's front page series about lesser known artists who performed the original versions of Australian or NZ records.

See also: the full collection of 31 Obscure Originators features.

The Grooviest Girl In The World was a #3 New Zealand hit in 1969 for Hutt Valley band The Simple Image.

The original version was released in the US in 1968 by The Fun And Games, a six-piece band from Texas with four members who had been band-mates since their high school years in Houston. They included the Romano brothers, Joe and Rock, who both went on to successful careers in various branches of the arts (there is a Wikipedia page about Rock).

The Fun And Games 1969 [link]

The Fun And Games version of The Grooviest Girl In The World was produced by one of its writers, Gary Zekley. He is partly known for singing, co-writing and producing on the single Yellow Balloon (1967 #25 USA) and the subsequent album by The Yellow Balloon. These later became artifacts of the retrospectively named genre of Sunshine Pop. 

The Simple Image were one of those fine New Zealand bands of the 60s-70s that topped the charts in New Zealand with records that were unfamiliar to most Australians. NZ artists such as The Simple Image, The Dedikation, The Avengers, and The Fourmyula had #1 or #2 NZ hits that never surfaced in Australia.

There's a twist to the story of The Grooviest Girl In The World that I discovered later. Although most Australians would not be able to hum the tune for you, a Boomer from South Australia might know it. The original version by The Fun And Games charted in Adelaide March-May 1969, peaking at #3 (in the US it reached only #78 Billboard). This is a surprising outlier which I suspect is down to radio airplay on Adelaide's 5AD. 

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For more about the song and The Fun And Games see The Simple Image - The Grooviest Girl In The World. 

Obscure Originators (30): Bob Wilson

From my website's front page series about lesser known artists who performed the original versions of Australian or NZ records.

See also: the full collection of 31 Obscure Originators features.

In 1960 Bob Wilson released the original version of (And Her Name Is) Scarlet. A later version by The De Kroo Brothers was a #9 Australian hit in 1963

Bob Wilson's recording came out on LA label Era. It was written by Steven Howard, a pseudonym of Era's co-founder and owner Herb Newman (1925-1976). He had co-written The Wayward Wind, a hit for Gogi Grant on an Era single (1956, #1 USA).

Before The De Kroo Brothers got to it, Keith Colley had recorded Scarlet, again on Era (1962), and there had been a German version in 1961.

See full news item

This was interesting, and not hard to find out, but who was Bob Wilson? The trouble is that the world is full of Bob Wilsons, so his identity was infuriatingly difficult to search for. I discovered that even BMI, the US copyrighting outfit, had registered compositions by at least three different Bob Wilsons together under one name.

Eventually, someone emails. This time, it was a longstanding friend of Wilson who had much information about his life and career. Thanks to him and some further digging, I was even able create a passable Bob Wilson article at Wikipedia.

This Bob Wilson was a guitar virtuoso and singer-songwriter from Pleasant Hill, California. As a teenager just out of high school he recorded some singles on Era, then had a long career as a schoolteacher with occasional reappearances on record.

For example, he featured on an album by folk artist Janet Smith in 1968, and he released albums with Rick Shubb (the Shubb Capo inventor) in 1976 and 1999. In the mid-2010s his Bob Wilson Ensemble appeared at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. 

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For more about the song and Bob Wilson see The De Kroo Brothers - (And Her Name Is) Scarlet.

Obscure Originators (29): Drafi Deutscher And His Magics

From my website's front page series about lesser known artists who performed the original versions of Australian or NZ records.

See also: the full collection of 31 Obscure Originators features.

In 1960s Germany, singer-songwriter Drafi Deutscher was a chart-topping pop star, but to most  Australian pop fans at the time his name would have been, well, obscure.

Johnny Chester's moderate hit Teeny (1963 #28 Australia), with English lyrics by Johnny himself, is a cover version of Teeny by Drafi Deutscher And His Magics.

More than that, Johnny is singing over the backing track recorded for Drafi’s single, and he repeats the procedure on the B-side with Do The Stomp, a cover of Drafi’s B-side Shu-bi-du-bi-do The Slop, again with Drafi's recycled backing track.

The following year, W&G did this again when Merv Benton sang new lyrics by Noel Watson over the backing tracks from both sides of Drafi's single Shake Hands / Come On, Let’s Go.

English translations or rewrites of songs are not unusual. The lady in Mark Holden's I Wanna Make You My Lady (1976) was an angel in the original Swedish hit Jag Ska Fånga En Ängel. You're My World came from Il Mio Mondo, and My Way came from Comme d'habitude.

The idea of recording vocals over the backing track of an original version is not unheard of either. Six months before Johnny Chester's Teeny, Ben E. King's 1963 hit I (Who Have Nothing) had used the backing track from Uno Dei Tanti (1961), the original version by Joe Sentieri.

Other double-sided covers exist, too. In 1957 The Diamonds covered both sides of The Rays’ single Silhouettes / Daddy Cool, and in 1964 Australian band The Cicadas covered both sides of The Marauders' British single That’s What I Want / Hey Wha’ D’Ya Say with some regional chart success.

But W&G's twofold use of the manoeuvre I like to call the double-sided cover version with English adaptation and recycled backing track must be unique.
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For more about the songs and Drafi Deutscher And His Magics see Johnny Chester - Teeny and Merv Benton - Be Sweet.  

 

3AW creates a chart (1959)

Earlier, I wrote about radio station charts in the 50s-60s-70s when sales figures were randomly or casually collected, and stations were free to favour songs from their own playlists or, well, whatever they reckoned. (See my Toppermost of the poppermost: the charts.)

The chart from Melbourne's 3AW for 28 June 1959 gives us a neat insight into the workings of both radio station charts and the retrospectively compiled charts we use for big cities or the whole country.

Denis Gibbons, a highly regarded folk singer-guitarist-composer, recorded several albums, mainly of Australian folk songs, some of them intended for use in schools, and he also released some singles. 

Here is Denis with two records on 3AW's Top 30. Not bad for someone who was never a big star, certainly not a teen idol, and probably more at the square end of the music market, as we might have said back then.

But as well as being a folk-singer, Denis Gibbons was an announcer at 3AW, where he'd landed a big city job after starting out on 3SR in Shepparton. 

I think it's fair to say that Denis did well on the charts at 3AW, but not so well at the stations where he didn't work. 

One of his 3AW hits, at #5, is a cover of the Everly Brothers' Take A Message to Mary which was still on the charts at other stations and doing well. Gavin Ryan's Melbourne chart book has the Everlys peaking at #1, with no mention of Denis's 3AW hit. 

When we say #1 in Melbourne in 1959, we are referring to a retrospective chart, in this case compiled by Gavin using radio charts available to him at some later time. In his Melbourne chart book for this period Gavin used charts from 3UZ and 3DB. Although I don't have those charts we can infer that the Everlys reached #1 or nearby at both stations, and it seems unlikely that Denis's record was even played on 3UZ and 3DB.

I'm no statistician but I believe that if Gavin had included 3AW's chart, Denis's #5 single would've earned a placing in his retrospective chart, maybe even in the Top 20. 

Because the 3AW chart so obviously boosts Denis's records, it might be a good thing that it was omitted from Gavin's calculations, whether through editorial judgment or unavailability. 

As I typed earlier, though, radio station surveys reflected station playlists. It's not surprising that Denis's records might be played on his employer's station, and the 3AW chart reflects that. 

A few weeks earlier, Denis's colleague at 3AW Ralphe Rickman made a prediction: Take A Message To Mary - Denis Gibbons. 

Ralphe sure could pick those hits!

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Further reading:
1. 3AW charts at ARSA.
2. Gavin Ryan's chart books are out of print and hard to find. The State Library of Victoria has a copy of his Melbourne Chart Book 1956-2002 on site and members can order a digital copy.
3. Denis Gibbons: Kimbo's Australian Music History,  Discogs.com and Wikipedia.

Thanks to Terry Stacey for spotting the chart and Denis Gibbons.

Only in Oz (20): Diana Trask - Long Ago Last Summer (1960)

Another in my series of posts about tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin. See also: Only in Melbourne.

20. Diana Trask - Long Ago Last Summer
(Hal David - Burt Bacharach)
USA 1960
Columbia B-side (USA) # 4-41711
CBS Coronet B-side (Australia) #KS-400

Australian charts: #10 Melbourne, #39 Sydney | #26 Australia

See also Only in Oz (14): Diana Trask - Oh Boy (1974)
I have also written more about her career at my website under Diana Trask - Going Steady (1958)

Long Ago Last Summer is an overlooked rarity amongst early Burt Bacharach and Hal David compositions. 

It is not easy to find on Bacharach collections, but not impossible. A 2013 CD from Cherry Red subsidiary Él even gives it top billing: Burt Bacharach - Long Ago Last Summer 1959-61. (Raven's 52-track The Rare Bacharach omits it.)

So far I have found only Diana Trask's version, and I am confident it is the only release of the song. In the discography at Bacharach site A House Is Not A Homepage, for example, Diana Trask's is the only version listed.

Australian singer Diana Trask (b. 1940) moved to the US from Melbourne in 1959. She soon became known as a regular on Mitch Miller's TV show Sing Along with Mitch and in 1961 she released two albums, Diana Trask (later known as Vocal Jazz Classics) and Diana Trask On TV.

Her singles made the US Country chart eighteen times 1968-1981, peaking with Say When (1973, #15), It's A Man's World (If You Had A Man Like Mine) (1973, #20), When I Get My Hands On You (1973, #16) and Lean On Me (1974, #13).

On the pop charts, Trask's appearances were limited to two singles that under-bubbled just outside Billboard's Hot 100, but back home Long Ago Last Summer was one of six singles that charted Top 40 for her in Melbourne 1959-1975. 

The orchestra on Long Ago Last Summer is conducted by classically trained Glenn Osser (1914-2014) who would produce Trask's self-titled album (1961). Osser's experience went back to the Swing era when he arranged for many big names in music and played in Les Brown's Band of Renown. After the War he worked with Paul Whiteman's orchestra and as music director for the ABC network, and later became a house arranger for Mercury then Columbia Records. His array of credits is impressive.

Long Ago Last Summer (1960) came after Bacharach and David's earliest successes with Marty Robbins's The Story of My Life (1957 #15 USA) and Perry Como's Magic Moments (1958, #4), but a couple of years before their hits for Gene Pitney, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962, #4) and Only Love Can Break a Heart (1962, #2), as well as the hugely successful collaboration with Dionne Warwick, beginning with her first Top 40 chart entry, Don't Make Me Over (1962, #21). 

Along the way, Bacharach often wrote with others, notably Bob Hilliard, his co-writer on The Drifters' Please Stay (1961, #14) and Gene McDaniels' Tower Of Strength (1961, #5). On The Shirelles' Baby It's You (1962, #8) his co-writers were Hal's brother Mack David and Barney Williams, an alias of Luther Dixon.

Similarly, lyricist Hal David had other collaborators, including Sherman Edwards on Sarah Vaughan's Broken Hearted Melody (1959, #7 USA) and Paul Hampton on Don Gibson's Sea Of Heartbreak (1961, #21). (Hampton also wrote with Bacharach.)

Of 33 tracks from 1959-61 compiled on the Él label's Bacharach CD, 14 are by Bacharach with a writing partner other than Hal David.

See also Only in Oz (14): Diana Trask - Oh Boy (1974)
I have also written more about her career at my website under Diana Trask - Going Steady (1958)

 

Diana Trask - Long Ago Last Summer (1960)

Bonus track: Glenn Osser And His Orchestra - When You Used To Dance With Me (1958)

Playlist: 33 tracks on Burt Bacharach - Long Ago Last Summer 1959-61. 

Only in Oz* (19): John D. Loudermilk - Callin' Doctor Casey (1962)

 Another in my series of posts about tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin. See also: Only in Melbourne. 

*Again, a case of Only in Oz and NZ.

19. John D. Loudermilk - Callin' Doctor Casey
(John D. Loudermilk)
USA 1961
RCA Victor single (USA) #47-8054
RCA single (Australia) #101322, New Zealand #4/60304

US charts: #83 [Billboard]
Australian charts: #4 [#6 Sydney, #2 Melbourne, #10 Brisbane, #10 Adelaide, #6 Perth]
New Zealand charts: #9 [Freeman]

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Doctor Casey was the fictional neurosurgeon in Ben Casey, a popular TV series that debuted in the US in October 1961 and ran until 1966. Callin' Doctor Casey was released in June 1962 during Ben Casey's peak ratings of 1961-1963. 

This is not any kind of official tie-in with the series. The lovesick singer is calling on Dr Casey to mend his broken heart. The deep voice that answers, "Ye-e-es?" is a comical Ben Casey that sounds nothing like the character played by Vince Edwards. (Is it a parody of some old horror movie star? Boris Karloff maybe? Bela Lugosi?)

There was clearly something about the songwriting of John D. Loudermilk that appealed to Australians.

At least three Loudermilk compositions recorded by others also did better in Australia than in the US: 

Mark Dinning - Top Forty, News, Weather And Sports¹ (1961, #81 USA, #17 Australia)

Sue Thompson – James (Hold The Ladder Steady) (1962, #17 USA, #6 Australia, #15 NZ)

Sue Thompson - Paper Tiger (1964[USA]-1965, #23 USA, #3 Australia)²

Loudermilk's Midnight Bus was first recorded in the US by Billy Graves then by Loudermilk himself, but the song became better known in Australia, thanks to a classic local version:

 

Betty McQuade - Midnight Bus (1961, #29 Australia [#6 Melbourne]; 1963 reissue, #69 Australia [#17 Brisbane, #1 Perth)  See my history of Midnight Bus.

As well as Callin' Doctor Casey, another of Loudermilk's own records was popular down under (especially in New Zealand):

John D. Loudermilk – The Language Of Love (1961, #32 USA, #21 Australia, #8 NZ).

In fact, in a world where most songwriting credits went unnoticed, Loudermilk would have been known down here mainly as a singer. For connoisseurs of the fine print, he was an extraordinarily prolific and diversifying songwriter.

When he died in 2016, obituarists tried to summarise Loudermilk's huge songwriting repertoire in a few lines. Many started by mentioning two or three well-known and contrasting compositions, typically Tobacco Road, Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye or Indian Reservation. 

When I attempted a list of "better known recordings" of Loudermilk's songs I tried to keep it short but I ended up with 27. I wanted to convey the volume of familiar songs he had written, but I was also struck by the wide range of styles and ideas they took in. 

An economical way of dramatising Loudermilk's versatility is to pair one of his songs with another that is markedly different from it. Like this:

Top Forty, News, Weather And Sport (Mark Dinning)
Abilene (George Hamilton IV)

Talk Back Tremblin’ Lips (Johnny Tillotson)
Tobacco Road (The Nashville Teens)

Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye (The Casinos)
Norman (Sue Thompson)

The Language Of Love (John D. Loudermilk)
Indian Reservation (The Lament Of The Cherokee Reservation Indian) (Raiders, Don Fardon, Marvin Rainwater: title varies)

Thou Shalt Not Steal (Dick & DeeDee)
This Little Bird (Marianne Faithful)

Midnight Bus (Betty McQuade)
Callin' Doctor Casey (John D. Loudermilk)

Listen to the list on this playlist:

Footnotes
1. Top Forty, News, Weather And Sports was on Volume 3 of Glenn A. Bakers Hard To Get Hits, a series that includes the same premise as Only in Oz. 
2. Two other Sue Thompson records written by Loudermilk were hits both in the US and in Australasia: Sad Movies (Make Me Cry) (1961, #5 USA, #6 Australia, #2 NZ) and Norman (1961, #3 USA, #4 Australia, #1 NZ), later adapted in Australia as Norman-“Normie" (1966), a tribute to local pop idol Normie Rowe 

Essential reading:
Kees van der Hoeven's John D. Loudermilk site is the definitive, indispensable source where the ultimate aim is to document every Loudermilk song and recording. He must be getting close.

Further reading:
John D. Loudermilk at Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Only in Oz (18): Johnny Burnette - Big Big World (1961)

Another in my series of posts about tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin. See also: Only in Melbourne.

18. Johnny Burnette - Big Big World
(Fred Burch - Gerald Nelson - Red West)
USA 1961
London single (USA) #F-55318
London single (Australia) #HL-2164

US Charts: #58 Billboard, #49 Cash Box
Australian charts: #38 Sydney, #19 Melbourne (Ryan), #14 Melbourne (Guest), #37 Brisbane | #37 Australia

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Not a dramatic case of Only in Oz, but the lower reaches of Australia's Top 40 do beat the lower reaches of Top 60 Billboard and Top 50 Cash Box. 

Johnny Burnette

Johnny Burnette's three biggest hits Dreamin' (1960), You're Sixteen (1960), and Little Boy Sad (1961) all charted at least Top 20 in the US, the UK, Australia, and NZ but Australia is the only one where Big Big World made Top 40. 

In 1961 I was listening to Melbourne radio, so I remember Big Big World as well as Burnette's better-known songs. Depending on the chart compiler, Big Big World charted in Melbourne at #19 (Gavin Ryan) or #14 (Tom Guest). (For a plunge into the metaphysics of retrospective charts see my post Toppermost of the poppermost: the charts.) 

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Big Big World evokes the feeling of searching for one person among millions and being defeated by the vastness of the city. 

In Snuff Garrett's production the elements meld perfectly, all contributing to the final effect: composition, arrangement, performances. There are no jarring distractions.¹  

I admire the way the story is told economically, in colloquial language, without any wasted words. It takes place in two locations, an apartment block - Nine one, 27th Avenue - and a phone box. 

At the apartments, where the searcher tells them he is just looking for a friend living in Apartment 10, he has no luck: You say she's gone. Please, how long has it been?

In the phone box, the futility of his quest is brought home to him when he consults the telephone directory. 

Joneses, Joneses
Oh, I see, page 19 to 23

Big, big world can be unkind
The phone just took my last dime

I love the sound of Joneses Joneses. Every "s" has a /z/ sound, setting up a nice percussive effect with the repetition.  

This is a song of numbers: the address and the apartment number (Nine one, 27th Avenue... Apartment 10), the pages of Joneses (19 to 23).

I assume the numbers that open the song - Nine one, 27th - were carefully chosen, as they are perfect. 

I am reminded of that much-repeated story about the comedy writers on Sid Caesar's TV show deciding which number on a roulette wheel would be funniest. (The final choice was thirty-two). 

Big Big World isn't comedy, but I can imagine a similar process going on for Nine one, 27th, as well as for the numbers of the telephone directory pages 19 to 23.

Clearly, the rhythm of the words is a factor. And although the selection might have been intuitive, I wonder whether the result has something to do with the repeated sounds in nine one twenty-seven: the /n/, the short "e" (/e/) and the /w/?

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The composers of Big Big World are Gerald Nelson (1935-2012), Fred Burch (c.1932- ) and Bobby "Red" West (1936-2017).

Red West was a long-time associate of Elvis Presley from high school days, and a member of Elvis's entourage. He worked successfully as a bodyguard, stuntman, movie extra, actor, songwriter and artists' agent. West would be the most visible of the three writers of Big Big World, partly through the Elvis Presley connection, but also through his many appearances in films, sometimes uncredited but also credited alongside some well-known names. 

There are 138 Red West compositions listed by BMI at Songview. He wrote or co-wrote several songs recorded by Elvis including Separate Ways (1972, #20 USA) and If You Talk In Your Sleep (1974, #17 USA). He co-wrote I'm A Fool which charted for Dino, Desi & Billy (1965, #17 USA) but was first released by Rick Nelson (1964).

Gerald Nelson and Fred Burch were frequent collaborators. They were both from Paducah, Kentucky, where Nelson was in The Country Gentlemen, later known as The Escorts.  

 

Nelson and Burch started writing together when Burch was at the University of Kentucky in 1958. Their composition Tragedy charted for Thomas Wayne (1959, #4 USA), The Fleetwoods (1961, #10 USA), and Bryan Hyland (1969, #56 USA). A version by Paul McCartney appeared as a bonus track on a later reissue of Red Rose Speedway.

         Fred Burch

Fred Burch* was a prolific songwriter based in Nashville where he was a staff writer for Cedarwood Publishing Co. He collaborated, for example, with Marijohn Wilkin on Jimmy Dean's P.T. 109 (1962, #8 USA, #29 Australia). 

Jan Crutchfield was Burch's co-writer on Perry Como's Dream On Little Dreamer (1965, #25 USA). Crutchfield was also from Paducah, and he was in The Country Gentlemen-Escorts with Big Big World co-writer Gerald Nelson. (Jan Crutchfield's brother Jerry, also a notable songwriter, was also in the group.)

Strange, recorded by Patsy Cline (1962, #97 USA), was a Fred Burch - Mel Tillis composition. Tillis was also contracted to Cedarwood Publishing and they wrote several songs together.

It didn't surprise me to read in the archives that Burch was a "student of journalism" who studied English at university before turning to professional song writing. Clearly, at least one writer who knew their way around words had a hand in Big Big World, and as a songwriter Burch seems to have specialised in lyrics. 

For example, it was Burch who started off Tragedy with some lines of verse.² Local press in Paducah (1962) gives him credit for being the lyricist of P.T. 109 and numerous other songs including Big Big World,³ although in the Tennessee press Burch himself acknowledges co-composer Marijohn Wilkin's role in polishing the lyrics of P.T. 109.⁴

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Selected sources, further reading:
1. I wrote something similar about Snuff Garrett's production of Gene McDaniels - It's A Lonely Town (Lonely Without You). That post also has a list of some of Garrett's notable productions.

2. "Burch, Helms on High Road": background on Burch & Nelson and the writing of "Tragedy", The Tennessean, Nashville, 12 November 1961.
3. "P.T.109... Former Paducah Man Writes Hit Song", The Paducah Sun, Paducah, Kentucky, 3 June 1962.
4. "PT 109: How It Came About", The Tennessean, 20 May 1962.

Item of interest:
"Composers Take Cruise": songwriters Marijohn Wilkin and Fred Burch with Wilkin's husband and son on a cruise trip to Paducah on the Wilkins' houseboat,  The Leaf-Chronicle, Clarksville, Tennessee, 7 August 1961.

*Don't confuse Fred Burch with Don Burch who wrote The Shields' hit "You Cheated" (1958) or John Burch who wrote Georgie Fame's "Preach And Teach" (1964) and "In The Meantime" (1965).

Only in Oz* (17): José Feliciano - Adios Amor (Goodbye, My Love) (1967, 1969)

Another in my series of posts about tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin. See also: Only in Melbourne.

*In this case, Only in Oz and NZ.

17. José Feliciano - Adios Amor (Goodbye, My Love)
(Tom Springfield - Norman Newell)
UK 1967, 1969
• RCA Victor single (UK) #1640, reissued on #1794 
• RCA Victor single (Australia) #101806: 1967, reissued 1969
• RCA Victor single (New Zealand) #60474 

UK charts: "Bubbled Under" Top 50 (= #51), Record Retailer, 22 Apr 69 
Australian charts: #4 Australia (Kent and Go-Set);
#2 Sydney #5 Melbourne, #26 Sydney, #2 Brisbane, #2 Adelaide, #7 Perth (Gavin Ryan)
New Zealand chart: #3 (Scapolo and Freeman)
USA charts: no single released

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Adios Amor (Goodbye, My Love): American artist, British record, Australasian hit.

It charted in Australia early in 1969 (mid-'69 in NZ), a few months after José Feliciano's breakthrough hit record Light My Fire (1968, #14 Australia, #16 NZ, #1 USA, #6 UK). 

Adios Amor was probably seen as a follow-up recording to Light My Fire (1968) but in fact Adios Amor came first. It was initially released in 1967 then re-released in 1969, presumably in response to Light My Fire's success. An ad for Adios Amor's reissue in Britain's New Musical Express in February 1969 overlooked its history and billed it as Feliciano's smash new single.

The two songs are quite different from each other. Light My Fire, released in July 1968, was a jazz-soul-flavoured reworking of The Doors' #1 US hit from the previous year. Adios Amor is a more conventional orchestration of an original ballad, but no less affecting for that, as Australasian audiences clearly found. Just read the heartfelt memories of the song from Australians at YouTube.

NME 15 Feb 1969 [link]

In spite of its Spanish title, Adios Amor has mainly English lyrics. (There are some spoken Spanish words at the very end, as the track fades out.)

It is a British composition, recorded in the UK during Feliciano's sojourn there in 1967, along with another single My Foolish Heart / Only Once.

Adios Amor was released in the UK (and in Australia, NZ, France, Germany and Spain) but there was no US single. As far as I can see, it has not been included on any American José Feliciano compilation, nor did it appear on any regular album at the time. It was on at least one compilation from Australia.

The entirely plausible story goes that producer and co-writer Tom Springfield first proposed Adios Amor as a song for The Seekers but the group turned it down. In later years Seekers lead singer Judith Durham (1943-2022) did perform and release the song, as did a latter-day line-up The Original Seekers.

The José Feliciano we hear singing Adios Amor from a London studio in 1967 was yet to take off in mainstream markets, but he was already a popular Spanish-language artist amongst Latino audiences in the US and South America. He had also released three English-language albums of his own takes on standards, folk songs and pop hits on RCA Victor 1965-1966. 

One of those songs, Hi-Heel Sneakers, on The Voice And Guitar Of José Feliciano (1966), was recorded again to become Feliciano's second Top 40 hit in the US (1968, #25 USA, #24 Australia). The B-side, a cover of Dunn & McCashen's Hitchcock Railway, co-charted in Australia and later had its arrangement openly borrowed by Chris Stainton for Joe Cocker's well-known version (1971).¹

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The composers of Adios Amor, Tom Springfield and Norman Newell, were both English. Springfield also produced the record. 

Tom Springfield (Dion O'Brien 1934-2022) and his sister Dusty (Mary) had been in The Springfields who had hits with Silver Threads And Golden Needles and Island of Dreams. Tom produced and wrote hit songs for The Seekers including The Carnival Is Over, I'll Never Find Another You, and World Of Our Own.

Norman Newell (1919-2004) was a prominent record producer and songwriter from the post-war 1940s until his retirement in 1990. He worked mainly in the middle-of-the-road segment of the market, often collaborating with arranger and conductor Geoff Love, and often with such major names of post-war British show business as Shirley Bassey,  Russ Conway, and Des O'Connor. He had a hand in numerous hits, for Petula Clark (Sailor), Laurie London (He's Got the Whole World in His Hands), Adam Faith (What Do You Want?), Matt Munro (Portrait of My Love) and Ken Dodd (Tears). His obituary in The Independent gives a good overview of his varied career.

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British group The Casuals released a version of Adios Amor in February 1968 with an arrangement similar to the original. They would finally find success later in the year with Jesamine (#2 UK).

As an album track, Adios Amor was released by Vanity Fare on The Sun, The Wind, And Other Things (UK, 1969) and by Ed Ames on Sing Away The World (USA, 1970). See the list at SecondHandSongs.com.

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Thanks to Marc for clarification around British chart positions; details now edited to reflect his comments.

Footnote
1.  Chris Stainton tells about how he got to play on The Who's Quadrophenia [from RichieUnterberger.com]: "Pete (Townsend)… seemed to be very impressed by the piano riffs I was playing in (Joe Cocker's) 'Hitchcock Railway,' which I lifted from José Feliciano's version," says Stainton. "He never forgot it and years later asked me to play in that style on the Quadrophenia album." 

José Feliciano - Adios Amor (Goodbye, My Love) (UK single 1967, 1969)

The Casuals - Adios Amor (Goodbye My Love) (UK single 1968)

Judith Durham - Adios Amor (album Mona Lisas, 1996)