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Jamie LePage (1953-2002)
http://www.spectropop.com/Jamie.htm
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There are 10 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Reparata/Nanette Licari
From: Tony Leong
2. Reparata/Delrons line-up
From: Tony Leong
3. Ganser Twins
From: Ian Chapman
4. Niagara's list
From: Ian Chapman
5. Re: Ganser Twins
From: james botticelli
6. Re: Ruthan Friedman
From: Joey Stec
7. Ruthann Freidman, Gene Pitney
From: Country Paul
8. Egyptian Shumba
From: Will Stos
9. More Ruthann Friedman
From: Country Paul
10. IT'S MY PARTY
From: Mick Patrick
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Message: 1
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 18:38:26 -0000
From: Tony Leong
Subject: Reparata/Nanette Licari
> Will Stos wrote:
> That's a wonderful story Dave! I don't have contact info for
> Nanette, but if John Clemente is lurking around here, he might
> know how to contact her. He interviewed Mary Aiese for his
> book and Nanette performed until 1993 with her. I'm sure
> she'd love to hear from her : )
> Dave Sunderlin replied:
> Well I wasnt looking for a contact. I wouldn't want to bother
> anybody. I just wanted you all to know that there was a
> "rest of the story."
Dave,
To answer your initial question, Nanette is OK, married, and
living in Queens New York. She teaches in a Catholic School in
Brooklyn and occasionally sings with a local New York group. She
pretty much still looks the same as she did in the 1960s!!!!
Tony
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Message: 2
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 18:45:16 -0000
From: Tony Leong
Subject: Reparata/Delrons line-up
Phoenix Canada wrote:
> Great story...can anyone do us a favour and identify which
> Reparata is which.....use say the cover photo of the CD.
OK,
From the cover photo - left to right:
Lorraine Mazzola (the Lady Flash Reparata), Nanette Licari,
and Mary (The REAL ORIGINAL REPARATA) Aiese Oleary.
That's the line up!!! Hope that helps!!!!
Is anybody out there able to tell Maryann from Margie in
the Shangri-Las besides Me, John Grecco and Clemente?????
Tony Leong
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Message: 3
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 20:01:08 -0000
From: Ian Chapman
Subject: Ganser Twins
Tony Leong asked:
> Is anybody out there able to tell Maryann from Margie in
> the Shangri-Las besides Me, John Grecco and Clemente?????
Yes!! Its in the eyes! Mary Ann has softer look, not so heavy
with the Revlon on the lower lashes as Marge.
Ian (just call me Max Factor.......)
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Message: 4
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 22:19:46 +0100
From: Ian Chapman
Subject: Niagara's list
Nice list of songs there, er, niagarafalls....welcome to the
group,
May I recommned that you try and find the UK cover of Sonny
& Cher's "Just You" by Thursday's Children.
It has a great folk-Spector production, and the vocals come
over like an English version of Sunshine Company. It was
issued on Kingsley's great comp, "Ripples Vol. 7 - Rainbows"
for Sequel a couple of years ago.
"Is It True" by Brenda Lee - yes, one of a handful of Little
Miss Dynamite's 60s tracks that I'd place more in the
girl-group genre than her other output. That particular one
was written by UK songsmiths and Spectropop heroes Carter
and Lewis. Other Brenda tracks I'd recommend would be "My
Whole World Is Falling Down" (done en francais by Sylvie
Vartan as "Si Je Pleure"); the David Gates ballad "Ain't
Gonna Cry No More", almost a northern soul slowie (talking of
which, Brenda's uptempo "Where's The Melody" often used to crop
up on northern sale lists). And finally, no yuletide season
would be complete without several plays of "Christmas Will Be
Just Another Lonely Day" from '64.
Funny you should mention April Stevens' "(Won't You) Marry
Me Again", as produced by Nino and Jeff Barry. I love this
too, probably more so than her rewritten version of Nino's
"Boys' Town" that was discussed earlier this year (check out
the archives). I was recently discussing "Marry Me Again"
with Phil and we both agreed that it basically has a very
similar structure to "All Strung Out". But because it was
released in the 70s, it seems they held back on the
gargantuan Spectoresque production it so obviously cries out
for. Such a shame - but still a great record, and April's
voice is impeccable as ever. But you can't help thinking
what could have been, had it been done in '66..........
Posted to musica - any other opinions??
Ian
niagarafalls wrote:
> ......anyway, here are some songs I really
> love to listen to:
> ........"Just You" - Sonny & Cher (gorgeous--Sonny was not
> the best singer on earth, but on this song, his singing was
> very effective)........."Is It True?" Brenda Lee ( a real
> rocker, not a c&w # at all)....."(Won't You) Marry Me Again?"
> - April Stevens (on A&M).......
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Message: 5
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 20:55:04 -0400
From: james botticelli
Subject: Re: Ganser Twins
Ian Chapman wrote:
> Max Factor.......
who? Helena Rubenstein? Ba-Da-BOOM!~
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Message: 6
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 23:03:27 EDT
From: Joey Stec
Subject: Re: Ruthan Friedman
Paul, Joey Stec here. Ruth is a friend of mine. I haven't heard from her in
about a year...can you tell me who put thie cd that you are talking about
out...is it the am album of hers??? Just curious. Ya have to love her.
regards:
Joey Stec
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Message: 7
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 12:31:10 -0400
From: Country Paul
Subject: Ruthann Freidman, Gene Pitney
Re: Ruthann Friedman - so to
http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=%22Ruthann+Friedman%22&hc=0&hs=0
there are 63 references at this Yahoo search page, starting with
a real estate agent in the US midwest, but getting "better" quickly!
(I wonder if that's what the composer went into after writing her
hits!)
Simon White - is your "Saturday Morning Playlist" for a radio show?
Where? Is it streamed? Many kudos for Gene Pitney's "Every Breath
I Take!"
By the way, Pitney's earliest work came out about a dozen years ago
as a large part of an album of Doo-Wop Sounds from the Hartford (CT)
area, on Relic. I think it has been also reissued on CD. Unlike his
more famous work, he sings with a Clyde McPhatter-like lead voice,
frequently fronting black groups. The music is available at Relic
Records, 80 Main St., Hackensack, NJ (label and store) or through
Clifton Music, 135 Main Ave., Clifton, NJ 07011 (http://www.ugha.org).
Being close to New York, Hartford and New Haven, CT were also hotbeds
of doo-wop and r&b. One of the acknowledged granddadies of doo-wop,
The Five Satins' "In The Still of the Night," was recorded in a
church basement in New Haven and originally released on the New Haven
-based Standord label (correct spelling) before being licensed to
Ember, where it subsequently sold millions. Incidentally, Bill Baker,
second lead singer (onthe hit follow-up "To The Aisle") just passed
away three or four years ago; group leader Fred Parris is still going
strong at last report.
Way behind in correspondence - will try to catch up soon.
Country Paul
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Message: 8
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 16:21:24 -0000
From: Will Stos
Subject: Egyptian Shumba
The group that has everyone doing the "Egyptian Shumba" are
profiled this week at the Girl Group Chronicles web site.
Granted it's probably nothing girl group aficionados haven't
already read (since it was culled from other sources), it's
still fun to read about this wild and wonderful group.
Check'em out at:
http://www.geocities.com/williamstos/tammys.htm
Will : )
http://www.geocities.com/williamstos
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Message: 9
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 12:52:22 -0400
From: Country Paul
Subject: More Ruthann Friedman
Check out http://www.dustbury.com/blog/200104.html#11 - dated
Wednesday, 11 April 2001, 07 :15 pm
Everyone knows it's windy — this is Oklahoma, after all — and
everyone knows that record by The Association. So while this
song started playing in the back of my head, I started wondering
about Ruthann Friedman, who wrote it, and whatever happened to
her anyway?
Well, she did have a career as a singer, turning up at places
like the Big Sur Folk Festival, and she cut a mostly-unnoticed
album of twelve original tunes for the Warners organization
(Constant Companion, Reprise 6363, 1970), which I will now
officially add to my want list, right under Damhnait Doyle.
"Windy" was written as a paean to her boyfriend of the moment,
one of the Ur-hippies of the Haight, and originally, she'd
envisioned it as a waltz. Bones Howe, producer of that
Association session, reworked it into 4/4, and Ruthann didn't
seem to mind — after all, she sings on it. I rather think she
probably also doesn't mind the checks from BMI; I'm sure it
beats the heck out of, say, selling real estate in Indianapolis.
[See first listing in my previously-mentioned Yahoo list.
Paul]
A close-to-first-person follow-up entry from December 2001 -
http://www.dustbury.com/blog/200112.html:
This past April, I devoted a log entry to Ruthann Friedman, the
youngster whose song "Windy" became an enormous hit for the
Association back in 1967. Quite unexpectedly, I heard from her
daughter Lisabeth — one of two children — who advises that
Ruthann is alive and well and living (and attending college) in
Los Angeles, and that the person who inspired "Windy" wasn't so
much the boyfriend she had as the boyfriend she might have wanted.
Fair enough. Lisabeth herself is in college, and appreciates the
song greatly: "Those BMI royalties pay my tuition." Go run out
and buy the record, just in case she needs new books.
The net sure is fascinating, ain't it?!
Country Paul
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Message: 10
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 22:36:20 +0100
From: Mick Patrick
Subject: IT'S MY PARTY
Hi,
You've all read the booklet for Lesley Gore's "I'll Cry If I Want To"/"Sings Of
Mixed Up Hearts" CD, right? No? Well, things are a little quiet at Spectropop
at pres, have some edited highlights on me...
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Having persuaded Mr and Mrs Gore to let them sign their daughter, Mercury
Records placed Lesley in the capable hands of their A & R chief Quincy Jones
who set about selecting suitable material for his young charge. He loaded two
hundred heavy acetate demonstration records into his chauffeur-driven company
car and travelled to the Gore family home in New Jersey. Top of the pile of
discs was a copy of "It's My Party". Lesley: 'He was carrying these big boxes
in and we set them in the den, and he puts on "It's My Party". It's the
first time I've ever done this, so I said to him, 'That's not half bad. I like
it. Good melody. Let's put it on the maybe pile'. Then we went through the
entire two hundred and it was the only one we liked. It was the only song we
had at that point. So we went back to the drawing board. Quincy got Paul Anka
to write me a couple of songs. Quincy knew what he was doing'. A few weeks
later, on March 30th, 1963, Lesley went to Bell Sound Studios in New York to
record her first session for the Mercury. With German conductor Claus Ogermann
providing the arrangements and musical scores, and Quincy Jones overseeing the
operation, four songs were recorded that day. Among them was, of course, "It's
My Party".
Unbeknown to many except the staff at Aaron Schroeder Music, a certain North
London teenager named Helen Shapiro had already recorded a version of "It's My
Party". The singer - talented, young, Jewish, voice-trained, magnificently
coiffured - in many ways the British precursor to Lesley Gore, had flown to the
U.S.A. to record her new album, "Helen In Nashville", during a short break in
her British tour of February 1963. Among her support acts on the tour were the
Beatles, no less. Helen: 'Going to Nashville was a big thrill. Norrie Paramor
was the co-producer with a guy called Al Kasha in the control booth. Elvis
Presley's group, the Jordanaires, did the vocal backing with the help of three
girls, Milly, Dolly and Prissy. I thought I had really arrived, using Elvis'
backing group'. Helen found the experience of recording in Nashville to be much
less stiff and formal than in London: 'The studio was something of a surprise,
though. It was just like a shack or a small barn. There were no musical scores.
We just had a rough chord chart, the demo acetates we'd been given to work from
and a turntable. We would talk about which song we'd do, stick the demo on the
turntable and work out the chords, instruments and vocals. I was plonked in the
middle of the studio with a mike. The musicians were all around me. I loved it.
The guitarist brought in a fuzz-box to use on "Woe Is Me", which Jackie
DeShannon had written, and the three girls added the wailing sound, very black
and soulful. We all had high hopes of the single doing well but it was way
ahead of its time. Another good single, "Not Responsible", was released next.
The piece de resistance which we were saving until last was a song called "It's
My Party". Right from the first time we heard the song on the rough demo back
in London, we thought we were going to sock them between the eyes with that
one. We'd been told that the song was an exclusive for me but by the time we
got round to releasing it Lesley Gore had come out with her version which was an
enormous hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Her version was much more punchy
than mine but if we'd had any inkling that something like that was going to
happen we'd have released my recording first'.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away on the West Coast, yet another rendition
of "It's My Party" had been committed to tape. Speaking to the BBC, Quincy
Jones remembered how he found out about this rival version: 'We recorded "It's
My Party" at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon one Saturday. That evening I went
to see Charles Aznavour at Carnegie Hall. I was about to do an album in English
with him. Pulling up outside Carnegie Hall comes this limousine and out gets
this dude with the black cape on. It was Phil Spector. The guy with him told me
that Phil had just cut this smash record called "It's My Party" with the
Crystals. I couldn't believe it'. Later that night, hell-bent on getting his
version out first, Quincy went back to Bell Sound to collect the master tape.
He then 'phoned recording engineer Phil Ramone and arranged to meet at A & R
Studios the next morning when they proceeded to run off a hundred acetates on a
lathe. Quincy had copies of the test pressing mailed to every top radio
programmer in the country on the following Monday. Lesley Gore first heard her
version of "It's My Party" on the radio the next Friday. Mercury officially
released the record a few short weeks later. Quincy: 'Then I had to go Japan,
to do some acting, believe it or not. Three weeks later they called me in Japan
and told me that the record was #1'. Quincy's mission was accomplished - Phil
Spector never did release the Crystals' version of "It's My Party".
But was it really with the Crystals that Spector had recorded "It's My Party"?
While participating in a magazine debate on the origins of the song "He's A
Rebel", Fanita James of the Blossoms sowed the first seeds of doubt: 'Phil was
mad at the Crystals about something and refused to fly them out from New York.
He hired the Blossoms to record "He's A Rebel" instead. Our follow-up was
supposed to be "It's My Party". We learned it and we were doing it slow - we
would 'drag' it. Darlene sang lead and Phil told us it was going to be
released under the Blossoms' name. But Phil never put it out. Then here comes
Lesley Gore and, boy, was that a big record! Isn't that something!' Darlene Love
confirms Fanita's version of events: 'Oh, sure. It wasn't the Crystals that
did "It's My Party", it was me and the Blossoms. Just like it wasn't the
Crystals who really sang "He's A Rebel" or "He's Sure The Boy I Love"
or "Chapel Of Love". In fact, Phil got us to do "It's My Party" in the same
style as my version of "Chapel Of Love". It was kinda slow with me and my
sister Edna singing together on lead. Much more R & B than Lesley Gore's
version. Phil was always telling me that he'd release things in my name or the
Blossoms' name. Then he'd change his mind and put the Crystals' name on it, or
he wouldn't release the track at all. I'd complain but then he'd just wipe my
voice off the tape and put Ronnie's (Bennett of the Ronettes) voice over the
top, or one of the Crystals, like he did with "Da Doo Ron Ron". Honey, even if
Phil Spector had've released "It's My Party", it would just be one more darn
record that he never paid me for'.
But that is still not the end of the "It's My Party" story. Who was singing
the demonstration version that Helen Shapiro heard on an acetate in that studio
in Nashville and Quincy Jones played to Lesley Gore in her basement den? New
York singer Barbara English, former leader of the Clickettes and the Fashions,
reveals all: 'I worked as a receptionist for Aaron Schroeder in the early '60s.
They were big time publishers, so I used to see all the songwriters and A & R
men coming and going every day. People like Gene Pitney, Burt Bacharach, Phil
Spector - all those guys. I also used to record demos for Aaron Schroeder to
earn some extra money. All the female songs and some of the others. I must have
made hundreds of demonstration records, for other publishers too. Me and my
friend Jimmy Radcliffe were the in-house demo singers at Aaron Schroeder Music.
Jimmy probably made even more of them than I did. He did lots of demos for Gene
Pitney. It was me that recorded the original demo version of "It's My Party"
and it was Jimmy Radcliffe who produced it. My friend Wally Gold composed the
song. Me and Wally wrote quite a few songs together, you know. Anyway, my
version of "It's My Party" came out really great. We probably only did one
take, but we'd rehearsed it before. It had a good catchy arrangement. Jimmy
tried to persuade Musicor to release it as a record, or to take me into a
master studio and redo it, but they weren't interested. This would be 1962.
Then some months later I heard the song on the radio. I thought that it was me
singing at first. Lesley Gore's record sounded just like y demo but with a big
budget production. I wasn't really upset or jealous. Well, maybe a little when
it got to #1! That kind of thing used to happen all the time. I was just doing
my job, which was to sell the songs. I just wish I had written it!'.
In the end there is only one version of "It's My Party" that matters and that is
Lesley Gore's. It entered the Billboard Hot 100 at #60 on May 11th after just
one week on official release. By June 1st it had bounded to #1, leapfrogging the
Crystals' "Da Doo Ron Ron" along the way. Mr Spector's views on the matter were
never reported. Mercury released Lesley's first LP a few short weeks later . . .
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MICK PATRICK
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