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Volume #0193 December 11, 1998
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featuring radio and recording favorites
Subject: National Academy of Songwriters (Warning: Long Message)
Sent: 12/10/98 3:20 pm
Received: 12/11/98 7:13 am
From: Scott Bauman, ScottBaXXXXXXXX.msn.com
To: Spectropop List, spectrXXXXXXXXties.com
Last Wednesday, I attended the National Academy of Songwriters
Lifetime Achievement Awards. I've been meaning to tell you all
about it, but I've been very busy. Here's the details. First, I
got to meet Jerry Leiber and Barry Mann! How cool is that?
The first honoree was Jeff Barry. He was introduced by Paul
Williams. Jeff, accompanied by someone on electric guitar,
proceeded to sing 3 country (?) songs that he wrote (none of which
I had ever heard before) followed by an unforgettable 6 1/2 minute
medley of hits that he wrote, including: Tell Laura I Love Her, Do
Wah Diddy Diddy, Then He Kissed Me, Chapel of Love, Leader of the
Pack, River Deep Mountain High, Be My Baby, Sugar Sugar, and I
Honestly Love You.
Before he began the medley, he said he wasn't going to include
Hanky, Panky because it was a silly song that he wrote in the
hallway with Ellie, but then he sang about 5 seconds of it anyway.
The next honoree, Johnny Cash, couldn't attend because of illness.
Mark Collie, a country singer that I never heard of, performed
surprisingly strong acoustic versions of the following Johnny Cash
songs: I Walk The Line, I Still Miss Someone, Don't Take Your Guns
To Town, Fulsom Prison Blues
The next honoree was Lester Sill. Cynthia Weil gave a nice talk
about how writer-friendly Lester was and then Barry Mann came out
and did a lengthy medley of songs that he was involved with as a
tribute to Lester: On Broadway, Only In America, Blame It On the
Bossa Nova, I Love How You Love Me, My Dad, Uptown, He's Sure the
Boy I Love, Walkin' In The Rain, She's Who Put the Bomp, You've
Lost That Lovin' Feeling, Soul and Inspiration, We Gotta Get Out
of This Place, Kicks, Hungry, Just A Little Lovin', I Just Can't
Help Believing, Make Your Own Kind of Music, Patches, Rock and
Roll Lullaby, Here You Come Again, Sometimes When We Touch, Just
Once, Never Gonna Let You Go, and Don't Know Much.
The final honoree was Brian Wilson. Brian was introduced by Carnie
and Wendy, and then Brian performed In My Room, Lay Down Burden,
and Do It Again accompanied by Carnie and Wendy on vocals and
Jeffrey Foskett on acoustic guitar and vocals. The harmonies
sounded very ragged on In My Room, but they sounded pretty good on
the other 2 songs. Afterwards, Brian gave a speech in which he
acknowledged Carole King as the greatest inspiration and
motivation for his songwriting. However, the best line of the
night was Brian's opening line (the only one that wasn't written
out). He began: "I'm sorry that Phil Spector couldn't be here
tonight, but that's probably a good thing. If he was here, I'd
probably pass out."
The crowd included, in addition to the aforementioned individuals,
Mike Stoller, Lamont Dozier and Jackson Browne. Between Jeff Barry,
Mann/Weil, Leiber/Stoller, Brian Wilson, Lamont Dozier, Paul
Williams and Jackson Browne, I wonder how many Top Forty Hits they
wrote?
Sorry I didn't go into much depth as I would've liked, but if I
waited until I had time it might not be for another few weeks.
-- Scott
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Subject: Gene Pitney, It Hurts to Be in Love
Sent: 12/10/98 7:09 am
Received: 12/10/98 8:33 am
From: JM, jhorXXXXXXXXyan.edu
To: Spectropop List, spectrXXXXXXXXties.com
This is probably an arcane question, but...
I've always loved the female backing vocals on Gene Pitney's "It
Hurts to Be In Love". Does anyone know who these girls were?
Some more questions...
Were most of the sessions for Pitney's Musicor LPs done in New
York or Los Angeles?
And does anyone know what Gene's up to these days? He's been
pretty quiet the past three decades, it seems.
JM
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Subject: One [off-era?] defense of Collectables
Sent: 12/11/98 3:57 am
Received: 12/11/98 7:13 am
From: Jeffrey Thames, KingoGXXXXXXXXom
To: Spectropop List, spectrXXXXXXXXties.com
In a message dated 12/8/98 5:19:57 PM Central Standard Time,
PaulurXXXXXXXXom writes:
>I am not impressed by Collectables, they use the
>wrong versions on 45's and some of the CD's are from albums. My
>Angels is even though they claim they had a tape. Of course some
>may be remastered but there is no way of telling what you are
>getting. They don't know oldies music. Period. I'd look elsewhere.
I have one full-length Collectables CD (in addition to a few CD
singles, and those are chancy, I'll grant you), and it's probably
one of the few times they got it right. It's M's *Pop Muzik*,
which basically collects the band's (man's?) debut, *New
York-London-Paris-Munich* (with two songs originally in medley
form now two separate entities), and adds "M Factor", the original
B- side to "PM". It doesn't sound like it was mastered from an
album (at least not to me), and as far as I know, it's the only
disc you can find the original 5-minute "Pop Muzik" on (and
believe me, I've looked). Maybe they should stick to that era,
n'est-ce pas?
We now return you to the sixties, already in progress.
Cheers,
Jeff
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Subject: Please Be My Boyfriend
Sent: 12/09/98 9:34 am
Received: 12/10/98 8:33 am
From: Jimmy Cresitelli, JimmXXXXXXXXom
To: Spectropop List, spectrXXXXXXXXties.com
There's a version of this song by the "Crystals" circulating??? I
saw that picture of the lead sheet in my Betrock book, but I've
never heard it! I know there's a song called "Please Be My
Boyfriend" by the Shirelles... is this the one that people think
might be by the Crystals?
Thanks, Jamie!! I love a mystery... let's hope Barbara Alston can
help us out!!
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Subject: re: Please Be My Boyfriend/Woman In Love
Sent: 12/09/98 10:46 am
Received: 12/10/98 8:33 am
From: IAC, ianXXXXXXXXlnet.co.uk
To: Spectropop List, spectrXXXXXXXXties.com
Hi Jamie,
Well I can't offer concrete evidence, only opinion. Personally, I
don't think the track is by the Crystals - the lead vocal sounds
nothing like Lala nor Barbara, and I agree that it doesn't sound
like a typical Philles track - you'll notice that the session
sheet doesn't actually mention the Crystals anywhere on it - I
think Betrock just assumed they were the artists. I go for the
Jeff Barry theory myself.
Also, had it been a Crystals session, I would have expected to see
the code TCY somewhere on the sheet, which as you know was the
matrix code Phil used on all their sessions, and I would have
expected to hear Lala on lead. I know she was still doing leads in
that later period for the following reason:
A friend of mine is lucky enough to own a test pressing of a late
Crystals unreleased master - their version of "(I'm A) Woman In
Love" - the code on that is TCY 50 - a very late number, so one of
their latter Philles sessions - and it's clearly Lala on the lead.
Think about that, by the way - TCY 50 - what happened to all the
numbers in between that and the last official Crystals releases?
Does that mean there's another 40-odd Crystals tracks still in the
vaults?
Ian Chapman
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Subject: I Want To Be Your Boyfriend
Sent: 12/10/98 3:01 pm
Received: 12/11/98 7:13 am
From: Scott Bauman, ScottBaXXXXXXXX.msn.com
To: Spectropop List, spectrXXXXXXXXties.com
Jamie LePage wrote:
>The song in question is Please Be My Boyfriend...
>Also, who wrote this song? It has been suggested that it may be
>written by Barry/Greenwich, and while I agree it sounds like it
>could have been written by them, if memory serves Spector wasn't
>very happy with Jeff & Ellie at the time due to their involvement
>with Leiber and Stoller's Red Bird label. If it is Barry/Greenwich,
>perhaps Phil intentionally solicited a one of their songs in
>spite knowing that the recording was destined to remain incomplete.
I don't believe that this song was written by Jeff & Ellie,
because when PolyGram Music Publishing acquired their catalog,
this song was not in it.
>a little oddity: There is a song in the Mother Bertha catalog
>entitled "I Want You To Be My Boyfriend." The writers: Spector/
>Barry/Greenwich. But here is the oddest thing about this. The
>first date of copyright is January 1, 1990!!! Mother Bertha
>controls only Phil's share of the song. I wonder if Jeff & Ellie
>have this song under copyright, and if so, is the year of
>copyright 1990? I have never heard of a recording of this song; to
>the best of my knowledge the song has never been released
>commercially. I seriously doubt Phil wrote this with Jeff & Ellie
>in 1990, and somehow I Want You To Be My Boyfriend doesn't sound
>like a song title for the '90's.
This song IS included in the Greenwich/Barry catalog. In searching
the files, I found the songwriter agreement for this song between
Trio Music and Jeff Barry (Tony Powers was typed in, but crossed
out with Jeff Barry's name written by hand), Ellie Greenwich and
Phil Spector. The date of the agreement? February 21, 1963. I also
saw that the song has generated a small amount of income, all of
which I believe was from outside the U.S.
I hope this helps.
-- Scott
--------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]--------------------
Subject: The Supreme Things Are Changing
Sent: 12/10/98 8:22 pm
Received: 12/11/98 7:13 am
From: Jamie LePage, le_pageXXXXXXXXties.com
To: Spectropop List, spectrXXXXXXXXties.com
Scott Bauman wrote:
>I just got the Diana Ross & The Supremes 2-CD Anthology and was
>surprised to find their recording of "Things Are Changing" on it.
>(As I'm sure most of you know, this was a re-working of "Don't
>Hurt My Little Sister" that was used as a public service
>announcement.) According to the liner notes, this recording is not
>available anywhere else. Is that still true?
As if I really needed to buy yet another Supremes anthology...
Picked this one up yesterday. I just had to hear this.
For a long time I only knew the Blossoms version, and I was really
surprised when I finally heard Jay & the Americans' version. The
mix is so strange, with the vocal so far in front the glorious
Spector track is all but lost.
Hearing the Supremes version for the first time was very
interesting. The first thing was hearing Diana's Motown voice on
Spector's Gold Star/wrecking crew track. That's almost surreal!
The backing track is more present than on Jay's version, which is
nice, and Diana sings that little "Things are changing (B-D-E-B,
B-D-E-D) melody that is also at the very end of Jay's version.
That melody is not used on the Blossoms version, which leads me to
wonder who came up with that line. I guess Jay must have heard
Supremes version or vice-versa.
Another not so surprising but rather disappointing thing about the
Supremes' version is how detached Diana Ross sounds on this, as if
she was handed a lyric sheet on the spot and given only one or two
takes to get through it. Flo & Mary's parts aren't all that great
either. In any event, Diana doesn't sound all that sympathetic to
the cause if you know what I mean.
Darlene Love's version, on the other hand, is absolutely
convincing. It is one of her most powerful vocal permormances,
similar to Long Way to be Happy. After hearing Diana Ross sing
this, I must say Darlene Love's Things are Changing is absolutely
the supreme version!!! Soaring, convincing delivery, and even
though the rhythm track is pumped to the max on Darlene's version,
her vocal is locked in perfectly and towers above Phil's powerful
Wall.
>I was even more surprised to find that not
>only is Phil Spector listed as the producer of the track, but he
>is also listed as the sole author! Do Brian Wilson's lawyers know
>about this?
As you know Scott, the writer/pub info printed on sleeves is not
always accurate, what with ghost writers et al. The crucial point
here is whether the song is claimed by both Mother Bertha (Spector
) and New Executive (Wilson). I've been trying to search BMI
hyperdata on this but their site has been down the last few days.
Interestingly enough, there is publisher info listed on the Jay/
Americans CD for every song EXCEPT Things Are Changing, and as I
mentioned earlier, this is listed as written by Wilson/Spector.
Jamie
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