SHG: The Toys: "A Lover's Concerto"

The Toys: “A Lover’s Concerto” Entered the chart on: 10/2/65 Peaked on: 10/30/65 Weeks at #2: 3 Songs at #1: “Yesterday” by the Beatles and “Get Off My Cloud” by the Rolling Stones

I’ll be honest, I could have sworn this was the first song based on a classical piece I’d be writing about when I started this feature. I somehow forgot about the Allan Sherman bit, and didn’t even know about “Don’t You Know,” which rather blunted the surprise regarding this one.

Then again, maybe not. This is the first “rock” song to be based on classical music to appear in Second Hand Goods. Someone—and by “someone,” I mean the legendary songwriting team of Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell—thought it would be a good idea to adapt the Minuet in G to a Supremes-knockoff pop-soul girl group song.

And you know what? They weren’t wrong!



Interestingly, the arrangement here, while clearly based on a classical piece, sounds oddly jazzy. Something you’d expect more in a Dionne Warwick song than in something that sounds like Martha & the Vandellas. Never noticed it before, but lead singer Barbara Harris (not that one) sounds an awful lot like Martha Reeves. She’s flying solo for the first verse, and I really like how they add the other two Toys gradually to the vocal mix, until it’s a virtual choir at the end. We’re not quite in “Sally Go Round the Roses” territory here, but arranger Charles Calello does a fine job of making the most of the ladies’ voices.

Lyrically, this could come across to some as insufferably twee. I don’t think it tips the balance too far, but this is sort of the tip of the iceberg, inspiring quite a lot of extremely saccharine, mega-girly female-sung soul-pop in the 70s. Stuff like “I Love You for All Seasons” by the Fuzz or...pretty much anything by the Barry White-produced vocal trio Love Unlimited is bound to conjure up images of pink silk hair ribbons or Hello Kitty plush dolls. This isn’t that extreme, but it is awfully precious and trying hard to be demurely feminine.

Overall, good taste rules the day, and for that I’m glad. I’ve always loved this song. Still do.

Rating: 5

SHG: The Ronettes: "Be My Baby"

The Ronettes: “Be My Baby” Entered the chart on: 9/14/63 Peaked on: 10/12/63 Weeks at #2: 3 Song at #1: “Sugar Shack” by Jimmy Gilmer & the Fireballs

1963 really was the golden age of the “girl group” sound. Not only the Jaynetts, but you may have noticed tunes by the Angels, the Chiffons and the Crystals lurking in the top spot of past review subjects.

This one’s a Phil Spector production, the first to appear in Second Hand Goods. He co-wrote the tune with Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, who I believe also make their debut appearances on this feature. There’s a lot of superlatives attached to this tune, even more so than “Sally Go Round the Roses,” so it has quite a lot to live up to. Not that I have any doubts, I love this song! And like “There Goes My Baby” from four years earlier, it caused many to step up their game (not least, the previously-alluded-to Brian Wilson).

Now, before we begin the proper review, some of you are probably asking yourself why music of this era sounds the way it does. That’s because the main way these pop songs were disseminated was via the transistor radio. Phil Spector and his contemporaries were trying to make music that sounded good coming from a 2-inch speaker.

That said...



Ah yes, that much-imitated drum-handclap hook. With castanets adding accents! Exquisite! Jack Nitzsche, another pop music genius, arranged this, and it’s really superb. There’s a cello solo in the middle eight that kind of gets me right here.

I held back in talking about Veronica “Ronnie” Spector’s voice, which is an absolute treasure. She has this aching sob in her voice that makes listening to her an utterly compelling experience. The Ronettes didn’t have a huge amount of hits (this was undeniably their biggest), but Ronnie wound up being highly influential largely on the basis of this one song (Hell, Eddie Money coaxed her out of retirement to reference it in his “Take Me Home Tonight”). The backing harmonies are likewise sumptuously gorgeous, and it’s almost Mellotron-like in the way the backing singers meld with the strings, forming a kind of “additive synthesis” unison timbre.

That’s the magic of Phil Spector’s so-called “Wall of Sound.”

Pop perfection, it demands to be heard.

Rating: 5

SHG: The Jaynetts: "Sally Go Round the Roses"

The Jaynetts: “Sally Go Round the Roses”
Entered the chart on: 9/7/63
Peaked on: 9/28/63
Weeks at #2: 2
Song at #1: “Blue Velvet” by Bobby Vinton

So...we’ve had folk revival. We haven’t had “girl group” yet, but that’s about to change, and how! Here we have girl group in the guise of folk revival. Or is it the other way round? In any case, this was not an adaptation of an old folk song, but it was made to sound like one, done in the then-popular “girl group” style. They must have had some measure of success in that regard, as folk artists such as Pentangle, Judy Collins, Joan Baez and Tim Buckley adopted the song as their own.

The more I read up on this, the more I am fascinated by it. The Wikipedia article on the song makes producer Artie Butler out to be a sort of Brian Wilson-esque pop genius, with “Sally...” as his personal “Good Vibrations.” Reportedly, $60,000 was lavished onto the production, and no less than twenty singers performed on the disc. Staggering if true.

This is what I like about this feature. It gets me not only to listen to songs I never would have listened to before (hello, “A Blossom Fell”) but also to sit down and really listen to songs I’d heretofore neglected. Is it shameful that I am actually more familiar with Fanny’s 1975 remake than the original tune? Well, only one way to find out.



This one starts with a piano-led instrumental track, with the voices emanating out of what sounds like a long tunnel. Listening to this, I can believe twenty girls sang on it! This probably has the most striking use of dynamics I’ve heard in any song on Second Hand Goods thus far. No idea who it is singing lead but she sure does a good job of belting out at just the right point (“No, the roses won’t tell your secrets!”)

The backing track is almost hypnotic, raga-like. Is that a harmonium I hear adding accents? Some kind of crude electronic organ? In any case, that $60,000 shows in the striking production on this one. This is a lot more enigmatic and atmospheric than I am used to from records of this era, especially those aimed at the audience this is aiming for (i.e.: twist-crazed teenagers).

Really a gem of 60s pop. I am flabbergasted.

Rating: 5

SHG: The Chordettes: "Lollipop"

The Chordettes: “Lollipop”
Entered the chart on: 3/10/58
Peaked on: 3/31/58
Weeks at #2: 2 weeks
Songs at #1: “Tequila” by the Champs and “Catch a Falling Star” by Perry Como

Does it count as “whitewashing” if only half of the original artists were black?

Ronald and Ruby, a duo of a black man and a white woman, were the original performers of “Lollipop.” Ruby was actually the song’s co-writer, Beverly Ross, who at the urging of her mother didn’t use her real name for the recording. They also didn’t do any promotion on TV for the song, which is why it stalled at #20, while the Chordettes’ rendition sailed to #2.

Anyway, if you’d told me Ronald and Ruby were two women, I’d be hard-pressed to negate that claim, as Ronald has a pretty high voice on the original recording. Out of sheer curiosity, I also checked out the cover by the English family group the Mudlarks, and it is an odd duck indeed*, being rather gender-confused, as the two Mudlark brothers give the “I call him” line to their sister to deliver solo.

As for the Chordettes, could there be a more quintessentially “fifties” female vocal group? Possibly the McGuire Sisters, but “Mister Sandman” is used to evoke the era of poodle skirts and malt shops way, way more often with “Sincerely,” and they weren’t whitewashing an R&B act’s hit, so I’m sticking with the Chordettes.



Well, it’s obvious why this version was the big hit. They have the “pop” effect after the refrain! And the wordless guest spot by the nameless bass singer. I tend to be more forgiving of this squeaky-clean vocal harmony pop when delivered by female groups. Does that make me sexist? Reverse sexist? Anyway, I’m enjoying this. Maybe because I’m picturing Jasper from The Simpsons delivering it while wearing a Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit and having his teeth fall out when he tries to do the “pop.”

The song is, of course, extremely inane, but I forgive it because it’s fun. I can forgive inanity if it’s fun and not annoying. And if there was effort put into it. It’s obvious that effort was put into every aspect of this, from the songwriting on down to the vocal arrangement and the harmonies, etc. And it shows.

Rating: 4

*No idea if he was actually involved, but Joe Meek is very much in evidence on the Mudlarks’ version, at least at the start of the recording, where it sounds like a spaceship landing!