All posts by Woodstock Whisperer

Attended the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969, became an educator for 35 years after graduation from college, and am retired now and often volunteer at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts which is on the site of that 1969 festival.
Music et al, Peace Love Art and Activism, Rhythm and Blues, Roots of rock

Willie May Thornton Hound Dog

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Willie May Thornton Hound Dog

Released  March 1953

“Big Mama Thornton”

December 11, 1926 – July 25, 1984
…and Sam Phillips’ answer to it
Willie May Thornton Hound Dog
the label of the 78 rpm “Hound Dog”

Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton was 26 when Peacock Records released Hound Dog in March (or February) 1953.  Written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in 1952, it spent seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B charts and sold almost two million copies. Big Mama saw very little of that money.

Willie May Thornton Hound Dog
78 rpm of Rufus Thomas’s Bear Cat

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then Sam Phillips, the young record maker and founder of Sun Records in Memphis, flattered Hound Dog by writing “Bear Cat.” He knew Rufus Thomas and decided he’d be the ideal person to sing the song.

Willie May Thornton Hound Dog
Rufus Thomas as a DJ at WDIA in Memphis

Click below to hear “Bear Cat”:

Willie May Thornton Hound Dog

Bear Cat

Though Rufus Thomas wasn’t familiar with the term, where Phillips grew up in Alabama, a bear cat was “the meanest goddamn woman in the world.“

Thomas and Phillips knew they had not come close to the superior “Hound Dog” but were satisfied with the results and released it on March 22,  just a few weeks after the release of “Hound Dog.” Even the full title told you what you could obviously hear: “‘Bear Cat’ (The Answer to Hound Dog)”

“Bear Cat” was an immediate hit. The first in Sun Records young but turbulent history.

Willie May Thornton Hound Dog

Answer songs

“Answer songs” were very popular and Sam Phillips innocently didn’t realize he had struck a hornet nest of problems by releasing the song without permission from Lion Musical Publishing Company which held the rights to “Hound Dog.”

Sam Phillips ended up writing a check to Lion and gave up all claims to the publishing.

 “Bear Cat” eventually reached #3 on the R & B charts and did not leave the charts until June.

Willie May Thornton Hound Dog

Hound Dog

Of course, three years later a young white singer named Elvis and his cover of “Hound Dog” would forever displace Thornton’s version.

Ironically, Big Mama would write (in 1961) and release (in 1968) a song (“Ball and Chain”) that would be taken by another young singer.

I highly recommended book about early rock and roll and Sam Phillips: Sam Phillips, the Man Who Invented Rock and Roll by Peter Guralnick.  

The subtitle of the song is “How One Man Discovered Howlin’ Wolf, Ike Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley, and How His Tiny Label, Sun Records of Memphis, Revolutionized the World.”

Willie May Thornton Hound Dog
Music et al, Music of the 60s

Ruby Romantics Day Will Come

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Ruby Romantics Day Will Come

Our Day Will Come
by
Ruby & the Romantics
Ruby Romantics Day Will Come
Ruby & the Romantics, 1965. Clockwise from bottom left: George Lee, Ronald Mosely, Ruby Nash, Leroy Fann, Ed Roberts
Ruby Romantics Day Will Come

Ruby Romantics Day Will Come

March 23, 1963

Our Day Will Come became #1 on Billboard on March 23, 1963, just one day after the release of the Beatles’ first album, Please Please Me, in England. The Beatles had released the single “Please Please Me” in America on February 25, but it failed to make an impact.

Ruby Romantics Day Will Come

American pop music meandered along

The week before, Walk Like a Man by the Four Seasons was number one.  The following week the Chiffons’ He’s So Fine would take over.

“Our Day Will Come” was also number one on the R & B chart. Lead vocalist Ruby Nash Curtis, Ed Roberts, George Lee, and Leroy Fann were the original members when they began in Akron, Ohio in 1961.

The personnel on the original recording include Leroy Glover on organ, Vinnie Bell, Al Gorgoni and Kenny Burrell on guitar, Russ Savakus on bass, Gary Chester on drums and George Devens on percussion.

The song was nominated for Song of the Year in 1963, but “The Days of Wine and Roses” won.

They never had another #1 hit, but did have success with such songs as  “When You’re Young and in Love,” “Our Everlasting Love,” and “Baby Come Home.”

By 1966, they completely changed their personnel, with Curtis the only holdover. She then joined Richard Pryor, Vincent McLeod, Robert Lewis, Ronald Jackson, and Bill Evans.

Ruby & the Romantics became an all-female group in 1968, with Denise Lewis and Cheryl Thomas backing Ruby.

Ruby Romantics Day Will Come

Disbanded in 1971

They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame [Sharon, PA] in 2007. In August 2013, Ruby & The Romantics were inducted into the very first class of the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

Only Ruby survives today. Here she is singing the hit from a 2002 show in front of a mainly white audience a few of whom are enthusiastically nodding and smiling along to the song.

Ruby and the Romantics influenced other groups. For one, they influenced The Temptations early harmonies.  And many covered the hit song, such as  Frankie Valli, Cher, Donny and Marie Osmond, Bobby Darin, Patti Page, Dee Dee Sharp, Pat Boone, Nancy Wilson, Trini Lopez, The Supremes, Cliff Richard, and James Brown.

The most famous cover is likely Amy Winehouse’s from 2011.

Ruby Romantics Day Will Come
Anniversary, Beatles, Music et al, Music of the 60s

Beatles Please Please Me Album

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Beatles Please Please Me album

Released March 22, 1963

Beatles Please Please Me Album

Beatles Please Please Me album

Other preferences

In March 1963 while we were listening to the Four Seasons say Walk Like a Man, Ruby & the Romantics singing Our Day Will Come, and the Chiffons do He’s So Fine, the Beatles released their first album, Please Please Me.

In the UK only.

Their single “Please Please Me” had hit #1 in the UK on February 22. They’d released it in the US on February 7, but the single hardly charted here, reaching No. 35 on the WLS-AM (Chicago) music survey in March and did not chart at all on Billboard.  

The Vee Jay label even misspelled their name.

Beatles Please Please Me Album

Beatles Please Please Me album

No Zoo picture

For the album, producer George Martin, a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, owners of the London Zoo, thought that it might be good publicity for the zoo to have the Beatles pose outside the insect house for album’s cover photo, however, the Zoological Society turned down Martin’s offer and instead, Martin asked Angus McBean.

It was he who took the distinctive picture of the group looking down over the stairwell inside EMI’s London headquarters in Manchester Square.

Martin wrote later: “We rang up the legendary theatre photographer Angus McBean, and bingo, he came round and did it there and then. It was done in an almighty rush, like the music…”

Veterans of the road, John Lennon and Ringo Starr were 22; Paul McCartney and  George Harrison were 20.

Beatles Please Please Me album

Outside help

The album was as much a collection of covers as originals:

Side one               

  1. “I Saw Her Standing There” 2:54
  2. “Misery” 1:49
  3. “Anna (Go to Him)” (Arthur Alexander) 2:57
  4. “Chains” (Gerry Goffin, Carole King) 2:26
  5. “Boys” (Luther Dixon, Wes Farrell) 2:27
  6. “Ask Me Why” 2:26
  7. “Please Please Me” 2:03
 Side two               

  1. “Love Me Do”      2:23
  2. “P.S. I Love You” 2:04
  3. “Baby It’s You” (Mack David, Barney Williams, Burt Bacharach) 2:40
  4. “Do You Want to Know a Secret” 1:59
  5. “A Taste of Honey” (Bobby Scott, Ric Marlow) 2:03
  6. “There’s a Place” 1:51
  7. “Twist & Shout” (Medley, Russell) 2:37
Beatles Please Please Me album

Please Please Me

               From the (great) Beatles Bible site:

Eight of the album’s 14 songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney (credited as McCartney-Lennon). At the time it was unusual for a group to write their own material; The Beatles, however, swiftly revealed to listeners that they were anything but a run-of-the mill band.

In early 1963 pop acts commonly released three-minute 45 rpm singles, or occasionally four-song EPs. The long-player was normally beyond the fiscal reach of most teenagers, and the LP as art form was yet to emerge; albums tended to be a handful of hits and a selection of filler songs.

The Beatles were not immune to this trend – the cover of Please Please Me even carried the tagline “with Love Me Do and 12 other songs” – but the quality of the songs on the LP was testament to their ambition and musical knowledge, and the willingness of Parlophone staff producer George Martin to try to get the best from them.

And this he did, effectively capturing highlights from The Beatles’ live set. The sound that had wowed audiences in Liverpool, Hamburg and beyond was most evident in the album’s frenetic closer Twist And Shout, full of boundless energy and with famously hoarse vocals from John Lennon.

The group’s versatility, meanwhile, was shown by R&B ballads Anna (Go To Him) and Baby It’s You, and McCartney’s love for pop standards ensured a place for A Taste Of Honey.

But it was with the original songs that set The Beatles apart from their peers. The opening  I Saw Her Standing There was one of Paul McCartney’s earliest songs, yet after dozens of performances in sweaty basement clubs and dance halls it was something of a rock powerhouse.

There’s A Place and Ask Me Why showcased their talents for melody and harmony, PS I Love You and Do You Want To Know A Secret displayed the group’s lighter side, while the title track was simply one of the most exciting pop songs that 1960s listeners had heard.

Beatles Please Please Me Album