chameleon

Bob Crewe's Girls

The group that became known as ‘Les Girls’ by collectors but one that unkown to most of us where arguably the best female harmony group of the sixties from one perspective …their sound. From left to right….Jean Thomas, Ellie Greenwich, Mikie Harris. This photo courtesy of George Schowerer  from we are told late 1967 but we can’t place the session in Jean Thomas’s session logues.

 

So what did Bob say about those times….this article by Kingsley Abbott appeared in Record Collector in 1998 and is reproduced here with his permission.

Bob Crewe is best known as the producer and co-writer, with Bob Gaudio, of the best of the Four Seasons' records, and for his later work with Mitch Ryder. But he was very alert to other musical trends around him in the 60s, so it was only natural that he should dabble in the girl group sound. In fact, though he now downplays his role in the genre, he came up with some corkers which should not be overlooked.

RECORD COLLECTOR(RC): How did you get involved with girl group records?

BOB CREWE(BC): I was very fortunate, as that whole period was very good for me. No one twisted my arm; but sometimes you'd get an idea for a production or a song that maybe had a female attitude to it. I'd often hear it as a finished entity from the outset, so I'd know exactly where I was heading. Maybe that is a prerequisite for popular records, as opposed to more serious music. But I'm not sure why you're asking me about girl groups - it was Ellie Greenwich who reigned supreme. She was the creme de la creme! .

RC: You had a lot of strong issues, though: Tracey Dey, Diane Renay, the Beach Girls, the Calendar Girls and the Rag Dolls. .

BC: Well, yes, I suppose. . . Diane Renay had one major hit ("Kiss Me Sailor") and then we did lots of kinda naive follow-ups. Some of them crossed over to the Four Seasons' sound ("Please Forget Me", "Growing Up Too Fast"), and one of them was a Phil Spector sound. That was "Unbelievable Guy". . I really enjoyed working with Tracey Dey, because she was very talented and a great singer. We cut some good sides with her. . .

I can't really understand why we didn't have a big hit. I thought that she'd go a long way.(Tracey Dey's " Won't Tell" is generally thought to be one of Crewe's best productions and one of the best example of the genre.( Ed: with a good contribution from Bob Gaudio yet again.) The Rag Dolls was a very blatant attempt to get a female Four Seasons. The name, arrangements and songs were a complete copy. I worked with Lesley Gore when she was on a bit of a down slide, and we got a hit with her with "California Nights"; That was Marvin Hamlish's first pop record! .

RC: Did you have much contact with other people working within the girl group sound? .

BC: Oh yes, with Ellie Greenwich. As I said, '.she was the Empress, the absolute Empress of the whole girl scene. We wrote a few things together. She was on every one of my records that were put out! She was even in among the guys on guy records. We had a regular group of about eight or nine girls who we'd use for sessions: one lot had a sweet sound (Ed. and featured Jean Thomas), one other lot would have a grittier sound. We mostly used three of the girls….(ed. Jean Thomas, Mikie Harris and Ellie). Ellie would always be there coaching :them, and she'd give the body and the root to the sound. She was always there.

 (Ed: Jean Thomas worked extensively with Bob and Ellie throughout the sixties including most of Lesley Gore’s backing and with dozens of other artists and she told us the following re this comment by Bob……..

“Bobs's right that Ellie was the queen of the girl's group sound.  Mikie and I were the lucky ones to be working with her on so many of those wonderful records.  Ellie and I met at Associated Recording during a demo session and realized it would be a lot easier to work together on all the backgound work we were doing instead of trying to do all the background voices by ourselves.  We started to work as a duo on a lot of these demos and I called Mikie to come to NY and join us, which she did.  We felt it was a good sound together. Bob used us and, as he said, a few others, depending on the sound he needed.  Many times Ellie worked with other singers, as did I, but we did so much work together. “

 BC:I love the Phil Spector records, I especially love "River Deep, Mountain High". In fact, when that record was such a big hit in England, but not'in the U.S., Phil got really angry about the way that it was ignored by everyone here. I guess that he had done something to upset some people, so they killed the record. Anyway he called me and asked me to produce a follow-up for Tina Turner. I was very happy to, and we cut a song called "Everything Under The Sun" that I had 'co-written. It was a really big record in England. (I queried this fact, but Bob was adamant that it was issued and was a hit. However, the issued versions are by Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes, and the Walker Brothers. The Bob Crewe/Tina Turner version remains unissued, but does exist,in acetate /form with a very similar arrangement to the Walkers' version.)' (ed See this Spectropop link for the story of this track).

RC: When the pure innocent girlie pop stopped, people moved into a more soul-based sound. Were you involved with that?

BC: Well, I'll tell you. .. Berry Gordy used an idea of mine for the Supremes. It was my idea for the footstomps for "Where Did Our Love Go~. I think he was real pleased with that! . ,.

I cut some others with Dee Dee Sharp and some more. Charlie Calello, who arranged all the early Four Seasons things and I guess some of the girl ones that I don't remember, had always done a lot for my production company. Some of the things were just him. I've kinda lost contact with him at the moment. I think that he's in Florida,but I've lost his' address and number. It was soon. after that I began to work with Mitch Ryder. He was really great! He was the heartbeat of the people! He really was! We made some great records - once again. I could hear the finished pop record sound already when we began. Yeah, I had a good run! . .(Ed…fortunately “Jersey Boys has re-united them….although after the success of ‘Lightnin’ Strikes’in 1966  Bob and Charles only worked together on Seasons tracks…..Herb Bernstein became his main arranger)

 The photo below is of Ellie Greenwich and Bob Crewe in the studio in 1967 workin’ it out!

 

BOB CREWE by Kingsley Abbott for Record Collector Aug 1998…edited by Ken Charmer

 

 

Gang Culture and Jersey Boys

With three 15 year old boys murdered in London in gangland style killings in the last few weeks, there has never been a time that reminds us so much of the social power of gang culture since the 1950s.

The time to combat this power base and show young people how to find a way out of social deprivation was never more important.

The example of how 4 boys from New Jersey escaped this culture back in the 50’s is needed in London now more than ever. ‘Jersey Boys’ debut on the West End is a focal point that can’t come soon enough.

Finding your creative spirit and expressing yourself through music is one path to success…but the message that success in itself provides hardships that the spirit must rise above is equally a key message in Jersey Boys.

Michael Ingersol speaking of his role in the San Francisco production expresses this in a recent interview…..“One of the points of the show,” Ingersoll says, “is that in life, you never reach a point where everything’s good — no matter how much success, money or fame you have. There’s always another side to the coin. Think about us. We’re on the road, away from home for a year. I’m away from my wife for a year. She visits, and this is a dream job for me. The guys would say the same thing. Nothing could be better in that way. But the fact remains I’m not seeing my wife for such a long time. There’s a price to pay. It’s never just: I’ve arrived! Everything’s great! This show thrives on showing the reality of that.”

As the good people of south London struggle to cope with the social pariah amongst them, the messages and hope of Jersey Boys as well as the inspirational music will be a well appreciated focus for many.

Casey Chameleon

Frankie Valli - "Off The Record"

A recent photo of Frankie Valli with old sixties friend DC Larue (aka Mathew Ried and other identities). Maybe they were discussing who did the best vocal on 'Cry Myself To Sleep' which they both  recorded back then. More likely they were discussing the success of 'Jersey Boys'

‘Jersey Boys’ tells the ‘warts and all’ story of the Four Seasons but this piece from Joe Smith’s ‘Off The Record’ from our archive circa 1988 tells even more.

 “Bob Gaudio was the major creative force behind the Four Seasons. Bob had his first hit record when he was sixteen years old. At the time, he was in a group called the Royal Teens. I met him on the road. We exchanged telephone numbers, and I found out he lived in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and I was from Newark. We got together and he played me some songs, and I said, "This kid is definitely going to make it." We went into the studio, cut some demos, and brought them around.

Coming out of Larry Uttal's office at Madison Records one day, we met Bob Crewe. I had known Bob Crewe from some earlier things, and we said hello.

I introduced him to Bob Gaudio, and Crewe said, "Whatever you got, give me a shout, let me know what you're doing." That's how we got connected with Crewe.

Our first successes were on Vee Jay. We had "Sherry," 4'Big Girls Don't Cry" and "Walk Like a Man," but there was very little money, maybe an accumulation of $30,000. Later on, we found out that there was a lot more money, but we never saw any of it.

The nice part was, Crewe and Gaudio were writing together, and everything they did seemed tailor-made for us. The most important thing we wanted to establish was a sound that would be uniquely ours, and as soon as you heard the radio, you would know who you were listening to. And we did developed a sound before there were any hit records, very much like the Beach Boys consciously patterning themselves after the Four Freshmen.

I remember as a kid my mother taking me to New York, to the Paramount Theater to see Frank Sinatra. Something amazing happened to me that day. I was mesmerized. I looked up him on the stage, and I said to myself, "Someday I'm going to be up there, too." And in the early sixties we worked the Paramount Theater, just before they tore it down.

Right at the beginning, we had three Number 1 records in a row, and then "Ain't That a Shame," which was a cover and not a big hit, and then "Candy Girl," which went to Number 3. Well, you never saw four more depressed people in your life. A Number 3 record and it felt like it was over.

The first house I bought was a two-family house because I was afraid it was all going to go away. This is the way it was with me since childhood.

My father would come home and ask me, "So when are you going to get a real job?" Nobody thought rock 'n' roll would last. Everybody was ripping everybody else off. No one was concerned with anyone's career. The music was supposed to be around for a couple of years, and then it was supposed to fade away.

For us, things began to erupt after the first two years. All of a sudden things were happening that never happened before. It's strange, but when people are struggling for success together, it's amazing how close you become.

Everybody sleeps in the same bed, everybody drinks from the same cup. And then, as soon as success comes, everybody needs his own limousine, everybody wants his own suite in a different hotel. I think it's sad that people drift away from one another.

The first eruption with us happened between Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi. They were at it constantly until one day Nick couldn't take it anymore.

He walked out saying he didn't want anything. He just wanted out. And he's never done anything since.

It's frustrating knowing you had earned a certain amount of money, sold a certain amount of records, and now you're not going to get paid for it. Someone was cheating us. We were beginning to spend more time with lawyers, accountants, and business managers, and that was not fun. That was another thing Nick couldn't handle.

He said, "You go to the meeting. I don't want to hear how much they owe us. It makes me sick." That's where his head was. Fortunately, for me, I had some street sense. I grew up in a poor environment and I spent a lot of time on the street. So I learned how to deal with it.

But talk about being mishandled and mismanaged. I can remember one time we had a guy who was managing us, and he convinced us that he should take care of all the bills. We give him power of attorney, we went out on the road-Boston or Connecticut, I don't remember which one and we're on stage doing a show when all of a sudden we're surrounded by police. They take us offstage and right to jail on charges of defrauding an innkeeper. Could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen dollars a night per room, maybe the entire bill was seventy or eighty dollars, but our manager never paid it.

We got crazy with this guy. We climbed all over him. He says, "Oh, it was a terrible mistake. Don't worry, it won't happen again." OK, now we are in Columbus, Ohio, doing a state fair, and right in the middle of the show the paddywagon pulls out onto the field. The police come in, we're surrounded again, and they bring us down to the local jail, and we're booked for defrauding an innkeeper again.

We finally get back to New York, and I am so embarrassed. I tell my lawyer, "Look, I want you to get in touch with every Holiday Inn we've ever stayed at, go over every contract for every date we played over the last two years. I want to find out whether there is anybody else out there we owe money to, because I do not want to get arrested in every city I go to." We had another problem in the early days. Not just problems with money. We would go through different parts of the country, and we'd see an awful lot of racial tension.

We were on a tour once with Jackie Wilson. It was an all-black tour, and we were the only white act. It was heavy duty through the South. We had to stay at a different hotel, and I never knew from any of that. I never saw any of that growing up in New   Jersey. But now it's really heating up, and we are the only white act on the bill, and we're in Jackson, Mississippi, in a National Guard-type of complex. We're doing the show inside, and people are protesting outside with signs and all that crap. We get out of the bus, and they are calling us "nigger lovers," and all this shit.

I go for a hot dog at the refreshment stand before the show. Someone from the Orlons walks over. I order a hot dog, the guy gives it to me. The guy from the Orlons orders something, and the guy looks him straight in the face, and he says, "We don't serve niggers." I started to choke.”

Photo courtesy of Mike Miller and DC Larue

Bob Crewe - "Off The Record"...almost!

We heard that Bob Crewe was seriously ill recently and we wanted to wish him well in his recovery. We received word from DC Larue (aka Mathew Reid and other identities) via researcher Mike Miller. DC told Mike…. “ When he went back to California after the shoot he went into the hospital for a simple gall bladder operation a week later...and that's when the night mare began.  He went into sceptic shock and almost "left us!"  There were a few days there that we didn't know if he was going to pull through.”Well Bob Crewe got in touch via his manager at Crewe Studio and sent us some recent photos and to confirm he is feeling much better now. This photo by David Stoltz

 

We also found this quote from Bob in the book by Joe Smith…”Off The Record”

 
Crewe wrote marvelous pop songs and made (some) less-than-marvelous records. But he had the touch and the feel for what could be a hit for others, and became a top record producer for over a decade.

  This is his comment on those times…

“I learned a lot from Jerry Wexler. Jerry always said, "If you want to know how much promotion is being done on your record, just consider how much you'.re doing and then cut that by 90 percent. That's how much promotion you're getting." .

He'd say , "You have to get on the phone, you have to be in contact with people, keep the dialogue running." He taught me so many things, like how the business was based on relationships between people. There sure was a lot of stuff going on at the time about payola, but I never got into it.

I gave parties instead, and everyone had a grand time.

The first success I had with the Four Seasons-and it was a tiny bit of success-was a record called "
Bermuda" which came out on George Goldner's label. It was a minor hit out of Philadelphia. But Frankie Valli was getting a little restless because nothing was really happening beyond Philly.
One night I went down to Point Pleasany, New Jersey. My mother and father lived in Ocean   Beach, New Jersey, and I went to see the Seasons, Bob Gaudio and the guys, who were appearing at this dive in Point Pleasant.

But Frankie did a thing that night that blew me away. He put a bandana over his head, took two maracas and stuck them under his coat, and began singing "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" like Nellie Lecher with that high voice.

I had a lot of other things happening at the time, but I said to Bob, "Go write a song for Frankie with that chi-chi voice and jump it an octave.

I don't care if you call it "Bananas," just jump it an octave, and we'll make a record of it, whatever it is." He came up with several ideas. One was a song called "Jackie," inspired by Jackie Kennedy, who was the darling of the world at the time. But the song didn't work out. It was then that Bob wrote "Sherry." At the time, I'm living in a duplex on 50th   Street, which looked like it cost a billion dollars but was put together with Scotch tape. I was confronted with the choice of either paying the rent or going back into the studio to make one more record with the Seasons. By now I was calling them the Four Seasons. I decided to go in and make it because I really believed in what we had.

(Photo by Aloma)

We had five songs on that date, and "Sherry" was one of them. Now for years I'd been working with this guy, Paul Marshall, who would make deals for me by selling my masters all over the place, so I was able to stay aAoat and keep going. Paul and I went down to the NARM Convention inMiami and played the record for Henry Stone, who was a great friend of mine, and Joyce Monroe, who was at WFUN.

Henry heard the record and said, "Don't say a word. You got a Number 1 record here, and we're gonna get this thing going." During the next two or three days, the buzz around the pool and the lobby was that I was carrying hot gold.

Then the bidding started, and we wound up making a deal with Ewart Abner at Vee Jay. On paper, it was one of the largest deals that had ever been made on a record, sixteen cents a record. Later down the line, I realized that we probably should have made a deal with CBS for five cents a record becaqse maybe we would have gotten a better count. There were times when Ewart could be found in Vegas, blowing a quarter of a million bucks a night at the crap table. But I loved the guy.

None of that matters now. We had a great run with the Four Seasons.

And although the line of hits with the group-"BigGirls Don't Cry," "Walk Like a Man," and the rest-were all by Crewe and Gaudio, my favorite record during that entire time was Cole Porter's "I've Got You under My Skin. "”

 Casey Chameleon