15 April 2008

Trini Lopez - Up to Now: update

The Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel FAQ at alt.music.paul-simon identifies the third writer of Trini Lopez's Up To Now, Terry Sue Pinter, as the wife of co-writer Marty Cooper. In fact, it throws more light on the whole connection between the writers of Up To Now (Bob Susser-Marty Cooper-Terry Sue Pinter) and Paul Simon:
Paul hooked up sporadically with a group called Tico & The Triumphs. Other members were Michael (Mickey) Borack, Howie Beck, Martin Nathaniel (Marty) Cooper, and his wife Terry Sue Pinter. Their manager was Robert Howard (Bob) Susser. "Tico" was Marty Cooper, although many sources incorrectly assert that Paul was. Most of the songs were written by Susser, Cooper and Pinter...

The group's origin can be traced to 1956, when Borack, then 10 years old, formed a group called The Crew Cuts. Later, when living in Queens, he joined with schoolfriends Cooper and Gail Lynn. One night in June 1960, Paul, still calling himself Jerry Landis, played a high school prom at the Forest Hills Jewish Center. Borack and Co. also performed I've Told Every Little Star, sufficiently impressing Paul that he suggested they all meet at summer's end to work together.

In September, the group joined Paul at his home in Flushing to rehearse the song Motorcycle. Paul also produced the single and sang lead. They named themselves after the Tico record label and the popular Triumph sports car of the day.

Their biggest success was with that first song, which reached number 99 on the Billboard charts on January 6, 1962. However, Paul also put out two songs (Lone Teen Ranger/I Wish I Weren't In Love) under his Jerry Landis alias that were actually Triumphs records. The former charted at #97.

There are also several songs credited by BMI to Susser/Pinter/Cooper that weren't released, and may not have been recorded either.
[For more details, see my original post and the FAQ quoted above.]

3 comments:

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Howie Beck is my great uncle. So cool that he played with Paul Simon

Lyn Nuttall said...

That certainly is cool. Thanks for commenting.