Obscure Originators (33): Bobbie & Dude

From my website's front page series about lesser known artists who performed the original versions of Australian or NZ records.

See also: the full collection of 34 Obscure Originators features. 

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Country and pop singer Maria Dallas was a star in New Zealand. Her first single Tumblin' Down (1966, #11 NZ) won the prestigious Loxene Golden Disc Award, but her most successful single in NZ was Pinocchio (1970, #1), her fifth to chart Top 30 there.

In Australia, though, Maria's biggest hit was with Ambush (1967, #16), recorded in Nashville where she went after working in Australia for a while. The song stood out for its unforgettable rhythmic line at the end of verse and chorus: Your kissin’ leavin’ good-time days are dead. It was later recorded by Teresa Brewer (1975) and by Australian country artist Craig Giles (1993), but Maria's was the original release.

Ambush had been copyrighted a few months earlier by its composers, two sisters from the small Texas town of Moody, near Waco. As it happens, Maria Dallas was also from a small town, Morrinsville in New Zealand.

Bobbie Jo and Elizabeth Ann Brown had been singing from an early age in The Brown Sisters, a solidly booked country-gospel trio with another sister, Bettie.

Montreal, 1967

By the time of Ambush they were a duo called Bobbie & Dude. The stage name Dude was adopted by Elizabeth because it seemed to go better with Bobbie. They toured widely, and performed during Expo ’67 in Montreal where their only single had some radio airplay. As far as I can see they did not record Ambush themselves.

For a long time I knew almost nothing about Bobbie & Dude apart from their writing credits for Ambush and a few other songs. I was puzzled by the addition of Elizabeth Ann Brown to co-writer Dude Brown's name in Ambush's copyright registration, but I had never thought of searching for "bobbie and dude" in quotes.

As I have often typed here, Eventually, someone emails. This time it was someone who knew Elizabeth Ann well, and their tantalisingly brief words gave me the clues I needed.

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For more about the song and Bobbie & Dude see Maria Dallas - Ambush. 

Hal Saunders: songwriter, playwright, printmaker and more

Hal Saunders (1904-1991) was born James Hallett Saunders in Armidale NSW. He was a prolific songwriter who made a name for himself writing radio serials from the mid-1930s before going into the music business in the 50s and 60s. He was also a visual artist specialising in etching and printmaking. 

On his retirement from Festival Records in 1965 (noted in Billboard and Cash Box), Saunders was referred to as a producer, composer, arranger and musical director. That is a good start, but it leaves out lyricist, adapter, jingle-writer, scriptwriter, A&R man, pianist and bandleader. 

Michael Looper has tracked Saunders' job titles at Festival from 1954 to 1960: musical director, musical consultant in charge of local recording activities, recording supervisor and assistant A&R manager. He was a prominent office-holder and advocate in songwriters' associations including APRA in the late 40s-early 50s. 

Women's Weekly 6 June 62 [source]

Anyone who digs into the history of Australian popular music will come across Saunders' name in songwriting credits. In 1949, when he was President of The Australian Composers and Songwriters' Association, the Sydney Morning Herald called him Australia's most prolific songwriter who had copyrighted about 1,000 songs from the previous 15 years.¹ He often worked behind the scenes, for example when he produced Lucky Starr's hit I've Been Everywhere (1962) without any credit on the label. 

In the first half of the 1960s he wrote and (mainly) co-wrote for the latest crop of young pop stars at Festival. Frequent among his collaborators were influential Festival A&R man Ken Taylor and the multi-talented Franz Conde, at this time time a musical director at Festival. 

With Taylor, Saunders wrote or arranged for Vic Sabrino, Johnny Devlin and Ray Melton. With Conde, there were a lot of adaptations: traditional children's songs, a Christmas EP for Noeleen Batley, and an EP of traditional celebration songs for Col Joye. 

As an adapter, Saunders also contributed to Jimmy Little's hit version of the old gospel song Royal Telephone (1963), and he wrote the English lyrics for Noeleen Batley's Little Treasure From Japan (1964) from the Japanese song Konnichiwa Akachan. April Byron, Judy Stone, Patty Markham, Noeleen Batley, and Lana Cantrell all recorded tracks with credits to Hal Saunders as writer, co-writer or adapter.

It is hard to say where Saunders contributed as composer or lyricist in his collaborations, but he was capable of either. 

As a pianist in the 1930s he had led a swing quartet, Hal's Vagabonds, for at least one gig in Northern NSW, and his job descriptions at Festival included arranging and musical direction. Besides, his solo compositions confirm that he could write lyrics and compose music. 

As for lyrics, when Peter Scriven produced Tintookies (1956), his well-known marionette musical for children, Saunders wrote the book and the lyrics. 

For Nex'Town (1957), a musical devised and produced by Scriven, Saunders co-wrote the music and lyrics. His collaborator on Nex'Town, Iris Mason, later co-wrote the music for Saunders' own work for marionettes, Tales From Noonameena: an Operetta for Children (1973), staged at the opening of the Sydney Opera House. 

Saunders' ability as a lyricist is unsurprising. He had started earning a living as a writer for Sydney radio during the 1930s when he wrote advertising copy and lyrics for jingles, but he went on to become one of the top radio playwrights in the country. 

Nov 1935 [full story]

He is often identified with his popular serial The Black Spider (1935), a mystery set in Sydney that was first aired on 2KY, later on 3XY and other stations. A novelisation was published by Magpie Books in 1945.

A Sydney newspaper story in November 1935 announces the final episode of The Black Spider, but plugs a forthcoming comedy by Saunders, Gambler's Luck, as well as his Sunday morning adventure serial Jack Strong's Gold Reef. A few weeks later 2KY was airing Saunders' true-crime-based serial Sydney's Crime Sheet (early 1936), apparently commissioned in response to a similar show on another station.

The Black Spider premières,
October 1935 [source]

This activity signalled a boom time for Australian radio that would last into the 1950s, an era when Australian variety and drama dominated programming. As Will Newton puts it in an overview of the period, I have always thought that Australian radio drama came into its own thanks, largely, to Hal Saunders. 

Away from the performing arts, the Australian Prints + Printmaking website has information about Hal Saunders, a print-seller, printer, printmaker, publisher, and writer, noted for his etchings. 

A reader might not guess that this is Hal Saunders the A&R man or the writer of The Black Spider, but the connection is made clear in a February 1937 Wireless Weekly article. Saunders talks about a medical crisis that forced him to abandon an earlier career in the legal profession. After recovering, he studied Art, and in 1928 he "toured New Zealand on behalf of the Commonwealth Government with paintings and etchings by Australian artists".

At the time of the Wireless Weekly article, Saunders had just written Hotel Revue, a musical comedy for radio with music by pianist Cliff Arnold. 

Saunders says he "brought along half a dozen melodies" to the first meeting with Arnold but confessed his "knowledge of music was non est". Perhaps this meant that he lacked knowledge of musical technicalities, or perhaps he was being modest, or just building a narrative. Whatever the explanation, by December of 1937 he knew enough to handle the piano in Hal's Vagabonds, and by 1954 he was a musical director at Festival Records. 

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1. It is hard to verify the reporter's figure of about 1,000 songs in 15 years, but a song every 5½ days or so seems doable. Besides, Saunders' voluminous output as a radio playwright shows that he had the drive and ability to work quickly and prolifically.

Sources
• Many newspaper and magazine articles at Trove.com.au, Newspapers.com and NewspaperArchives.com, so allow for reporters' errors and recycling of promotional material. See links in the text and email me for more.
• Discographic data at 45cat.com, 45worlds.com and Discogs.com.
• Nancy Bridges, Wonderful Wireless (1983) pp 48-50
• Will Newton. "Wonderful World of Wireless: Golden Years of Radio", Sutherland Shire Historical Society Inc Quarterly Bulletin, February 1993

February 1936: Sydney's Crime Sheet [source]

September 1940: The Secret of Smokyville [source]

Obscure Originators (32): The Meantime

From my website's front page series about lesser known artists who performed the original versions of Australian or NZ records.

See also: the full collection of 34 Obscure Originators features.

Johnny Farnham's cover version of Friday Kind Of Monday (1968) was a hit in Australia (#6) and New Zealand (#11).

The original version from 1967 was by The Meantime, a group that came out of nowhere, released this one single that failed to chart Top 100, and that was it.

This looks like a clear case of obscurity until you follow the lead in the writer credits. Friday Kind Of Monday was written by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, one of the most successful songwriting teams of the 1960s, and a married couple from 1962 to 1965.

As Billboard announced, the lead singer on the Meantime single is

 

Ellie Greenwich but, more than that, the whole recording is a studio project by Greenwich and Barry.

They had previously written and recorded as The Raindrops whose seven singles 1963-65 included He's The Kind Of Boy You Can't Forget (1963 #17 Bb, #15 CB) and What A Guy (1963 #34 CB). They charted moderately in most Australian cities, but in Adelaide they had hits with Kind Of Boy (#4), and That Boy John (1963, #12).

When you listen to a Raindrops record, you are most likely hearing Greenwich's voice double-tracked, with Barry's bass vocals and prominent drumming. For live appearances and for photos of a trio, other personnel were recruited.

This reminds me of Leiber and Stoller's view that We don't write songs. We write records

The Meantime was a similar project, a Raindrops for the late 60s, created in the studio by Barry and Greenwich. There is a cryptic clue in the group's name: think Greenwich Mean Time. 

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For more about the song and The Meantime see Johnny Farnham - Friday Kind Of Monday. 

Only in Melbourne: (5) Strawberry Children - Love Years Coming (1967)

Only in Melbourne: tracks that didn't chart Top 40 in their countries of origin but did better in the capital of my home state, Victoria. See also: Only in Oz.

(5) Strawberry Children - Love Years Coming
(Jimmy Webb)
USA 1967
Soul City single (USA) #758 / SCR 758
Liberty single (Australia) #LYK-189955597
Australian charts: #17 Melbourne (#50 Australia)
Released in Australia August 1967, charted September 1967.
US charts: Did not chart Top 100 Billboard or Cash Box.

Survivor of my teenage record collection pile

When I bought this single as a 17-year-old in 1967, the writer credit (J. Webb) meant nothing to me. 

A hit Jimmy Webb composition had already entered the charts here in July, The 5th Dimension's Up, Up And Away (#1 Australia, #7 USA). It carried the same clipped credit on the Australian label (J. Webb) but I didn't own that single and wouldn't have made the connection.

Songwriters can toil away for years creating famous songs for famous artists without ever becoming famous themselves. My feeling is that in September 1967, when Love Years Coming was charting in Melbourne, Jimmy Webb hadn't yet joined the group of exceptions, songwriters who become household names, but the process was well under way. 

After several months at Motown Records, he had been signed to the publishing company owned by Johnny Rivers, also owner of the Soul City label. During 1967 Jimmy Webb compositions dominated albums by The 5th Dimension (Up-Up And Away and The Magic Garden on Soul City), and by Johnny Rivers (Rewind on Imperial). In late 1966 Rivers' album Changes had included the original version of what would become a much-recorded Jimmy Webb classic, By The Time I Get To Phoenix.

In May 1968 came Richard Harris's MacArthur Park, a startling work that inevitably drew attention to its composer. It was followed by Glen Campbell's Wichita Lineman (#5 USA) in the same year then, early in 1969, Brooklyn Bridge's Worst Thing That Could Happen (#3 USA) and Campbell's Galveston (#4 USA). There are many others, and to browse further I recommend the 4-page Jimmy Webb discography by Hiroto Yanagida.

Love Years Coming, which I loved, carries the era's familiar message of peace (the lion shall lie down beside the manchild) and I took Strawberry Children to be another one of those fine American bands that were emerging after the initial shock of the British Invasion, bands like The Association, The Box Tops, The Doors ... 

Years later I had read with pleasure that Jimmy Webb was Strawberry Children. More accurately, though, this is Jimmy Webb with a studio band assembled for the session, a practice that was more widespread than we realised at the time, and certainly not confined to the first recordings of The Monkees.

The team at the Jimmy Webb Facebook page confirms that he is on lead vocals, with Hal Blaine on drums and Larry Knechtel on guitar, both from the ubiquitous LA session team now known as The Wrecking Crew. 

Don't miss the comments and photos at the Facebook page highlighting other personnel on the record including singers Endore’e Lukem, and "J.W. school friends" Glen De Lange and Mike Reilly.

There were no further Strawberry Children releases, so their only other track was the B-side, One Stands Here (J. Webb), a nicely arranged instrumental that could hold its own on a TV or film soundtrack.

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See also Al Wilson - Do What You Gotta Do, another Only in Melbourne song written by Jimmy Webb.

Obscure Originators (31): The Fun And Games

From my website's front page series about lesser known artists who performed the original versions of Australian or NZ records.

See also: the full collection of 34 Obscure Originators features.

The Grooviest Girl In The World was a #3 New Zealand hit in 1969 for Hutt Valley band The Simple Image.

The original version was released in the US in 1968 by The Fun And Games, a six-piece band from Texas with four members who had been band-mates since their high school years in Houston. They included the Romano brothers, Joe and Rock, who both went on to successful careers in various branches of the arts (there is a Wikipedia page about Rock).

The Fun And Games 1969 [link]

The Fun And Games version of The Grooviest Girl In The World was produced by one of its writers, Gary Zekley. He is partly known for singing, co-writing and producing on the single Yellow Balloon (1967 #25 USA) and the subsequent album by The Yellow Balloon. These later became artifacts of the retrospectively named genre of Sunshine Pop. 

The Simple Image were one of those fine New Zealand bands of the 60s-70s that topped the charts in New Zealand with records that were unfamiliar to most Australians. NZ artists such as The Simple Image, The Dedikation, The Avengers, and The Fourmyula had #1 or #2 NZ hits that never surfaced in Australia.

There's a twist to the story of The Grooviest Girl In The World that I discovered later. Although most Australians would not be able to hum the tune for you, a Boomer from South Australia might know it. The original version by The Fun And Games charted in Adelaide March-May 1969, peaking at #3 (in the US it reached only #78 Billboard). This is a surprising outlier which I suspect is down to radio airplay on Adelaide's 5AD. 

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For more about the song and The Fun And Games see The Simple Image - The Grooviest Girl In The World. 

Obscure Originators (30): Bob Wilson

From my website's front page series about lesser known artists who performed the original versions of Australian or NZ records.

See also: the full collection of 34 Obscure Originators features.

In 1960 Bob Wilson released the original version of (And Her Name Is) Scarlet. A later version by The De Kroo Brothers was a #9 Australian hit in 1963

Bob Wilson's recording came out on LA label Era. It was written by Steven Howard, a pseudonym of Era's co-founder and owner Herb Newman (1925-1976). He had co-written The Wayward Wind, a hit for Gogi Grant on an Era single (1956, #1 USA).

Before The De Kroo Brothers got to it, Keith Colley had recorded Scarlet, again on Era (1962), and there had been a German version in 1961.

See full news item

This was interesting, and not hard to find out, but who was Bob Wilson? The trouble is that the world is full of Bob Wilsons, so his identity was infuriatingly difficult to search for. I discovered that even BMI, the US copyrighting outfit, had registered compositions by at least three different Bob Wilsons together under one name.

Eventually, someone emails. This time, it was a longstanding friend of Wilson who had much information about his life and career. Thanks to him and some further digging, I was even able create a passable Bob Wilson article at Wikipedia.

This Bob Wilson was a guitar virtuoso and singer-songwriter from Pleasant Hill, California. As a teenager just out of high school he recorded some singles on Era, then had a long career as a schoolteacher with occasional reappearances on record.

For example, he featured on an album by folk artist Janet Smith in 1968, and he released albums with Rick Shubb (the Shubb Capo inventor) in 1976 and 1999. In the mid-2010s his Bob Wilson Ensemble appeared at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. 

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For more about the song and Bob Wilson see The De Kroo Brothers - (And Her Name Is) Scarlet.

Only in Oz (20): Diana Trask - Long Ago Last Summer (1960)

Another in my series of posts about tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin. See also: Only in Melbourne.

20. Diana Trask - Long Ago Last Summer
(Hal David - Burt Bacharach)
USA 1960
Columbia B-side (USA) # 4-41711
CBS Coronet B-side (Australia) #KS-400

Australian charts: #10 Melbourne, #39 Sydney | #26 Australia

See also Only in Oz (14): Diana Trask - Oh Boy (1974)
I have also written more about her career at my website under Diana Trask - Going Steady (1958)

Long Ago Last Summer is an overlooked rarity amongst early Burt Bacharach and Hal David compositions. 

It is not easy to find on Bacharach collections, but not impossible. A 2013 CD from Cherry Red subsidiary Él even gives it top billing: Burt Bacharach - Long Ago Last Summer 1959-61. (Raven's 52-track The Rare Bacharach omits it.)

So far I have found only Diana Trask's version, and I am confident it is the only release of the song. In the discography at Bacharach site A House Is Not A Homepage, for example, Diana Trask's is the only version listed.

Australian singer Diana Trask (b. 1940) moved to the US from Melbourne in 1959. She soon became known as a regular on Mitch Miller's TV show Sing Along with Mitch and in 1961 she released two albums, Diana Trask (later known as Vocal Jazz Classics) and Diana Trask On TV.

Her singles made the US Country chart eighteen times 1968-1981, peaking with Say When (1973, #15), It's A Man's World (If You Had A Man Like Mine) (1973, #20), When I Get My Hands On You (1973, #16) and Lean On Me (1974, #13).

On the pop charts, Trask's appearances were limited to two singles that under-bubbled just outside Billboard's Hot 100, but back home Long Ago Last Summer was one of six singles that charted Top 40 for her in Melbourne 1959-1975. 

The orchestra on Long Ago Last Summer is conducted by classically trained Glenn Osser (1914-2014) who would produce Trask's self-titled album (1961). Osser's experience went back to the Swing era when he arranged for many big names in music and played in Les Brown's Band of Renown. After the War he worked with Paul Whiteman's orchestra and as music director for the ABC network, and later became a house arranger for Mercury then Columbia Records. His array of credits is impressive.

Long Ago Last Summer (1960) came after Bacharach and David's earliest successes with Marty Robbins's The Story of My Life (1957 #15 USA) and Perry Como's Magic Moments (1958, #4), but a couple of years before their hits for Gene Pitney, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962, #4) and Only Love Can Break a Heart (1962, #2), as well as the hugely successful collaboration with Dionne Warwick, beginning with her first Top 40 chart entry, Don't Make Me Over (1962, #21). 

Along the way, Bacharach often wrote with others, notably Bob Hilliard, his co-writer on The Drifters' Please Stay (1961, #14) and Gene McDaniels' Tower Of Strength (1961, #5). On The Shirelles' Baby It's You (1962, #8) his co-writers were Hal's brother Mack David and Barney Williams, an alias of Luther Dixon.

Similarly, lyricist Hal David had other collaborators, including Sherman Edwards on Sarah Vaughan's Broken Hearted Melody (1959, #7 USA) and Paul Hampton on Don Gibson's Sea Of Heartbreak (1961, #21). (Hampton also wrote with Bacharach.)

Of 33 tracks from 1959-61 compiled on the Él label's Bacharach CD, 14 are by Bacharach with a writing partner other than Hal David.

See also Only in Oz (14): Diana Trask - Oh Boy (1974)
I have also written more about her career at my website under Diana Trask - Going Steady (1958)

 

Diana Trask - Long Ago Last Summer (1960)

Bonus track: Glenn Osser And His Orchestra - When You Used To Dance With Me (1958)

Playlist: 33 tracks on Burt Bacharach - Long Ago Last Summer 1959-61. 

Only in Oz* (19): John D. Loudermilk - Callin' Doctor Casey (1962)

 Another in my series of posts about tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin. See also: Only in Melbourne. 

*Again, a case of Only in Oz and NZ.

19. John D. Loudermilk - Callin' Doctor Casey
(John D. Loudermilk)
USA 1961
RCA Victor single (USA) #47-8054
RCA single (Australia) #101322, New Zealand #4/60304

US charts: #83 [Billboard]
Australian charts: #4 [#6 Sydney, #2 Melbourne, #10 Brisbane, #10 Adelaide, #6 Perth]
New Zealand charts: #9 [Freeman]

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Doctor Casey was the fictional neurosurgeon in Ben Casey, a popular TV series that debuted in the US in October 1961 and ran until 1966. Callin' Doctor Casey was released in June 1962 during Ben Casey's peak ratings of 1961-1963. 

This is not any kind of official tie-in with the series. The lovesick singer is calling on Dr Casey to mend his broken heart. The deep voice that answers, "Ye-e-es?" is a comical Ben Casey that sounds nothing like the character played by Vince Edwards. (Is it a parody of some old horror movie star? Boris Karloff maybe? Bela Lugosi?)

There was clearly something about the songwriting of John D. Loudermilk that appealed to Australians.

At least three Loudermilk compositions recorded by others also did better in Australia than in the US: 

Mark Dinning - Top Forty, News, Weather And Sports¹ (1961, #81 USA, #17 Australia)

Sue Thompson – James (Hold The Ladder Steady) (1962, #17 USA, #6 Australia, #15 NZ)

Sue Thompson - Paper Tiger (1964[USA]-1965, #23 USA, #3 Australia)²

Loudermilk's Midnight Bus was first recorded in the US by Billy Graves then by Loudermilk himself, but the song became better known in Australia, thanks to a classic local version:

 

Betty McQuade - Midnight Bus (1961, #6 Melbourne, #29 Australia; 1963 reissue, #17 Brisbane, #1 Perth, #69 Australia). See my history of Midnight Bus.

As well as Callin' Doctor Casey, another of Loudermilk's own records was popular down under (especially in New Zealand):

John D. Loudermilk – The Language Of Love (1961, #32 USA, #21 Australia, #8 NZ).

In fact, in a world where most songwriting credits went unnoticed, Loudermilk would have been known down here mainly as a singer. For connoisseurs of the fine print, he was an extraordinarily prolific and diversifying songwriter.

When he died in 2016, obituarists tried to summarise Loudermilk's huge songwriting repertoire in a few lines. Many started by mentioning two or three well-known and contrasting compositions, typically Tobacco Road, Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye or Indian Reservation. 

When I attempted a list of "better known recordings" of Loudermilk's songs I tried to keep it short but I ended up with 27. I wanted to convey the volume of familiar songs he had written, but I was also struck by the wide range of styles and ideas they took in. 

An economical way of dramatising Loudermilk's versatility is to pair one of his songs with another that is markedly different from it. Like this:

• Top Forty, News, Weather And Sport (Mark Dinning)
• Abilene (George Hamilton IV)

• Talk Back Tremblin’ Lips (Johnny Tillotson)
• Tobacco Road (The Nashville Teens)

• Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye (The Casinos)
• Norman (Sue Thompson)

• The Language Of Love (John D. Loudermilk)
• Indian Reservation (The Lament Of The Cherokee Reservation Indian) (Raiders, Don Fardon, Marvin Rainwater: title varies)

• Thou Shalt Not Steal (Dick & DeeDee)
• This Little Bird (Marianne Faithful)

• Midnight Bus (Betty McQuade)
• Callin' Doctor Casey (John D. Loudermilk)

Listen to the list on this playlist:

Footnotes
1. Top Forty, News, Weather And Sports was on Volume 3 of Glenn A. Bakers Hard To Get Hits, a series that includes the same premise as Only in Oz. 
2. Two other Sue Thompson records written by Loudermilk were hits both in the US and in Australasia: Sad Movies (Make Me Cry) (1961, #5 USA, #6 Australia, #2 NZ) and Norman (1961, #3 USA, #4 Australia, #1 NZ), later adapted in Australia as Norman-“Normie" (1966), a tribute to local pop idol Normie Rowe 

Essential reading:
Kees van der Hoeven's John D. Loudermilk site is the definitive, indispensable source where the ultimate aim is to document every Loudermilk song and recording. He must be getting close.

Further reading:
John D. Loudermilk at Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Only in Oz (18): Johnny Burnette - Big Big World (1961)

Another in my series of posts about tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin. See also: Only in Melbourne.

18. Johnny Burnette - Big Big World
(Fred Burch - Gerald Nelson - Red West)
USA 1961
London single (USA) #F-55318
London single (Australia) #HL-2164

US Charts: #58 Billboard, #49 Cash Box
Australian charts: #38 Sydney, #19 Melbourne (Ryan), #14 Melbourne (Guest), #37 Brisbane | #37 Australia

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Not a dramatic case of Only in Oz, but the lower reaches of Australia's Top 40 do beat the lower reaches of Top 60 Billboard and Top 50 Cash Box. 

Johnny Burnette

Johnny Burnette's three biggest hits Dreamin' (1960), You're Sixteen (1960), and Little Boy Sad (1961) all charted at least Top 20 in the US, the UK, Australia, and NZ but Australia is the only one where Big Big World made Top 40. 

In 1961 I was listening to Melbourne radio, so I remember Big Big World as well as Burnette's better-known songs. Depending on the chart compiler, Big Big World charted in Melbourne at #19 (Gavin Ryan) or #14 (Tom Guest). (For a plunge into the metaphysics of retrospective charts see my post Toppermost of the poppermost: the charts.) 

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Big Big World evokes the feeling of searching for one person among millions and being defeated by the vastness of the city. 

In Snuff Garrett's production the elements meld perfectly, all contributing to the final effect: composition, arrangement, performances. There are no jarring distractions.¹  

I admire the way the story is told economically, in colloquial language, without any wasted words. It takes place in two locations, an apartment block - Nine one, 27th Avenue - and a phone box. 

At the apartments, where the searcher tells them he is just looking for a friend living in Apartment 10, he has no luck: You say she's gone. Please, how long has it been?

In the phone box, the futility of his quest is brought home to him when he consults the telephone directory. 

Joneses, Joneses
Oh, I see, page 19 to 23

Big, big world can be unkind
The phone just took my last dime

I love the sound of Joneses Joneses. Every "s" has a /z/ sound, setting up a nice percussive effect with the repetition.  

This is a song of numbers: the address and the apartment number (Nine one, 27th Avenue... Apartment 10), the pages of Joneses (19 to 23).

I assume the numbers that open the song - Nine one, 27th - were carefully chosen, as they are perfect. 

I am reminded of that much-repeated story about the comedy writers on Sid Caesar's TV show deciding which number on a roulette wheel would be funniest. (The final choice was thirty-two). 

Big Big World isn't comedy, but I can imagine a similar process going on for Nine one, 27th, as well as for the numbers of the telephone directory pages 19 to 23.

Clearly, the rhythm of the words is a factor. And although the selection might have been intuitive, I wonder whether the result has something to do with the repeated sounds in nine one twenty-seven: the /n/, the short "e" (/e/) and the /w/?

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The composers of Big Big World are Gerald Nelson (1935-2012), Fred Burch (c.1932- ) and Bobby "Red" West (1936-2017).

Red West was a long-time associate of Elvis Presley from high school days, and a member of Elvis's entourage. He worked successfully as a bodyguard, stuntman, movie extra, actor, songwriter and artists' agent. West would be the most visible of the three writers of Big Big World, partly through the Elvis Presley connection, but also through his many appearances in films, sometimes uncredited but also credited alongside some well-known names. 

There are 138 Red West compositions listed by BMI at Songview. He wrote or co-wrote several songs recorded by Elvis including Separate Ways (1972, #20 USA) and If You Talk In Your Sleep (1974, #17 USA). He co-wrote I'm A Fool which charted for Dino, Desi & Billy (1965, #17 USA) but was first released by Rick Nelson (1964).

Gerald Nelson and Fred Burch were frequent collaborators. They were both from Paducah, Kentucky, where Nelson was in The Country Gentlemen, later known as The Escorts.  

 

Nelson and Burch started writing together when Burch was at the University of Kentucky in 1958. Their composition Tragedy charted for Thomas Wayne (1959, #4 USA), The Fleetwoods (1961, #10 USA), and Bryan Hyland (1969, #56 USA). A version by Paul McCartney appeared as a bonus track on a later reissue of Red Rose Speedway.

         Fred Burch

Fred Burch* was a prolific songwriter based in Nashville where he was a staff writer for Cedarwood Publishing Co. He collaborated, for example, with Marijohn Wilkin on Jimmy Dean's P.T. 109 (1962, #8 USA, #29 Australia). 

Jan Crutchfield was Burch's co-writer on Perry Como's Dream On Little Dreamer (1965, #25 USA). Crutchfield was also from Paducah, and he was in The Country Gentlemen-Escorts with Big Big World co-writer Gerald Nelson. (Jan Crutchfield's brother Jerry, also a notable songwriter, was also in the group.)

Strange, recorded by Patsy Cline (1962, #97 USA), was a Fred Burch - Mel Tillis composition. Tillis was also contracted to Cedarwood Publishing and they wrote several songs together.

It didn't surprise me to read in the archives that Burch was a "student of journalism" who studied English at university before turning to professional song writing. Clearly, at least one writer who knew their way around words had a hand in Big Big World, and as a songwriter Burch seems to have specialised in lyrics. 

For example, it was Burch who started off Tragedy with some lines of verse.² Local press in Paducah (1962) gives him credit for being the lyricist of P.T. 109 and numerous other songs including Big Big World,³ although in the Tennessee press Burch himself acknowledges co-composer Marijohn Wilkin's role in polishing the lyrics of P.T. 109.⁴

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Selected sources, further reading:
1. I wrote something similar about Snuff Garrett's production of Gene McDaniels - It's A Lonely Town (Lonely Without You). That post also has a list of some of Garrett's notable productions.

2. "Burch, Helms on High Road": background on Burch & Nelson and the writing of "Tragedy", The Tennessean, Nashville, 12 November 1961.
3. "P.T.109... Former Paducah Man Writes Hit Song", The Paducah Sun, Paducah, Kentucky, 3 June 1962.
4. "PT 109: How It Came About", The Tennessean, 20 May 1962.

Item of interest:
"Composers Take Cruise": songwriters Marijohn Wilkin and Fred Burch with Wilkin's husband and son on a cruise trip to Paducah on the Wilkins' houseboat,  The Leaf-Chronicle, Clarksville, Tennessee, 7 August 1961.

*Don't confuse Fred Burch with Don Burch who wrote The Shields' hit "You Cheated" (1958) or John Burch who wrote Georgie Fame's "Preach And Teach" (1964) and "In The Meantime" (1965).

Only in Oz* (17): José Feliciano - Adios Amor (Goodbye, My Love) (1967, 1969)

Another in my series of posts about tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin. See also: Only in Melbourne.

*In this case, Only in Oz and NZ.

17. José Feliciano - Adios Amor (Goodbye, My Love)
(Tom Springfield - Norman Newell)
UK 1967, 1969
• RCA Victor single (UK) #1640, reissued on #1794 
• RCA Victor single (Australia) #101806: 1967, reissued 1969
• RCA Victor single (New Zealand) #60474 

UK charts: "Bubbled Under" Top 50 (= #51), Record Retailer, 22 Apr 69 
Australian charts: #4 Australia (Kent and Go-Set);
#2 Sydney #5 Melbourne, #26 Sydney, #2 Brisbane, #2 Adelaide, #7 Perth (Gavin Ryan)
New Zealand chart: #3 (Scapolo and Freeman)
USA charts: no single released

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Adios Amor (Goodbye, My Love): American artist, British record, Australasian hit.

It charted in Australia early in 1969 (mid-'69 in NZ), a few months after José Feliciano's breakthrough hit record Light My Fire (1968, #14 Australia, #16 NZ, #1 USA, #6 UK). 

Adios Amor was probably seen as a follow-up recording to Light My Fire (1968) but in fact Adios Amor came first. It was initially released in 1967 then re-released in 1969, presumably in response to Light My Fire's success. An ad for Adios Amor's reissue in Britain's New Musical Express in February 1969 overlooked its history and billed it as Feliciano's smash new single.

The two songs are quite different from each other. Light My Fire, released in July 1968, was a jazz-soul-flavoured reworking of The Doors' #1 US hit from the previous year. Adios Amor is a more conventional orchestration of an original ballad, but no less affecting for that, as Australasian audiences clearly found. Just read the heartfelt memories of the song from Australians at YouTube.

NME 15 Feb 1969 [link]

In spite of its Spanish title, Adios Amor has mainly English lyrics. (There are some spoken Spanish words at the very end, as the track fades out.)

It is a British composition, recorded in the UK during Feliciano's sojourn there in 1967, along with another single My Foolish Heart / Only Once.

Adios Amor was released in the UK (and in Australia, NZ, France, Germany and Spain) but there was no US single. As far as I can see, it has not been included on any American José Feliciano compilation, nor did it appear on any regular album at the time. It was on at least one compilation from Australia.

The entirely plausible story goes that producer and co-writer Tom Springfield first proposed Adios Amor as a song for The Seekers but the group turned it down. In later years Seekers lead singer Judith Durham (1943-2022) did perform and release the song, as did a latter-day line-up The Original Seekers.

The José Feliciano we hear singing Adios Amor from a London studio in 1967 was yet to take off in mainstream markets, but he was already a popular Spanish-language artist amongst Latino audiences in the US and South America. He had also released three English-language albums of his own takes on standards, folk songs and pop hits on RCA Victor 1965-1966. 

One of those songs, Hi-Heel Sneakers, on The Voice And Guitar Of José Feliciano (1966), was recorded again to become Feliciano's second Top 40 hit in the US (1968, #25 USA, #24 Australia). The B-side, a cover of Dunn & McCashen's Hitchcock Railway, co-charted in Australia and later had its arrangement openly borrowed by Chris Stainton for Joe Cocker's well-known version (1971).¹

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The composers of Adios Amor, Tom Springfield and Norman Newell, were both English. Springfield also produced the record. 

Tom Springfield (Dion O'Brien 1934-2022) and his sister Dusty (Mary) had been in The Springfields who had hits with Silver Threads And Golden Needles and Island of Dreams. Tom produced and wrote hit songs for The Seekers including The Carnival Is Over, I'll Never Find Another You, and World Of Our Own.

Norman Newell (1919-2004) was a prominent record producer and songwriter from the post-war 1940s until his retirement in 1990. He worked mainly in the middle-of-the-road segment of the market, often collaborating with arranger and conductor Geoff Love, and often with such major names of post-war British show business as Shirley Bassey,  Russ Conway, and Des O'Connor. He had a hand in numerous hits, for Petula Clark (Sailor), Laurie London (He's Got the Whole World in His Hands), Adam Faith (What Do You Want?), Matt Munro (Portrait of My Love) and Ken Dodd (Tears). His obituary in The Independent gives a good overview of his varied career.

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British group The Casuals released a version of Adios Amor in February 1968 with an arrangement similar to the original. They would finally find success later in the year with Jesamine (#2 UK).

As an album track, Adios Amor was released by Vanity Fare on The Sun, The Wind, And Other Things (UK, 1969) and by Ed Ames on Sing Away The World (USA, 1970). See the list at SecondHandSongs.com.

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Thanks to Marc for clarification around British chart positions; details now edited to reflect his comments.

Footnote
1.  Chris Stainton tells about how he got to play on The Who's Quadrophenia [from RichieUnterberger.com]: "Pete (Townsend)… seemed to be very impressed by the piano riffs I was playing in (Joe Cocker's) 'Hitchcock Railway,' which I lifted from José Feliciano's version," says Stainton. "He never forgot it and years later asked me to play in that style on the Quadrophenia album." 

José Feliciano - Adios Amor (Goodbye, My Love) (UK single 1967, 1969)

The Casuals - Adios Amor (Goodbye My Love) (UK single 1968)

Judith Durham - Adios Amor (album Mona Lisas, 1996)