V04-T07 I Want Candy

.....Sandwiched between two covers I placed the original version of a song better known as a cover.

Volume 4: "THE LITTLE BROWN ONES ARE THORAZINE, GEORGE", track 7

• 02:36 "I WANT CANDY" (Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein, Richard Gottehrer, Bert Berns)
• performed by The Strangeloves
• original source: A-side 7" BANG!Records B-501(US) 1965
• and my source: the same

.....I don't know if my copy is a first pressing but I don't think it would matter if it was. Unfortunately from a collector's standpoint it is a deleted sleeveless stock copy in rough condition and bought for chump change out of a bargain box somewhere. Still plays though. The reason that a first pressing would be a better conversation piece is that this is a little bit of rock history-- the first(?) official release from BANG! Records.

.....Atlantic Records was formed by Ahmet and Neshui Ertegun in the 1940's to indulge their love of American jazz and blues. By the 1960's they had diversified somewhat, as most successful labels will. In the course of their expansion they had enlisted a number of talented producers. In 1964 two of them, Bert Berns and Jerry Wexler, convinced them to launch a competing label as committed to purely commercial, hit-making producer's projects as Atlantic had been committed to capturing artists authentically. They called it "BANG!", named for Bert, Ahmet, Neshui and Gerald. Initially they recorded content for other labels, producing finished recordings instead of demos and shopping them around to other small labels in need of a chart hit. One such song was "LOVE LOVE(THAT'S ALL I WANT FROM YOU)" on the Swan label by three producers masquerading as a group called The Strangeloves. Feldman, Goldstein and Gottehrer could play instruments, but generally left the heavy lifting to session men. One day they laid down the instrumental backing for a cover of "BO DIDDLEY" that turned out so well, Berns suggested they make it the basis for a new song instead of squandering it on a B-side. The result was "I WANT CANDY".

.....Seeing that this single was catalog number B-501 with matrix numbers W-1003 and W-1004 (A and B, respectively), it occurred to me that the previous single would have been B-500 with matrices W-1001 and W-1002. Not only could I not find any release like that for any of the artists I knew to be on their roster, I found out that W-1001 is in the trail-off groove of a Neil Diamond album they released two years later.

.....When the single became a hit, Feldman, Goldstein and Gottehrer took four of the musicians from the session on the road with them to play concerts. They were Jack Raczka (guitar), John Shine (bass, vocals), Richie Lauro (sax, vocals) and Tom Kobus (drums). The line-ups were perpetually changing later, but this would have been representative of the studio band on the single. The three 'real' Strangeloves continued writing and producing with and without the pseudonym. In fact, Gottehrer was producing the Go-Go's when they recorded that B-side I used a few posts ago. The song's been pretty durable, too, covered by the Count Bishops (in the 70's) and perhaps most famously by Bow Wow Wow in 1982, changing the 'girl' in the song to a 'guy'.

.....Next up, a cover more appropriate than it immediately appears.