Author: Kim Simpson

“Red, Green, Yellow and Blue” (1968) – Dickey Lee * Written by Dickey Lee * 45: “Red, Green, Yellow and Blue” / “Run Right Back” * String Arrangements by Charles Chalmers * Produced by Rivertown Productions * Label: Atco * Billboard: #107

Dickey Lee made out well during the early ’60s death rock craze. In the ’62 hit single “Patches,” one girlfriend ends up dead in the ditch, while in the following year’s “Laurie,” another one has passed on long before Dickey even meets her (it’s a musical version of the sweater-on-a-gravestone urban legend). By 1968 he was still dabbling in tragedy. “Red, Green, Yellow and Blue,” which just missed Billboard‘s Hot 100, captures a presumably Brylcreemed and becardiganed Dickey leaping frantically around town over the news that his girlfriend’s gone to San Francisco, land of colorful pills. “You’re halfway up your rainbow, girl, by now,” he yelps, while Charles Chalmers’ orchestration gives it all the moody atmosphere those earlier records only yearned for. (The record captures Chalmers’s string arranging career at an early stage. He’d go on to do arrangements with James Mitchell for all of Al Green’s albums from 1969 to 1973 and much more.)

“Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” (1978) – Rod Stewart * Written by Rod Stewart and Carmine Appice * 45: “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” / “Scarred and Scared” * LP: Blondes Have More Fun * Produced by Tom Dowd * Label: Warner Bros.

With “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy,” Rod Stewart materialized as a fully-committed creature of mass appeal, becoming a paridigmatic music biz example of one who surrenders all hip credibility to do so. Although the chart-topping song rode the disco bandwagon with abandon, another aural aspect qualified it as classic late-seventies time capsule fodder: the opening five notes in its main synthesizer riff sounded like a reshuffling of the alien tones from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This association had preteens hooked – if only subconsciously – the moment they heard those notes streaming through their transistors. The popularity of “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” eventually brought attention to its chorus’s similarity to a song called “Taj Mahal” by Jorge Ben – a Brazilian radio hit Stewart admitted to having heard in Rio de Janeiro. A reroute of “Sexy’s” profits to UNICEF averted a legal mess. In his autobiography, though, Stewart admitted to intentionally mimicking the string arrangement in Bobby Womack’s “If You Want My Love (Put Something Down on It)” (1975) for his opening synthesizer riff, knowing that arrangements couldn’t be copyrighted.

“Epistle to Dippy” (1967) – Donovan * Written by Donovan Leitch * 45: “Epistle to Dippy” / “Preachin’ Love” * Produced by Mickie Most * Label: Epic

If the term “hippy dippy” has a theme song, this 1967 Donovan single is it. That’s not an insult—fun factors abound in the arrangement, with its harpsichord and bassoon, while Donovan’s enunciation drifts into made-up language territory. The song’s high chart position (#20 in Billboard) indicates Mr. Leitch knew exactly what he was doing. A few years later, “Epistle to Dippy” would open up the 1969 Donovan’s Greatest Hits album, although the studio version of “Preachin’ Love,” the flipside, languished in out-of-print vinyl prison until the digital reissue era.

“Buttons and Bows” (1948) – Dinah Shore with her Happy Valley Boys * Written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans * 78: “Buttons and Bows” / “Daddy-O (I’m Gonna Teach You Some Blues)” * Label: Columbia

This catalyst for deep baby boomer nostalgia, with its child-friendly lyrics comparing the apparel of cowboys to city girls, first appeared in the 1948 film The Paleface. In a performance that nabbed the song an Academy Award, Bob Hope sang it to Jane Russell in a covered wagon while squeezing a concertina. On record, Dinah Shore gave it a female perspective and struck gold. Although writers Livingston and Evans had softened the more stereotypically Native American effects they intended to give it, “Buttons and Bows” still retains certain cinematic Indian sound signals, with its chant-like melody over minimum chord changes.

“Across the Street” (1964) – Lenny O’Henry * Written by Bob Crewe, Charlie Calello, and Valmond J. Harris, Jr. * 45: “Across the Street” / “Saturday Angel” * Produced by Bob Crewe * Arranged by Charlie Calello * Label: Atco

Lenny O’Henry (the stage name for Daniel Cannon) sings about a party across the street he’s not invited to, but you imagine everyone there dancing to the irresistible song he’s singing. That gives it a surreal aspect; so does the gurgling organ solo you won’t ever forget. Co-written and produced by Bob Crewe for Atco, the record didn’t chart any higher than #98, but it’s now one of those songs alternately categorized according to audiences that later embraced it, so consider it either Carolina Beach or (British) Northern Soul, origins be damned.

“Oh Happy Day” (1968) – Edwin Hawkins Singers * Written (Trad. Arr.) by Edwin R. Hawkins * 45 (1969): “Oh Happy Day” / “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” * LP: Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord * Produced by La Mont Bench * Label: Pavillion

This popular gospel track by the Edwin Hawkins Singers, featuring the lead vocals of Dorothy Morrison, updated an eighteenth century hymn written by Philip Doddridge. Because it was recorded live at the Ephesian Church of God in Christ in Berkeley, California, it has odd-sounding room noise for radio, but it nonetheless reached #4 in the US and #2 in the UK. The record influenced George Harrison, as he confirmed in his book I Me Mine, and his “My Sweet Lord” had a similar chord structure with its strong IIm7 to V chord sequence. This never came up in court, though, when Harrison stood trial for plagiarizing “One Fine Day.” It might have supported an argument that many sources, in fact, are used in creating pop music. It might also have opened discussion on how Hawkins claimed full writer’s credit for the public domain piece (and also its B-side, Charles Wesley’s “Jesus, Lover of My Soul”).

“On and On” (1974) – Gladys Knight and the Pips * Written and produced by Curtis Mayfield * 45: “On and On” / “The Makings of You” * LP: Claudine * Label: Buddah

Although the ads billed director John Berry’s Claudine as “a heart and soul comedy,” the film’s sobering depictions of inner city reality overshadow any laughs. Harlem visuals give it added punch, as does the music, written by Curtis Mayfield and performed by Gladys Knight and the Pips. The hit single “On and On” (Billboard #5) explodes in the opening credits as the big screen urban scenes unfold. Here’s a rare situation, though, where a film made a song seem better than it actually was. (It’s usually the other way around.) No one who experiences “On and On” away from the film would rank it with Knight’s or Mayfield’s best work.

“Folks Who Live on the Hill” (1963) – Gloria Lynne * Written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II * LP: Gloria, Marty and Strings * Produced by Murray Cohen * Arranged by Marty Paich * Label: Everest

Peggy Lee’s 1957 version of this late thirties song (from the movie High, Wide and Handsome) is a classic, but the underappreciated Gloria Lynne sings with enough authority on her 1963 recording to give it definitive status. Marty Paich’s arrangement is a work of sublime beauty, with a French horn intro that likely informed David Rose’s theme for Little House on the Prairie, the long-running ’70s-’80s TV drama depicting the agonies and ecstasies of a pioneer family. Surely the opening sequence of the Ingalls family traveling on a hilltop to their “little house” got Rose thinking about Lynne’s and Paich’s take on a similar subject.