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Nominations for The Mystery Lyrics Awards 2006
nominate your favorites in the following categories:
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Journal Award, Graphics Award and others....
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our online shop for the benefit of the Hamburg Childrens Hospice "Sternenbrücke"
EXCELLENT JOB MR. DAVE !!!
ONE BIRTHDAY TODAY
Caravntrip (Bill)
I hope it's a good one , Bill!!!
AND ON WITH THE SHOW
Today's lyric will, in addition to the usual Mystery Artists, pay trubute to the recently departed Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records
Throughout pop music history, record company presidents have gone to great lengths to coax hit records out of their artists, but rarely have they gone to the extreme of writing the hits for the acts themselves. Ahmet Ertegun did that for the Mystery Group, however. In fact, Ertegun wrote eight A or B sides for that group out of their first nine singles, including their first two number one R&B chart records. Their story started in Washington, D.C., in 1946. Harold "Hal" Lucas founded the group by choosing schoolmates at Armstrong High School. The original members were tenor Thomas Woods, bass Billy Shelton, and Harold (all were from the area of T Street and 7th in the nation's capital). When John "Buddy" Bailey came on board as lead. Harold moved over to baritone. Hal wanted to give his music career lucky start so he named the group for a lucky symbol. By 1949, second tenor Matthew McQuarter had replaced Thomas Woods. The group played clubs and amateur shows, singing songs by the Ink Spots, the Orioles, and the Ravens. It was at one such show that Harold Winley met the group and wound up replacing Billy Shelton. They officially took on their new name when guitarist Bill Harris gained membership in 1949.
In 1950, they met record store owner Lou Krefetz at a club they were playing (called the Rose Club) right in the neighborhood they grew up in. Krefetz became their manager and took them to Eddie Heller's Rainbow Records at 767 Tenth Avenue in New York City, a label so small it shared space with a Hell's kitchen storefront known as Sonny's Deli. Rainbow signed them, making them the label's first group. Rainbow would become the launching pad for two more great acts, Lee Andrews and the Hearts and the Five Crowns (who later became the Drifters). A recording session produced two sides. One was a remake of the 1925 Gene Austin hit "Yes Sir, Thats My Baby" in an Ink Spots style with John Bailey doing an excellent imitation of Spots lead Bill Kenny. Accompanied by a tinkling piano and a standup bass, the group's solid harmony was much in evidence, as were the Ravens and Charioteers influences. Rainbow Records slipped up on their promotional efforts, however, and "Yes Sir" never had a chance. The record was reviewed by Cashbox magazine on January 6, 1951 as a pop release, indicative of the industry's initial perception of the quartet. Krefetz, noting Rainbow's inabilities and still very high on his group's potential, immediately took them to Ahmet Ertegun's Atlantic Records. Ahmet, a son of former Turkish ambassador to the United States, had launched Atlantic on an investment of $10,000 from his family's dentist in late 1947.
Ertegun didn't really like Ink Spot-type groups (he didn't even like the Ink Spots) and was reluctant to sign them, but when "Waxie Maxie" Silverman interceded on his friend Krefetz's behalf, the Atlantic chief began to see how he could mold the group into a successful act. To achieve that end he wrote a song that would forever dictate the style and direction of the group. On February 22, 1951 they recorded "Don't You Know I Love You," a mid-tempo, choppy-rhythmed shuffle with Buddy Bailey's blues-tinged vocal leading the group. The surprising use of a sax solo (one of the first on a vocal group record) came about when bandleader Frank Culley demanded to be paid even though he and his sax were not supposed to play on the record. Since Ertegun had to pay Frank as a leader anyway, he let him play and Culley winged it from there. The B side was another old song, the ballad "Skylark" written by Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael and recorded in 1942 by Dinah Shore (a top five pop hit for her). The songwriting credit for "Don't You Know I Love You" on Atlantic 934 read Nugetre, Ertegun spelled backward. (He may have been trying to avoid embarrassment for his relatives stemming from the notion of a diplomat's son writing R&B songs.) Actually Nugetre wrote "head" melodies since he couldn't play an instrument or write music. He would record his songs in Times Square recording booths, then take the paper discs and give them to musicians to reproduce.
The single came out in March 1951 to little fanfare; vocal group records with a mid-tempo blues feel had not yet reached the black record buyer's consciousness. Another obstruction was the fact that in 1950 the black charts consisted of only 10 positions, so a record really had to be selling to make it. But by June "Don't You Know" had built up enough momentum to jump on the R&B top ten at number three.It took the Mystery Group 13 more weeks to get to number one, finally beating out the Dominoes "Sixty Minute Man" for the coveted spot. All told it lasted 21 weeks in the top 10 and sold a reported quarter-of-a-million copies. Their next session was on July 12 at WHOM Studios where they cut "Needless" by guitarist Harris, tenor McQuarter, and manager Krefetz (everyone was getting into the writing act), and another Ertegun tune called "Fool, Fool, Fool." Their Ink Spot styling gone, they were now a pioneering blues vocal group. The groups' sound was rough and unpolished. They sang riffs usually played on a keyboard. Buddy's lead was bluesy, a little like what B.B. King might have sung.
"Fool" became their second number one hit, staying at the top of the Billboard R&B charts for six weeks and selling more than half a million platters. Amazingly, with two number one records Atlantic was still recording only two sides at a time. On December 17, they cut yet another Ertegun song, "In The Middle Of The Night,) with a pounding drum beat and walking bass line woven into a bluesy ballad. The other recording done that day was "One Mint Julep," a witty Rudy Toombs composition about one libation too many. "In The Middle" rose to number three, giving Ertegun his third hit in a row as a writer. "One Mint Julep" went to number two and was kept out of the top spot because of Rudy Toombs himself; the number one record at the time, "5-10-15 Hours" by Ruth Brown, was also one of Rudy's compositions. In that same month they cut three sides of which two, "Ting-A-Ling" and "Wonder Where My Babys Gone," charted in July. "Wonder" went to number seven while "Ting-A-Ling," another Ertegun slice of R&B, went to number one.
They went on to have hit after hit, ongoing chart recognition enabled the group to work in the top theaters in the country, from the Apollo to the Howard and the Regal.They also played Alan Freed's first rock and roll show in early 1954 and toured with other Atlantic artists such as Big Joe Turner, the Drifters, and Ruth Brown. They were the most successful rhythm and blues vocal group of the '50s, scoring 21 chart records, far more then any other group. That alone would have secured their place in music history. But thier distinctive style is better remembered than many of their hits.
Today's song is much, much better known because of the hit version by Bobby Vee (# 6 on the pop charts), but this is the original.And your lyric line is:
Love me or leave me
I’ll go out of my mind
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