DINAH LEE
I'll Forgive You Then Forget You
(Joey Brooks)
New Zealand 1965
#10 Melbourne #36 Brisbane #1 NZ?

Single on Viking in NZ, HMV in Australia, and Island subsidiary Aladdin in the UK. Also on the album The Sound of Dinah Lee.

Rearranged by conductor Mike Perjanik, this is a cover version with its own style, favouring strings and oboe over the brass and drums of the original. The result, as Richie Unterberger puts it, is quality British-style orchestrated girl group-soul-pop.

Dinah Lee, known as 'The Dynamic' Dinah Lee, was born Diane Jacobs in 1943. Her rocking versions of astutely chosen songs and her cutting-edge mod image made her extremely popular in New Zealand and Australia in the mid-60s. See, for example, Do The Blue Beat and Don't You Know Yockomo.

#1 in NZ? This has been called a #1 NZ hit, but as there were no functional NZ charts at this time it is hard to verify.

Further reading: 1. Dinah Lee history at Milesago. 2. Dinah Lee history at Bruce Sergent's NZ music site. 3. Details of UK release, including label shot, at 45Cat. 3. Richie Unterberger's review at AMG of the Canetoad collection The Viking Recordings gives a good overview and discussion of Dinah Lee's 60s recordings.
LYDIA PENSE WITH THE NEW INVADERS
I'll Forgive You Then Forget You
(Joey Brooks)
USA 1965
Original version

Single on Invader label #401: A Ross-Todd Production.

San Francisco singer Lydia Pense became better known for fronting jazz-rock band Cold Blood, formed in the late 60s and signed by Bill Graham for his Fillmore West venue. A re-formed line-up of Cold Blood still performs, with Pense as lead singer. Her voice has been described as strong, powerful, raw, beautiful or stomping.

This seems to be an overlooked composition by Joseph Brooks (b.1938) who wrote You Light Up My Life (1977), the song that kept Debbie Boone at #1 on Billboard for 10 weeks and became the top-selling US single of the 1970s. It was the title song of the film which was written, produced and directed by Brooks.

References: 1. YouTube clip. 2. Wikipedia entries for Lydia Pense, Cold Blood and Joseph Brooks.

Further reading: Lydia Pense and Cold Blood page at Second Octave Talent. A band website is "under construction" [January 2011].

Corrections or comments? Contact the writer.