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JOHNNY YOUNG & KOMPANY
Cara-Lyn (Bob Feldman - Jerry Goldstein - Richard Gottehrer) Australia 1966 #1 Sydney #2 Melbourne #5 Brisbane #1 Adelaide #29 Perth
Re-entered Brisbane charts later same year, reached #32. This Australian version changes Cara-Lin to Cara-Lyn. Johnny Young: Western Australian singer, songwriter, radio announcer and TV compere, real name John De Jong. In later years he became best known for his long-running youth variety show Young Talent Time and the associated talent school, but his greatest claim to pop fame is for having written the Russell Morris classic The Real Thing.
THE LIMEYS
Cara-Lin (Bob Feldman - Jerry Goldstein - Richard Gottehrer) UK 1966 Single on Decca YouTube, anthologised on English Freakbeat Volume 2 (1989). North London band The Limeys released singles in the UK and in the USA 1964-66. Because limey is American slang for an English person, it would be easy to take them for an American band attempting a British-sounding name (cf. The Buckinghams, The Sir Douglas Quintet). It's possible, though, that these Brits had the British Invasion of the US music market in mind. The Radio London website lists personnel as Gary Gretch, Barry Johns, Tony Skey, Raymond Benot/Benoit and Gearie Kenworthy. Kenworthy later joined 60s British band The Knack on bass (not the more famous American Knack of the 70s). See also That's What I Want. Not to be confused with 1970s British band Limey. References: 1. Limeys releases at 45cat. A comments thread at another Limeys page at 45cat has details of the Swinging 66 package tour for offshore station Radio England. The consensus there supports my impression that not much is known about the band. 2. Limeys personnel and brief notes at Radio London.
THE SORROWS
Cara-Lin (Bob Feldman - Jerry Goldstein - Richard Gottehrer) UK 1965 Track on Take A Heart YouTube by Coventry R&B band, according to Richie Unterberger one of the most overlooked bands of the British Invasion (Sorrows biography at All Music Guide). As Don Fardon, Sorrows vocalist Don Maughn went solo and had a hit with (The Lament Of The Cherokee) Indian Reservation (1968, #20 USA, reissued 1970 #3 UK), a John D. Loudermilk composition first recorded in 1959 as Pale Faced Indian by Marvin Rainwater. See also No No No No. Thanks to Andrew Ainsworth for version alert.
THE STRANGELOVES
Cara-Lin (Bob Feldman - Jerry Goldstein - Richard Gottehrer) USA 1965 Original version #39 USA #16 Brisbane #36 Perth [1965] #45 Perth [1966] The Strangeloves were production and songwriting team Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer, sometimes known as FGG Productions. Their biggest success had been with My Boyfriend's Back, written by Feldman, which FGG produced for girl group The Angels (1963, #1 USA).
As Richard Gottehrer told Gary James at ClassicBands.com: We didn't think we could get away with being English. So we selected some other part of the former Empire and that was Australia. Most Americans in 1965 had never met an Australian. The Strangeloves were photographed with somebody's idea of an outback look, with zebra skins and African drums. Wrong continent, mate, but they did end up with a hit song Down Under, thanks to Johnny Young. Feldman, Goldstein and Gottehrer were mainly behind-the-scenes guys ("masquerading as a band" as Rob Finnis puts it). They needed a real band to back them on stage after their Strangeloves record I've Got Candy made the charts (1965, #11 USA). In this way they met a young band from Ohio that became The McCoys and had a big hit with Hang On Sloopy (1965, #1 USA), an FGG production. It was a Bert Berns-Wes Farrell composition, previously released by The Vibrations as My Girl Sloopy (1964, #24 USA). Feldman, Goldstein and Gottehrer wrote and produced Sorrow, a McCoys B-side that was later rearranged to good effect by Britain's Merseys (1966, #4 UK) and famously remade by David Bowie for his album Pin Ups, also a hit single (1973, #3 UK). The Strangeloves' I Want Candy was remade by Bow Wow Wow for a #9 UK hit in 1982. References, further reading: 1. All three Strangeloves talk candidly about the Strangeloves project and their discovery of The McCoys in Bang! The Bert Berns Story (2016), co-directed by Berns's son Brett. Highly recommended. 2. Richard Gottehrer of FGG/The Strangeloves, interviewed by Gary James at ClassicBands.com. 3. Rob Finnis's account of FGG at the Ace Records website. 4. The Strangeloves at TimeTravelRecords.co.uk. 5. Bob Shannon on FGG and The Angels from his Behind the Hits website (archived page). Corrections or comments? Contact the writer. |
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