Who Did It Better? My Boy Lollipop

Who Did It Better? 

My Boy Lollipop

And now for something completely different...

I've been vacillating back and forth recently; one week it's a ballad, the next week something upbeat... but I am in the mood for something a little different - a little retro.

This is also a tale which clearly demonstrates exactly how corrupt the entertainment business was back in the day.   

My Boy Lollipop (originally titled My Girl Lollypop) is a song written in the mid-1950s by Robert Spencer of the doo-wop group The Cadillacs.   

An infamous record company executive by the name of  Morris Levy agreed to buy the song from Spencer. Now, even though Levy and his crony, mobster Johnny Roberts, had nothing to do with the writing of the song, they still listed themselves as co-writers, at one point going so far as to remove Spencer's name altogether. At a later date, when confronted, Levy would claim that Robert Spencer was a pseudonym he frequently used when writing songs. So, for a period of time, the song was credited to Spencer, Levy and Roberts. Credit has since reverted to Robert Spencer, the real writer of the song.

My Girl Lollypop caught the ear of music mogul Gaetano 'Corky' Vastola, who'd recently discovered a 14-yearold singer named Barbie Gaye, after hearing her sing on a street corner in Brooklyn. Vastola took the young singer to meet infamous radio disc jockey Alan Freed. She sang a couple of songs for him and Freed was duly impressed. On Freed's recommendation, Vastola signed Gaye on as a client and became her manager. He then requested a copy of the song My Girl Lollypop from Levy and gave it to Gaye, telling her to be ready to sing it the following week.

Gaye, with no further instructions, took the song home, changed the title, added a few non-lyrical utterances, reassigned lyrics to notes, played with the meter and chose certain lyrics to repeat. The day they were scheduled to enter the studio, Gaye cut school and took the subway to a studio in Midtown Manhattan, where she met up with three musicians. She sang what she'd come up with and the musicians created an arrangement to match Gaye's vocals. It was decided to incorporate into the arrangement what was then a relatively new sound - a style of R&B music called 'shuffle.' 

The quartet entered the studio and laid it all down in one take. 

For her efforts, Gaye was paid $200.

In late 1956, the song was released as a single on Darl Records. Alan Freed was right on board, putting it into high rotation. By November of that year, it had became a highly requested song on his show on WINS, New York. This, combined with healthy sales, secured Gaye a slot on Freed's annual Christmas show at New York's Paramount theatre. She opened for Little Richard and later toured with Little Richard and Fats Domino.

The song did quite well in a number of markets, however... due to Vastola's habit of counterfeiting his artist's music, flooding the market with off-label copies, accurate sales records have proven impossible to verify.  

One of the markets it did well in was that of the Jamaican Sound Systems. Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, played a part of those efforts. Despite the fact that the song was not being sung by someone of African descent, My Boy Lollypop still managed to become quite popular among sound system patrons.  

In a 2010 interview, Blackwell told how he came to choose My Boy Lollipop for singer Millie Small's second British single:

"I would go to New York now and again and buy records and sell them to the sound system guys in Jamaica. One of these records was the original version of My Boy Lollipop. But I'd make a copy of each one on a reel-to-reel tape - it was before cassettes - and when I brought Millie over to England I sat down trying to work out if we can find a song for her and I found this tape which had the original version of My Boy Lollipop and I said, 'that's the song we should do', so it was really really lucky that I found the tape."

For Small's version, Blackwell altered the title from 'Lollypop' to 'Lollipop.' He also incorporated a very similar shuffle beat (Ska), and released it as a single in 1964. It quickly climbed the charts, making the unknown 17 year-old singer an international star almost overnight. 

Small's version would peak at #2 in the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the US, while reaching #1 in Ireland and #5 in Germany. It is considered to be the first commercially successful Ska song. It went on to sell over 7 million copies worldwide, helping to launch Blackwell's fledgling Island Records into the mainstream of popular music. 

And that's the whole story.

Now? On to the competition.

The Song: My Boy Lolly Pop

The Competition: Gaye vs. Small

My Boy Lollypop - Barbie Gaye

My Boy Lolliop - Millie Small

Barbie Gaye

I just adore vintage records like this. The pop of the vinyl. The thinness of the vocal sound; piercing, with no bottom. And the band plays beneath, just chugging along. 

This is charming. And cute. And I would never guess this girl was only 14 years old!

This is an assured reading. Gaye certainly knew what she wanted to do with this. 

It's easy to imagine bobbysoxers dropping nickels into the jukebox at the local soda shop to hear this one. 

Gaye's voice comes from the back of the throat, backed up by quite the set of lungs. She's got an interesting vibrato, very in control, and I love how she occasionally swallows her sound to bring all sorts of interesting little hiccups to the proceedings. She very much brings to mind a young Brenda Lee.

That is a big fat sax honking, with the rhythm section holding things in place. 

That's cute; the interplay between Gaye and the sax on the playout.

Gaye's vocals are not always very musical or tuneful, but they sure are energetic fun. And... keep in mind... they did this in one take!

Millie Small

Oh, see what spending a little more time can produce? But that's not the only difference here. Recording technology had advanced considerably in the years since Gaye popped into the studio. Also, this has a much more sophisticated sound - the influence of Herb Albert is present as is that of Burt Bachrach. 

That's a great horn chart, charismatic all on it's own.

Small's voice sounds incredibly polished for a 17 year-old. You can hear that giant smile in her voice. So bright sounding, it's infectious. 

Even with the stilled tempo, this has a bounce to it that the original does not. I also love how Small plays off the horns. 

Small's enunciation and intonation is a bit problematic; words become very pointed and needle-like at times. But then, what she does with 'fire' and 'desire'? That creates a sort of aural hook that listeners love to glom onto. 

Do you hear the jew harp-like sound filling in the background on 'I love you, I love you, I love you so...' Interesting, subtle touch. 

And a harmonica instead of a sax? Not sure I like it as much. But, it was of the time (Dylan.) Fortunately it doesn't overstay it's welcome.

This thing absolutely bops. 

Oh, and by the way... the other thing I adore about songs from these eras? They're rarely more than three minutes long. In fact, this one hit the two minute mark on the dot and Gaye's version is over at 2:13. Perfect little slices of pop fun.

The Verdict

I think you have to give it to Smalls just due to the polish and the bop. That horn chart makes all the difference. 

They are both charming. And you have to give Gaye a ton of credit for going in, grabbing this one by the horns and wrestling into shape in the limited time she had to work with the band and in the studio.

But Gaye's version sounds a tad unfinished to my ears, while Smalls skates away with it with that beatific smile in her voice. 

So, for me... it's Small's for the win.

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And that's enough of me.

Your turn. You know what to do. 

Leave your choice and opinions in the comments section. I love to hear about what you are hearing!

Until next time...

Thanks for reading... and listening!

My Boy Lolly Pop - Millie Small