This episode in the 1964 British Invasion series focuses on three female singers, all starting their career in that busy year for British music, and all very young. We start with the oldest, just shy of eighteen when her first single was released.
Marianne Faithfull – As Tears Go By
Marianne Faithfull first met Andrew Loog Oldham at a party aimed to launch the career of singer Andrienne Posta in March 1964. Oldham, Posta’s producer, was in attendance as well as Paul McCartney and members of the Rolling Stones. Faithfull recalls the occasion: “I didn’t give a damn about Mick or the Rolling Stones, but the urbane and exotic Andrew Loog Oldham was altogether a different kettle of fish. Him I liked instantly. He was staring at me from across the room whispering conspiratorial asides to his partner in crime, Tony Calder.” Oldham recalled the same occasion without mincing words: “I saw an angel with big tits and signed her.” When pressed to elaborate he added, “The moment I caught sight of her, I recognized my next adventure, a true star. In another century you’d had set sail for her; in 1964 you’d record her.”
Not a week passed before the 17-year-old angel was in the recording studio for the first time in her life. In attendance were Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, timid and quiet in the presence of master of ceremonies Andrew Loog Oldham. There was also a full orchestra, in front of which Faithfull had to stand and sing a perfect take. Quite the initiation. The session started with a song called ‘I Don’t Know How (To Tell You)’, written by Lionel Bart, creator of the successful musical Oliver! a few years earlier. The singer remembers: “It was one of those show-biz songs that needed the proper register. My voice was just plain wrong. We did take after agonizing take. The musicians were becoming restless, but I simply could not do it.” Oldham then suggested that they move to the song he planned for the B-side, written by the two young Rolling Stones ensconced in the corner. It was called ‘As Tears Go By’, their first attempt at songwriting.
In her autobiography, Faithfull recalled that moment: “Andrew had played me a demo with Mick singing and Big Jim Sullivan on guitar. This was the first song that Mick and Keith had written. Andrew had locked them in a kitchen and told them, ‘Write a song, I’ll be back in two hours.’ Andrew had given them the sense and feel of the type of thing he wanted them to write – ‘I want a song with brick walls all around it, high windows and no sex’ – and they came up with a song called ‘As Time Goes By’. Andrew knew a lot about the construction of songs, and although it was still in a very primitive state, he knew he could fix it. There was another problem: the title. It was the title of a very famous song, the one Dooley Wilson sings in Casablanca, so Andrew renamed it ‘As Tears Go By’.”
Keith Richards later said this about writing the song: ”With ‘As Tears Go By,’ we weren’t trying to write a commercial pop song. It was just what came out. I knew what Andrew wanted: don’t come out with a blues, don’t do some parody or copy, come out with something of your own. A good pop song is not really that easy to write. It was a shock, this fresh world of writing our own material, this discovery that I had a gift I had no idea existed. We thought, what a terrible piece of tripe. We came out and played it to Andrew, and he said, ‘It’s a hit.’”
Tony Calder, Andrew Loog Oldham’s business partner, explained Oldham’s contribution to the success of the song: “Andrew worked it into ‘As Tears Go By’, gave it the new title – all-important – cut the lyrics down, took the soppy ones out, some of the original lyrics were real dogshit, but Andrew changed all that. Then he got together with Mike Leander to arrange it.” Faithfull also respected the producer’s mentoring: “Andrew’s only piece of advice to me was to sing very close to the mike. It was an invaluable piece of advice. When you sing that close to the microphone it changes the spatial dimension, you project yourself into the song.”
Oldham summarized the session best: “The musicians sighed with relief when I announced that we were dumping ‘I Don’t Know How’ and moving on to ‘As Tears Go By’. The frustration of countless takes of poor Marianne sounding like an inbred hyena gave a great impetus to their playing on ‘As Tears Go By’. They didn’t play it like a B-side, they played it with feeling, relief and life; they were happy to be ‘on structure’ again and you could hear it and it glued. It was a magical moment. A few takes to sort out the loose change and we were home. I congratulated Marianne and told her she’d got herself a number six.” He did not miss by much. The song reached No. 9 in the UK charts, and No.22 later on Billboard’s Top 100 chart at the end of 1964. Interestingly, when the Stones released their version in 1965, it climbed to No. 6 in the US. Oldham guessed right after all.
The beauty of the song is in no small part due to the contributions of Mike Leander. His wonderful arrangement for ‘As Tears Go By’ was the beginning of a great musical collaboration he had with Marianne Faithfull in the 1960s. The singer recalls: “As soon as I heard the cor anglais playing the opening bars I knew it was going to work. After a couple of takes it was done. Mike Leander was the person I worked with directly and with whom I actually made the record. I could get along with Mike. He was the musical director and the person I actually dealt with on earth.”
For a twenty-year old writing his first song, Mick Jagger penned lyrics well beyond his age. Marianne Faithfull reminisced about the subject matter of the song: “The image that comes to mind for me is the Lady of Shalott looking into the mirror and watching life go by. It’s an absolutely astonishing thing for a boy of twenty to have written. A song about a woman looking back nostalgically on her life. The uncanny thing is that Mick should have written those words so long before everything happened. It’s almost as if our whole relationship was prefigured in that song.” Faithfull rerecorded the song at the age of forty for the album Strange Weather. She said of that experience: “At that moment I was exactly the right age and in the right frame of mind to sing it. It was then that I truly experienced the lyrical melancholy of the song for the first time.”
Sandie Shaw – (There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me
We remain with young singers and move to 17-year-old Sandie Shaw. After coming second in a local talent show, Shaw performed at a charity concert at the Commodore Theatre in Hammersmith, West London, where she was spotted by Adam Faith. An introduction to his manager, Eve Taylor, ensued. After signing a contract with Pye Records, she made a failed attempt at first single with the song ‘As Long as You’re Happy Baby’.
Shaw remembers her first recording session:
I borrowed money from my dad to come up to London for the recording session. Both Adam Faith and Eve, my manager, were in attendance. I had to wear these huge earphones on my head that mucked up my hairdo. I felt really silly. When I looked up, I could see them all upstairs in the control room through the glass panel discussing my performance. Eve did not look at all happy. Suddenly her face changed, and she became animated. She made a remark to everyone, pointing at me as she jumped up and down with excitement. I heard them all laughing and squealing down the talkback, ’Your feet! Your feet!’ I looked down at my oversized pair of plates.
‘What’s the matter with them?’ I asked defensively.
‘You’ve got no shoes on!’
I apologized and began hunting round the studio for my slingbacks.
‘No. No. Keep them off. You may not look better, but you sing better that way!’ laughed Eve.
‘Suits me,’ I said, and kicked them off again. Three takes and the song was in the can. From then on, whenever I sang I was barefoot. Et voila! La chanteuse aux pieds nus; la cantante scalza; the barefoot contessa!
Eve Taylor was undeterred by the failure of Shaw’s first single. On a trip to the United States, she heard singer Lou Johnson performing the song ‘(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me’, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. The song climbed to the modest No. 49 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, but Taylor recognized the earlier success that Dusty Springfield and Cila Black had with songs by the American songwriting duo.
Sandie Shaw’s version of ‘(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me’ starts with a light, subdued and hesitant quality and progresses to a much more brilliant sound as the song develops. Taylor and Faith contracted Les Williams to duplicate the original arrangement, both utilizing a Latin-flavored groove. Released in September 1964, the song climbed to the top of the UK singles chart in November. That month Pop Weekly magazine wrote: “This is a beautifully commercial number, yet power-packed with that hesitant kind of emotion one only finds in real hit numbers.”
The single shot to No. 1 on the UK singles chart, spending three weeks at the top in November 1964. It was released that month in the US but could not match its success in England and reached No. 52 on Billboard’s Top 100.
Shaw was unphased by the immediate attention she received in the media. Melody Maker magazine covered one social event in October 1964, with an interesting and sober look at fame from the young singer: “At London’s Cafe Royal last Thursday there was a party to celebrate the emergence of Sandie Shaw. ‘I’m beginning to get a bit disillusioned about this business. I have never seen anything like it for fiddles and rogues. Thank goodness I’m not involved in dealing with some of these people. I can leave that to Eve’-her astute manager, Miss Evelyn Taylor. Sandie’s comments on her baptism into the big-time resemble those of Marianne Faithfull, who publicly stated her dislike of the murkier sides of show business.”
Lulu – Shout
We end the review with the youngest of the class of 1964, a singer who had her debut at the tender age of fifteen. Growing up in Glasgow, Scotland, Marie Lawrie performed in and around her home city at concert halls and clubs with her band the Gleneagles. In the autumn of 1963 the Sottish paper Daily Express, searching for new pop acts, recommended her to EMI Records. Ron Richards at EMI was not impressed, but he suggested that she audition for Peter Sullivan, producer at the rival label Decca Records. The song she picked to perform was Shout, a regular number in her live shows. She first heard the Isley Brothers song performed by Alex Harvey, an experience she later described: “It was an absolute revelation for me. No other music had ever resonated with me in quite the same way. I was in awe. I knew I had to do that song.” The song fit perfectly with her favorite music from across the pond, as she explained: “I loved Black American music, especially Motown. Because it has soul. The deep inner expression of the singer—the rhythm and blues singers I love have more soul than all the pop balladeers put together. Their songs are personal things about emotions, as if the singer was baring his or her own soul. I think most pop songs are skin deep emotionally. R and B is for real. This is music to listen to—as much as to dance to.”
Shout is a standout track thanks to Lulu’s performance and high energy, a rarity among female performances of that period. Session guitarist Vic Flick remembers the session as a, “really rockin’, rockin’ take.” In fact, the session engineer had to take a break to fix a broken ribbon element in her microphone due to her strong voice. On the strength of performing that song, Decca was interested in signing her as a solo artist. Amazingly, the 15-year-old singer was able to negotiate signing her full band, all six members. Her manager, Marian Massey, suggested a new name: Lulu and the Luvvers.
The song was released in April 1964 and peaked at No. 7 on the UK chart. In the US it climbed no higher than No. 94. Lulu would have to wait three more years to top the US chart with the theme song from the movie ‘To Sir With Love’.
Sources:
Faithfull: An Autobiography, by Marianne Faithfull, David Dalton