JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Today I want to talk about lollipops, specifically the two major versions of the song “My Boy Lollipop.”

One version — the best know by far — was “My Boy Lollipop.” The second, which came eight years earlier, was “My Boy Lollypop.”

Ever since I was a youngster listening to WAKY (“Everything’s going wacky!”) in Louisville, I’ve been listening to Millie Small’s 1964 version of “Lollipop” and loving it.

It was recorded in England, went to No. 2 there and later topped out at the same spot on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

It is categorized as a ska/reggae song (a fact I didn’t know until I started researching it today). Ska, according to Wikipedia, is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to reggae.

Anyway, all these years that I’ve been listening to the version by Millie Small, a Jamaican singer and songwriter, I wasn’t aware of the existence of the 1956 version, “Lollypop,” by an American girl named Barbie Gaye.

And when I say “girl,” I mean girl because she was 14 when she recorded it. Moreover, she cut school the day the day the song was recorded in Midtown Manhattan.

I became aware of Barbie Gaye’s version just a few weeks ago, when it began turning up on SiriusXM’s “50s on 5” channel. (About all I listen to on SiriusXM is that and the “60s on 6.”)

When I first heard Gaye’s version, I was kind of taken aback and put off. But even at the first listening, I was struck by the richness of Gaye’s voice and her crisp delivery and cascading phrasing. Her version also has a nice saxophone solo that was cut from Small’s version.

Before I play both songs for you, here’s the story — condensed from Wiki — behind “My Boy Lollypop” and Barbie Gaye playing hooky to record it.

The song, originally called “My Girl Lollypop,” was written by Robert Spencer of the doo-wop group The Cadillacs. Record company executive Morris Levy bought it from Spencer, and he and an alleged gangster named Johnny Roberts removed Spencer’s name and listed themselves as the writers.

The song caught the attention of a Levy associate, mobster and music mogul Gaetano “Corky” Vastola, who had heard Barbie Gaye singing on a street corner on Coney Island. Vastola took her to meet famous New York radio DJ Alan Freed, who was equally impressed. Vastola became Gaye’s manager and soon acquired the sheet music and lyrics for “My Girl Lollypop” from Levy.

Wiki then says…

He gave them to Gaye, with no specific instructions except to change the gender of the song’s subject and be ready to perform it by the following week. Barbie Gaye changed the song’s title to “My Boy Lollypop” and rewrote the song accordingly. She added non-lyrical utterances such as “whoa” and “uh oh,” chose the notes for the lyrics, shortened and lengthened notes, decided which lyrics to repeat (“I love ya, I love ya, I love ya so”) and added the word “dandy” to describe the subject.

When it came time to record, Gaye cut school and took the subway to a recording studio in Midtown Manhattan. Gaye met the three members of the session band, guitarist Leroy Kirkland, saxophonist Al Sears and drummer Panama Francis. The band leader, Kirkland, asked Gaye to sing the song for them. After listening to her, they improvised music to match her vocals. They decided to record the song in a relatively new style of R&B called shuffle. The four musicians, including the white teenage girl, went into the studio and recorded the song in one take. Barbie Gaye was paid $200 for her writing contributions to “My Boy Lollypop” and her studio recording.

After being released by Darl Records in late 1956, Freed promoted the record aggressively. It went to No. 25 on his “Top 25” on WINS radio in New York but did not break through nationally. It sold enough, however, that Gaye got to tour with Little Richard and Fats Domino in 1957.

Like many artists at the time, Gaye received no royalties from radio play. Vastola kept all the profits.

…I don’t know if Barbie Gaye is still alive or, if so, where she lives. Millie Small died a year ago in London at age 72. Now, here are those two great versions of “My Boy Lollypop/Lollipop.”