Prom Night: This Magic Moment
The Temptations: My Girl * The Supremes: Can't Hurry Love * The Marvellettes: Please Mr. Postman * Dusty Springfield: Wishin' and Hopin' * Martha & the Vandellas: Nowhere to Run * Mary Wells: My Guy. 32 songs in all!

Prom Night: This Magic Moment

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • My Girl
  • The Temptations
  • 5:46
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • You Can't Hurry Love
  • The Supremes
  • 3:51
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • Reach Out I'll Be There
  • Four Tops
  • 3:56
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • I Was Made to Love Her
  • Stevie Wonder
  • 3:05
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • Lightinin' Strikes
  • Lou Christie
  • 2:42
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Hooked on a Feeling
  • B.J. Thomas
  • 5:15
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • Where the Boys Are
  • Connie Francis
  • 4:02
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • It's My Party
  • Lesley Gore
  • 3:39
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • I Wish It Would Rain
  • The Temptations
  • 3:17
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • Baby Love
  • The Supremes
  • 3:33
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • Please Mr. Postman
  • The Marvellettes
  • 4:13
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • What Becomes of the Brokenhearted
  • Jimmy Ruffin
  • 3:39
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'
  • The Righteous Brothers
  • 3:28
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • I Want to be Wanted
  • Brenda Lee
  • 3:50
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • I'm Gonna Make You Love Me
  • Diana Ross and the Supremes & the Temptations
  • 4:27
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • Cara, Mia
  • Jay & the Americans
  • 3:37
  • 
  
  

Prom Night: This Magic Moment

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • This Magic Moment
  • Jay & the Americans
  • 4:09
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • All I Need
  • The Temptations
  • 5:15
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • You Don't Owe Me
  • Lesley Gore
  • 4:02
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • My Guy
  • Mary Wells
  • 3:39
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • I Hear a Symphony
  • The Supremes
  • 3:17
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Mr. Blue
  • The Fleetwoods
  • 3:33
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • Sunny
  • Bobby Hebb
  • 4:13
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • I'm Sorry
  • Brenda Lee
  • 3:56
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • The More I See You
  • Chris Montez
  • 3:05
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • Wishin' and Hopin'
  • Dusty Springfield
  • 2:42
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • One Two Three
  • Len Barry
  • 5:15
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • Stop! In the Name of Love
  • The Supremes
  • 4:02
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • Nowhere to Run
  • Martha & the Vandellas
  • 3:39
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • You're My Everything
  • The Temptations
  • 3:17
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • She Cried
  • Jay & the Americans
  • 3:33
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • (You're My) Soul and Inspiration
  • The Righteous Brothers
  • 4:13
  • 
  
  

Prom Night: This Magic Moment

Prom Night, 1960: A new decade, new dancers, and a timeless ritual played out year after year across America. With each year came a new theme—the high school gymnasium decorations capturing the romantic mood, perhaps, of The Theme from “A Summer Place” after that spring’s biggest hit record. Or—in years to come—Wonderland by Night or Moon River.

Prom night’s music also changed in step with the day’s hottest hits, as spun by a local radio DJ or performed by a live band. The 1960 playlist included the only two young female singers to have made inroads into the male-dominated world of rock ’n’ roll to date: Brenda Lee (with I’m Sorry) and Connie Francis (heard here on Where the Boys Are).

These pioneering young women opened the floodgates for numerous new female vocalists—most notably, Lesley Gore. Gore was a high school student, singing lead for an all-male band at area dances, when a demo she’d recorded caught the ear of Mercury Records execs. In short order, label staff producer Quincy Jones—lugging songwriter demos—showed up at her family’s home in Tenafly, New Jersey. Sitting on top of his pile of discs was It’s My Party, and on March 30, 1963, Gore found herself belting out the party tale of woe in front of a full orchestra led by multi-talented arranger-conductor Claus Ogerman. Within a week It’s My Party was blasting over the New York airwaves, and the rest of the nation’s stations quickly followed suit, powering Gore from nowhere to No. 1 in just four weeks.

In the remaining six months of 1963, Lesley launched two more singles into the top five, Judy’s Turn to Cry and She’s a Fool. You Don’t Own Me, her fourth straight smash, marked a turning point in her sound and perspective. This one was a ballad—and one with a message at that. The crying was gone, replaced by a fierce declaration of independence—a highly unusual sentiment from a 17-year-old woman of 1964. (Ironically, the composers of You Don’t Own Me were men—John Madara and David White Tricker—who also wrote Danny and the Juniors’ 1958 chart topper, At the Hop.)

Meanwhile, another female singer was racing up the U.K. pop charts. Americans first heard the smoky-voiced Dusty Springfield in 1962 on Silver Threads and Golden Needles, followed 17 months later by her first British solo charter, I Only Want to Be with You. Up next were Stay Awhile and then Wishin’ and Hopin’, penned by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, who—along with their vocalist of choice, Dionne Warwick—created some of the most distinctive records of the 1960s. Warwick had already released Wishin’ and Hopin’ a year earlier as a B side, but it was Dusty’s take on it that made the top 40.

Closely related to the records of Lesley Gore and her solo colleagues were those from such groups as the Shirelles, the Crystals, and—later—the biggest of them all, the Supremes. They were, as Motown Records owner Berry Gordy Jr. proclaimed, “The Sound of Young America.”

Pre-Supremes, the label’s first consistent hit-makers were the Marvelettes and Mary Wells, who gave Motown two of its first No. 1 records, Please Mr. Postman in 1961 and My Guy in 1964. Between those two records, the label had landed a smattering of discs by various artists on the pop charts. With My Guy, Motown moved into the big time. Before the year was out, Gordy and his gang grabbed three more pop chart toppers, all by the Supremes and all penned by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland. HDH had already scored with incendiary hits by Martha and the Vandellas, but they really hit their stride with the Supremes.

Originally members of the Primettes, Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard, and Diane (later, Diana) Ross started singing together in eighth grade. After a single on LuPine sank without a trace, the girls signed with Motown and released their first disc as the Supremes in the spring of 1961. It took Gordy’s new group five more 45-rpm releases to crack the pop top 30 with When the Lovelight Starts Shining through His Eyes. Lovelight was followed by another stiff single before Where Did Our Love Go kicked off a run of five straight No. 1 hits, the first of 12 consecutive top-10 R&B chartings racked up by the Supremes/HDH team (including Baby Love; Stop! In the Name of Love; I Hear a Symphony; and You Can’t Hurry Love). The song-writing wizards also—as if that weren’t enough success—cranked out a string of monsters for the Four Tops that included Reach Out I’ll Be There.

While Holland, Dozier and Holland were busy adding unforgettable songs to the soundtrack of our lives with the Supremes, the Four Tops, and the Vandellas (Nowhere to Run), Smokey Robinson was doing the same with the Temptations. Despite some decent chart action in 1964, the Temptin’ Tempts had yet to catch fire, but that was about to change in a big way. On December 21, 1964, Smokey ran the group through its studio paces on a song he’d penned specifically for David Ruffin (rather than Eddie Kendricks, the Tempts’ usual lead singer). My Girl took less that a month to conquer the R&B chart, and topped the pop chart in March. From then on, the Temptations’ singles primarily featured Ruffin on lead until Kendricks returned just after 1967’s All I Need with You’re My Everything, a song designed to wow the female concert fans.

With the Supremes and the Temptations both burning up the charts, Motown teamed them up for a cover of Dee Dee Warwick’s 1966 release I’m Gonna Make You Love Me. The supergroup’s rendition racked up a solid No. 2 showing on January 11, 1969—a week in which five Motown discs held down spots in the top 10.

Two of the era’s most memorable male voices belonged to Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield, a.k.a. the Righteous Brothers. Bill and Bobby and You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ made for a perfect combination of singers, song and studio wizardry. In crafting the song, crack songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil took inspiration from the Four Tops’ Baby I Need Your Loving. On record, Medley’s deeper-than-deep baritone and Hatfield’s soaring tenor were framed by producer Phil Spector’s breathtaking “wall of sound.” Fourteen months later, Mann, Weil, Medley and Hatfield recreated the magic—this time without Spector—on (You’re My) Soul and Inspiration.

The same week in April 1966 that Soul and Inspiration slid into the No. 1 position, B. J. Thomas hit his first top-10 peak with I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry. Thomas’ cover of the Hank Williams country classic originally appeared on the small Pacemaker label in 1964 before its release on Scepter Records. Several other older tracks were reissued to little fanfare before Hooked on a Feeling gave Thomas his first gold record. After Hooked, Thomas recorded a number of pop and country hits—including a couple of No. 1’s—and won five Grammy awards for his gospel music. Hooked, too, went on to further glory, in a chart-topping “ooga chacka” version in 1974 by Blue Swede.

And so it went, school years rolling by in a succession of fall-winter-spring cycles; each capped by an annual prom night ritual, lovers dancing together into the future on the music of the present and the past. For the couples of 1969 that meant sharing a special musical bond with their 1960 counterparts, all of whom romanced to This Magic Moment, sung originally by the Drifters and then—nine years later—by Jay and the Americans. It was truly a moment that would “last forever till the end of time.”

—Ed Osborne

Prom Night: Be My Baby
The Chiffons: One Fine Day * Fats Domino: Blueberry Hill * Jackie Wilson: Lonely Teardrops * The Beach Boys: Good Vibrations * Dion and the Belmonts: Where or When. 32 songs in all!

Prom Night: Be My Baby

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • Be My Baby
  • The Ronettes
  • 3:39
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • Spooky
  • Classics IV
  • 3:28
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher
  • Jackie Wilson
  • 3:50
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • This Diamond Ring
  • Gary Lewis and the Playboys
  • 4:27
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie
  • Jay and the Techniques
  • 3:37
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Cool Jerk
  • The Capitols
  • 2:50
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • When I Fall in Love
  • The Letterman
  • 5:46
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • Sweet Talkin' Guy
  • The Chiffons
  • 3:51
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • Da Doo Ron Ron
  • The Crystals
  • 3:56
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • One Fine Day
  • The Chiffons
  • 3:05
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • Good Vibrations
  • The Beach Boys
  • 2:42
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • Tell It Like It Is
  • Aaron Neville
  • 5:15
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • All I Have to Do Is Dream
  • The Everly Brothers
  • 2:50
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • He's a Rebel
  • The Crystals
  • 5:46
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • Where or When
  • Dion and the Belmonts
  • 3:51
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • I Get Around
  • The Beach Boys
  • 3:56
  • 
  
  

Prom Night: Be My Baby

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • A Teenager in Love
  • Dion and the Belmonts
  • 3:05
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • Lonely Teardrops
  • Jackie Wilson
  • 2:42
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me
  • Mel Carter
  • 5:15
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • Stormy
  • Classics IV featuring Dennis Yost
  • 3:33
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • Oh, What a Night
  • The Dells
  • 4:13
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Walking in the Rain
  • The Ronettes
  • 3:39
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • (Today I Met) The Boy I'm Gonna Marry
  • Darlene Love
  • 3:28
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • He's Sure the Boy I Love
  • The Crystals
  • 3:50
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • Wouldn't It Be Nice
  • The Beach Boys
  • 4:27
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • Rescue Me
  • Fontella Bass
  • 3:37
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • The "In" Crowd
  • Dobie Gray
  • 2:50
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • Young Love
  • Sonny James
  • 5:46
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • Let It Be Me
  • The Everly Brothers
  • 3:51
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • Then He Kissed Me
  • The Crystals
  • 3:56
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • Barbara Ann
  • The Beach Boys
  • 3:05
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • Blueberry Hill
  • Fats Domino
  • 2:42
  • 
  
  

Prom Night: Be My Baby

Although recent history is usually measured in decadal chunks of time, the 1950s era of rock ’n’ roll music really ended in 1964, when the Beatles ushered in a new generation of artists and sounds. Before then, two of the most successful of those 1950s artists were Don and Phil Everly, who conquered the Top 40, R&B, and country charts with ease.

Born into a family of entertainers, the brothers’ first brush with commercial success came in 1954 when Chet Atkins placed Don’s tune Thou Shalt Not Steal with Kitty Wells, who took it to No. 14 on the country list. Two years and no hits later, the brothers decided to quit the music biz and join their father in construction. Fortunately, fate intervened at the last minute. They signed with Cadence Records on March 1, 1957, and in less than four months had the No. 2 hit in the nation, Bye Bye Love. Their next two recordings—Wake Up Little Susie and All I Have to Do Is Dream (a song written in just 15 minutes by Boudleaux Bryant)—topped the pop, country and R&B charts. After eight hit singles, the Everly Brothers recorded Let It Be Me in 1960, their last 45 for Cadence, and moved on to Warner Brothers Records and Cathy’s Clown.

Two other artists who first charted in the 1950s and continued to do well into the 1960s were Jackie Wilson and Dion DiMucci. As “Sonny Wilson,” Jackie released two singles in 1952 before gaining fame as the lead singer for Billy Ward and His Dominoes. Eventually Wilson went solo again and hit big out of the box with To Be Loved and Lonely Teardrops, both co-written by Berry Gordy Jr. Wilson slumped a bit in the early 1960s, then struck again in 1966 and 1967 with Whispers (Gettin’ Louder) and (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher. Gordy, by then the owner of high-flying Motown Records, was none too thrilled when he found out that members of his label’s house band had leant their talents to Higher and Higher. (It wasn’t their only moonlighting assignment: the Funk Brothers had played on a number of other non-Motown hits, including the Capitols’ Cool Jerk.)

Although his sound on record was firmly rooted in the streets of New York City, Dion drew his vocal inspiration from country legend Hank Williams, whose trademark vocal “catch” Dion incorporated into his own singing. Dion and his Belmont Avenue buddies first burst onto the scene with their trademark vocal bass riff, tight hallway harmonies, and Dion’s soaring lead on I Wonder Why during prom season 1958. The following year ace songwriters Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman delivered A Teenager in Love to Gene Schwartz, president of the Belmonts’ label, for an unknown group called the Mystics. Schwartz quickly gave it to Dion and the Belmonts, who took it to No. 5 in May of 1959. They scored again several months later with a song that dated back to 1937, Where or When. Two singles later, Dion broke away from the Belmonts and went on to even greater success, recording the seminal singles Runaround Sue and The Wanderer. As for the Mystics, Pomus and Shuman went home and in one night wrote a hit for them, too: Hushabye.

Although the early 1960s have been roundly slagged by latter-day rock ’n’ roll pundits, it was a fertile period during which distinctive vocalists (such as Dion) found favor with fans, while artists (such as the Beach Boys) began expanding the boundaries of 1950s rock, and the record producer (Brian Wilson, Phil Spector) emerged as a powerful force in shaping the sounds on record.

Between the springs of 1962 and 1964, California’s Beach Boys racked up an impressive chart record with tunes extolling the virtues of surfing and cars, using 1950s Four Freshman–style harmonies coupled with contemporary instrumentation to create something quite different than the competing pop songs of the day. The group’s Brian Wilson was so successful in communicating his personal vision via vinyl that on July 4, 1964, amidst the bevy of British Invasion artists who dominated the charts, I Get Around bumped England’s Peter and Gordon out of the No. 1 spot.

By decade’s end, Wilson and the Beach Boys had placed 38 sides on the Hot 100. Two of them—Barbara Ann and Good Vibrations —were polar opposites music-wise. The former featured Dean Torrence of Jan and Dean singing lead on a studio party version of the Regents’ 1961 doo-wop hit, while the latter was one of the most significant singles of the ’60s, recorded over six months at four different studios.

With Good Vibrations, Brian Wilson mastered and refined the production techniques of his idol, Phil Spector. After writing, producing, and singing backup on the Teddy Bears’ To Know Him Is to Love Him in 1958, Spector produced a number of hits, then started his own label in 1961. Fittingly, for this collection, his first single, There’s No Other (Like My Baby) , was recorded by the Crystals after their high school prom.

Despite the success of There’s No Other and the follow-up, Uptown, Spector chose the Blossoms with lead singer Darlene Love to record the next two Crystals singles: He’s a Rebel and He’s Sure the Boy I Love. When He’s a Rebel reached No. 1 in November of 1962, composer Gene Pitney had double cause for celebration—that same week his recording of Only Love Can Break a Heart hit No. 2 on the Hot 100.

For Da Doo Ron Ron (When He Walked Me Home), Spector again used Darlene Love on lead—about the same time he had her recording (Today I Met) The Boy I’m Gonna Marry as a solo effort. Nevertheless, this time Spector wasn’t satisfied with her vocal and re-cut Da Doo Ron Ron with La La Brooks from the original Crystals, backed by the Blossoms. Brooks also sang on their next hit, Then He Kissed Me. Even though the Crystals were red-hot, Spector had become obsessed with the Ronettes, whose first single, Be My Baby, debuted two weeks after Then He Kissed Me in August 1963.

Written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, and Spector—the same team responsible for the last two Crystals tunes—Be My Baby raced all the way to No. 2. Despite this auspicious beginning, the Ronettes’ next several singles failed to crack the top 20 even though they were fine efforts. Walking in the Rain, in particular, was an outstanding effort that featured a Wagnerian arrangement with authentic thunderclaps and a gorgeous vocal by Ronnie Bennett.

In 1968 Florida’s Classics IV Featuring Dennis Yost put a unique spin on the traditional rainy-days-and-lovers imagery when they released Stormy , a song about a girl whose mood changed like the weather. It became the group’s second hit, ten months after their first chart entry, Spooky , reached No. 3.

The Spooky story began in early 1967, when a seductive pop-jazz instrumental by alto saxophonist Mike Sharpe wound its way to No. 57 on the Hot 100 before fading away. Sharpe’s tune would have remained a footnote in top-40 trivia but for Classics IV guitarist J. R. Cobb and producer Buddy Buie’s sense that all Spooky needed to become a hit was some appropriate lyrics. In the studio, the players laid down a sinuous backing track—with Sharpe on sax—beneath Cobb and Buie’s haunting lyrics, sung by Dennis Yost.

From Be My Baby to the Classics IV’s beautiful ballads and beyond, these songs bring back a more innocent time when the world was young and we believed that things were going to be that much better when—as the Beach Boys sang in Wouldn’t It Be Nice —“we can say goodnight and stay together.” Now, wouldn’t that be nice?

—Ed Osborne

Prom Night: See You in September
Dionne Warwick: I Say a Little Prayer * The Drifters: Under the Boardwalk * The Angels: My Boyfriend's Back * Little Anthony and the Imperials: I'm on the Outside (Looking In). 32 songs in all!

Prom Night: See You in September

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • Under the Boardwalk
  • The Drifters
  • 5:15
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • Beyond the Sea
  • Bobby Darin
  • 2:50
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • The Boy from New York City
  • The Ad Libs
  • 2:50
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • Rag Doll
  • The 4 Seasons
  • 5:46
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • I Say a Little Prayer
  • Dionne Warwick
  • 3:51
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Mama Said
  • The Shirelles
  • 3:56
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • Hurt So Bad
  • Little Anthony and the Imperials
  • 3:05
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • My Boyfriend's Back
  • The Angels
  • 2:42
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • Make Me Your Baby
  • Barbara Lewis
  • 5:15
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • Candy Girl
  • The 4 Seasons
  • 4:02
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • How Can I Be Sure
  • The Young Rascals
  • 3:39
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • See You in September
  • The Happenings
  • 3:17
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • Chapel of Love
  • The Dixie Cups
  • 3:33
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • Little Star
  • The Elegants
  • 4:13
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • I Got You Babe
  • Sonny & Cher
  • 3:39
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • Tear Drops
  • Lee Andrews and the Hearts
  • 3:28
  • 
  
  

Prom Night: See You in September

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • Walk Like a Man
  • The 4 Seasons
  • 3:50
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)
  • Betty Everett
  • 4:27
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • Will You Love Me Tomorrow
  • The Shirelles
  • 3:37
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • I'm on the Outside (Looking In)
  • Little Anthony and the Imperials
  • 4:09
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • Cathy's Clown
  • The Everly Brothers
  • 5:15
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Baby Don't Go
  • Sonny & Cher
  • 4:02
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • (Just Like) Romeo & Juliet
  • The Reflections
  • 3:39
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • Take Me Back
  • Little Anthony and the Imperials
  • 3:40
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • The Loco-Motion
  • Little Eva
  • 3:29
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • Johnny Angel
  • Shelley Fabares
  • 5:20
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • Why
  • Frankie Avalon
  • 4:14
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • Easier Said Than Done
  • The Essex
  • 5:01
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • Never My Love
  • The Association
  • 4:45
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird)
  • Chuck Jackson
  • 4:33
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • Anyone Who Had a Heart
  • Dionne Warwick
  • 5:25
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • Let's Hang On!
  • The 4 Seasons
  • 4:24
  • 
  
  

Prom Night: See You in September

Prom night marked the end of the school year and the onset of summer with its see-you-in-September, save-your-heart-for-me summer singles—tunes that perfectly captured the sounds and sentiments of life from June through August. In 1963 one of the sunniest of them all was Candy Girl by the 4 Seasons.

Seasons’ lead singer, Frankie Valli, had released his first single in 1953, then fronted the Four Lovers on their 1956 chart record, You’re the Apple of My Eye. Although none of the Lovers’ subsequent singles made any sales noise, Valli continued to record, picking up Bob Gaudio (from the Royal Teens) and a name taken from a cocktail lounge/bowling alley in Union, New Jersey, along the way. In 1962, fortune finally struck when the 4 Seasons scored three No. 1 singles: Sherry, Big Girls Don’t Cry and Walk Like a Man.

The men responsible for those three songs were Bob Gaudio and producer Bob Crewe, who also wrote the Seasons’ fourth chart topper. While stuck at an interminable red light on the west side of Manhattan one day, Gaudio watched a dirt-covered young girl clean his windshield. To him she looked like a little rag doll. He handed her a five dollar bill and drove away. In 1964, the song she inspired, Rag Doll, raced to No. 1 in just five weeks, bumping the Beach Boys’ I Get Around out of the top spot and becoming one of the year’s most memorable summer songs.

While the 4 Seasons were scoring big for the men on the top 40, another Jersey group was doing likewise on the distaff side. The Shirelles first performed publicly at their high school talent show, for which they wrote I Met Him on a Sunday. Even though a friend’s mom owned a record label, the teens just wanted to sing for fun. When they eventually did record their tune, it sold well enough to crack the national top 50. The girls decided to do some more, recording Dedicated to the One I Love and the suggestive Tonight’s the Night.

Their next single almost wasn’t after lead singer Shirley Owens found the demo of it too country for four young black women from New Jersey. Producer Luther Dixon, however, believed in Will You Love Me Tomorrow, penned in one night by struggling songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carole King. King came up with a Drifters-style string arrangement and played kettle drum at the recording session, while Owens poured plenty of heart and soul into her performance. It all added up to a perfect single, the first-ever chart topper by a girl group.

The Shirelles’ 1959 recording of Dedicated to the One I Love was reissued next and it, too, became a smash. By the time Mama Said reached No. 4 at the height of the 1961 prom season, the Shirelles were clearly the hottest group in America, having chalked up three top-five singles in just four months.

One of the most remarkable comeback sagas in the golden days of Top 40 radio belonged to Little Anthony and the Imperials. Between 1955 and 1957, Anthony Gourdine recorded several fine sides before scoring a monster hit with the Imperials, Tears on My Pillow. Unfortunately, successive singles failed to catch fire, and by 1960 Anthony and the group were off the charts.

Four years later, the guys made a remarkable return at the height of the British Invasion with I’m on the Outside (Looking In) , written by Teddy Randazzo and Bobby Weinstein. With Randazzo going through a marital breakup, the three hits they wrote for the Imperials—including Goin’ Out of My Head and (with Bobby Hart) Hurt So Bad —played on record like a real-life musical. Randazzo capped off the Imperials’ mid-’60s hit streak with a solo composition, Take Me Back.

Unlike the Imperials, the Drifters charted consistently in the 1950s and ’60s. The “early” Drifters recorded from 1953 until 1958, when manager George Treadwell fired the members and replaced them with the Crowns. The new Drifters found immediate success with songs such as There Goes My Baby and Save the Last Dance for Me, featuring Ben E. King on lead. When King went solo, Rudy Lewis stepped up to sing Up on the Roof, On Broadway and other hits.

On the evening of May 21, 1964, Lewis and the Drifters were scheduled to record Under the Boardwalk. When Lewis died suddenly the night before, Johnny Moore—one of the early Drifters’ lead singers who’d rejoined the newer group in 1963—took over because there wasn’t time to reschedule. The finished master contained the words “making love,” a phrase deemed so risqué for the teens of 1964 that it was changed to “falling in love” for the single release. In mid-August, Under the Boardwalk joined Rag Doll in the top 10—the Drifters’ highest charting disc in almost four years and one of the most memorable summer songs of the rock ’n’ roll era.

One regular companion of the Drifters on the charts was the multi-talented Bobby Darin. In a lifetime cut tragically short by health problems, Darin burned through several genres of music: Top 40, great American songbook tunes, country, and folk-rock. In 1959, after just a year of rock ’n’ roll, Darin recorded the standards Mack the Knife and Beyond the Sea. Frenchmen Charles Trenet and Leo Chauliac penned the latter in 1943 as La Mer, and Trenet released it on disc in 1946, after which Jack Lawrence—of Sleepy Lagoon, Linda and Tenderly fame—wrote the English lyrics. Although pianist Roger Williams had a minor hit with it in 1956, it was Darin’s stunning vocal and Richard Wess’s sunny arrangement that made Beyond the Sea a modern-day classic.

The team responsible for one of the most distinctive sounds on record in the 1960s was made up of songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David and singer Dionne Warwick. Bacharach first heard Warwick singing backup at a Drifters recording session in the summer of 1961. He and David loved her style, yet a year later they still hadn’t found the right song for her. Warwick waited as they gave song after song to other artists until she finally exploded. The song Bacharach and David built around her angry outburst, Don’t Make Me Over, became her first hit single.

Although her next two singles were sales disappointments, the third one was a winner. While Bacharach and Warwick rehearsed one song in the living room of Bacharach’s Manhattan apartment, David polished off the lyrics to Anyone Who Had a Heart in the bedroom. Heart headed up the charts, peaking at No. 8 in early 1964. It also kicked off a series of stunning singles from the trio, including the classics Walk On By and Reach Out for Me. Virtually all of Warwick’s discs were ballads, a string she broke in 1967 with I Say a Little Prayer. Although Bacharach thought the tempo of Prayer too fast for Warwick, she disagreed—and her instinct proved spot-on when it soared to No. 4.

Of all the fine songs in this Prom Night volume, perhaps See You in September best embodies both the joyful anticipation of and lover’s angst about the approaching season. Originally a No. 23 hit by the Tempos in 1959, the Happenings’ 1966 revival sailed to No. 3 in August, peaking right behind Sunny by Bobby Hebb and the Lovin’ Spoonful’s Summer in the City—two other classic summer singles.

—Ed Osborne

Prom Night: So In Love
Elvis Presley: Are You Lonesome Tonight? * Bobby Vinton: Mr. Lonely * Dee Dee Sharp: Mashed Potato Time * Sam Cooke: Twistin' the Night Away. 32 songs in all!

Prom Night: So In Love

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • Twistin' the Night Away
  • Sam Cooke
  • 4:13
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • More Today Than Yesterday
  • Spiral Starecase
  • 4:04
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • Only the Lonely (Know How I Feel)
  • Roy Orbison
  • 3:21
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • Chances Are
  • Johnny Mathis
  • 2:54
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • Are You Lonesome Tonight?
  • Elvis Presley
  • 3:45
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
  • Neil Sedaka
  • 4:29
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • There! I've Said It Again
  • Bobby Vinton
  • 3:59
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • Only Love Can Break a Heart
  • Gene Pitney
  • 3:19
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • Downtown
  • Petula Clark
  • 4:20
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • Young Girl
  • The Union Gap featuring Gary Puckett
  • 3:40
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • Worst That Could Happen
  • Brooklyn Bridge
  • 3:47
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • Yes, I'm Ready
  • Barbara Lewis
  • 3:07
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • You Send Me
  • Sam Cooke
  • 3:52
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • It's Not for Me to Say
  • Johnny Mathis
  • 4:15
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • It Hurts to Be in Love
  • Gene Pitney
  • 5:18
  • 
  
  
• • 16
  • Mr. Lonely
  • Bobby Vinton
  • 4:15
  • 
  
  
• • 17
  • Can't Help Falling in Love
  • Elvis Presley
  • 3:25
  • 
  
  
• • 18
  • To Sir With Love
  • Lulu
  • 4:09
  • 
  
  

Prom Night: So In Love

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • There's a Kind of Hush
  • Herman's Hermits
  • 4:17
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • So Much in Love
  • The Tymes
  • 4:29
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • Bristol Stomp
  • The Dovells
  • 4:58
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • The Twist
  • Chubby Checker
  • 4:16
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • Mashed Potato Time
  • Dee Dee Sharp
  • 3:50
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • South Street
  • The Orlons
  • 4:09
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • You Can't Sit Down
  • The Dovells
  • 3:51
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • Pony Time
  • Chubby Checker
  • 4:05
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • The Wah Watusi
  • The Orlons
  • 4:05
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • Don't Hang Up
  • The Orlons
  • 4:21
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • The Cha-Cha-Cha
  • Bobby Rydell
  • 4:10
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • Wonderful! Wonderful!
  • The Tymes
  • 4:16
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • Silhouettes
  • The Rays
  • 4:56
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • Wonderful World
  • Herman's Hermits
  • 2:37
  • 
  
  

Prom Night: So in Love

The most memorable prom night records got people’s feet dancing and their hearts pounding—the latter more from passion than aerobic activity. Whereas many artists specialized in one style or the other, Elvis Presley excelled at both.

In the beginning, Elvis built his reputation on raw rave-ups such as That’s All Right and Mystery Train. A move from Sun to RCA Records brought international recognition and a gradual softening of his sound. By 1960, more of Presley’s singles sported a ballad as an A side than a rocker.

The epitome of Elvis’s romantic performances occurred on the morning of April 4, 1960. At four a.m., near the end of a marathon twelve-hour recording session, Elvis turned out all the studio lights and, with the Jordanaires crooning softly in the background, laid down one of the most heartfelt recitations in the history of popular music on a song that dated back to 1926, Are You Lonesome To-night? It debuted at No. 35 in the final week of November, then leapt to No. 2 and No. 1, joining Stuck on You and It’s Now or Never as Elvis’s 1960 chart toppers.

After the Italian aria–styled Surrender, the vintage R&B cover I Feel So Bad, and the double-sided rocker (Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame with Little Sister, Presley returned to ballad land with the gorgeous Can’t Help Falling in Love. Based on a French melody, Plasir d’Amour, the song was featured in Elvis’s latest film, Blue Hawaii, in which he sang it to his big screen grandmother. In real life, Presley was thinking of a lovely brunette named Priscilla Beaulieu he’d met in Germany while stationed there with the army. Sandwiched between The Twist and Peppermint Twist—Part 1, Elvis’s vinyl Valentine failed to reach No. 1, yet it did pierce Priscilla’s heart. She and Elvis married in 1967.

Among Presley’s early-days cohorts at Sun Records was Roy Orbison, who’d gotten a start in the music business at age eight, singing on a local Texas radio station. In 1954, the college freshman saw Presley in concert and was soon fronting his own rockabilly combo, the Teen Kings. Two years later, Orbison and his band went on public record with the raucous Ooby Dooby.

As he worked toward fame and fortune, Orbison also honed his song-writing skills, scoring with Claudette, a chart-making 1958 B side for the Everly Brothers. He began writing with Joe Melson and they cracked the Hot 100 in early 1960 with Uptown. For a follow-up, they combined two different songs, one with a “dum-dum-dum” vocal chorus and another with an “only the lonely” line, into Only the Lonely (Know How I Feel) . With its soft instrumentation and soaring vocal crescendo, Only established Orbison’s classic sound and gave him his first big hit.

While the yet-to-be-discovered Presley and Orbison were cutting their early Sun sides, Sam Cooke was bringing down the house as lead singer of gospel’s Soul Stirrers. In 1956 Cooke went pop with Lovable, billed—in an attempt to hide the secular recording from his sacred fans—to Dale Cooke. Although the move cost Cooke his church cred, he gained more than he lost when You Send Me went to No. 1 in the waning weeks of 1957.

Cooke next gained momentum with Chain Gang and Cupid, hitting his chart stride in 1962 with Twistin’ the Night Away. Propelled by Chubby Checker’s smash The Twist, which two times reached No. 1, the dance craze had caught hold all over America. One night Cooke saw a TV clip of upscale dancers at Manhattan’s Peppermint Lounge, and promptly dashed off his own “twist” tune. It kicked off a string of 16 straight sides that reached the R&B top 10, of which 11 also made the pop top 20—a streak stopped by his untimely death in December of 1964.

Sharing the early-’60s charts were more pop-leaning young singers who—like Cooke—also wrote their own tunes. A graduate of Juilliard, Neil Sedaka’s pre-success claims to fame included a stint as the chime ringer on the Willows’ doo-woppin’ Church Bells May Ring and having composed (along with high school friend Howard Greenfield) Connie Francis’s Stupid Cupid.

Sedaka racked up his first chart record in early 1959 with The Diary. Stairway to Heaven and Calendar Girl and Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen followed. Meanwhile, the Sedaka/Greenfield team also turned out hits for Francis (Frankie, Where the Boys Are) and the likes of Jimmy Clanton (Venus in Blue Jeans).

In early 1962 Sedaka was doing a promotional tour in Los Angeles when he heard a record that inspired him—the Showmen’s life-affirming tribute to rock ’n’ roll, It Will Stand. Sedaka set his sights on creating an equally exciting disc. The melody and title—Breaking Up Is Hard to Do—came to him quickly and he and Greenfield fine-tuned it over the next few weeks. But the night before the scheduled recording session, Sedaka sensed that the song was still missing something. Suddenly, it came to him: “down-doo-be-doo-down-down”; he taught the obbligato line to his backing vocalists, the Cookies, on the way to the studio. In mid-summer 1962, Sedaka’s up-tempo happy-sounding song of lost love bumped newcomer Bobby Vinton out of the top spot.

Before Roses Are Red (My Love) , Vinton had released two big-band albums and three singles, all of which sank without a trace. Summoned to a “you’re off the label” meeting, Vinton told the execs that his contract called for two more sides and suggested a song he’d just heard while the lawyers were off discussing his case. Vinton won a reprieve and recorded an R&B–style version of Roses. He thought it was awful and argued for another shot which—amazingly—he was given. The second, country-leaning version was a winner for Vinton and Epic Records, giving them both their first chart toppers. (As if that weren’t enough of a made-in-Hollywood story, co-writer Paul Evans first saw the lyrics at a demo session. Calling for a break, Evans joked that he was going to write a hit on the spot—three minutes later he had finished the melody and the song was done.)

That track was the start of an early-’60s pop chart dominance for Vinton that led to his being ranked one of the top five male artists of the decade—and would literally be undone by the arrival of a new British Invasion. Vinton’s There! I’ve Said It Again reached No. 1 in January 1964 and stayed there for four weeks—until the Beatles claimed it for the next seven with their debut. But that was not the end for Vinton. Another song from his last-chance recording session was Mr. Lonely, which he’d long believed should have been a hit (the label released a Buddy Greco version instead). When the track was finally included on a greatest hits release two years later, it became another No. 1 for Vinton.

However, by the end of 1964, Orbison, Vinton and Sedaka had logged their last top-10 hits of the era, the result of the sea change in pop music brought on by the Beatles. Ironically, the exciting “new” sound of the British big-beat merchants was built on early American rock ’n’ roll, as the Fab Four and the Dave Clark Five brought their pounding beat to such American oldies as Twist and Shout, Roll Over Beethoven and Do You Love Me. Hot on their heels came Herman’s Hermits, who covered I’m into Somethin’ Good by Earl-Jean (McCrea, of Sedaka’s backing Cookies), the Rays’ Silhouettes, and Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World. They would close out their ’60s success with the 1967 No. 4 There’s a Kind of Hush, but as of Memorial Day 1965 the Hermits were so hot that Silhouettes and Wonderful World sat at No. 14 and No. 50 respectively while a third single—Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter—was at No. 4: a prom night trifecta.

—Ed Osborne

Prom Night: For Lovers Only
Stevie Wonder: My Cherie Amour * Etta James: At Last * Percy Sledge: When a Man Loves a Woman * Frankie Valli: Can't Take My Eyes Off You. 29 songs in all!

Prom Night: For Lovers Only

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • Put Your Head on My Shoulder
  • Paul Anka
  • 3:18
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • Venus
  • Frankie Avalon
  • 3:15
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • It's All in the Game
  • Tommy Edwards
  • 4:01
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • Sealed with a Kiss
  • Brian Hyland
  • 5:29
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • Only You (And You Alone)
  • The Platters
  • 3:31
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Love Letters in the Sand
  • Pat Boone
  • 4:23
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • Unchained Melody
  • The Righteous Brothers
  • 2:41
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • Hey There Lonely Girl
  • Eddie Holman
  • 3:37
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • Goodnight My Love (Pleasant Dreams)
  • Jesse Belvin
  • 3:27
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • Hey, Girl
  • Freddie Scott
  • 4:43
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • Roses Are Red (My Love)
  • Bobby Vinton
  • 4:23
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • April Love
  • Pat Boone
  • 3:38
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • Puppy Love
  • Paul Anka
  • 4:13
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • Ebb Tide
  • The Righteous Brothers
  • 3:07
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • My Cherie Amour
  • Stevie Wonder
  • 4:18
  • 
  
  

Prom Night: For Lovers Only

• • Track
  • Title
  • Artist/Composer
  • Time
  
  
• • 1
  • At Last
  • Etta James
  • 4:16
  • 
  
  
• • 2
  • My Eyes Adored You
  • Frankie Valli
  • 4:22
  • 
  
  
• • 3
  • Save the Last Dance for Me
  • The Drifters
  • 4:01
  • 
  
  
• • 4
  • Since I Fell For You
  • Lenny Welch
  • 5:29
  • 
  
  
• • 5
  • You Belong to Me
  • The Duprees
  • 3:31
  • 
  
  
• • 6
  • Cherish
  • The Association
  • 4:23
  • 
  
  
• • 7
  • The Way You Look Tonight
  • The Letterman
  • 2:41
  • 
  
  
• • 8
  • When a Man Loves a Woman
  • Percy Sledge
  • 3:37
  • 
  
  
• • 9
  • Baby It's You
  • The Shirelles
  • 3:27
  • 
  
  
• • 10
  • For Your Precious Love
  • Jerry Butler and the Impressions
  • 4:43
  • 
  
  
• • 11
  • Can't Take My Eyes Off You
  • Frankie Valli
  • 4:23
  • 
  
  
• • 12
  • My Own True Love
  • The Duprees
  • 3:38
  • 
  
  
• • 13
  • Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye
  • The Casinos
  • 4:13
  • 
  
  
• • 14
  • When We Get Married
  • The Dreamlovers
  • 3:07
  • 
  
  
• • 15
  • Goodnite Sweetheart, Goodnite
  • The Spaniels
  • 4:23
  • 
  
  

Prom Night: For Lovers Only

The most special of all the prom night records were the slow-dance songs that provided an “official” opportunity for teens to hug each other close in public. Emotions and hormones ran high as we danced to our favorite tunes of the day and to classics from proms past, several of which are featured here.

At a time when most young men were terrified to even ask a girl to the prom, Paul Anka was writing and singing odes of love to them. In fact, he wrote his very first hit in tribute to a female friend from church with whom he was infatuated. Although his teen goddess rebuffed his romantic overture, the record-buying public took it to heart. Diana became a million seller and Paul Anka became an international star. (Diana spent nine weeks at No. 1 in Britain, a record that stood for 18 years.)

Like Diana, many of Anka’s songs were autobiographical. A self-described “lonely boy” on the road, Anka performed as couples in the crowd snuggled and single boys looked longingly for someone to call their own. Isolated by his fame, Anka turned his—and their—emotions into two huge hits: Lonely Boy and Put Your Head on My Shoulder.

Anka’s involvement with America’s most popular teenage female inspired his biggest hit of 1960, Puppy Love. Annette Funicello had joined Walt Disney’s The Mickey Mouse Club in 1955, and quickly became a teenage superstar. Anka, like many other young males, was smitten with her. Unfortunately, papa Walt didn’t want his hottest property romantically linked with a pop star, dismissing their relationship as mere “puppy love.” Anka’s paean to their plight resonated with prom night couples, who knew what it was like to have their dreams denied.

The most romantic group of the 1950s—and the most successful—was the Platters. Much credit for that success belonged to manager Buck Ram, who worked diligently to refine their sound as the group’s first six gospel-flavored singles failed to sell. When Mercury Records wanted to sign another of his charges, the Penguins of Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine) fame, Ram insisted they take the Platters, too. The Platters’ first Mercury single was a remake of a song they’d first recorded for King Records in 1953. King wouldn’t release it at the time and Mercury’s man in the studio didn’t want the group to record it either, so to get it done, Ram offered to sit in for the session piano player who’d left for the day. Only You (And You Alone) defiantly rocketed to No. 1 on the R&B chart, where it stayed for seven weeks, and reached No. 5 on the pop list.

And that was just the beginning. The Platters’ follow-up single, The Great Pretender, went all the way on both the Hot 100 and the R&B chart, staying on top of the latter for an astounding 11 weeks. Hit after hit followed, most with Ram’s name in the writing credits. That changed when the Platters’ only two top-10 hits between mid-1958 and early 1960 were covers of pop standards: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Harbor Lights: After that, all of their remaining Mercury 45-rpm releases were also taken from the Great American Songbook.

While the Platters were riding high with Harbor Lights, another balladeering group from L.A. released their first record to little fanfare. A year later, the trio got an emergency call from an old friend who worked at Capitol Records. It seemed the Four Preps were arguing about what song to record while their session clock was ticking away. The Lettermen showed up at the studio shortly thereafter to lay down a silver-screen song that dated back to 1936, The Way You Look Tonight, that kicked off a decades-long career.

Their next release was another standard, When I Fall in Love. Lyricist Edward Heyman had co-written the jazz classic Body and Soul in 1930, and was still going strong in 1952 when he and Victor Young collaborated on When I Fall in Love. The song was largely ignored until Nat “King” Cole included it on his 1957 No. 1 album, Love Is the Thing. Five years later it became the Lettermen’s first top-10 single.

Later in 1962, another new group cracked the top 10 with yet another song from 1952 when the Duprees hopped on the early-’60s standards-revival wagon and resurrected Jo Stafford’s You Belong to Me.

The quintet’s next single was even older, hailing from Hollywood’s golden era. Moviegoers first heard its melody in 1939 as Tara’s Theme in Gone with the Wind. Mack David added lyrics to the tune in 1954 and, although a number of vocalists recorded it then, it wasn’t until 1959 that My Own True Lovecharted in a version by Jimmy Clanton, followed by the Duprees’ definitive rendition three years later.

While the Duprees were peaking with My Own True Love, the 4 Seasons were sitting at No. 1 with their second smash, Big Girls Don’t Cry. They were still on a hit-making high in 1965 when lead singer Frankie Valli took a solo turn with The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore) and (You’re Gonna) Hurt Yourself. The former failed to take hold (although a cover by the Walker Bros. scored in 1966) and the latter reached the top 40. When Can’t Take My Eyes off You rose to No. 2 in ’67, Valli’s own value in the marketplace seemed assured, yet, in fact, it would take eight years and another “eyes” song for Valli to reach such heights again.

During the final four of those fallow years, Valli and the 4 Seasons were signed to Motown Records. When they left the label, they took just one track with them—My Eyes Adored You—a solo Valli recording for which they paid four thousand dollars. Co-writers Bob Crewe and Kenny (I Like Dreamin’) Nolan originally called the song Blue Eyes in Georgia, but changed the lyrics when Valli got involved. They shopped it to various labels until a new company on the block, Private Stock, picked it up. This new Eyes made it all the way to No. 1 in March of 1975, the first Seasons-related single to go all the way since Rag Doll in 1964.

The first 4 Seasons 45 to reach No. 1, Sherry, had done so in 1962, the year 12-year-old Stevie Wonder released his first single. Born Steveland Judkins in Saginaw, Michigan, Wonder demonstrated an amazing musical ability early on—mastering harmonica, drums and piano by age 10. Called a “wonder” by the gang at Motown, his fourth 45—a raver called Fingertips–Pt 2 recorded live at Chicago’s Regal Theater—showed that his stage surname was no exaggeration. From Fingertips on, he was a constant presence on the pop and R&B charts. In February of 1969, his I Don’t Know Why debuted on Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 and began its upward climb. Six weeks into its run Why stalled at No. 39 and quickly disappeared. Nine weeks later Tamla 54180 reappeared on the pop chart. Radio DJs had begun spinning I Don’t Know Why’s flip side: My Cherie Amour.

True to the romantic spirit of prom night love songs, Wonder’s inspiration for My Cherie Amour was a teenage girl named Marcia he had met several years earlier; he had written Oh, My Marcia to win her over. After the two teens broke up, however, the half-finished song lay dormant until Wonder and his co-composers reworked it into My Cherie Amour , which became a huge across-the-board hit and a certified prom classic.

—Ed Osborne