November 25th, 1965

60 YEARS AGO TODAY:

11/25/65 - Harrods Department Store in London, England, closed their doors to the public so that The Beatles could do their Christmas shopping in privacy.

 

November 24th, 1965

60 YEARS AGO TODAY:

11/24/65 – Another Frank Sinatra television special airs on NBC-TV.  This one’s called “Frank Sinatra: A Man And His Music”

Also on 11/24, the Elvis Presley movie “Harum Scarum” premiers in theaters

Also on 11/24, The Young Rascals begin recording “Good Lovin’.”  It will go on to become a #1 Record next year

1 - 2 - 3

Len Barry's biggest solo hit, "1-2-3," topped the Cash Box Chart and got as high as #2 in both Billboard and Record World.  (It hit #1 here in Chicago, too, on the WLS Silver Dollar Survey.)

The song was co-written by our long-time Forgotten Hits Buddy John Madara, who had an across-the-boards #2 Hit the year before with Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me," one of my favorite songs of all time. 

(You also heard John with his group The Spokesman on the track we featured a short while back, "The Dawn Of Correction," which was written and recorded as sort of an answer song to Barry McGuire's #1 Hit "Eve Of Destruction.")

You can read some of John's special memories on the other Forgotten Hits website ...

https://fhjohnmadara.blogspot.com/

Len Barry started his solo career after leaving The Dovells, a Cameo-Parkway band that scored big with the Top Three Hits "Bristol Stomp" and "You Can't Sit Down" in 1961 and 1963 respectively.

After striking big on his own with "1-2-3," Len Barry would have two more successive Top 20 Hits with "Like A Baby" (#13, 1966) and "Somewhere" (#17, 1966), the latter coming from the hit musical and motion picture "West Side Story."  (Both of these tracks peaked far lower in Billboard for some reason where they topped out at #27 and #26.  The Cash Box and Record World showing are much more consistent with one another.)

John shares some of his special "hands-on" memories of Len Barry's big hit below.  (This article also appears on the forgottenhits.com website)

***

Probably one of the MOST famous stories surrounding a JOHN MADARA song would have to be the controversy (and lawsuit that followed) pertaining to the #1 LEN BARRY Hit, "1-2-3." 

 

Shortly after this release started its climb up the pop charts, BERRY GORDY and MOTOWN RECORDS sued the songwriting team of JOHN MADARA, DAVID WHITE and LEONARD BORISOFF (LEN BARRY), claiming that the song sounded just a LITTLE too much like THE SUPREMES' record ASK ANY GIRL, the B-Side to THEIR recent chart-topper, BABY LOVE. (In fact, as a result of this ridiculous suit, songwriting records ever since have shown the composers as MADARA, WHITE, BORISOFF, HOLLAND, DOZIER and HOLLAND!!!) This subject came up again recently when we reviewed SHOUT! THE MOD MUSICAL a few months back for FORGOTTEN HITS, where 1-2-3 is prominently featured. 

 

Naturally, I asked JOHN MADARA about the circumstances surrounding this song!!! 

JOHN MADARA: One story that really needs to have the truth printed about is the "1-2-3" / Motown story. 

In 1965, with "1-2-3" being the #1 record in the country, we were sued by Motown during the period when Berry Gordy was suing anyone whose records sounded like a Motown record. We were sued, saying that "1-2-3" was taken from a B-Side of a Supremes record called "Ask Any Girl." The only similarity between the two songs are the first three notes where the Supremes sang "Ask Any Girl" and Lenny sang "1-2-3."  After that, there were no similarities, but their lawsuit said that our goal was to copy the Motown sound. Well, needless to say, Motown kept us in court, tying up all of our writers' royalties, production royalties and publishing royalties, and threatened to sue us on the follow-up to "1-2-3," which was "Like A Baby." So after battling with them for two years and having a ton of legal bills, we made a settlement with Motown, giving them 15% of the writers' and publishers' share.

FORGOTTEN HITS: I've listened to ASK ANY GIRL more than a few times recently ... and I suppose that if I PRE-CONDITIONED my thinking into allowing and acknowledging that there are SUPPOSED to be similarities between the two songs, I can find a few ... but there is NO way that I would have EVER thought so by hearing EITHER of these songs independently of one another or if I hadn't been told up-front that there are people who THINK that they sound a lot alike. ASK ANY GIRL isn't even really that well-known of a MOTOWN song!!! It was an uncharted B-SIDE! And emulating a popular sound-trend in music by simply trying to capture a "feel" hardly constitutes a copyright infringement or offense!!! Jeez, with THAT line of thinking, can you imagine how many lawsuits there could have been when every record company and artist on the planet was trying to cash in on the Disco craze?!?!? 

JM: What I've read on the Internet is that Madara, White and Barry did a rewrite on "Ask Any Girl" and were then sued by Motown ... and that the credited writers now are Holland, Dozier & Holland, who wrote "Ask Any Girl." This is totally false! First of all, we never heard "Ask Any Girl." The only influence for making "1-2-3" was to make a ballad with a beat. And the sound of "1-2-3" was definitely the sound of the era. Listen to "The In-Crowd" ... that's not the Motown Sound ... that's the sound of the era ... and "1-2-3" definitely had a beat! Motown was suing a lot of people at the time. And because our record was at #1 ... and we had a beat ... they sued us!

 
FH: And it sounds like, thanks to BERRY GORDY's and MOTOWN's persistence in tying this up in court, the songwriting credit WAS ultimately changed to include HOLLAND, DOZIER and HOLLAND. How did that feel at the time ... to have to SHARE a songwriting credit for something that you had, in fact, created?

 
JM: The current writers' credits for "1-2-3" are Madara, White, Barry, Holland, Dozier and Holland, and they get the credit and the 15% that was made in the settlement. It would sure be nice if someone printed the real story acknowledging that this was NOT the only hit record we made! We made a LOT of hits. Read the different stories, Kent, i.e., Lyrics.com, or any of these other bull... sites. These people have no idea of who they are writing about, their history, who they are and their accomplishments through their careers. They make it sound like we were thieves in the night stealing someone else's music. 

In answer to your question with regards to how it felt to have to share the songwriting credit, it really hurt, because not only did we write this record, but we produced it. It was a total creative concept, not in any way meant to copy ASK ANY GIRL. After writing all of the hits we had written up to that point, did Motown really think that we would have to copy a B-side of a record to write a brand new song?!? Such bull----. But Motown had the money and the attorneys, and for two years they kept us paying legal bills, depositions, and all kinds of things that took us away from being creative. Having all of our monies tied up, we made a settlement with them, where they were given 15% of the copyright, and Holland, Dozier and Holland were to get credit. Did that feel good? No. It sucked! (Excuse my language.) 

FH: Unfortunately, as we've seen over and over and over again, these "mistruths" are repeated SO often and for SO long that they become established as "fact" when in reality, NOTHING could be further from the truth. 

 
JM: This is one story, Kent, where I would really like to see the truth come out. Again, Kent, thank you for the opportunity to present these facts and, if you have any questions at all, please let me know.

Here's a copy of the ORIGINAL sheetmusic for 1-2-3 ... showing the title as "One, Two, Three" ... and  JOHN MADARA, DAVID WHITE and LEONARD BORISOFF as the songwriters.  After BERRY GORDY's 1965 lawsuit, future publications would also list the MOTOWN Songwriting Team of HOLLAND, DOZIER and HOLLAND in these songwriting credits.

After scoring five Top 40 Hits with THE DOVELLS, LEN BARRY decided to pursue a solo career. In the liner notes of his Greatest Hits CD, here is how he describes the excitement of "1-2-3" becoming such a HUGE chart success: 

"When we did '1-2-3', we got to where I was trying to go since 1961. I was really at home with that. I was a Motown act as far as I was concerned. It was the second take. We did it live in the booth. There were no overdubs, no punches. It was great! It had never sounded like that --- ever! I said to myself, 'The Man upstairs is hearing me.' If you listen to '1-2-3,' I have sung better, but I have never communicated with the public like that, ever. Because on that song, the vocal is total desperation. I was saying to the public, 'Look, I'm 22, let's get serioius because I don't know what I'm gonna do if you don't buy this record.' That desperation was in the performance." 

About the song itself, BARRY had this to say:
 

"I didn't write that for me. I wrote that for the Pixies Three. They had '442 Glenwood Avenue' and such. That's why it had numbers. I don't know why they didn't do it, but they didn't do it --- and I should be grateful."

JOHN MADARA: With regards to writing 1-2-3, you told me that Len Barry had said that it was written for The Pixies Three. That's not correct, because by 1965 we were not producing anything for Mercury Records anymore. I remember clearly that we were set to have a writing session at the office for Lenny's recording session, and I walked in with the melody and a title of "1, 2, and 3". Lenny said, "Let's make it 1-2-3." So we sat and wrote the song ... with no help from Motown. 

BARRY's last DECCA single was cowritten with and produced by KENNY GAMBLE and LEON HUFF, two OTHER figures who would later feature prominently in the career of JOHN MADARA. One of MY personal favorite LEN BARRY records is his take on SOMEWHERE, from the Hit Musical WEST SIDE STORY. (It hit #17 on the CASH BOX Chart in 1966.) This was another song selected and produced by the team of MADARA and WHITE, much to the disdain of LEN BARRY ... especially when they arranged it to sound similar in style to his two previous hits, 1-2-3 and LIKE A BABY. BARRY felt pigeon-holed by the sound. 

LEN BARRY: SOMEWHERE I didn't even want to do ... I wanted to throw up. The drummer must have died from repetition. 

Well, personally, I really LIKE this version!!!

For more on BERRY GORDY's penchant for lawsuits, you might find our BOBBY PARKER / YOU'VE GOT WHAT IT TAKES article interesting ... you can still find it posted on The FORGOTTEN HITS Blog Page here:

Click here: Forgotten Hits: 8/10/08 - 8/17/08