Ah, The Crystals—their best songs are every bit as wonderful as their career was checkered by the evil machinations of studio Wunderkind Phil Spector, who made them the first act to record a single on his nascent Phillie Records label. Spector first saddled them with a song so offensive—Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s anthem to masochistic female approval of the physical abuse of women, “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss”)—that it almost sidetracked their career at its get-go.
He then proceeded to utilize a group of replacement singers (Darlene Love and the Blossoms) to record such immortal “Crystals” tunes as “He’s a Rebel” and “He’s Sure the Boy I Love.” Finally, he added insult to injury by shifting his attention to a new girl group, the Ronettes, and went so far as to include four songs actually recorded by the Ronettes on the Crystals’ 1963 “best of” LP, The Crystals Sing the Greatest Hits, Volume 1.
Yet despite these dictatorial and confusing antics by Spector, the Crystals remain one of the most beloved girl groups of the years just prior to the British Invasion. Why? Because songs like “Then He Kissed Me” and “Da Doo Ron Ron” are both brilliant and timeless; why just the other day I did a crazy dance in the supermarket, attracting the attention of numerous shoppers, when “Then He Kissed Me” came on over the store’s loudspeakers.
But returning to the theme of exactly who recorded what songs attributed to the Crystals, anyone interested soon finds oneself tangled in a byzantine world of confusion. Take 2001’s Da Doo Ron Ron, a compilation of the band’s greatest hits. At first its ten songs seem to comprise an admirable distillation of only the Crystals’ finest work; you won’t find the “The Frankenstein Twist” or any of the Ronettes’ novelty songs credited to the Crystals (e.g., “Hot Pastrami,” “The Wah Watusi”) on it.
Upon closer examination, however, it turns out that (as mentioned) “He’s a Rebel” and “He’s Sure the Boy I Love” weren’t sung by the real Crystals at all, while two other songs (i.e., “Tonight I Met the Boy I’m Gonna Marry” and “Look in My Eyes”) are generally credited not to the Crystals but to Darlene Love in the case of the first song and the Chantels (a pioneering girl group that had no connection whatsoever with Phil Spector), in the second. Neither song is listed in any Crystals’ discography I’ve found, but it’s likely they recorded their own, little known, versions of both. And that likely lets you know just how difficult untangling the true facts can be.
But who needs “Look in My Eyes” when they’ve got “Da Doo Ron Ron,” which is indisputably a Crystals’ song and a fantastically catchy one at that? It’s interesting to note that the nonsense syllables that have made the song so legendary were initially placeholders for real lyrics, until Spector decided they made the song. Delores “LaLa” Brooks sings lead, but it’s the ensemble singing, cool piano riff, brief but frantic saxophone solo, and handclaps that make the song so memorable. As for “Then He Kissed Me,” it’s practically a hymn, and a lovely one at that, and I rate it right up there with the best songs that Spector, or California’s Brian Wilson for that matter, ever produced. This was Spector’s “Wall of Sound” at its most sublime, and is definitely on my list of the 50 greatest rock songs ever recorded.
As for the rest of the songs on the compilation, I like the gospel-tinged “There’s No Other (Like My Baby),” the Crystals’ first single, but am not so wild about “Please Hurt Me,” another inexplicably masochistic offering from those Brill Building Sader-Masochs Carole King and Gerry Goffin. Nor am I wild about 1962’s “Uptown,” a flamenco guitar and castanets-flavored tune that, unlike most of the songs of that time, actually addressed the issue of class, with Alston’s boy living simultaneously in two worlds, one of high-rise commercialism and the other the tenements of the black underclass. And “I Love You Eddie,” which comes close to being a novelty tune, has never done much for me either.
In closing, I will reiterate; trying to untangle the incestuous threads that tied the recording histories of the girl groups of the early sixties together is an exercise in frustration, if not outright futility. Producers used band names and considered band members interchangeable, so that I’m still not convinced, for example, that the Crystals ever recorded a version of Darlene Love’s “Today I Met the Boy I’m Gonna Marry.” Lala Brooks recorded a version; could this be the one credited to the Crystals? I don’t know. What I do know is that in a world where “He’s a Rebel” is still credited as a Crystals’ song, anything is possible. Me, I think the Crystals deserve a hallowed place in the rock pantheon for “Then He Kissed Me” alone. It makes me swoon, and not many songs can do that. As for the rest, I’ll let the serious rock historians ferret out the truth. I simply don’t have the patience.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
D (for Duplicity)
