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VIP 25023 (A), August 1965
b/w Puppet On A String
(Written by Berry Gordy, George Gordy and Robert Gordy)
And now, another one of those unbridgeable cultural gaps between the past and present. For readers of a certain age, the summer of 1965 will always be the summer of Motown, the time when the charts, the magazines, the radio and the shops were full of Hitsville’s latest and greatest creations. And yet here on Motown Junkies, we can see that the records Motown actually released at the height of the summer were, well… not great.
Up until downloads completely reconfigured the singles market forever, from the late ’80s onwards most of a single’s public life span happened before it was actually released; weeks, if not months, of radio and video play leading up to the big day, the CD shooting into the charts in the week of release at its highest position, followed by a gradual (or not-so-gradual) falling away – by which time a clued-up and savvy record label should already have been pushing the follow-up. By contrast, while Motown Junkies is sorted by release date, most of these records were released first and then took weeks, if not months, to climb the charts, slowly spreading across radio as sales picked up nationwide. So, the real sounds of America in August 1965 have already long since been covered here; now that we’ve reached August on the release schedules, what we’ve actually got is one of the quietest spells for quality new records in Motown’s recent history. On which note: let’s welcome Little Lisa to the Hitsville fold!
Lisa Miller was the eight-year-old daughter of Kay Lewis, one of the Lewis Sisters – the “Singing School Teachers” – who’d recently signed to Motown’s West Coast office as artists and writers. Lisa had been awarded a Motown recording contract in her own right, so the story goes, after getting up to sing an impromptu guide vocal (standing on a box!) and blowing away the producers, who recommended her to the top brass.
This wasn’t nepotism, though – the sisters weren’t big enough to have anywhere near that kind of pull, and Lisa was signed on merit, Motown boss Berry Gordy (who was impressed enough to actually produce this single, in one of his rare 1965 visits to the coalface of studio work) perhaps hoping to score a hit by signing up the next Little Stevie Wonder, now that the current Stevie Wonder was getting too old for the role. (It’s tempting to ask if Gordy was ever tempted to rechristen her “Little Lisa Wonder” before settling on plain “Little Lisa”.)
She wasn’t awful, either, as kiddie novelty acts go; alright, that’s not a particularly competitive category, but as the A Cellarful of Motown series shows, she had talent, her renditions of the Supremes’ Honey Boy and the yearning, wistful Choo Choo Train coming out both likeable and entirely listenable.
Sadly, her Motown recording career was killed off before it even had a chance to get started, as the song Gordy and his brothers saddled her with for her début 45 was this, a remake of Bob Kayli (aka Robert Gordy)’s naff 1962 “comedy” flop Hold On Pearl, with the lyrics modified to be more suitable for an 8-year-old girl to sing.
It’s better than the original, that’s the first thing to note. Even before we get to talking about Lisa’s voice, the backing track is so much more sinuous and slick than the one “Kayli” had been stuck with back in 1962; it fits right in with the rest of Motown’s summer ’65 output, with its 4/4 beat and tight arrangement for tambourine, horns and backing vocals. And the sudden ending – complete with flushing-toilet sound effect – from the original is mercifully gone, here replaced by an extended coda which gives the song a more definitive happy ending.
Lisa, too, gamely gives this her best shot, her high voice almost otherworldly with her weird diction (“Oy have a goy…”) and undeniable technical ability right up there at the top of the stave. The effect is immediately interesting, and if it’s not enough to drag the piss-poor material up to actually being good, the faults of this – surprisingly – aren’t by-products of its having a kiddie narrator.
She sounds quite a lot older than eight; without any background knowledge, I might have pegged her as a girl in her mid-to-late teens doing a self-consciously cutesy voice in the style of so many Sixties girl groups. At no point does this go for the cutesy novelty angle, never trying to paper over the cracks by playing the “Aww, she’s only eight” card – a slight, daffy song for a grown-up it began, and despite the lyrical modifications (which make no reference whatsoever to Lisa’s young age), a slight, daffy song for a grown-up it largely remains.
The record was a flop, despite some TV promotion work, and no more was heard from Little Lisa at Motown. It’s a pity that there were no more singles, that we don’t get to track her development into a mature artist here on Motown Junkies; this isn’t great, it’s silly and annoying, but there’s enough here to suggest this might have been an interesting story to watch.
Of course, by now, Motown had enough sure things on their books that they didn’t need to pump money into interesting stories. Like I said: a pity.
MOTOWN JUNKIES VERDICT
(I’ve had MY say, now it’s your turn. Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, or click the thumbs at the bottom there. Dissent is encouraged!)
COVERWATCH
Motown Junkies has reviewed other Motown versions of this song:
- Bob Kayli (November 1962)
You’re reading Motown Junkies, an attempt to review every Motown A- and B-side ever released. Click on the “previous” and “next” buttons below to go back and forth through the catalogue, or visit the Master Index for a full list of reviews so far.
(Or maybe you’re only interested in Little Lisa? Click for more.)
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Little Lisa “Puppet On A String” |
DISCOVERING MOTOWN |
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It would be interesting to see or hear about this tv promotion work. Does anyone know of any local tv appearances she might have made?
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One of them is described in the Complete Motown Singles Volume 5 liner notes – the host asks her what she wants for her birthday (“a new dress, a doll, and for my record to be a hit”), if I remember right. I’ll dig it out next time I’m at home!
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The material on her Canterbury release as Lisa Miller(Loneliest Christmas Tree/ Love Is) is much better than this.
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And of course, I presume this “better than this record” criteria would include her duet with Joe Pizzulo on Sergio Mendes’ “Never Gonna Let You Go” in 1983.
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I’d give it a 4 for the nice instrumental track and the nice song. I don’t like a little girl’s voice singing a Soul or Motown song. She did, however, do a good job, in any case.
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I can’t get enough of this song. Truly. I’ve been looking for it at (Detroit-based Motown connoisseur record store,) Hello Records for some time. I didn’t know she was 8!
I find it catchy. Catchy as fuck. The shrillness, be damned.
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What struck me about this record was its sheer driving force. There’s little in the first introductory seconds that prepare you for the onslaught of what was fast becoming The Motown Sound. The Bass drum alone nearly drives the whole of the production; relentlessly pounding, it’s one of the first things that impressed me. Combined with a funky bass line, hyper-active tambourine and a small, tight horn section, this thing rocks…no ROCKS.
Yes, the first version of this song was pretty annoying. Not make-my-ears-bleed annoying, but one listen of it was enough. So this ’65 version was absolutely, unexpectedly enjoyable. The fact that an 8-year old was singing it was even more incredible to me, because as was stated in the post, she didn’t strike me as sounding like a kid, at least not so much that it stood out in bold letters. If anything (and don’t laugh) Little Lisa reminded me of Paula Abdul! (and I don’t mean that in a bad way.)
For such a young girl, singing over such a Funk Brothers- rock heavy beat, Lisa Miller astonishingly handles this thing with ease. She sings with just the right amount of fervor so that she avoids- by a million miles- sounding cloyingly “cute.”
But what really struck me is when she kept gliding effortlessly up the scale as the song suddenly modulated several times skyward and upward about four times! In fact, as the song went up, Lisa sang even better. She reminded me of the gift Michael Jackson had for singing with an astonishing maturity for his youth.
While this isn’t a perfect song, it’s one I definitely enjoy. I just wish Motown had tried a few more times with Lisa.
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I’d rather have heard one of their better adult single artists or groups (lead) sing that song, with that nice track. I was conscious from the beginning that the singer was pulling down the potential of the recording. I recognise that Lisa did a great job on that song, considering her age. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’d rather have heard Carolyn Crawford or Patrice Holloway, or Linda Griner, or Kim Weston, or Frances Nero, or Cal Gill, or Gladys Horton, or Martha Reeves or, just about anyone on their roster over 16, sing it. I realise that Carolyn Crawford was only 15 and patrice Holloway only 16 when they started with Motown. But they didn’t sound like below 20. Lisa, sounded quite young, but also had almost no range and had far from full sound in her voice. I admit that I never would have guessed she was only 8 years old.
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