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Motown M 1033 (B), December 1962
B-side of Camel Walk
(Written by George Fowler)
Gordy G 7009 (B), December 1962
B-side of Camel Walk
(Second pressing on Gordy Records rather than Motown)
According to the liner notes to The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 2, this was the first thing LaBrenda Ben recorded when she got to Motown in April 1962, meaning that “the Beljeans” doing backing vocals on this side of LaBrenda’s début single are different people to “the Beljeans” on the A-side, because the ones on the A-side were actually the Vandellas, and they definitely hadn’t yet arrived at Motown when this B-side was cut. Helpfully, it seems nobody knows who this set of Beljeans actually were.
Anyway. Despite the fact that once completed, it took nine months for Motown to actually give it a release date (and just to add to the confusion, the earlier Motown pressing of this – see the label scan below – is credited to “LaBrenda Ben” alone, with no mention of any Beljeans, Vandellas or anyone else… but I digress), this is marginally better than the top side, Camel Walk (a hand-me-down respray job of a failed single from a few months earlier), though not by much. It’s a fairly standard, quasi-comedy “sassy” girl group number about how LaBrenda’s romantic exploits are foiled by the younger relative she has to take along with her on dates.
Unlike Motown’s previous foray into this exact comedic territory – Andre Williams’ Shoo-Doo – this one isn’t actually funny, and its attempts to elicit laughs through LaBrenda (I think it’s her, anyway) putting on a silly deep voice to play the part of the titular chaperone (I’m sleepy and I wanna go home!) somehow make the record less fun. Also, I’ve just listened to it about twenty times in a row, but the story is so tedious that I literally zoned out every single time, and only started picking up what’s meant to happen in the final verse on my 18th or so go-around (LaBrenda’s character tries to leave a party with her boyfriend, but is thwarted by the chaperone) and even then I can’t make out what the key lyric is actually saying (He pulled on my sleeve, screaming (**unintelligiblegarbledmumble**) or I’m gonna tell – any ideas, anyone?)
Man, before I started writing this blog, I hadn’t noticed just how many of these early Motown “comedy” records are undone by unintelligble lyrical deliveries.
Anyway. All that stuff makes it sound like I’m going to dish out a really low mark, I know, but no, this isn’t actually too bad. The tune is a totally off-the-peg girl group thing, but on the plus side there aren’t very many bad off-the-peg girl group tunes out there; this one is catchy and danceable. LaBrenda Ben herself, when she’s not doing a stupid bass voice, has the right mix of sass and youth to sell the thin material. The drums and tambourine are lots of fun (the latter calling to mind the slamming snow chains on Martha and the Vandellas’ mid-Sixties run of hits), and there’s a poked organ in the background adding zest to proceedings (it never gets the solo it’s crying out for). This is one of the earliest-recorded Motown tracks to have later been embraced to any real degree by the Northern Soul scene, and it’s energetic enough that you can definitely see why.
So, yes, plenty to enjoy here: a good record and one with definite crossover potential (some discographies list this as the A-side, which is totally understandable). It’s just not fantastic, as some have made it out to be.
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!)
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.
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| LaBrenda Ben & The Beljeans “Camel Walk” |
Eddie Holland “Darling, I Hum Our Song” |
Motown Junkies 
No one associates comedy-novelty records as one of Motown’s strong suits. But a still-burgeoning independent record company had to be willing to try anything and take risks.
The two Motown comedy records that come quickest to mind for me are First I Look At The Purse and Here Comes The Judge.
Purse succeeds because beyond its now-blatantly misogynistic lyrics, it is a get-down funky dance jam, and if Smokey Robinson had the golden touch in any year, it was 1965. Judge was funny the first two or three times, but it pressed its luck being overplayed to death in 1968.
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I think it’s just difficult because comedy records only really work as long as they’re funny – which limits the number of times you can listen to them. Most great jokes, comedy sketches, funny movies, whatever, you’d maybe hear or see three or four times before getting sick of them, and yet you want to listen to an “enduring” record far more than that. Nothing ages quicker than a comedy record that’s lost its laughs, and I’m having trouble thinking of a single one that history (i.e. critical opinion) remembers fondly years later – Ivor Cutler is about as close as I can get, and that’s more akin to spoken-word comedy on record than comedy music. This kind of works because it’s more music than comedy – My Baby Must Be A Magician is in the same kind of territory for me – and if LaBrenda hadn’t done that stupid voice, this would probably get away with it.
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Until the above review, I’ve never really thought of this as a comedy or novelty record; I’m still not convinced.
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It’s not a comedy or novelty record per se, no, though I think it tends towards both of those things (especially the silly deep-voiced bits); as I said to Dave above, for me it’s more along the lines of “My Baby Must Be A Magician”, jokey but not comical.
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As others have mentioned, I never thought of this as a novelty song either. It was always a dance record to me. I always liked it. Good song for the time it was released. My rating is 8/10
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I’m a bit confused by your description. If the Vandellas are on just the “A” side, then who is doing background on this track. It always sounded like the Andantes too me.
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Well, nobody knows, that’s the whole point. The only certain thing is that both sides of the record (on Gordy anyway) credit “the Beljeans”, but the BVs on either side are definitely by two different sets of people. The “Beljeans” on the A-side are easy enough to identify: they’re just the Vandellas, taken wholesale from the Saundra Mallett record. This B-side? Can’t be the Vandellas, they hadn’t arrived at Motown yet when this was cut (and it doesn’t sound like them anyway). Most likely it’s the Andantes, but the recording date is a bit on the early side to be certain of that; they were only at Hitsville sporadically in the spring of 1962.
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I’d like to add some clarification to your comment on The Andantes as being only sporodically at Hitsville in Spring ’62 and it therefore being too early for them to be singing on this song.
In the authorized biography of the Andantes “Motown from the Background” by Vickie Wright with contributions from all three group members; Jackie Kicks, Marlene Barrow-Tate and Louvain Demps; Jackie states she and Marlene were asked by their school friend Richard “Popcorn” Wylie shortly after graduating in late 1959 to audition for work as background singers at the fledgling Hitsville studio. Wylie and his band The Mohawks, which included Clifford Mack on drums and the legendary James Jamerson on upright bass, had also recently joined Motown. For the audition session only, Jackie and Marlene were joined by Emily Phillips and as we all know, they were successful.
Louvain Demps, had already been singing background as a member of the Rayber Voices at Hitsville on a number of tracks, so later when she, Jackie and Marlene formalised their working arrangement, The Andantes as a regular working singing group was formed.
By the time this track was recorded in 1962 all three members of The Andantes were therefore already working as background singers at Hitsville and while I agree with you that their uniquely identifiable sound is not obvious, or should I more accurately say Louvain Demps does not seem to be singing on this track, it is still possible that Jackie or Marlene or both, perhaps with other additional female singers, sang backup on this session.
Like ‘144 Man’ said, I can’t honestly say that I’d ever regarded this as a comedy record; certainly not in the vein of “Here Comes The Judge” and “First I Look At The Purse”, which anyway were both issued much later. Motown was always quick to jump on the current bandwagon, whatever that might be, and there were some records issued shortly after this in 1963 that might be categorised more accurately as topical comedy – “Sugar Cane Curtain” by the Chuck-A-Lucks and “The Interview (Summit Chanted Meeting)” by “Jack” Haney and “Nikiter” Armstrong being two examples that immediately spring to mind. I don’t really see “The Chaperone” as being remotely similar to either of these.
However, this might be an in-house comic record if it in some way was a tongue in cheek comment on the first Motown Revue Tour currently being undertaken across the Eastern U.S.A in late 1962 when this was released. Motown hired a certain Mrs Morrison to act as chaperone to the girl singers on the tour bus to protect them and defend their honours from the advances of the guys in the band who were travelling with them on the tour bus. Recorded earlier that year Motown might have seen the release date of late 1962 as being appropriate to tie in with the tour.
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Thanks for the information, Johnny, it’s much appreciated (and timely, what with an Andantes piece about to go up, some of which I’m now rewriting!)
I’d just like to quickly clarify that I didn’t mean to suggest it was too early for some or all of the Andantes to be the Beljeans, I think it IS most likely to be them here – just that it was too early to say “Hey, these must be the Andantes!” as one could have said with more certainty a year later.
As for the “comedy” tag, I’d refer everyone to my reply to Dave above; I don’t think it’s meant to be direct comedy like the Mel-o-dy singles, or Shorty’s “Here Comes The Judge” (which is a whole other kettle of fish anyway); “FIrst I Look At The Purse” is closer to the mark for me, but I feel it’s even more like “My Baby Must Be A Magician”, or the Beatles’ “Paperback Writer”, serious enough stuff but with a playful, almost jokey conceit.
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It’s quite possible that one or two of The Andantes were singing background on “The Chaperone”. I guess we have no way of discerning all the voices. Unless we find some documentation, we will never know for sure.
I never thought of this song as a “comedy” song. I thought it was a “dance” cut, like all Labrenda’s uptempo tunes.
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I think the background singers are The Andantes (all of them) trying to sound like The Vandellas. They sound like the background singers (The Andantes) on The Marvelettes’ version of “Uptown”.
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We should ask Louvain, directly, if she, and the other two Andantes all sang on this song. I’m sure that I have heard from people who SHOULD know, that “The Andantes” sang background on this song (but whether that means two or all three, we can’t know for sure, until we hear from Louvain. Mickey Stevenson is no longer with us, to ask.
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Listening to this, I’m realizing just how few Motown tracks up to this point are in minor keys! It’s of a standard jazz-blues minor progression as opposed to a forward-looking 60s minor. It’s odd that the “more serious” feel of minor is used for a comedy track. I like her singing on both tracks, but I agree that this one sounds better.
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“as opposed to a forward-looking 60s minor”
like Heard it Through the Grapevine, Cloud Nine, Heatwave (although this one resolves to major), Reach Out I’ll Be There (the verses), Bernadette et al.
The creative switching between major and minor key feels and previously unexploited minor key progressions is going to be a big part of “the modern sound of today’s youth” or whatever the catch-phrase is going to be.
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“The sound of young America,” Kevin……I believe one comedy/novelty record that has stood the test of time is “The Flying Saucer” by Buchanan and Goodman.
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