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Gordy G 7017 (A), May 1963
b/w We’re Only Young Once
(Written by Berry Gordy)
As I write this in January 2011, Gladys Horton of the Marvelettes is apparently seriously ill. Motown Junkies wishes her the very best in her recovery.
With bizarre timing, the next record up is actually a Marvelettes cover, as performed by Bunny Paul, one of the increasing army of Motown artists given a début single during 1963 and then never heard from again (take a bow, Linda Griner, the Chuck-a-Lucks, Connie Van Dyke, Billy Merritt, and the Burnadettes, and those are just the ones we’ve covered so far – there are a lot more of them yet).
The Marvelettes’ original version of this song, as written and recorded for their excellent Playboy album in 1962, was a fine record which could easily have been a hit single in its own right, but it was never pulled from the LP (understandably, since that album is pretty much teeming with top material), and so consequently it’s not one of the group’s more widely-known numbers. So, before I get into what Bunny Paul does to it, I’d like Motown Junkies readers to refresh their memories of what the Marvelettes sounded like in their pomp.
Gladys, this one’s for you.
On any other album, I’m Hooked might have been a natural choice as a single, or at the very least a B-side. The Playboy album, though, was pretty much chock full of even better songs – Beechwood 4-5789, Someday, Someway, Forever, Playboy itself – which were picked ahead of this one. As a result, I’m Hooked remained stuck there for posterity (along with another could-have-been contender, Mix It Up).
But the story couldn’t end there. Playboy, as explained on many, many previous entries, was a landmark LP for Motown, not least because it was the first time that several different established songwriters, or songwriting teams, had been specially commissioned to write new material for an LP. This had been Berry Gordy’s big songwriting contribution to the album, and he kept it up his sleeve, believing it could be successfully repurposed as a single for some future act.
Detroit-born cabaret singer Bunny Paul (that seems to have been her birth name) was the latest in a long succession of white Motown signings brought in to broaden the label’s crossover appeal and then jettisoned when no hit records were forthcoming; she wasn’t the first, and she certainly wouldn’t be the last. In Bunny’s case, though, there was more to the story than with, say, fresh-faced teen Connie Van Dyke; this was no hot new act, but rather Berry Gordy indulging his other passion by signing a veteran performer on the downswing of their career to add class and credibility to his mostly youthful roster. Miss Paul was almost 40 by the time she pitched up at Hitsville, a 20-year music industry veteran with a crateful of singles to her name – some of them regional hits for some surprisingly big labels (by way of example, Youtube offers Honey Love for Essex in 1954, Please Have Mercy for Capitol, no less, in 1955, and Buzz Me for Brunswick in 1957 – check out the cut-and-paste telephone sample on that last one!).
Severe ill health, requiring brain surgery and a lengthy hospital stay, had curtailed her career at the turn of the decade, and while she was able to fit in a one-shot session in January of 1963, yielding both sides of this single, she still wasn’t well enough to return to Motown to record any more material, thus stopping her potentially building a successful second career. This single was her only Motown release.
It’s unlikely, though, that Bunny would have finally become a superstar if only she’d been able to stick around the corridors of Hitsville a little longer; as a comeback single, a calling card from an exciting new chapter in someone’s career, this is actually pretty atrocious.
Bunny’s version of I’m Hooked stands as a baffling oddity (and this in a Motown year not exactly short of those). It’s essentially karaoke, for want of a better word, and it’s not good karaoke. Bunny’s extremely distinctive vocal style (talky and smirking, slightly giggly, with a double helping of Connie Francis stirred in for good measure – check out those examples above) was so completely unsuited to the material, in terms of key, timbre and overall “feel”, that producer Clarence Paul (no relation) should really have chosen another song for her. Perhaps it was bad judgement on Clarence’s part, perhaps the boss insisted his song get re-used. Either way, the result is an embarrassing mess.
This is a re-recording, not just a case of Miss Paul singing over the top of the Marvelettes’ version, but the arrangement and the backing vocals are almost identical (the Vandellas redoing the Marvelettes’ backing vocals here); this version has a different intro and slightly different timings; it’s also missing the sax from the original’s mid-song instrumental break, as well as some of the enthusiasm.
Sadly, though, Bunny’s lead is the real problem here, inadvertently highlighting the quality of Gladys Horton’s performance with the same material. Miss Paul is still manifestly very ill at this point, and this is a difficult song to sing, calling for a lot of extemporising from its lead vocalist, a challenge which poor Bunny just wasn’t able to meet. At no stage on this record does she ever come within a semitone of being in tune with the voices or instruments she’s meant to be leading, and her attempts to recapture the coquettish humour of her earlier hits – “Mmmm! Yum yum! Lovey dovey” – fall extraordinarily flat.
It’s hard trying not to be nasty about this – she seems like a really nice person, and it’s not her fault she was sick, but Motown should never have passed this as fit for release. Without knowing the backstory, this really does sound as though some mid-level manager for a stationery supplies company has had one too many drinks at the office party, spotted a karaoke machine, and decided to get up on stage and do a slightly drunken Connie Francis impression.
It’s a disaster, completely unworthy of Bunny’s earlier performances, and she must have known she was embarrassing herself. Everyone – Bunny, the Marvelettes, the Vandellas, the band, Clarence Paul, Berry Gordy, everyone – deserved better than this.
I’m not giving it a 1, because I like the underlying song enough not to trash it, and because I admire Bunny’s pluck and bravery in at least attempting a comeback in such circumstances – but it’s really not very good at all. If you’ve ever wondered what the early Marvelettes might have sounded like without Gladys Horton’s lead vocals, wonder no more; she’s the difference between the two versions, and on this evidence, she belongs in the Hall of Fame. Get well soon, Gladys, we’re all pulling for you.
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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Bunny Paul “We’re Only Young Once” |
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Motown Junkies 
I’ll take your word for this one since I never heard it, and didn’t know till this review, that it was the same “I’m Hooked” on Playboy. Your effort to go gently on a singer who was seriously ill is nobly achieved.
I could kick myself -especially now- to this day that I didn’t at least have a VHS tape popped into the machine to preserve it.
In 1990, Geraldo Rivera, before his daytime show turned into a punch- and chair-throwing fest, did an episode called “The Women of Motown.” There, like a living Mt. Rushmore of Motown’s feminine pioneers, Rivera assembled Mabel John, Raynoma Liles Gordy Singleton, Kim Weston, Gladys Horton and Martha Reeves on the same stage. (I believe Janie Bradford was included too.) The program was only an hour, but doubtlessly, that fivesome could have fed us juicy inside stories to the next sunrise.
Mabel and Miss Ray seemed to be the most demonstrative and emphatic in their responses. Gladys, and to a degree Kim, were the most soft-spoken, even almost shy in an interview situation. Compared to the authoritative, no-nonsense front woman of so many Marvelettes jewels, the difference in Gladys was beguiling and charming. And in 1990, she appeared every bit as beautiful as any famous photo of the group showed her.
I’ve been thinking of Gladys every single day since learning that she is not well. That news comes less than a month after learning Aretha is battling pancreatic cancer, and now, just this week my email tells me another towering R&B lady-legend of the same generation, Etta James, is battling dementia and leukemia.
Group hug, my fellow Motown junkies; this New Year is not starting out with the most optimistic of omens. 😦
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I agree with the rating of 2. The songwriting is decent, and background music is excellent (the “A” side treatment-while that for the Marvelettes was more of the album filler type). But Bunny Paul’s vocals have no emotion. She not only did a lousy job, but, at her best, her style doesn’t fit this kind of music. She did okay on her covers of The Drifters’ “Honey love” and “Such A Night” in 1954 (I don’t like them, personally, but they are at least, listenable). This is NOT.
Bunny Paul was a pop singing institution in Detroit from 1948-about 1960. She even had her own TV show in 1950. She sang Pop music and covers of R&B tunes, and also sang some rockabilly songs. She was sort of a Pattie Page/Minnie Pearl/Georgia Gibbs rolled into one. I assume that Berry Gordy recorded her for the same reason as he recorded Tony Martin-to get some sort of legitimisation for his record company with the general populace, and possibly, the upper crust of Detroit crowd.
At least Connie Haines and Billy Eckstine adapted their styles to fit better towards this type of music. Bunny Paul did not, and Tony Martin was only given the “cheesy” style material he had sung for previous labels.
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You guys have said it all. I remember the first time I heard this version I was horrified. I suspect Gordy recorded her to get the attention of White Detroiters or because he owed someone in Paul’s camp a favor. No way could he have thought this would be a hit. A 2/10 is generous.
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I am a avid fan of Bunny Paul. I think that she performed very well on this record. However, I think that the song itself was very poorly written and the background vocals STUNK! I think that she did Berry Gordy more of a favor by recording his material than he did for her. She should not have had to record crap like this in order to record her original material on the flip side.
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Bunny Paul’s performance was not a one up debut. Bunny was 38 years old and had 31 years of professional singing experience. Bunny’s message of Love While You Can on the flip side was a message to youth of the world do it while you still can. If she would have never recorded in the Motown Garage people would have still been writing about her on the Internet 83 years later. Bunny Paul’s Such A Night was a banned record not because of the lyrics but because she crossed over with the Harptones. This was proven when it was recorded by Elvis Presley in 1959. She broke down the barrier that allowed the Shirelle’s to record Tonight’s the Night which could not have happened without her. Well before Motown, Bunny helped to define something called the Detroit Sound. The 2000 girl groups that appeared after 1959 including the Marvelettes, the Vandellas and the Supremes could would not have happened without the Such a Night controversy. In her day, if Bunny would have tried to sing something like Where Did Our Love Go? it to would have been censored. So Young America, listen to Bunny “Love While You Can.” A fabulous song with a message and perhaps a touch of Elvis Presley’s Fame and Fortune. Berry Gordy founded Motown Records in 1959. Formula 123455, 123456 repeat for 2 min and 36 secords.
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