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Summer Camp ZTSC 94422 (A/B), February 1964
(Same song pressed on both sides)
(Written by Lee Alan and Clarence Paul)
I’ve been having a lot of fun writing all of these little reviews for Motown Junkies, but every now and again something crops up to remind me I’m an outside observer, rather than someone who grew up with these records when they were made. I’m British, and I was born at the end of the Seventies, and while I don’t subscribe to the notion that you need to somehow prove your credentials to qualify as being worthy of talking about pop music (I believe you just need to feel strongly about something), I can’t claim to have been there when it happened.
Case in point: I have no idea who Lee Alan is. Or rather, I know who he is, but nothing beyond dry words in a biography. I never tuned in to his show, I don’t know anything about his style; I’ll have to rely on you to fill in the gaps, readers, because I’ve never heard him beyond the confines of this weird little novelty charity single.
WXYZ Radio, as I understand it, was one of the big movers in the Detroit area media, and Motown had already tried to curry their favour once before, resulting in a wretched pair of sides by Joel Sebastian back in 1961, Angel In Blue and the inexplicable Blue Cinderella, the whole exercise quickly and deservedly forgotten. But by 1964, the label had had plenty of hits and could afford to expend a bit of cash to join in the fun, raise some money for the YMCA Summer Camp Fund and further integrate themselves into the fabric of Detroit’s natural cultural landscape. Thus it came to pass that Alan, one of WXYZ’s top DJs, pitched up at Hitsville to work with hotshot writer/producer Clarence Paul on this “zany” oddity.
So, Lee Alan. From my foreign outsider perspective 50-odd years later, I’m guessing he was a big deal in Detroit radio in the Sixties, and – if I’m understanding the liner notes to The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 4 correctly – his show, titled Lee Alan On The Horn, featured as its gimmick a parping klaxon-like blast of an actual horn tooted between records or to underline some freshly-performed wacky shenanigans.
I’m guessing this had been going on for long enough to become Alan’s personal schtick, his particular “thing”, a joke known widely enough in Detroit circles to carry a charity record. This, then, is the (in-character) backstory of that horn, and how it came to – yes! – “set him free”. Any time he – or you, the listener – feels miserable, a quick blast on the titular horn will make everything right again.
Alan has absolutely no singing ability whatsoever, but – like Joel Sebastian before him – he doesn’t want to stick to a spoken word delivery, ending up with another quirky monologue featuring up-and-down Shatneresque diction. (He could, of course, just be playing this for laughs.)
The aforementioned liner notes have Alan recalling a veritable cadre of Motown superstars appearing on this thing – the Vandellas, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye – and my initial reaction was a quizzically raised eyebrow and a patronising “yes, of course they were”, writing off these recollections as an old man’s memory playing tricks. Except! Those definitely are the Vandellas in the background (identifiable even before you see they’re named on the label, which miscredits them as “the Vendellas”, tsk), so… who knows? Maybe it really is Gaye on piano, Wonder on drums and Robinson parping the titular horn? Perhaps Alan was popular enough that Motown’s top talent were happy to get involved? (Note, though, that the Motown name doesn’t appear anywhere on the record; either WXYZ and the YMCA didn’t want to promote the Motown brand, or Gordy was apparently still hesitant about tainting his main product line with these back-scratching curios.)
It’s all good-natured and self-mockingly silly, and the Vandellas’ backing vocals are lots of fun (mostly Martha & Co. going Ohhh, beep beep beep! a lot, which is entertaining in itself, but check out the bit where they float in with the lines Your honey don’t want you at 1:18, which is a magical passage regardless of what setting it’s ended up in). There’s a demented joy in this record that can’t be suppressed; sax, piano, even Alan himself, they’re all really going for it.
In the debit column, the supposed “fine tone” of the horn (“from Pakistan”, no less) we’re being told about is restricted to a series of jarringly flat one-note raspberries, a silly joke which is not only annoying in its own right but also serves to remind us all we’re listening to a daffy throwaway comedy record, earning cheap short-term sniggers at the expense of any long-term replay value. (I’m assuming Alan plugged this a lot on his own show, but I’m also going to guess it got old fairly quickly after the listeners had heard it the first three or four times.) Plus, Alan can’t sing for toffee, so I’m loath to mark this as high as I might if he wasn’t actually on it.
Confusing and irritating, undeniably, but not as bad as it could have been (or as it’s maybe trying to be); it’s actually sneakily likeable in its own annoying little way.
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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Never heard it, so I’m as lost as you.
But it reminds me of the passage in Nelson George’s Where Did Our Love Go, when he comes to the point of the Supremes’ Liverpool, Country Western and Sam Cooke albums which George counts as representative of Gordy’s “desire for -and blindness to- the pitfalls of taking integration to the point pandering.” So too does he count the signings of “washed-up MOR crooner” Tony Martin, Paul Peterson of the “Donna Reed” show, Soupy Sales and Irene “Granny” Ryan of “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
The white kids that Berry hooked early on, like me, were plenty confused about this corny stuff too, and didn’t understand it. But when I read later on, about his true admiration for Doris Day, it gained a kind of sense. With the Supremes about to unlock Fort Knox, if the boss wants to take a bizarre detour now and then, God bless him.
🙂
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I discovered this site just a little while ago and going back through the records list I have to say that you’ve done a fine job of it and I love the style and tone of your reviews – even when I don’t fully agree with them.
However, it is sometimes a bit of a strange experience to read reviews of pieces of my Detroit youth from someone who has no other relationship with that place and time but his very obvious love of the music that came from there. As excellent as your work is, the lack of context does occasionally show (as in your reviews of the jazz sides). This is in some ways one of those times.
In thinking about this recording you really have to keep in mind the economic landscape of the media and the record business in the U.S. at that time. DJs were stars then, particularly in the youth market, and radio was the major conduit through which record companies promoted the sales of their products. Radio stations promoted most concerts then too, and big-name DJs could generally count on having access to music stars for interviews and even personal appearances for their advertising sponsors.
Lee Alan was the top jock on a major network-owned (when that really meant something) top 40 station in what was then the nation’s #4 or 5 largest market (and one of the wealthiest ones too), so it is really no surprise at all that so many of the Motown heavy hitters would show up to be on his record. He was at least as important to them as they were to him. And, on top of that, the record was for a widely respected program for area children (and one that took all races, when that was not always the case).
I remember hearing this record several times on Lee Alan’s show as a kid. And, yes, the horn bit was part of Alan’s on-air schtick and was played as a joke. One thing you should always keep in mind when looking at these records was that they, and particularly the humorous ones, were not aimed at adult sensibilities. These were records aimed primarily at teens and kids. At least until Barry Gordy made the attempt to aim at ‘respectable’ adult middle-class audiences with the move into show rooms and nightclubs, and the middle-of-the-road records and artist signings referred to in Dave L’s post above.
Sorry for the long post, but I sure do have some very nice memories of my time at Y camp.
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Thanks Al!
No worries on the length, it’s always good to get in-depth replies on these things, and I was hoping for some more local knowledge (I did freely admit in the review that I’m coming at this from an outside perspective. I also have no idea who Soupy Sales is, as we’ll discover in a few years’ time).
Apologies for the delay, your post got caught up in the spam filter for some reason and I’ve only just seen it.
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(also, on a different tangent, I’d *love* to read some comments on the Workshop Jazz material from a jazz rather than R&B/pop perspective – I’ve been completely unable to find any contemporary reviews from proper jazz aficionados, and (as with this one) I freely admit it’s a field with which I’m not really all that familiar.)
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Ha ha, check this out:
http://leealansblog.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html
A first-person perspective from the man himself, written just four months ago. Wish I’d seen this before I wrote the review!
“The record was only available from the station (WXYZ). Cost was one dollar and all proceeds went to the WMCA. They said it sold in excess of 50,000 copies. I looked on Ebay the other day. Someone sold two original copies of “Set Me Free” for $500 each. Hmmmm.”
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Soupy Sales was a TV institution, first , only locally, in Detroit, and later, all across The USA, and in much of Canada, due to syndication of his show. It was a young children’s variety programme, with Soupy as MC, and other actors playing parts. Soupy had puppets, for which, he provided voices. He told jokes (often told on two levels (adult as well as child)), sang funny songs, had a lot of slapstick humour(pies in the face, slipping and falling, etc.), as well as clever (double entendre) quips.
His show was watched by millions of adults as well as children. I remember seeing university students miss classes to watch his daytime children’s show during the early/middle 1960s. He had a record out called “The Mouse”. It was a “dance craze” record in the early/mid 1960s. It grew out of his own mocking of dance steps in a “dance” he invented on his TV show. He dressed up in a “mouse costume” with big ears, a tail and mouse feet. His face was showing through, with make-up covering, drawn mouse nose and whiskers. He would cavort around the stage doing his silly dance, to that tune, singing “Do The Mouse”, and making funny gestures. He was quite a naturally funny fellow. If you watched him you couldn’t help but laugh. I was always terribly bored with slapstick humour, as well as puns, and standard children’s fare (unfortunately, I was NEVER a child). Yet, I loved Soupy’s show and humour. Few people disliked him.
“Do The Mouse” was NOT on Motown (but, before). When Motown signed him, I was surprised. But, then , I expected big things. Soupy was no Bob Kayli. He already had a “shtik” and a great following. All Gordy needed to do was let Soupy “Do his own thing”, and use Motown’s great promotion arm to get it to the people. I was really let down by what Soupy did for Motown. Nothing special at all.
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One thing he did do for Motown was having some of the company’s lesser known acts perform on his show. I specifically recall the Velvelettes lipsynching whatever song they had out at the time. Such appearances gave these acts the national exposure that their more well-known brothers and sisters had already achieved. I also remember such performances seeming so contrived on what was otherwise a comedy show.
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This song is addictive. This is one of those guilty pleasure Motown-related records. When I first heard it about 4-5 years ago I couldn’t stop listening to it.
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In Al Abrams’ new book, Hype and Soul: Behind the Scenes at Motown, which I got for Christmas – highly recommended reading, incidentally! – there’s an absolutely astonishing claim (p.99) about Lee Alan.
The book is full of Motown press releases interspersed with period press cuttings and Abrams’ own anecdotes. The story in question has Alan shooing Abrams and his pre-fame Tamla records out of his office (at some unspecified time around the turn of the decade when Alan was at WJBK). Abrams quotes Alan as using the charming phrase “Get the hell away from me with that goddamn nigger shit music”. In retaliation, the shocked Abrams then sends an anonymous telegram dobbing Alan in for payola, directly resulting in Alan being fired (before later pitching up at WXYZ and rewriting history, pretending to have been a Motown booster from the start – “but don’t you believe a word of it”, says Abrams).
Shocking if true. It’d be good to hear Lee Alan’s side of it; for the moment, I have to say, I find that myself liking this record (and Alan) rather less in light of that story.
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It’s shocking to hear this, as I wouldn’t have guessed he felt that way. I also remember another record which (I thought) he did, called “Walkin’ With Mr. Lee, from 1961 or ’62 on New York’s Ember Records. It also had an R&B flavour to it. EVEN if he believed what is said by Abrams as to the racist remark and dislike for Soul music, as a professional, he was really very stupid to have expressed those feelings outwardly.
I’m surprised he was later hired by a major radio station after making that statement (despite all the racism at the time, the pop stations wanted to please the “crossover” market, and wouldn’t want to alienate whatever number of African-American listeners they might get (and shouldn’t have wanted to have a poor relationship with the hottest record label in their city-as that record company was also very popular with their mainstream listeners)
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This incident just points out what an extreme racist country USA was in the early 1960s (It has improved some, but still has a long way to go). When I first visited USA in 1952, I was shocked to learn that just like Nazi-occupied Europe, I was not allowed on certain beaches in Indiana (as I was Jewish (of course Blacks and dogs were also not allowed)). Indiana is NOT in The notorious Southern (Confederate) States. But is where The Ku Klux Klan was started. Even the North was very racist.
This shows that Tamla Records meant nothing until people knew that their records sold well to the mainstream “Caucasian” population. THEN, their artists, musicians and company personnel were “tolerated”, because they couldn’t be ignored due to economics. It reminds me of being called a “White Jew”. Oh, you’re okay, you’re almost like us, not like the stereotype. You’re okay, as long as we like your singing (but you can’t stay in the same hotels as us, eat in the same restaurant as we do, and can’t live in our neighbourhoods!
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One of the things I love about Motown is the fact that white people – white kids, actually – bought their records in droves. The stories about kids having to hide black artists’ records from their parents are saddening on one level, but intensely heartening on another – when those kids grew up, their kids might have freaked their parents out with silly loud music, but never because the artist might not have been white. I can never picture someone growing up loving, say, the Temptations and then knowingly encouraging their own child to segregate their listening habits, circle of friends, even partners; each generation is less racist than the last.
(I mean, there are still dopey racists everywhere in the world, but I believe that’s mostly down to fear of the unknown, based – like all prejudices – on a lack of knowledge or understanding. That can only change with exposure, better education and a firm, repeated underlining that this sort of nonsense is NOT OKAY. There’ll always be hate-filled morons (and knuckle-dragging thickos for them to scare), but they’ll find it harder and harder to get popular attention, find themselves further and further ostracised. It might take centuries, but it’ll happen, if for no other reason than the world being so much smaller now.)
All of that being said, when talking about Tamla’s commercial success opening doors that would otherwise have been closed on racial grounds, I think you’re right, but I don’t know if you can necessarily take that line of reasoning too far – 1963 was different to 1952, the civil rights movement was in full flow, and while I do think Motown helped in terms of gathering momentum – hard to denigrate black culture when it’s embodied by all this amazing pop music your kids are buying by the million – I also think it’s possible to overstate things, in that I believe the all-pervasive racism of the pre-Sixties would have been overcome even if Motown had never existed, and that something like (say) Heat Wave would have done just as well if it had been released (and equally well promoted/funded etc) as the first ever single on Floopagloop Records out of Buffalo. But that’s just pure conjecture on my part!
In the book (which I wholly recommend!), Abrams does specifically single out Alan as the only high-profile jock who made any kind of racist slur, and says that most jocks were broadly supportive and didn’t give a toss he was a white Jewish boy promoting a black-owned label featuring mainly black artists. He also tells a great story about how he turned this kind of racist idiocy to his advantage when getting the Supremes on the famous cover of the TV guide magazine, but I’ll leave that for another day 🙂
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Regarding what Robb Klein said above:
The Lee Alan he is thinking of is actually Lee Allen a sax player who previous gigged with Little Richard’s Upsetters and recorded “Walking with Mr Lee” in 1957 for the Herald label (home of the Nutmegs and the Turbans).
I think wxyz was a general market station in the Detroit area but my understanding is that the popular R & B station was WJLB home of Frantic Ernie Durham.
I have a printout of Ernie’s Top Ten for October 1964 when “Needle in a Haystack” by the Velvelettes sits at #2 and “Baby Love” is #10. Also in the top ten are james Brown,
I have a print out of Ernie’s top ten for October 1964 where “Needle In a Haystack” by the
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Also in the top ten are James Brown, Dionne Warwick, Walter Jackon, BB King and others.
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Hello all,
I grew up in metro Detroit, was a teen in the 60s, and vividly remember Lee Alan on the Horn and “Set Me Free” from a daily listening perspective. “Set Me Free” was then and will always remain a beloved hoot, bringing smiles to all who can relate — that’s what matters. It wasn’t made as a serious/polished recording. Critiques and number ratings for this gem are meaningless to it’s true value.
There was also a killer soul station, WCHB, way up on the 1600 end of the dial. I don’t believe it was able to reach the entire Detroit area, yet I lived in a west side burb close to their broadcast station. Would never have heard tunes like Slim Harpo “Baby Scratch My Back” anywhere else. (Still have the 45.) But the station had changed to something totally different (talk radio I think) by the time I left Michigan in ’73. By then, the newer album/rock dynasty FM stations had pretty much taken over…which was great, too, in a different way. But I still remember how lucky I felt living at Motown ground zero. Music and cars – Detroit was a great place to be back then.
(Just to confirm, it’s Lee ALLEN the sax player; Lee ALAN the DJ)
Cheers!
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Thanks! Glad to know that Lee Allen was also the sax player, after all.
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This song is stuck in my head! I love Martha and the Vandellas’ backing vocals. I’d give it a 7 out of 10 at the least.
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I had thought, originally, that the sax player, Lee Allen, was also the Detroit DJ. But, clearly, they must have been different people.
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