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VIP 25016 (B), May 1965
B-side of Buttered Popcorn
(Written by Marc Gordon and Frank Wilson)
Northern Soul aficionados might be familiar with this driving R&B concoction, as it was once quite popular on the scene. And it works in that context, there’s no doubt; it’s easy on the ear, it’s got a massive bass kick to it, the high harmonies are both pretty and ambitious.
In fact, it sounds like the work of a completely different group than the raucous, vacuous Supremes cover (Buttered Popcorn) that “graced” the A-side of the Vows’ one and only Motown single; this is West Coast R&B-pop-rock all the way, practically made for blasting out of your car radio with the top down on some Pacific highway, sweeter and smoother than anything we heard on the other side.
But it’s a mess. Seams come undone, joins are clearly visible, cues are missed, notes are dropped, harmonies waver. And, in a way, that’s all made worse when you’re trying for that elusive mix of hot and sweet that powers so many of the great Motown singles. When you’re tearing it up on a Contours-lite rocker like the A-side, you can get away with playing fast and loose; sloppy arrangements and shonky playing might even add to the charm. But here, when it’s meant to be a beautiful, exciting pop rush, every mistake counts.
It’s actually a really nice little song, or an idea for a song at least, done in an amateurish fashion. I don’t know why, but it’s never really stuck in my mind when playing through The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 5, being rather forgettable, weirdly so considering the strangeness of some of the moments here. Now, though, when I come to stick it under the microscope, what I hear is the germ of a good song that needed some more polish, and a group who needed another couple of takes to get everything just right.
Of course, history will record that neither of those things came to pass. The Vows recorded two more cuts at Motown that have since surfaced on the excellent A Cellarful of Motown! series, both more in keeping with Tell Me than Buttered Popcorn (which is to say, decent songs done sloppily): the driving Northern stomper Show Girl, and My Baby Changes Like The Weather, which sounds like the early Temptations after a few drinks. But they won’t be troubling us again here on Motown Junkies.
As for Tell Me? The song was dusted off for another group (the Versatiles, later to become better known – after leaving Motown – as the 5th Dimension) to have a crack at it, but their version remains in the vaults, and pretty soon the song was lost to history. It’s a shame, though, because – scruffy though it is – this is really rather pleasant.
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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| The Vows “Buttered Popcorn” |
The Lewis Sisters “He’s An Oddball” |
DISCOVERING MOTOWN |
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Motown Junkies 
I hate to be picky, but the release of The Vows’ version of “Buttered Popcorn” was NOT a “cover” of The Supremes’ version, but rather, a remake of it. “Cover” is (or, rather WAS (and still SHOULD be) a music industry technical term for a record company releasing a different version of a song that is currently out on the market and starting to do well, to take advantage of its product recognition, and gain lots of sales from it, without having to pay for marketing. This had been done almost all the way back to the start of the record industry in the early 1900s.
But the phrase was coined in the early mid 1950s, when the major record companies (RCA, Columbia, MGM, Decca, Capitol and Mercury Records would identify African-American R & B / Rock & Roll records that were being bought by Caucasian teenagers (e.g. started getting mainstream sales), and they would record a Caucasian “Pop” artist singing that song, and grab a big portion of the sales of that song that would have come from the mainstream population. The term “cover” was used, because the new “Pop” version would smother (cover up) the availability, access to hearing on radio or in record shops, or sales of the record, sometimes reducing its sales to a trickle and forcing its run to a halt.
Many of Mercury’s releases by Georgia Gibbs squashed sales and tumbled chart positions of Atlantic records by La Vern Baker, Ruth Brown and Carmen Taylor. It is well-known what Dot’s Pat Boone’s version did to Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti”, and what Mercury’s Diamonds did to The Gladiolas’ “Little Darlin’ “, and Crew Cuts did to sales of The Crows’ “Gee” and so many other R & B group songs in 1953-57.
Often, record companies would release a version of a given song in a different music genre, at the same time that song’s original release was having its sales run. The original might have been an R & B vocal group harmony ballad, and the newer version would be a Country and Western or Jazz version. Despite being out on the market at the same time, these would NOT be considered “covers”, as they would NOT compete with for sales, nor interfere with the sales of the original record (as the people who buy records in those other genres are not considered to be part of the same market). A “Cover” is released to “steal” sales from a known product.
By using the term “cover” incorrectly, the current population has not just changed the meaning of a word, but has REMOVED a word from the English language, for which we have NO REPLACEMENT. This is what comes from cultural dominance of the semi-literate USA. I’ve read results of studies that show that typical adults in that country currently use only roughly about 4,000 words. Whereas, as late as 1960 (ostensibly, when people were still reading), they used roughly 40,000. It’s no wonder that there are so many misunderstandings and related arguments and fights these days, when language has been degraded so much that we cannot express ourselves in specific terms.
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I completely agree with you , Robb. However, when I correct anyone I just get accused of being a pedant, so I’ve given up the argument.
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Hi Robb! Been off the site for a bit. Health has been a little up & down recently. Still hanging in there. Thank you for the clarification between cover & remake. Interesting, I read an interview with Georgia Gibbs from a few years ago & she was very defensive about the whole issue saying she just did what her record company told her to do. Pat Boone claims that he actually talked to Little Richard & Fats Domino about doing their songs & helping them to get writer’s royalties. Who knows?
Of course, another can of worms was the practice of putting a deejay’s name as co-writer of an R&B song (ie Alan Freed).
A few years ago I saw one of those Public TV Rock & Roll Revival Shows. The Diamonds were doing “Little Darlin” & the lead singer actually called upon Maurice Williams (of the Gladiolas & the Zodiacs) to join them on stage & he told the audience that this was the man who wrote & sang the original.
Back to Motown … I wish we would get through these records that I don’t know much about & get back into some of the stuff I know about & love! Can’t wait for more Kim Weston, etc!
Hope you & the rest of my Motown friends are well.
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I’m with you Landini – so nice to hear from you again!
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Hello, Landini!
Don’t know whether the Lewis Sisters, who are next up, will make things any more interesting, but maybe Steve has some insights about what Berry Gordy saw in them!
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They were pretty decent songwriters. Gordy hired them as songwriters, and tossed them the bone of a “released record” on a throwaway label, with absolutely no promotion (which likely MADE him money, as Motown no doubt took the standard record production cost as a tax write off, despite not putting any money into the production, other than paying his musicians for the ten minutes they probably took in his own studio that cost him nothing additional for recording them).
I am sure he did have any intention of trying to get their record to sell, and I am also sure that he didn’t think they had much potential as contract singers for his company.
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I’d guess that the “covers” helped a lot of the Black artists, and hurt many as well. It would just depend upon the individual case. I’m sure that Little Richard did better in the long run through his long career BECAUSE of the added exposure of some of his songs to a much wider general audience than he’d have done by getting double the sales on his 1955-57 records that got covered. Most of theBlues artists probably did better. The Gladiolas, Crows, Chords, Dell Vikings, Five Keys and other Black Harmony groups probably just lost sales on their individual records, and didn’t get a boost in their later careers, other than the general influence of “Rock & Roll” widening the tastes of the pop market to add in the more commercial R & B and Soul music.
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As Motown gets bigger and bigger, the number of these weird curios and one-and-done, never-heard-of-them acts increases. (Some of them are well worth checking out, though; I’ve hardly had to break out any nasty red numbers since we started 1965, and it’s May already.) But there are a lot of big hits and well-known faces still to come this summer.
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I disagree – that a word’s meaning has changed may or may not be cause for concern or celebration, but it very definitely HAS changed, reflecting a gap in the language that needed filling: a cover is now a song originally recorded by someone else, as distinct from a remake which can be of your own older material. If we don’t now have a word for the original meaning, it’s because it’s redundant; for the few post-1970 instances where a cover IS a “cover”, the new meaning still, um, covers that situation anyway with a small amount of context.
I’m highly dubious about that survey and your conclusions from it. It would be glib to note the history of violence and bigotry predates the late 20th Century, as I knpw that’s not what you were suggesting, but big picture, considering standards of literacy and the advent of mass communication, I find it impossible to believe that things are so very much worse today than in 1960.
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(Reading that back, it probably comes across as more confrontational than I’d intended. I like vigorous debate, it’s not meant to be my attempt to shout down disagreement. Plus, you’re one of the only people who’s said anything about the records we’re meant to be looking at here! Poor Vows.)
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I was around in 1960, and I’m here now. Most people that I heard speak, and whose writing I saw, back then, were able to communicate significantly better then than those I meet today, and that of those whose writing I see in schools and on The Internet. I’m speaking mostly about USA, but I also see a degradation of the language in Holland, The U.K. and Germany (I reside part of each year in Holland, USA, Germany and Denmark, but I see a lot of writing of Brits in e-mails and on various Soul Music fora). So many people these days don’t know the difference between to, too and two, where and were, their, there and they’re, and they say “I could care less” when they mean: “couldn’t care less”-not only a language problem-but also a logic problem. And so many are not familiar with hundreds of words I’ve been used to for most of my life. The public school systems in USA are horrendous. The elementary school teachers are teaching incorrect spelling and a good deal of improper grammar. The big money that runs that country want the bulk of the population to get poor education, so they can remain ignorant, so they won’t know how to vote in their own interest. But we’re now straying too far from the theme and purpose of your great website. My contention is that with the change in meaning of the particular term for “cover” to which I referred, we not only have no single word to convey that concept, but we lose the introduction to the history which spawned it. To me, “someone singing a song that someone else sang before” does not encompass the original meaning of that particular use of the word cover. And I don’t understand why “they” didn’t make up a new word for that new concept of a song sung previously by someone else. if a single word were indeed needed to convey that concept, rather than stealing, and thereby destroying a word that helped explain history, and act as an introduction to that interesting time in USA’s music industry.
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Don’t worry, my skin’s thicker than it seems, and I know you well enough to know we’re never going to have a full-scale falling out 🙂
I think where we disagree is whether there is a need for a single word that conveys the original meaning of “cover”, and/or a need for a single word that conveys the new meaning. You and 144man think yes/no, I think no/yes. Tomato, tomato.
I won’t get into a big debate about how language evolves over time and whether or not this signifies a degradation of standards, as we obviously have rather different opinions on that too. I will say that “could care less” drives me up the wall. But luckily, David Mitchell has already put my case far better than I ever could:
🙂
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Living languages obviously have to change. I am particularly fond of the use of “innit?” in conversation as it fills the gap caused by English not previously having had a catch-all equivalent to the French “n’est-ce pas”.
It’s only where comprehension of meaning is impaired that I have problems. In the 60s, I would have spoken of the Vows’ “revival” of “Buttered Popcorn”. Now I say “cover” just like everybody else, but the meaning is less precise.
As a lawyer, you will appreciate the difficulty I used to have with VAT booklets in interpreting when the word “should” was used whether the meaning was “ought to” or “must”.
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When writing of new versions of songs, I tend to use such phrases as ‘dusting off’ or ‘update’ or something similar. I understand where Robb is coming from, but it prompts the question of how do you define Brian Poole & The Tremeloes’ version of Do You Love Me – a less racuous remake of The Contours original from September 1962 (British release date) or a cover of Faron’s Flamingos version from May 1963? What too of the competing versions released in October 1963, at the same time as the Tremeloes – Dave Clark Five, Frank Bacon & The Baconeers, The Moonrakers and Ray Pilgrim?
The other day, I pulled my daughter up for a sentence she had used on Facebook – she is a budding songwriter and wanted to let her followers know of some important developments. She told everyone to ‘bare with me’. When I pointed out that her comment could be construed as an invitation for all of her followers to shed their clothes, I was the one in the wrong! Similarly, having recently completed the collection of Olympic 50p pieces, she asked if they were still ‘legal tendency’.
Personally, I think there should be a law that demands at least one dictionary in every household (we have three), and instead of fining people for dropping litter, we should be fining them for dropping their ‘h’s. I totally abhor the use of words and phrases such as ‘innit’, ‘like’, ‘you know’, ‘I mean’, ‘at the end of the day’ and all the other shorthand expressions that have entered the English language in recent years. I’m with Winston Churchill, who of course mobilised the English language and sent it into battle – ‘Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.’
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Ha! Ha!
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Winston Churchill could have correctly said “…is something with which I will not put up”, as “up” is primarily an adverb.
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Bravo! Dave Mitchell!
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An amusing, if a trifle smug, contribution from David Mitchell but here’s my attempt at justifying “I could care less”.
“Caring less” takes some conscious effort, a change of mental gear but “I could care less”, in tandem with the unspoken “but I can’t be bothered”, suggests that the matter in hand is so trifling, so petty, that it doesn’t even merit the tiny use of brain power needed to reduce your attention, interest, concern or whatever. If it were written “I could care less…”, leaving the reader to fill in the gap, at least it would suggest that this is so pointless that I’m not even willing to finish the sentence.
Having said all that, it’s still probably a “mis-speak”.
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Talking about covers & remakes makes me think of this … I think what irks me most about remakes is the number of artists in the 70s (Linda Rondstat; James Taylor; Captain & Tenielle) who did awful remakes of Motown tunes. I know people who actually prefer Linda’s version of “Heatwave” to the Vandellas. Also a friend of mine & I were listening to the radio one time & C&T’s version of “Shop Around” came on & he commented something like “Wow this song sounds like it should have been sung by a man.” Basically he didn’t know about the original. As Charlie Brown would say “AUGHHHHHH” Even the Doobie Bros, who I normally like, really messed up “Take Me In Your Arms” by Kim Weston. They did redeem themselves somewhat with a decent remake of Marvin Gaye’s “Little Darling I Need You”.
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By the way, my dear friends… an update on my health. Recent Cat Scan shows cancer still there (fairly stable – with just a tiny bit of growth). So more chemo (I take # 12 tomorrow) Will get scanned again in April. Thank you for your kindness & prayers, dear Motown friends!
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Hi Landini,
The fact that your cancer has stabilised must be a good sign. That seems to indicate that more chemo-therapy will probably kill the existing cancer cells and with no new cancer cells growing, will eradicate the disease. Good luck with that.
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Thank you
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Trans-Atlantic shout out: http://twitter.com/soulsaturday/status/305069104560218114
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My sincere thanks to you!
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Landini – Good luck – hang in there, a similar thing happened to my dad when he was in his mid-80s and he wound up surprising us all by living until he was 97.
Re your comment above: i always disliked C&T’s version of Shop Around; it sounded like she was reading the lyrics off a sheet of paper as she was singing. And I agree with you about 1970s covers of Motown. Most were, in a word, soulless. I didn’t even like Little Darling.
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Many thanks!
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What about plagiarism? It is not applied to just the written word but to the misappropriation of intellectual property. According to the etymology the Roman poet Martial coined the idea as it’s from the Latin for kidnapped and some other had kidnapped some of his verses.
Or you could just embrace modern idiom and use rip-off innit.
Apologies for the last statement but the inner child retains the mischief that still regularly gets me in trouble. 🙂
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Plagiarism – and indeed “rip off” – carries a sense of an unacknowledged copy, the plagiarising party failing to admit the origins of their work, passing it off as their own without the knowledge and/or consent of the *real* originator. Most cover versions (per the modern definition) are neither plagiarism nor rip-offs.
Copyright law is a messy and convoluted area and laws differ from country to country, making music especially difficult to fit into these strictures, but the basic principles of plagiarism – quoting (and citing your sources) is usually fine, passing someone else’s work off as your own is usually not – are close to universal.
For instance… If I do a terrible remake of “Baby Love” for banjo and accordion, but keep the writing credit it to Holland-Dozier-Holland and direct the royalties to Stone Agate, it’s not plagiarism. If I compose and record a new song, but include a sample (or interpolate the melody/lyrics) of “Baby Love” and credit it as such, it’s not plagiarism. However, if I write a ‘new song’ called “Moravian Cantata #14” that includes a chorus of Baby love, my baby love, I need you, oh how I need you, ooh, Moravia, till it’s hurting me, why must we separate and then fail to credit Holland-Dozier-Holland/insist those lines came to me while I was brushing my teeth/when questioned, pretend I’ve never heard of the Supremes… that’s plagiarism.
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As a citizen of these yet to be United States, i will resist defending my home country….but i will agree with you on “at the end of the day” and throw in my own pet peeve: “That being said….” Speakers lean on that phrase like a junkie leans on a pusher.
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My pet peeve is when people write the first person singular as “i” instead of “I”, lol.
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Those are, for the most part, lazy people who don’t like to make the extra move to type capital letters, rather than overly humble people. I hardly notice it, as in Dutch language, we write “I”, “ik” with no capital. The capitalisation of “i” in English was adopted because the letter “i” is small and difficult to see. So, when a reader is looking for words to read, that little “i” could easily be missed. That is a similar situation to the reason for adoption of the ending of every sentence in comic book dialogues of the 1940s and 1950s with exclamation marks, as the tiny periods could end up lost (almost invisible) in a slightly light print run. To this day, I end every sentence with an exclamation, in every story I write, despite that convention being dropped almost 50 years ago.
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