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Motown M 1082 (A), August 1965
b/w The Two Of Us
(Written by Ronald Miller and William O’Malley)
Tamla Motown TMG 537 (A), October 1965
b/w The Two Of Us
(Released in the UK under license through EMI / Tamla Motown)
Ageing crooner Tony Martin, signed to Motown the previous year after a long career in showbiz only to be effectively superseded by an even bigger signing in Billy Eckstine, was not destined to be a star of the Motown catalogue, but he was lucky enough to arrive at Hitsville just before the label went supernova. By a matter of weeks, Tony Martin made it in under the cut-off between “artists from the early days of Motown” and “artists Motown could afford to sign and jettison at will”, and so despite the overwhelming failure (on every level) of his début single Talkin’ To Your Picture, he was afforded the privilege of this belated follow-up. Lucky us.
There was absolutely nothing good about Talkin’ To Your Picture, a badly-sung, phoned-in rendition of a terrible song with genuinely creepy lyrics that appear to endorse stalking as a valid courtship technique, a record memorably christened by Motown Junkies regular Damecia as “The Sound of Boring Middle-Aged America”. So, the bar is set accordingly low for this one; unlike his début, here Martin is given the benefit of Motown’s own staff writers, in the form of their newly-designated MOR specialists Ron Miller and William O’Malley.
Their approach, reasonably enough, is to do what they were good at – pastiche. Handed the task of doing something with an audibly past-it former MOR idol, they set about pushing Martin down the same path already trodden by a great many other audibly past-it former MOR idols in the early Sixties, and attempt to turn him into Dean Martin. It doesn’t really work – the results are gloopy and irritating – but it’s quite a lot less awful than Talkin’ To Your Picture, and I’m grateful for small mercies at this point.
Most noticeably of all, while there are far, far too many things stacked on top of it, the tune that’s underpinning all of this is actually (whisper it) kind of catchy. The deep bass bom-bom-boms are engagingly silly, you can whistle the central melody, and Tony seems to be having enough fun with the shrill Hollywood female choir (who at one point briefly and bafflingly break into a full-on Busby Berkeley chorus line routine) that you can just – just! – make out enough personality under the pancake to begin to understand what Motown ever saw in him in the first place.
Hopefully that won’t be taken as any kind of a recommendation; this is still absolutely, pants-wettingly ridiculous in its overdone pomposity, with our Tony – if anything – somehow ending up even more of a parody of himself than we’ve previously heard, the slippery, none-more-stagey slickness of his voice making Bobby Breen sound like Johnny Rotten. You can practically smell the warpaint. And, once again, it’s stuffed full of would-be euphoric moments it hasn’t earned, key changes and angelic choirs and a half-hearted big finish (on a record only two and a half minutes long) that sounds as though everyone involved suddenly became self-aware and realised they were making muzak rather than a symphony.
But for all of that, I don’t absolutely hate it. It’s ridiculous, but there’s the tiniest kernel of understanding buried in here along with the finger-snapping tune; not enough for Tony to really embrace his inner ham in the style of Bobby Breen, and he’s not a good enough singer to tease out the dignity in schlock a la Billy Eckstine, but enough to make me steer away from giving it the lowest score possible.
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!)
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This may be one of those cases of “be careful what you wish for”…
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Just looked ahead – oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!
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You are right —- sounds like “Everybody Loves Somebody” by Dean Martin.
A perfectly ridiculous song but unfortunately for me I played it and can’t get it out of my head…..
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Indeed – it’s a Dino pastiche, but I’d have to grudgingly admit it’s a well-conceived one.
(In fact, Miller and O’Malley nail it so closely that I was absolutely convinced Tony was Italian-American like Dino, but instead it turns out on further investigation he was in fact Jewish and of Polish-German extraction, so I’ve amended the review accordingly.)
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Since you mentioned “Everybody Loves Somebody,” I’ve oft-wondered if the oft-covered Solomon Burke chestnut “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” was written as an answer / counterpoint / response to that other song.
But “the slippery, none-more-stagey slickness of his voice making Bobby Breen sound like Johnny Rotten” – priceless. Much like what I read in a book on worst rock ‘n’ roll records about Ernie Freeman’s arrangements on the 1968 ABC LP Joey Bishop Sings Country Western “[making] Billy Sherrill seem like Swamp Dogg.”
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I haven’t heard this one, but since you mentioned Dean Martin… Not saying I am a huge fan of Dino’s but I feel like his mid-sixties hit singles were well made, pop recordings. I am assuming everyone knows this but “Everybody Loves Somebody” was recorded by Dinah Washington in the late 50s & her version is quite good. I actually like Dino’s version too. His producer, Jimmy Bowen, cleverly threw in those piano triplets in to give it a mild rock & roll/r&b feel & it DID get to #1 in the era of the Beatles/Motown. Apparently, someone in Dino’s camp heard the Dinah Washington version of “Everybody” & thought it would be a good song for Dino to cut. In fact, Dino recorded 2 versions of the song for 2 different albums. The 2nd version was the hit single recording. One more factoid & I promise I’ll shut up… Dino also did a version of “The Door Is Still Open to My Heart” (complete with triplets!) which was done in the 50s by doowop greats the 5 Keys. Okay I’m done (for now!)
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In my intolerant youth I regarded ‘Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime’ as the most utterly detestable song, in any medium, of all time… Strangely, I love Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Hungry Heart’ (another ‘everybody’ song) with parallel intensity – Bruce seems to have his finger on a genuine human universal, whereas Dino seemed to me to be uttering an intolerably inflated and mendacious platitude, to which the only appropriate answer could be some sort of Primal Scream – which, perhaps only the throat-shattering howls at the beginning of James Brown’s ‘Bring It Up’ would be adequate to exorcise…. And yet a third ‘everybody’ song – the lovely ‘Everybody needs love’ (Gladys, and also the Temptations) evoked soul-stirring gentle bliss. Hmmm.. I like W.B.’s supposition about Solomon Burke – again, a convincing human universal, powerful (and beautiful) enough to serve a welcome soul-cleansing riposte.
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P.S. to Landini: I had no idea ELSS originated with Dinah Washington! That might be enough to make me reconsider my visceral negative reaction – just as Leontyne Price made me reconsider my unwavering antipathy to ‘Climb Every Mountain!’
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Oops! I made an error here. Surprised no one caught it. “The Door Is Still Open To My Heart” was done by the Cardinals & not the 5 Keys! It was written by Chuck Willis. Sorry sports fans!
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Is this how Ron Miller got started at Motown?
Ok was’nt there a character named Tony Martin or modeled after aTony Martin in the movie “Valley Of The Dolls”?
I may need another day off.
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“Everybody Loves Somebody” was recorded by a number of people when it was first written, circa 1947. Sinatra’s version was the only one to chart- #25 in 1948.
The “Tony” in “Valley of the Dolls” (Tony Polar actually) wasn’t modeled on Tony Martin but he was played by Tony Scotti of Scotti Brothers Records fame-they put out records by James Brown, Leif Garrett, Survivor, Susan Anton, Weird Al Jankovic, John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band-quite an eclectic group.
I’m not surprised Gordy/Motown signed Tony Martin in the mid 60s. I think the comments that Gordy signed him to establish himself as more than a black music label are probably correct. Tony Martin started charting hits when Gordy was around 8 years old. He charted hits well into the 1950s-in fact his best ten years as a recording artist were 1946 to 1956, so Gordy would have definitely been aware of him. In 1964 Martin was still a Vegas headliner, often teamed with his wife Cyd Charisse-the best looking (and most talented) dancer from the Hollywood Golden Age of Movie Musicals. As for Tony’s Motown recordings-cut the guy some slack. Many of the comments here refer to the effectiveness of the songs and people enjoying them, in spite of the cheesy trappings and the knowledge that they shouldn’t admit to it. Tony Martin was just a singer plying his trade, which he did almost until he died. Youtube had videos of him singing at a nightclub when he was well into his 90s-and singing very well. We all should be so lucky.
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Another brilliant MOR ballad that Ron Miller seemed to be able to churn out with ease. Admittedly it’s influenced by “Everybody loves somebody”, but if Dean Martin had recorded this it would have been another #1 for him. Instead, another wonderful Motown pop ballad got nowhere. Shame. Tremendous production from Davis And Gordon as well. The only down side is Martin’s voice which has very little charm to my ears.
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This is a decent Pop song, with a decent arrangement and instrumental. The singing is okay, but not with a lot of emotion. I’d give it a 3.5.
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