Friday, April 17, 2009

ONE HIT WONDERLAND

Some of my favorite songs from the "vintage years" (50s and 60s) are OHWs. One Hit Wonders. Why do you think that is? I don't think of myself as a person who automatically roots for the underdog. But I do believe that a lot of pretty decent talent kind of withered on the vine. Maybe it was lack of decent material to record, or lack of decent promotion promotion by the label. Or lack of funds for payola. Anyway, this little number, "He's Mine", was a fave of mine back in 1963, and it still is today. Alice Wonder Land (sometimes written as Wonderland) was born Alice Faye Henderson. There's a story out there that Alice's discovery resembles that of the Little Eva with "Loco-motion" - being a maid and/or babysitter for a songwriter, or a friend of a songwriter, or...something like that. Both stories may be all or in part apocryphal, and for our purposes here, I don't think it matters. We just want to hear a great and maybe long-forgotten oldie, right?! Little Eva didn't stay a OH Wonderwoman. We also remember her for one of the great girl group smack-down songs of the era - "Keep Your Hands Off My Baby" which unfortunately, isn't on YT at all. That's a shocking omission I hope some YT channel member rectifies soon!





Anyway, I tried to come up with a photo of Alice, but between Alice Faye the actress, and the little blonde Alice of the book and the Disney movie, it wasn't happening, so I posted them instead. Also, the embedding for this video has been disabled, so I'll have to give you the YouTube link.
LINK to "He's Mine"





Alice in Wonderland photo from Wikimedia Commons
Alice Faye photo from www.classicmoviemusicals.com

2 comments:

Mark Kreider said...

Ron Johnson produced "The Locomotion" way back when. He also produced one of my early bands and, get this, a band called Wicked Lester that soon after became Kiss. My band opened for Kiss the first time they used the make-up schtick. Gee I'm gettin' old!

Deborah Godin said...

Hey thanks for sharing that really cool trivia! Are you still rockin'? Planning a reunion tour? Under consideration for a reality show? :-)