Aretha Franklin's sister, Irma had the original version of Piece of my Heart, hence the "speical connection"
I just realized there are 3 songs that charted Top 40 3 times,
Dedicated to the One I Love has charted 3 times by different groups, the first time by the extremely under rated and often forgotten, 5 Royales with their brilliant guitarist Lowman Pauling. This group was B A D.
After the 5 Royales, the Shirelles and Mamas & Papas all charted with it. Locomotion by Little Eva, Grand Funk Railroad and then Lilie Monogue also charted 3 times, the first 2 were number 1's. The one I forgot about was I Heard It Through the Grapevine, my favorite version being Gladys Knight & The Pips, the other 2 charters as indicated by Gary Stooge were Marvin Gaye and CCR.
During the 60's it was common for a newly penned song by a Motown composer to be recorded by several roster artists to see which would do the best, there are many hit Motown songs that have 2 or 3 other previous or subsequent versions by other groups, often better versions.
Chubby Checker's cover version of The Twist is the only song to hit number one on 2 different occasions, I believe it was 1960 and then '61. Another King label group that is extremely under rated is Hank Ballard and the Midnighters who launched the famous Annie series with several sequels and dozens of answers songs, a virtually forgotten art. The twist as a dance goes back to the early 1950's in the Black community, the original early 1950's Drifters with Clyde McPhatter(what a voice, he was Sam Cooke before Sam) had a song, Whatcha' Gonna Do, considered the first twist song. Dick Clark's wife baptized Ernest Evans Chubby Checker as a reference to Fats Domino.
Yesterday and then Louie, Louie are the 1-2 most covered songs of the rock era.
I was lucky to have met Big Mama Thornton in the late 1970's at a concert of oldies R n B stars organized by the Godfather of Rn B-Johnny Otis in Los Angeles. Besides her own material she did a great tribute to her competitor-friend Big Maybelle who had recently died and did a great vesrsion of Whole Lotta Shaking Goin On that was Big Maybelle's song before Jerry Lewis.
I am an oldies fan going back to my teens in the early 60's, I'll turn 56 in a few weeks so I have accumulated tonnage of trivia and knowledge through experience of radio listening and collecting, after my own Cuban and salsa music which I perform as a part time musician, my favorite music is late 1940's through mid 60's, RnB, vocal harmony(misnamed doo-wop), jump blues and soul. Second favorite late 1960's through mid '70's funk, then came disco to ruin everything.
S F
