Lesley Gore - Someplace Else Now [2015 Real Gone Music] 内页注解
On Saturday, March 30, 1963, sixteen-year old Lesley Gore of Tenafly, New Jersey entered a professional recording studio for the very first time. Producer Quincy Jones and arranger Claus Ogerman joined Gore at Bell Sound, 237 West 54th Street, Manhattan, for a four-song session. The third selection, nestled on the schedule between a Rodgers and Hammerstein standard and a Paul Anka tune, was a little-known composition by Wally Gold, John Gluck, Seymour Gottlieb and Herbert Wiener which had previously been recorded by British starlet Helen Shapiro. By the time Lesley Gore next entered a studio, on May 14, 1963, her debut single on Mercury Records had already entered the Billboard Hot 100 and was on its way to reaching number one in mid-June. "It's My Party" was an instant smash and all of America quickly knew that the only response was, "...and I'll cry if I want to!" But Lesley Gore hardly dwelled on self-pity. The newly-crowned teen queen exuded pluck and poise. Brash, boisterous, big-hearted, bright, and naturally youthful, her style would come to define the sound of sixties girl-pop.
Some 600-plus miles away at Hitsville U.S.A., a.k.a. 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, Michigan, more musical history was being made in 1963. The Motown Sound was springing to vivid life. The week of July 13, "It's My Party" was sandwiched on the Billboard chart at number 12 between Little Stevie Wonder's first hit, the live "Fingertips(Part 2)," and Marvin Gaye's "Pride and Joy" at number 11 and number 13, respectively. One month later, on August 17, Lesley's "It's My Party" sequal "Judy's Turn to Cry" reached its peak position of number 5 as "Fingertips" enjoyed its second week at the top. Both Lesley Gore and Motown came of age in the same period of sweeping musical transition, tapping into the same nascent teen culture. But by 1972, much had changed. Lesley hadn't charted a Top 20 hit in five years. Motown had weathered the departure of key artists and personnel, and was on the move from Detroit to Los Angeles. The time was right for these two 'Sixties icons to come together.
Lesley was signed to Motown's short-lived MoWest subsidiary, and in July, released her first album since 1967. Someplace Else Now was "my way of saying that yesterday was yesterday and explains where I want to go from here," she told newspaper columnist Barbara Lewis upon it release. Despite its musical riches, Someplace Else Now soon disappeared, much like MoWest itself. With this first-ever reissue from Real Gone Music, Lesley Gore's highly personal statement in song can now be enjoyed once more as a pivotal part of her discography.
Success had come fast for the young singer, but she was determined to stay true to her own path. Gore followed up her final hit of 1963, the frothy Brill Building confection "she's a Fool," with one of the most commanding songs of the '60s - or any other decade. John Madara and David White's "You Don't Own Me" was a defiant, empowering anthem that spoke clearly and resonantly to a generation of young women. Lesley knew it wasn't typical fare. She reflected to writer Dawn Eden in 1994 that "You can't hold back a seventeen-year-old woman; she has got to find a way to spread her wings," adding that "it is much to Quincy [Jones]'s credit that he could see what was really involved in that song, because his edict, as far as I know, was to keep me in 'it's My party' territory." The gamble paid off when "You don't Own Me" reached number 2, held from the top spot only by The beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand." On the frontlines of defense from the British Invasion, Gore remained a Top 20 fixture with two more hits in 1964, one in 1965 and another in 1967. This is still more impressive considering that, at the height of her flourishing career in fall 1964, she enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College. The New York campus afforded her the opportunity to record in Manhattan and perform on weekends. However, her education wouldn't take a back seat to music. "I could have been very happy spending the rest of my life in school," she confessed to Eden. "I found it a very nurturing and wonderful way of life."
Lesley's final Top 20 hit, Marvin Hamlisch and Howard Liebling's "California Nights," paired her with producer Bob Crewe. She and Crewe would remain friends for life. Though the evocative 1967 single (introduced on television's Batman by Lesley as Catwoman's sidekick Pussy Cat) captivated the public's imagination, Gore couldn't top it even with subsequent A-list productions helmed by Crewe, The Wrecking Crew's Steve Douglas, Philadelphia's Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff and Thom Bell, and Paul Leka of "Green Tambourine" fame. Late in 1969, Lesley and Mercury Records parted ways, and she joined the roster of the newly-established Crewe Records. Yet Bob couldn't keep Crewe Records afloat. The label folded within a year, but not before releasing four singles by Lesley including a duet with label mate Oliver, a remake of The Fleetwoods' "Come Softly to Me" credited to "Billy and Sue."
All the while, Lesley was honing her craft onstage. Following her 1968 graduation, she'd landed a plum engagement at The Plaza Hotel's Persian Room. On January 7, 1969, The New York Times heralded her Manhattan nightclub debut with the headline "Lesley Gore Grows Into Sophisticated Club Singer," and John S. Wilson wrote that "she is working her way up from the top, where she started six years ago." By 1971, she had added songs by The Beatles, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Jacques Brel and Melanie into her repertoire, but some critics were less than charitable. "[The critics' negative] comments will affect business," Lesley admitted to Mary G. Murphy on January 12 in The Los Angeles Times. "But as far as giving me any insight into what they thought was wrong with my act, they failed." Murphy praised Gore's "sleek, sophisticated act" as well as her cool demeanor.
Enter producer Joe Porter. "I had been to several record companies and was told there is no room for new artists," Lesley remembered to the Lakeland Ledger in mid-1972. "They said their rosters were full." She proudly announced, "i'm doing an album on the Motown label which is being produced by Joe Porter, and he has a contract with Motown." Porter, who was producing Gladys Knight and the Pips and Bobby Darin at Motown, realized that Lesley's newly-adult sound would translate to records.
Lesley was assigned to the fledgling MoWest imprint, formed in 1971. Motown had operated a Los Angeles office since 1963, and later in the decade, Berry Gordy himself had moved west from Detroit. Based in Hollywood at Sunset and Vine with studios on Romaine Street, MoWest solidified motown's ties to the city. Veteran session musician Don Peake was linked to the imprint as a member of the group Odyssey. Speaking in 2011 to The Guardian, he recalled that "for Gordy, it was a transitional thing. MoWest was their first arena to test the waters out there and foster talent in the area." MoWest broadened The Sound of Young America with its variety of soul, rock, funk and pop. With Joe Porter's support, Lesley took her place on a diverse roster alongside Thelma Houston, Syreeta, The Crusaders (formerly The Jazz Crusaders) and Bob Crewe's old friends Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
As "it's My Party" was nearly a decade away in the rearview mirror, even the title of Someplace Else Now announced a new Lesley Gore. Significantly, the album was the first to be entirely written by Lesley. Some tracks were penned in collaboration with actress-songwriter Ellen Weston, and one with her brother Michael Gore. Lesley was no stranger to songwriting; she had recorded over ten of her own songs at Mercury dating back to 1964, many co-written with Michael. But Someplace Else Now marked her first full immersion into the realm of the singer-songwriter. Recorded in California and adorned with MoWest's inviting label imagery of sun, surf and sand, this mature suite of songs addressing issues of identity, connection, personal growth, love and loss was nonetheleess far removed from the Southern California sound. To bring Lesley's music to life, Joe Porter enlisted arranger Artie Butler for eight songs. The team of Michael Omartian and Jimmie Haskell handled the remaining four.
The first track on Someplace Else Now, co-written by Gore and Ellen Weston, is entitled "For Me," signaling the introspective journey to come. This ethereal prologue, enhanced by lush, stately and pensive orchestral accompaniment, addresses the listener directly. "I've been waiting to meet you/Let me come in," the singer whispers. She concludes the brief composition with the admonishment to "Look for me everywhere," underscoring the universal themes she hoped to share.
Four songs were entirely written by Lesley. A soulful, gospel flavor permeates the questioning "The Road I Walk," which plays like a sequel to her teenage melodramas with a Motown twist. The gospel sound recurs on "Be My Life," a sweet and stirring paean to love and commitment. "What Did I Do Wrong," in the same probing vein as "The Road I Walk," beautifully showcases Gore's gifts as a singer. Her deeply committed, believably pleading vocal is commanding, and drips with real emotion and palpable vulnerability as she insists, "I can make it on my own/It's just that I don't want to..." She's torn between past and present on the searching "Mine." Its theme is echoed on Gore and Weston's melodic, attractive title track "Someplace Else Now," on which Lesley advises to "give now a try."
Lesley and Michael Gore collaborated on the reflective "Where Do You Go (when You Get Home)." Weston co-wrote the remainder of the album including the dark, hauntingly memorable story song "She Said That." Though Artie Butler leavened its edgier, folk-rock sound with his arrangement, the track tapped into a vein of grief and despair not typically associated with Lesley's pop persona. "She Said That" would be selected for single release in October 1972 backed with "The Road I Walk." Butler's stamp is also keenly felt on the bright, melodic "Don't Wanna Be One" and the blissfully languid "No Sad Songs," punctuated by soft-rock accompaniment and wistful horns.
Lesley's most forceful vocal comes on "Out of Love," a biting and baroque portrait of a family's intertwined love and lies. "What's the magic word? Love?" asks Lesley, knowing full well that even its powers are limited. Someplace Else Now comes full circle via a bookend to "For Me," appropriately named "For You," which allows the LP to close on a promising note of romantic advice: "Share your tomorrows with someone who'll be with you everywhere."
Someplace Else Now was greeted warmly upon its release in July 1972. "Lesley Gore, on a new label, matures as a singer and composer in this solid program of originals," wrote Variety. Billboard was even more effusive, praising Gore's "totally fresh, unique, meaningful approach as a composer-performer." Calling her "right up-to-date," the trade paper singled outthe LP's "ballad beauties" and observed its "appeal for Top 40, MOR and FM." Billboard also championed "She Said That" upon its October single release: "She's right in todays top 40 bag with this strong rock ballad, an original." A second single from Lesley - the unreleased "Give It to Me, Sweet Thing" paired with "Don't Wanna Be One" - was slated for MoWest 5042 but left in the can. ("Give It to Me..." was then re-recorded for Lesley's next album, at A&M Records.) MoWest advertised the album on a full-page Billboard ad ("And Now Some Choice Words for Women") in September beside releases by Thelma Houston, Syreeta and Valerie Simpson, and Lesley promoted it on the concert stage, including a December 1972 San Francisco engagement reported upon by Variety, but both Someplace Else Now and the "She Said That" single failed to chart.
MoWest's General Manager Dave Pell noted in 2011 to The Guardian that "people weren't buying [MoWest releases] because they thought we'd made a vanilla Motown that didn't have the soul, the feeling, or anything else that was really Motown. MoWest didn't have an identity." The eclectic, sun-kissed imprint never repeated the Top 10 success of its very first 45, disc jockey Tom Clay's audio-vérité montage of "What the World Needs Now is Love" and "Abraham, Martin and John." MoWest's final titles arrived in 1973, the division having been made redundant when Motown relocated from Detroit to Los Angeles in June 1972. Before its demise, MoWest issued roughly ten albums and nearly fifty singles; many more planned releases were left on the shelf, some of which saw the light of day in the U.K. or on the regular Motown label.
Lesley Gore only created three more studio albums in her lifetime, including the 1976 reunion with Quincy Jones, Love Me by Name. Her career continued to thrive on her own terms. In 1981, she and Michael Gore received an Academy Award nomination for their song "Out Here on My Own" from the 1980 motion picture Fame, and in 1996, she co-wrote "My Secret Love" for the film Grace of My Heart. Writer-director Allison Anders' fictionalized depiction of the Brill Building scene featured, among its characters, a closeted lesbian singer named Kelly Porter (played by Bridget Fonda) based, in part, on Gore. Though the experience was an unhappy one ("It turned out the opposite of what I would have wanted," Lesley candidly revealed in a 2006 interview with The Advocate), it served as prelude to her own public coming out. As a host of the PBS television series In the Life, Gore lent a familiar face and warm spirit to advocacy for LGBT issues. In 1999, Lesley made her Broadway debut in Smokey Joe's Café. She never stopped making music. Five years later, Lesley ruminated, "I am first and foremost a singer, and I am then a composer. If I can't do those things, then it doesn't pay to get up and eat and sleep and drink, because those are the things that are important to me." In her final years, she was working on a yet-to-be-published memoir.
Right up until her untimely passing on February 16, 2015 at age 68 following a private battle with lung cancer - Gore was a lifelong non-smoker - Lesley never stopped inspiring her fans with abundant positivity. But rather than cry - and we may want to - we can, happily, continue to celebrate the road she walked, as well as the ebullient music she created. To travelI Someplace Else Now is to travel back and revisit one of Lesley gore's most ambitious and rewarding albums. Her music is still with us, everywhere.
Joe Marchese, TheSecondDisc.com
June, 2015
