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"My Boy Lollipop" (originally "My Girl Lollypop") is a song written in the mid-1950s by Robert Spencer of the doo-wop group The Cadillacs, and usually credited to Spencer, Morris Levy, and Johnny Roberts. It was first recorded in New York in 1956 by Barbie Gaye. A later version, recorded in 1964 by Jamaican teenager Millie Small, with very similar rhythm, became one of the top selling ska songs of all time. ==The Barbie Gaye version== The original song, "My Girl Lollypop", was written by Robert Spencer of the doo-wop group The Cadillacs. Notorious record company executive Morris Levy agreed to purchase the song from Spencer. Although not involved in writing the song, Levy and alleged gangster Johnny Roberts listed themselves as the song's authors. In an effort to avoid sharing any royalties with Spencer, Levy removed Spencer's name from the original writing credits. Levy even claimed that Robert Spencer was his pseudonym.〔Rob Finnis and Tony Rounce, ''Booklet with CD "You Heard It Here First", Ace Records CDCHD1204, 2008''〕 The song caught the attention of one of Levy's partners, alleged mobster and music mogul Gaetano Vastola, aka "Corky". Vastola had recently discovered 14-year-old singer Barbie Gaye after hearing her sing on a street corner in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Vastola was so impressed that he immediately took her to meet New York radio DJ Alan Freed. Gaye sang a few songs for them and Freed was equally impressed. Vastola became Barbie Gaye's manager and within days, he acquired the sheet music and lyrics for "My Girl Lollypop" from Levy. He gave them to Gaye, with no specific instructions except to change the gender of the songs subject and be ready to perform it by the following week. Barbie Gaye changed the song's title to "My Boy Lollypop" and rewrote the song accordingly. She added non-lyrical sounds, (utterances), such as "whoa" and "uh oh," chose the notes for the lyrics, shortened and lengthened notes, decided which lyrics to repeat ("I love ya, I love ya, I love ya so") and added the word, "dandy" to describe to subject. When it came time to record, Gaye cut school and took the subway to a recording studio in Midtown Manhattan. Gaye met the three members of the session band, guitarist Leroy Kirkland, saxophonist Al Sears and drummer Panama Francis. The band leader, Kirkland, asked Gaye to sing the song for them. After listening to her, they improvised music to match her vocals. They decided to record the song in a relatively new style of R&B called shuffle. The four musicians, including the white teenage girl, went into the studio and recorded the song in one take. Barbie Gaye was paid $200 for her writing contributions to "My Boy Lollypop" and her studio recording.〔Stratton, Jon (2014) "When Music Migrates: Crossing British and European Racial Faultlines, 1945–2010" England: Ashgate. ISBN 978-1-4724-2978-0〕 The shuffle sound was developed in the early 1940s in America's black community and made popular by Professor Longhair, Rosco Gordon and Louis Jordan. Legendary Jamaican artists, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd and Arthur "Duke" Reid, introduced the R&B shuffle beat to Jamaica in the late 1950s.〔John Jeremiah Sullivan, That Chop on the Upbeat, Oxford American, 18 February 2014〕 Over the next few years, the sound grew in popularity and evolved into "ska," Jamaica’s first indigenous popular music style. Ska has developed subgenres such as 2 Tone and Third Wave and has influenced several new Jamaican music genres most notably, rocksteady and reggae. Gaye's recording was released as a single by Darl Records in late 1956. It was heavily played by Alan Freed, and listener requests made the song No. 25 on Freed's Top 25 on WINS, New York in November 1956.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=This is a listing of Alan Freed's Top Twenty Five records on his Saturday morning survey show on New York City station WINS from late November in 1956 )〕 The record sold in sufficient quantities locally to gain her a place in Freed's annual Christmas show at the New York Paramount in December 1956, when she opened for Little Richard. The following year, Gaye toured with Little Richard and Fats Domino. The singer and songwriter Ellie Greenwich, (Be My Baby, Chapel of Love) then a teenager living on Long Island, was so taken by the record that she named herself Ellie Gaye when she embarked on her recording career.〔Rob Finnis 1997 – Ace's "Early Girls – Volume 2" CD (CDCHD 657) liner notes〕 Gaye's recording of "My Boy Lollypop" was popular in New York City, and a few other Northeastern cities. Like many artists in her day, Gaye received no royalties from radio play. Because her manager, Corky Vastola, routinely counterfeited his artists music to keep all the profits, the record's sales data is difficult to determine.〔James, Tommy and Fitzpatrick, Martin (2010) "Me, the Mob, and the Music: One Helluva Ride with Tommy James & The Shondells" New York: Scribner. ISBN 9781439128657〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「My Boy Lollipop」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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