If she were still with us Eva Boyd, aka Little Eva, would have turned 71 today. Her major claim to fame was her recording of 1962s chart topper The Locomotion but she was also integral to the recording of what is likely the worst record of 1962. Eva was a house keeper and baby sitter for the then husband and wife song writing team of Carole King and Gerry Goffin who would occasionally use her to record demos for them. One of the demos she cut was The Locomotion originally intended Dee Dee Sharp but her read of the song impressed Carole and Gerry enough to have her release the single where it topped both the Billboard and R&B charts. During this time Eva was involved in an abusive relationship with a boyfriend who regularly beat her. When questioned by Gerry and Carole as to why she would stay in an abusive relationship she related (wrongly) that the beatings reflected how much he cared for her. At the time Gerry and Carole thought this made sufficiently good fodder for a song and wrote He Hit Me And It Felt Like A Kiss derived from a line in the 1955 movie version of Carousel. (Carole King, who would later in life become involved in a physically abusive marriage with Rick Evers, lists writing He Hit Me as the biggest regret of her career.) As awful of a song as He Hit Me was it still needed to a label willing to produce it and Philles provided just that venue. Philles was the record label then owned by Phil Spector and Lester Sill (Phil + Les = Philles). Phil Spector, a rising star in the production world, teamed with Lester Sill who provided the capital needed to get the label started. However, once Philles was operational Phil began to view Les as dead weight the label was caring and a deep chasm formed between the two. Phil wanted Les to sell out his share of the label now that it had become successful. Les was reluctant to sell out his share of the company because Phil was producing a series of hits and the cash was rolling in. Phils petulant response was to start recording records never meant to be successful or even air-worthy. The first of the clunkers was The Screw and the follow up He Hit Me was enough to convince Les to sell out his share of Philles for what he said amounted to pennies on the dollar. And as Paul Harvey used to say Now you know the rest of the story. youtube/watch?v=eKpVQm41f8Y
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 21:50:19 +0000
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