Thursday May 26, 2022 “He’s A Rebel” The Crystals
I’m pretty sure that The Crystals ‘rebel’ was the same guy that The Shangri-Las were dating in “Leader of the Pack”, the profile just seems to fit and it goes with that whole bad boy theme that appears so often in early girl group rock & roll.
Now there’s a bunch of interesting stuff that swirls around this group so let’s get started with the fact that they were discovered by Phil Spector when he heard the girls, still teenagers, rehearsing in the Brill Building. He recruited them to record “There’s No Other Like My Baby” which would be Spector’s first hit on his new label Philles. Their next top ten hit would be “Uptown” which beyond its lush arrangement, hey this is Phil Spector, had the undercurrent of some darker messaging.
“He gets up each morning and he goes downtown where everyone's his boss and he's lost in an angry land…
He don't get no breaks and he takes all they got to give 'cause he's got to live..."
Yeah I know that could also be “Five O’Clock World” by the Vogues or ”Friday on My Mind” by the Easybeats”…but they weren't girl groups.
The Crystals then recorded the oh so controversial and bizarre Carole King/Jerry Goffin written song “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)” a disturbing tune about infidelity and physical abuse of a woman, with a dark, ominous sound. Absolutely an odd topic for a pop song and radio stations agreed and refused to play it.
OK that didn’t work so up next was today’s number one song “He’s a Rebel '' written by singer/songwriter Gene Pitney and sung by Darlene Love…wait, what, I thought this was a Crystals hit!
There are a number of different stories why the Crystals didn’t do the vocals on this song but of course the main and final one was that Spector owned the band name and he could do whatever he wanted so Darlene Love recorded, uncredited, “He’s a Rebel” as well as the ‘Crystals’ next hit “He’s Sure the Boy I Love”.
Needless to say The Crystals and Spector were not getting along well and at that same time he discovered the Ronettes and his attention focused on them, and Ronnie. He created a new label and was promptly sued by his original partner at Philles, Lester Sills. Spector agreed that to end the relationship he would write and produce the next Crystals song and Sills would receive all the proceeds. Weasel that Spector was, the next Crystals record was “Let’s Dance (The Screw)” which clearly wasn’t going to get airplay on any English speaking radio station.
The Crystals hits would end there but they left behind, along with Darlene Love, a fine catalog of pop music.
Stay safe and well…and James Dean, The Wild One, “He’s a Rebel”, “Leader of the Pack”, were bad boys the thing in the 60s?