Bob Crewe
Robert Stanley Crewe was an American songwriter, dancer, singer, manager, and record producer. Crewe co-wrote and produced a string of Top 10 singles with Bob Gaudio for the Four Seasons.
As a songwriter, his most successful songs include "Silhouettes" ; "Big Girls Don't Cry", "Walk Like a Man", "Rag Doll", "Silence Is Golden", "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine ", "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" and "Bye, Bye, Baby" ; "Let's Hang On!" ; and "My Eyes Adored You" and "Lady Marmalade". He also had hit recordings with the Rays, Diane Renay, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Freddy Cannon, Lesley Gore, Oliver, Michael Jackson, Bobby Darin, Roberta Flack, Peabo Bryson, Patti LaBelle, Barry Manilow, and his own Bob Crewe Generation.
Early life
Born in Newark in 1930 and raised in Belleville, New Jersey, Crewe demonstrated an early gift for both art and music. Although lacking formal musical training, he gravitated to learning from many of the great 19th- and 20th-century classical romantic composers as well as giants of jazz and swing, including Stan Kenton, Harry James, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey. He studied for almost a year at Parsons School of Design in New York City with the intention of eventually pursuing a career in architecture.Career
The 1950s
In 1953, Crewe met and partnered professionally with Frank Slay Jr., a young pianist from Texas. Their collaboration created several hit songs, for which Crewe performed as the demo singer. Crewe and Slay's 1957 recording session with the Rays for XYZ produced two major hit songs. "Silhouettes", produced by Crewe, became a doo-wop anthem of the era. Climbing to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1957, "Silhouettes" displayed the flair for story-driven lyrics, innovative musical hooks, and final lyrical twists that were to become known as Crewe trademarks. In 1965, with a slightly faster tempo, "Silhouettes" again became a hit, this time for the British group Herman's Hermits, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Bob Dylan recorded "Silhouettes" during his legendary Basement Tapes sessions of the late 1960s, although his version was not released until 2014."Daddy Cool" was the B-side of the Rays' "Silhouettes" single. Written and produced by Crewe and Slay at the same 1957 session, it achieved considerable note. Both "Daddy Cool" and "Silhouettes" were covered the same year by the Canadian group the Diamonds, whose version of "Daddy Cool" reached No. 10 on the Billboard charts. In 1961, Guy "Daddy Cool" Darrell released another single version on the Warwick label, and in 1977, the UK band Darts made the song their first-ever studio recording, scoring a No. 6 hit.
Crewe and Slay built on their success by signing a deal with new, Philadelphia-based Swan Records. Sessions with Billy and Lillie produced the 1958 hit "Lah Dee Dah", which reached the No. 9 position on the Billboard Hot 100; the following year, Billy and Lillie's recording of "Lucky Ladybug" hit No. 14. Crewe and Slay also wrote two Top 10 hits - "Tallahassee Lassie" and "Okefenokee" - for Swan's rising star Freddy Cannon. Crewe also began to score his own hits, "Sweetie Pie" and "The Whiffenpoof Song".
The early 1960s
As a solo singer, Crewe recorded a pair of albums in 1961, one of which included a Ralph Burns-produced swing version of Yale University's signature "The Whiffenpoof Song". The record became a major hit in New York and led to Crewe's receiving "teen heartthrob" coverage in such popular teen magazines as 16 Magazine, and to guest appearances with Mickey Rooney and Connie Francis on such TV variety shows as The Revlon Revue.In the early 1960s, Crewe began writing with Bob Gaudio, who had risen to fame at age 15 as a member of The Royal Teens, for whom he'd co-written the hit "Short Shorts". The first Crewe-Gaudio collaboration, "Sherry", was written by Gaudio and produced by Crewe. In 1962 it became a No. 1 single for Gaudio's new band, the Four Seasons,. The pair wrote many other songs for the group, including the No. 1 hits "Big Girls Don't Cry", "Rag Doll", and "Walk Like a Man", as well as "Ronnie", "Bye, Bye, Baby ", and "Connie-O".
Crewe collaborated with Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell on the Four Seasons hit "Let's Hang On!". The Four Seasons were also the first to record the Crewe-Gaudio composition "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine ", later covered virtually note-for-note by the American singing group the Walker Brothers, who recorded their No. 1 selling version in England; their version made the American Top 10 as well. The Crewe-Gaudio collaborations capitalized on the extraordinary and distinctive voice of Frankie Valli, who could effortlessly soar to a piercing, emotionally expressive falsetto that became one of the emblematic and widely imitated sounds of the era. Record sales racked up by the Four Seasons are estimated as being between anywhere from 100 million to 199 million.
As the "Four Seasons sound" became more and more defined, other signature touches emerged, including dense but pristine-sounding percussion, such as the military-sounding march cadences and drum-stomps of "Sherry", "Big Girls Don't Cry", and "Walk Like a Man". The sophisticated harmonic patterns of the Four Seasons punctuated by the distinctive falsetto of Frankie Valli were at once classic and innovative, as was Crewe's use of melancholy harmonica on "Big Man in Town", the space-age organ of "Save It for Me", and the otherworldly glissandos of "Candy Girl".
In addition to his work with the Four Seasons, Crewe produced recording sessions by such artists as Dee Dee Sharp, The Orlons, Ben E. King, and The Highwaymen. With Bud Rehak and Eddie Rambeau he co-wrote "Navy Blue" for singer Diane Renay, and also produced it. Renay's recording made the Top 10 on the US pop chart in early 1964, and number one on the adult contemporary chart.
The mid to late 1960s
In 1965, Crewe formed his own record label, DynoVoice Records. With the release of the 1965 hit "Concrete and Clay" by Eddie Rambeau, DynoVoice launched a run of twenty-one Top 100 hits. The label found early success with the R&B trio the Toys, best known for their single "A Lover's Concerto", a No. 2 hit single, and "Attack". The Toys were produced by Denny Randell and Sandy Linzer for executive producer Crewe.Another DynoVoice powerhouse of the mid-1960s emerged when Crewe discovered a band called Billy Lee & The Rivieras. The group had limited success until he renamed them Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels. Under his direction, they scored eleven Top 100 hits, most notably Crewe's powerful and muscular arrangements of "Devil with a Blue Dress On", the group's highest-charting single at No. 4, as well as "Sock It to Me, Baby!", a No. 6 hit in 1967, and "Jenny Take a Ride", which reached No. 10 in 1965.
Another often-recorded song from the 1965 Linzer-Randell album by the Toys is "Can't Get Enough of You Baby". The number, co-written by Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell, was also recorded by the Bay City, Michigan, rock group ?? and the Mysterians, best known for their 1966 hit "96 Tears". "Can't Get Enough of You Baby" has enjoyed subsequent reinterpretations by the Colourfield and Smash Mouth, among many others.
Crewe's record label scored another hit with Norma Tanega's off-beat, folksy "Walkin' My Cat Named Dog". Crewe also helped bring success to the Epic Records group the Tremeloes with their hit cover of "Silence Is Golden", a song originally written for and recorded by the Four Seasons.
Bob Crewe himself released a version of Sid Ramin's 1967 instrumental "Music to Watch Girls By" on DynoVoice. The song became a Top 20 hit. and spawned another successful instrumental version by Al Hirt and a vocal hit by Andy Williams. In 1967, Bob Crewe produced and wrote seven of the songs sung by Lesley Gore on her last commercially successful album, California Nights, including producing the title track. The Bob Crewe Generation also recorded the original soundtrack for the 1968 Paramount Pictures motion picture Barbarella, starring Jane Fonda and directed by Roger Vadim. The soundtrack for the cult favorite features vocals by Crewe and the group the Glitterhouse.
In 1967, Crewe and Gaudio scored one of their greatest successes with "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", recorded by Frankie Valli with the Four Seasons. The song reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned a gold record. "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" has since been recorded by a wide variety of vocalists and bands, in several different languages. A 1968 version by singer Andy Williams climbed to No. 5 on the UK Singles Chart. Also achieving chart status over the decades were English-language versions by the Lettermen, Maureen McGovern, Boys Town Gang and Lauryn Hill. The song has been heard in numerous motion pictures, including The Deer Hunter, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Conspiracy Theory, 10 Things I Hate About You, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Bridget Jones's Diary, and Jersey Boys.
In 1969, Crewe collaborated with the singer Oliver, producing his pop hit "Jean", a song written by poet Rod McKuen which served as theme to the Oscar-winning film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, starring Maggie Smith. Crewe also produced a hit single of Oliver performing the optimistic "Good Morning Starshine" from the rock musical Hair. The song reached No. 3 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Easy Listening singles surveys.
The Crewe record label released a series of well-received recordings such as Ben Bagley's Cole Porter Revisited and Rodgers and Hart Revisited featuring vocal performances by such artists as Harold Arlen, Elaine Stritch, Dorothy Loudon, Anthony Perkins, Ann Hampton Callaway, Bobby Short, Jerry Orbach, Tammy Grimes, and Blossom Dearie.
Crewe sang "The Whiffenpoof Song" and was interviewed on The Jack Spector Show and appeared on Dick Clark's ABC-TV programs American Bandstand and Where the Action Is. He was interviewed by Dick Clark and some of his current 1960's songs were played for the dancers and crowds.