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The Penguins - Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine)

The Penguins - Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine) Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: California Doo Wop
Released: 1954

Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine) Lyrics

(oh, oh, oh, oh, wah-ah-ah, oh, oh, oh, oh
Earth angel, earth angel
Will you be mine?
My darling dear
Love you all the time
I'm just a fool
A fool in love with you

Earth angel, earth angel
The one I adore
Love you forever and ever more
I'm just a fool
A fool in love with you

I fell for you and I knew
The vision of your love-loveliness
I hoped and I pray that someday
I'll be the vision of your hap-happiness oh, oh, oh, OH!

Earth angel, earth angel
Please be mine
My darling dear
Love you all the time
I'm just a fool
A fool in love with you-ou-ou

I fell for you and I knew
The vision of your loveliness
I hope and pray that someday
That I'll be the vision of your happiness

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh , oh, oh, oh

Earth angel, earth angel
Please be mine
My darling dear
Love you all the time
I'm just a fool
A fool in love with you-ou (you, you, you)

Writer/s: ROBERTS, GREG / WILLIAMS, HERMAN EZEKIEL
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine)

One of the most popular doo-wop songs of all time, "Earth Angel" was just the second doo-wop song to hit the Top 10 on the pop charts, following the Chords' "Sh-Boom."

The Penguins were four black high school students from Fremont High in Los Angeles who were named for the logo on Kool cigarettes - a penguin named Willie (the group was originally called The Flywheels). They recorded this song in a garage and released it on a small black-owned label called Dootone Records. When it sold over 4 million copies, it proved that independent record labels could succeed, and many more began operating across America.

The composition of this song has a strange and convoluted history which came under scrutiny after it proved to be a lucrative hit. A singer-songwriter named Jesse Belvin composed the first version of this song. He was among the group of friends, including members of The Penguins, who would share ideas and work with each other's songs. The Penguins recorded a demo of the song in 1953 and took it to Dootone Records, but when they tried to record it, it was clear that the song needed more work. The Penguins bass player Curtis Williams helped simplify the arrangement, and a session piano player named Gaynell Hodge tweaked the song further. According to Dootone owner Dootsie Williams, a member of the group The Flairs named Cornel Gunter also helped out. Williams told Record Exchanger magazine: "They had the melody and the harmony but they didn't have the background. This Cornel Gunter got with them and rehearsed them. 'Man,' I said, 'Now we've got something.' In my estimation it had the perfect melody, the perfect harmony and the perfect background which are the three things that it needed."

Doing forensics on the songwriter credits was up to a judge, and complicated by the fact that Curtis Williams sold the song to a publisher. If Law & Order was around in the '50s, this would have made a great episode: Jesse Belvin was asked to stand up and sing his version of the song in court, which convinced the judge that he deserved some, but not all of the songwriting credit. The judge ended up awarding the credits to Belvin, Curtis Williams and Gaynell Hodge.

The song was recorded in June 1954, and released in September. It was issued as the B-side of another song called "Hey Senorita," but DJs flipped the record and "Earth Angel" was deemed the A-side. It was a huge hit, and landed The Penguins a major label record deal with Mercury Records. The Penguins never had another hit, although a re-release of "Earth Angel" bubbled under at #101 in 1960. It wasn't the worst deal for Mercury Records, however, as the Penguins were managed by Buck Ram, who as part of the deal insisted that Mercury also sign another of his acts: The Platters. The Penguins broke up in 1962, but The Platters had 23 US Top-40 hits, including four chart-toppers: "The Great Pretender," "My Prayer," "Twilight Time" and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes."

In the '50s, most hits by black artists were quickly recorded by white artists who often ended up with the bigger hit (Pat Boone did this to Little Richard more than once). The white group who recorded this on a major label was The Crew-Cuts (a band name just screaming "conformity"), whose version went to #3 in the US and hit #4 in the UK.

Besides the Crew-Cuts, artists to chart in the US with this song are: Gloria Mann (#18, 1955), Johnny Tillotson (#57, 1960), The Vogues (#42, 1969), New Edition (#21, 1986).

Counting up every version of this song, you arrive at over 30 million copies sold, making it the top R&B record of all time in terms of continuous popularity. This gives the Penguins the dubious honor of the one-hit wonders who had the biggest hit.

Angels were (and still are) one of the most common songwriting metaphors out there, but not among black groups. In the years preceding "Earth Angel," the most popular blues/R&B songs dealt with far less romantic topics, but the Penguins proved that a black group could be just as successful using a proven lyrical trope simplified to its essence. The song is a beloved classic, but it's not complicated: "Earth Angel, will you be mine? My darling dear, love you all the time. I'm just a fool, a fool in love with you." The only instruments on the track are drums and piano.

Vocally, the song is more complex, and it took The Penguins about six months to work it out. The lead is by their tenor, Cleveland Duncan, who delivers a suitably dramatic reading backed by second tenor Dexter Tisby and baritone Bruce Tate echoing the refrain while Curtis Williams added various gasps and other vocalizations.

Ray Charles - I Got A Woman

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Ray Charles - I Got A Woman Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: The Collection
Released: 1954

I Got A Woman Lyrics

I Got A Woman

This is a re-worked, secular version of a Gospel song called "My Jesus Is All the World to Me." It was the first hit song to use secular lyrics in a Gospel style. Some people consider this fusion of R&B, Gospel and Jazz was the first ever Soul record.

Ray Charles wrote this with his bandleader Renald Richard after hearing a spiritual on the radio while his band was on the road.

The mix of Gospel in Blues on this track was shocking in some circles, but also made the song accessible to a wider audience. The decision to mix styles happened organically. "I was just being myself," Charles said. "Of course it created a lot of static from a lot of people. But then, on the other hand, it was a hit. It was a hit in the black community and the white community."

In this song, Charles sings about a very supportive woman who helps him out in many ways. In 2005, Kanye West based sampled this for his #1 hit "Gold Digger." West's song, however, is about a girl who is after a guy for his money. There's a bit of a disconnect, as West used Charles' line "She gives me money, when I'm in need."

In 1962, the Philadelphia Jazz organist Jimmy McGriff recorded an instrumental version of this song that charted at #20 in the US. Known for his unique organ sound and Gospel influence, McGriff was a popular performer on the R&B club circuit until his retirement in 2007. He died at age 72 on May 25, 2008 of complications from multiple sclerosis. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

Lionel Bart - Oh For A Cup Of Tea

Lionel Bart - Oh For A Cup Of Tea Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: not on an album
Released: 1954

Oh For A Cup Of Tea Lyrics

Oh For A Cup Of Tea

According to the London Daily Mail of January 11, 2012, this was the first Lionel Bart song ever published, and earned him the princely sum of 25 guineas. It was recorded for The Billy Cotton Band Show, a radio program broadcast on the BBC. Bart, who was born Lionel Begleiter, was a composer of songs and musicals. His most famous work is the 1959 production Oliver!. (thanks, Alexander Baron - London, England)

Bart wrote this song for an amateur theater company he worked with called the Unity Theatre. The song is a stab at American culture that had encroached into England, specifically the new coffee bars that were popping up around London.