Dee Dee Warwick, "You're No Good" c/w "Don't Call Me Any More," Jubilee 45-5459 (rel. 9/1963)

 

I always find a couple of major wants at each year’s Canby Record Extravaganza, but today’s record may take the cake award. It’s the second copy of said disc I’ve ever seen. The first was spotted at a White Elephant thrift store in Seattle in 1994—a stock copy too cracked to take home. It had fallen flat on the floor, and someone’d stepped on it. I felt heartbroken but placed it out of harm’s way and went on with my day.

Cut to last Sunday. I made my debut as a record seller at the Canby show and earned enough scratch to make all that day’s purchases free and still come home with a profit. During lulls in sales, and since I had a partner at my table, I made some trips to other sellers’ spots and rifled through their wares. At the back of one table’s girl group section (where I pulled three other records) was “You’re No Good” in its original version by Dee Dee Warwick. Two dollars. I had a moment of disconnect as I added it to my stack.

Post-purchase, I showed my find to other collector friends. Those who knew of the record were surprised; one was a bit envious. Others, once I’d given them the elevator speech, were impressed. Though 2025 has been a horrible year for real life, it’s been a bountiful year for records, and my focus on music has helped me navigate the wretched waters of a brutal world. (Friends even more so, navigation-wise, but I count music as a lifelong chum.)

Why does this record get such respect and admiration? 1) It’s a damned fine single; both sides are 10/10 songs and performances 2) It’s rare; few were made because 3) A potential hit was stolen from Dee Dee Warwick by her better-known peer Betty Everett.

Songwriter Clint Ballard spoke of “You’re No Good” as a song he first wrote with a male vocalist in mind. Its dark, bitter message was, he realized, too intense for a man to sing in 1963. The song got into the hands of Vee-Jay Records through label exec Calvin Carter, who picked it up (perhaps in today’s single) with the idea that the label’s male soul star Dee Clark would cover it. But, as Carter recalled:

 "…when I went to rehearsal with the tune, it was so negative, I said, 'Hey, guys don't talk negative about girls, because girls are the record buyers. No, I better pass on that.' So I gave the song to Betty Everett." 

Ms. Everett had the hit, and her record is a classic. Label-mates The Dells were in the studio and stomped their feet on the floor in time to the dark minor-key beat. Released two months after Dee Dee’s original, it wiped the floor with hers and got onto the pop charts. Warwick’s mesmerizing and superior original was forgotten; it must have hurt her to have this incredible debut single destroyed by the tools of capitalism, but she wasn’t alone; this happened to several performers every year and it was just the cogs and gears of an entertainment industry. Those teeth chew up a lot of worthy talent in their relentless quest for the mean green.

Warwick was already a presence on American records. With her sister Dionne and Cissy Houston, she was part of an in-demand group of background singers, with Doris Troy often in tow. These four voices are heard on many New York-produced r&b, soul and pop recordings of the early 1960s. Writer-producer Burt Bacharach sensed something exceptional in Dionne Warwick and helped her begin a solo career. The other three followed, but Dionne’s global success and appeal eluded them; Cissy Houston came in a close second and Dee Dee had some mild successes; Doris Troy did well enough with her single “Just One Look” for Atlantic Records to put out an LP. So: successful, but not successful. Dionne Warwick was successful.

Dee Dee’s debut had some heavy talent in the studio. Producers Jerry Leiber and Mile Stoller were joined by arranger Garry Sherman, the three women in the background-vocal clique and perhaps session guitarist Vincent Bell, as a Danelectro 12-string guitar is heard on the B-side and he was its acknowledged master at the time.

With so much talent in the room, how could the results fail? Well, you know what happened. The single bubbled under the national Hot 100 at #117. Betty Everett’s predatory cover? It just missed the Top 50 but went to #5 in rhythm and blues. Greater success for the song came when Liverpool band The Swinging Blue Jeans achieved a global hit with it; in the 1970s, Linda Ronstadt’s revival topped the national charts and is the version most people know best.

Dee Dee’s double-tracked lead vocal is on fire amidst the voices of her session comrades and a vital bed of percussion and brass. Since Betty Everett followed this version to the letter, it sounds familiar but—tho’ I love Betty’s records—this is a superior performance. It doesn’t have the footstomp of Everett’s hit, but its looser rhythm is more fluid and sensuous. Add a menacing fuzz guitar solo (possibly Bell’s work) and we have pop-soul perfection. Listen with an open mind and you may agree that this should’ve been the hit rendition.

Cash Box got the picture tho' they short-changed the powerful B-side.

The moody vibe continues in “Don’t Call Me Anymore,” another Clint Ballard song, co-written with frequent collaborator Les Ledo. With brooding 12-string fuzz guitar throughout, this multi-tempo kiss-off is a part two of “You’re No Good,” as if the errant lover needed more details to understand the consequences of his bad behavior.

Cissy Houston and Doris Troy are more emphatic on this side; their contribution abets the intense, bitter feeling of this flipside. One thinks of George Harrison’s song “Don’t Bother Me,” recorded around the same time in 1963 (The Beatles’ session was September 11^th 1963; Dee Dee’s isn’t documented but had to be from the late summer since her single was issued on the last week of that month. With the Beatles, the group’s second LP, hit store racks in December of that year.)

One can hear a potential Hollies cover version of “Don’t Call Me Anymore.” The group had a UK #1 with Clint Ballard’s “I’m Alive,” but perhaps this song was too dark for a male group to consider it. It’s an outstanding B-side and makes this single a double-dose of high-impact music.

Leiber and Stoller tried again with Dee Dee Warwick. They recorded two fine songs by Van McCoy for her second single, issued on the producers’ Tiger imprint in 1964. That single also tanked. As she watched her sister soar into international fame, Dee Dee might have felt discouraged. Her outspoken, forthright manner, with a “my way or the highway” attitude, didn’t endear her to everyone, but she got a berth with Mercury Records in Chicago, where she recorded for their great soul imprint Blue Rock and created such classics as “Got To Get A Hold of Myself” and “We’re Doing Fine”—both covered by UK beat groups. A switch to Mercury got her a pop hit with “I Want to Be with You.” It just missed the Top 40 in 1966 but was an r&b hit and sired an LP of the same name.

Speaking of albums, a legit compilation of Dee Dee Warwick’s 1960s singles deserves to exist. Were I able to produce such collections, I’d hop on this one.

Tomorrow: we go to Cleveland, where The Bender Sisters produce The David Lynch Effect© with a haunting, minimal 1958 single for the local label Lowe Records. Expect the…well, it’s a Saturday record and they’re all a bit daft. See you then!