Christine Quaite, "Tell Me Mamma" c/w "In The Middle Of The Floor," World Artists 1022 (rel. 1/1964)

Christine Quaite was another young female UK pop singer who existed in the alternate musical world reserved for she and her colleagues. Beside the storming, oft-brassy male beat-groups, whose guitar-oriented sound seldom allowed other instruments, Brit girl-pop helped session musicians earn a steady living. Clarinets, trumpets, strings—items never allowed in the rugged man-centric beat groups—and large vocal choirs give these distaff discs a style all their own.

As noted yesterday, Helen Shapiro set an early standard for this style: the girls had to be of school age, able to belt out a pop song with the best of them and willing to have their voices stacked against oft-massive arrangements which did their level best to overwhelm. Dusty Springfield’s global success brought new legitimacy to this approach, and prior to the onset of Beatlemania in the States, UK femme singers had their efforts issued here.

Recorded and released in late 1963, today’s single, Quaite’s fourth, was issued here mere days before The Beatles first visited America and forever changed the tenor of pop music. With no comparative measure, many of these records were ignored by DJs and any hope of a corresponding US hit was quashed.

Quaite was 15 when she made today’s platter, which did chart here: it reached #85 on the national Hot 100 and was on the charts for a few weeks—not bad for a complete unknown. No doubt her record picked up some appeal due to its being British; DJs could spin it for contrast to the handful of Beatle records then available. Like so many UK singles of the day, it covered an American song. “Tell Me Mamma” was first waxed by Janie Grant, whose country-tinged, double-tracked original appeared on United Artists Records in the summer of 1963.

Quaite’s version follows Grant’s to the letter, but ups the tempo to breakneck speed and lessens the annoyance factor of the original’s vocal chorus. Quaite’s voice has real force, and it, too, is double-tracked. It rises well above the tidy orchestral backing. “Tell me, mommer,” she sings in a version that is in some ways superior to Grant’s. The harder-edged take brings the song’s adolescent angst home with a flourish. Zero Spector/Bacharach influence here; that trend had already influenced UK pop but would hit home with feminine artists the next year.

Cash Box gave the single its customary guarded thumbs-up. The existing scan of that review is near-illegible but contains this nugget: The lark swings a happy (sic) up-tempo number that should gain teen recognition.

“In the Middle of the Floor” came from a more obscure source: a Black r&b singer named Janie Moore, whose original version on the Leopard label is impossibly rare; it was issued in 1963, and its probable source for Quaite was a song publishing acetate made in the UK. Again, Christine follows the original source, though the arrangement is more UK-centric, with a screechy electric organ and more aggressive backup vox by The Breakaways, the hardest-working session singers in the UK.

Quaite delivers a solid, assured performance and I’m grateful the arrangement isn’t overpowering. It’s another sad song disguised by a merry melody—a common and oft-unsettling trait in early 1960s pop music.

Christine Quaite's story can be read here:

https://spectropop.com/ChristineQuaite/

Tomorrow: Chicago pop-garage band The Choir with a Beatley A-side and a bluesy B, via a 1967 Roulette Records platter.