The Duprees, "Around the Corner" c/w "They Said It Couldn't Be Done," Columbia 4-43336 (rel. 6/1965)

 

I am no fan of The Duprees, white vocal group whose early hits I find bland examples of MOR pop, with prominent clarinets amongst their big-band style ballad arrangements. Throwbacks to the pre-rock 'n' roll sound of post-war pop, they hold zero interest. Here's an exception to that rule.
    In the mid-1960s, Columbia Records devoted itself to the rehabilitation of pop artists who'd fallen from grace. Why they did this is baffling; like RCA Victor, they preferred to have a handful of hot acts they maintained and nourished. In mid-1965, those included The Byrds, Simon & Garfunkel and Bob Dylan. Someone in Columbia's New York HQ had a soft spot for white vocal groups, and signed several for short tours of duty. The Duprees had more staying power than others; they lasted for five singles on this major label.
    Their vocal style still skewed towards blandness, but on this Columbia debut they made an effort to be more soulful. With "Around the Corner," a song co-written by Teddy Randazzo and Bobby Weinstein, they had a strong contender for the charts. In the vein of Jay & the Americans and The Tokens, it's a soaring urban saga influenced, like so many pop songs of its day, by the score from West Side Story. It's worth celebrating as a very good record from a very dull group. Though pedestrian pop was their comfort zone, they rose to the occasion and created a lost classic of this New York-centric style of music. Not quite rock 'n' roll and not r&b (though the vibe also owes a debt to The Drifters' "On Broadway"), "Around the Corner" is a solid recording that, unlike their starchy earlier hits, deserves to be heard. A regional hit, it topped out at #91 on the Billboard Hot 100 alongside "Like a Rolling Stone," "I Got You, Babe" and the inane "I'm Henry The VIII, I Am."

Billboard didn't expose the musical send-up of this single's B-side, which will become obvious anon. Cash Box couldn't be bothered.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/xu0xkq5c1ebeupwuhvwz6/2268aa.mp3?rlkey=78237p5d8ulz42kcq1ubigbdm&st=b3ftju75&dl=0

"They Said It Couldn't Be Done" is a send-up of the Hard Day's Night-era Beatles  and a chipper plagiarism of "You Can't Do That" that shows the group...rocking? Rolling, even...? The group claimed authorship of this Mersey mash-up, which is far better than it has any right to be. 
    Such groups were threatened by the British Invasion: it exposed them as the weak sisters they were--relics of an era that was over, whether or not they could accept it. That a credible (if derivative) rocker was coaxed out of them it a surprise. The all-too-obvious guitar riff, and some chord progressions, betray the song's inspiration, but the lead vocalist turns in a solid performance in an oddity that is also a blah group's high point. It would have been easy to do a tongue-in-cheek performance, and perhaps it was the plan, but the singer's enthusiasm wins out and the session musicians present with a decent simulation of British Invasion sounds. Not a bad outcome for this lackluster group!

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ehksey6jd8mz5cbemeflg/2268bb.mp3?rlkey=2wv04xtqp1pdds2r7zmg42y54&st=o05hwmjs&dl=0

A later Columbia single has the group doing two songs by John Sebastian, leader of The Lovin' Spoonful; most of these singles sides are given to, as another writer well describes, "...doo-wop heartbreak with a wonderfully large helping of soap opera excess." No thanks; I'll settle for this single.

Tomorrow: 1920s bluesman Lonnie Johnson in the mid-1960s with a pair of offbeat r&b delighters for King Records. Two touching performances from 1964.