Magic Colors: The Lost Album With Bonus Tracks 1967-1969 [CD]

MAGIC COLORS is often referred to as one of the great lost Lesley Gore albums, the others being the OFF AND RUNNING long-player and the December 1964 Shelby Singleton sessions. It was presaged on the labels of the "Magic Colors" single, but never were issued in its entirety until July 1994 when the 5-CD Bear Family Lesley Gore box set, IT'S MY PARTY!, was released. Several cuts from all 3 did surface on B-sides or, in the case of OFF AND RUNNING, on Gore's CALIFORNIA NIGHTS LP.

Lesley Gore was at an interesting point in her career when she recorded the MAGIC COLORS project in Hollywood in August and October 1967. That spring, when the Summer of Love officially began with love-ins and be-ins coast-to-coast and, famously, in San Francisco's Haight Asbury/Golden Gate Park area, Lesley re-established the staying power she displayed during the British Invasion three years earlier. She enjoyed one of her biggest-selling records, the Bob Crewe-produced, Marvin Hamlisch co-written "California Nights." The follow-up copycat sequel, "Summer and Sandy" failed to get past #54 in Cash Box and #65 in Billboard, despite doing well in some markets, and the press-heralded second Gore-Crewe album was abandoned.

At any rate, by 1967, Lesley Gore was spending most of her summers and any significant time away from Sarah Lawrence College in Hollywood, typically ensconced in the legendary Beverly Hills Hotel, where I first met her in the spring of that year. So it was natural that she look for a new recording situation in La-La Land, and producer Steve Douglas was an excellent choice. Douglas was the venerated saxophone genius who was a key player in Phil Spector's Ronettes and Crystals Wall of Sound extravaganzas; participated in and helmed many, many great recordings at Gold Star Studios; and was making quite a name for himself producing up-and-coming psychedelic rock bands. The combination of Douglas and Gore's girl group roots as well as their eager exploration of new musical territories made them a potent team.

Their very first session together, August 15, 1967, yielded one of Gore's best loved classic singles, "Brink of Disaster," in which her conscience (portrayed as a New Vaudeville Band megaphone-type inner voice) advises a double-tracked and willful Lesley Gore that she is treading on thin ice - or, specifically, on the 'brink of disaster' - by keeping on with the heartbreaker she ultimately decides to keep playing with anyhow. The song has Spanish flourishes, Beach Boys undertones, a big, big beat, and is belted with an exuberance that belies the lyrics. Like "Maybe I Know," "Look of Love" and many of her earlier hits, "Brink of Disaster" found us rockin' out to Lesley's reckless romantic entanglements.

The B-side, "On A Day Like Today," in which Lesley's love interest has moved on and faces stiff competition from a guy down the hall who is making a play, was like part two of Martha Reeves and The Vandellas' "Jimmy Mack." With its fierce drumming, heart-lifting horns, Association-influenced arrangement, and tough-as-nails committed vocals from LG, this track found a home on many M-O-R (middle of the road, code for adult-oriented) radio stations in fall 1967.

It is interesting to note that the session in which these songs were recorded lasted four and a half hours, yielded two complete and great recordings, and was on the radio within one month. That is unheard of today. Despite great reviews, enthusiastic feedback from radio and significant airplay in many major markets, "Brink" stalled at #82 in Billboard and #87 in Cash Box in October 1967, and is widely considered Lesley Gore's last Mercury Hot 100 chart item ("He Gives Me Love (La La La)", however, did chart in Cash Box and Record World in summer 1968).

Gore and Douglas recorded four more songs in August 1967: "Where Can I Go?," a Lesley and Michael Gore composition that paired a despairing lyric with a relentlessly cheerful melody and placed that combination in a folk-rock meets Broadway march; a re-recording of the Gores' "I'm Fallin' Down," that sounds like a very slight tweaking of the original Bob Crewe production; a second version of the touching Vietnam era ballad, "You Sent Me Silver Bells," which Gore first recorded with Quincy Jones for the OFF AND RUNNING project; and a bluesy, evocative "He Won't See the Light."

By October 1967, "Brink" was on the charts, for however brief a stay, and Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield had submitted the dark, moody "Magic Colors" for Lesley's consideration. They had previously created two heavily played Coca Cola commercials for Lesley, and they were right on time with "Magic Colors." In the inspired hands of Gore and Douglas, the downbeat rocker introduced Spanky and Our Gang to Grace Slick in a moment of cathartic abandon and veered very close to psychedelia. Nightclub drenched versions of "To Sir, With Love," "How Can I Be Sure" and The Tokens' very Summer of Love "It's A Happening World" were sung with sensitivity and intelligence, and rounded out the MAGIC COLORS sessions.

Issued as a single in November, "Magic Colors" did receive airplay on WMCA in New York City and a few other key outlets, but failed to spark, and the consistent, cohesive brilliance of the MAGIC COLORS project was scrapped, not to see daylight until the 1994 Bear Family exhumation. MAGIC COLORS can now be savored and enjoyed in its entirety as the outstanding and wonderful "lost" Lesley Gore pop masterpiece it is, along with the rest of Lesley's superb and overlooked Mercury output, including the brilliant Gamble & Huff-Thom Bell recordings. Enjoy!

For an excellent overview, please read James' superb contribution. I just wanted to say that if you don't have the Bear Family box set and would like a sampling of Lesley's last years and sessions for Mercury Records - this is it. Nothing new outside of the box set, but a good, fine sounding compilation.

I do want to mention the booklet - great pictures and label shots and an interesting essay in the Ace style but 2 points stick out:
1. I remember reading that the record that the Beatles pointed out to producer George Martin as to how they wanted their records to sound was "She's a fool", not "It's my party". The former makes more sense as Beatles records starting with "I want to hold you hand" had a tighter sound to them as did "She's a fool". Compare the use of hand claps, for example, in both. The timeline involved would also seem more correct.
2. The booklet states under the entry for "He sent me silver bells" that Lesley never worked with composer Teddy Randazzo. True fans know that Randazzo worked with Lesley, as conductor, on several tracks for the "My town, my guy and me" lp the title track, Lesley's co-written track with her brother, "A girl in love", and another of his compositions that he had recorded earlier in 1965 with Georgia Gibbs for her Bell label lp, "Let me dream". According to the session sheets, Randazzo also conducted "Just another fool" and "The things we did last summer."

Perhaps it should have said "never worked with Teddy Randazzo in the producer's seat."

Nevertheless, a superbly reproduced and excellent collection on the later Mercury recordings of Lesley Gore.

Mercury's botching of Lesley's later years with the label are fully paraded in this splendid new issue. By the time she'd recorded "Magic Colors" she was quite a different artist from the girl who had sung "It's My Party." And she was selecting challenging, adventurous music recorded with all the detail and care she and Quincy Jones and her later artistic team had been known for. But instead of advertising Gore aggressively as that different kind of artist, Mercury just kept releasing singles with no distinct publicity campaigns behind them. So the public wasn't aware she had evolved "someplace else now" and that she was putting out there intriguing and timely music. A pity, a real pity, because these later tracks represent some of her finest work. The fact Mercury canned the "Magic Colors" L.P. because the label didn't get action on the single tells all. Mercury's head was still in the singles pile; other labels had moved to focusing on albums. Ten years earlier, after an amazing run year after year after year of double-sided hits M-G-M Records' Joni James had figured out that hit singles always run out at some point but a singer who knows how to create fabulous albums can have a sure future. So Joni the Queen of the Juke Box became Joni the Princess of Albums and M-G-M made a fortune. By comparison, Mercury just never showed up for Lesley's party.