“Right By My Side”: (Curt) Boettcher & (Bobby) Jameson

I couldn’t help noticing that Bobby Jameson wrote the kick-off song on Michele O’Malley‘s Saturn Rings album.  Curt Boettcher, interestingly, would be picked to produce Jameson’s second album — although the first “proper” album under his own name — Color Him In.

Cubist cover art for Jameson’s 1967 album on Verve

“Right By My Side” is the A-side of the album’s second single issued by Verve in August 1967 (while his first single had been attributed, curiously enough, to simply “Jameson” – no first name):

“Right By My Side“

Bobby Jameson (1967)

Produced by Curt Boettcher, Jim Bell & Steve Clark

It appears, however, that someone had forgotten to tell Cash Box about the song’s A-side status, as their singles reviewer in the September 30, 1967 issue had much to say about the anguished “Jamie” and not a single word about its ‘flip‘ mate, “Right By My Side —

Funky side with a misty rainy day mood for this solid somewhat soulful outpouring from Bobby Jameson.  The side builds very nicely and packs a potent finishing punch.  Flip:  “Right By My Side”

Jameson’s outstanding first album, as it turns out, had been recorded under a pseudonym (Chris Lucey), and its cover, bizarrely, featured a photo of Brian Jones (!) — face completely obscured by hair — playing a mouth harp and doing a rudely abstract gesture with his middle finger, I kid you not.

Canada – 1965

For those not familiar with this stranger-than-fictional tale, Bobby Jameson’s debut album – Songs of Protest and Anti-Protest – is a set of songs that Jameson wrote to order based upon a supplied set of song titles!   As Jameson himself reveals on his website, his artistically successful UK tour of 1964-65, where he appeared on Ready Steady Go and recorded with The Rolling Stones, nevertheless did little for his finances.

Billboard

July 18, 1964

Thus, broke and hungry, Jameson was vulnerable when he agreed to take on the character of “Chris Lucey” and write new songs to substitute for those whose titles had already been printed on the album jacket for (the real-life) Chris Ducey, who fled to another label, where he was under contract.  The songs, written over two weeks’ time and recorded with Marshall Lieb (Phil Spector’s bandmate in The Teddy Bears) are amazingly – given the circumstances – excellent and worthy of a world audience.

Obliquely Impolite Hand Gestures in the Annals of Pop –

‘Chris Lucey’ & Moby Grape

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Unlikely One-Off (+/-) Songwriter Pairings

Thanks to Bill Hanke for one of my all-time favorite bits of Beatle trivia:

Q:   What is the title of the only George Harrison-John Lennon composition?
A:    1961’s “Cry for a Shadow“

1964 German Beatles 45

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Bobby Jameson’s late 1964 single, “All I Want Is My Baby,” was co-written by Andrew Loog Oldham (manager of The Rolling Stones) and Keith Richards – one of two such songs by this unlikely pairing (the other being “I’d Much Rather Be With the Boys“):

Fuzz guitar (maybe) by Jimmy Page +

Backing vocals (possibly) by Mick Jagger

Unwashed masses, I turn to you –

Any other unlikely one-off songwriter pairings?

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Artist as Musicologist:

Check out Bobby Jameson’s annotated chronological listing of his own vinyl releases from 1963-1977.

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Hindsight –

In the Maw of Pop’s Hype Machinery

Cash Box

June 13, 1964

Billboard

July 11, 1964

Billboard

July 18, 1964

(Thanks to Bryan Richardson for digitally stitching this 2-page ad)

Billboard

July 25, 1964

(Thanks to Bryan Richardson for digitally stitching this 3-page ad)