In April 1962, the Starlets were working "My Last Cry" along the East Coast, when they ran into a Philadelphia car dealer named Harold Robinson who also operated a small recording studio in his car lot!

Under the impression that their one-year contract with Pam had expired, he signed them to do a remake of the 1946 Leon René and Otis René song "I Sold My Heart To The Junkman" which over the years had been done by everybody from Etta Jones to Dinah Washington to the Four Tunes and the Silhouettes.

Robinson pressed promotion copies under the name The Starlets, but when he discovered that the Starlets were still contracted to Pam Records, he went ahead and released the record on his own Newton label, under the invented name of The BlueBelles.

When the record took off, Robinson needed a band to appear on American Bandstand, so he recruited a local outfit called The Ordettes, to whom he had already promised a recording deal, and promptly re-christened them as The Bluebelles. To add some air of versimilitude, he persuaded the Ordettes lead singer Patricia Holt, to change her name to Patti LaBelle, and then also re-recorded the song with the new lineup, although by then, the hit had peaked so there was no point in releasing the new version.

Naturally enough, the Starlets (and Pam Records) sued, and although Robinson tried to claim that in fact, he had only used the Starlets as backing singers behind Patricia Holt of the Ordettes, the actual record producer employed by Robinson (Phil Terry) said that he had only used the Starlets and nobody else, with the result that the judge awarded the original Starlets $20,000 in damages.

To add to his problems, poor Harold Robinson then found that the Bluebells, having scored an real hit "Down The Aisle" for Newtown, had deserted him for Cameo Parkway, where they promptly re-recorded the "Junkman" song yet again, this time for album release.

Six months later, they left Cameo for Atlantic, where they recorded - you've guessed it - yet another version of "Junkman" for Atlantic.

Later, a live version done at the Apollo Theatre, was released on Atlantic, and as far as I know, there are five versions of the song all recorded by the Bluebelles (or Blue Bells, or Bluebells, or indeed Blue-Belles!).

Not a bad track record for a song written back in 1946 for the Basin Street Boys!

• RE: For Joyce - Ask The Geator - John 05/08/2007 01:46:38 EDT (1)