“Midnight Confessions” (The Grass Roots)

Today’s classic song of the day is another Steve Barri production for ABC/Dunhill Records. The song is “Midnight Confessions” and the group is the Grass Roots. Released in June of 1968, this single rose to #5 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100 charts.

“Midnight Confessions” was originally written for a group called the Ever-Green Blues by their manager, Lou Josie. Steve Barri, producer and A&R guy for ABC/Dunhill, heard that recording and decided it would be perfect for the Grass Roots, one of his artists. He’d been looking for a “West Coast” version of a Motown-style tune and “Midnight Confessions” fit the bill.

Barri brought in Jimmy Haskell to write the horn parts and contracted with those studio cats known as the Wrecking Crew to provide the backing tracks. Musicians included Ben Benay and Mike Deasy on electric guitars, Don Randi on piano, Larry Knechtel on organ, Carol Kaye on bass (really an incredible bass line throughout the entire track), Emil Richards on percussion, and the ubiquitous (and justifiably so) Hal Blaine on those driving four-on-the-snare drums. Grass Rooters Rob Grill and Warren Entner shared lead vocal duties, Rob singing the verses and Warren the choruses. The result was almost a note-for-note copy of the original, but with a little special magic from the studio cats.

“Midnight Confessions” is about a buy obsessing about a girl who just happens to be married to someone else. It’s all there in the lyrics:

There’s a little gold ring you wear on your hand
Makes me understand
There’s another before me, you’ll never be mine
I’m wastin’ my time

In my midnight confession
When I tell all the world that I love you
In my midnight confessions
When I say all the things that I want to

Steve Barri had tremendous success throughout the ’60s and early ’70s with artists such as the the Turtles, Herman’s Hermits, Cass Elliot, Barry McGuire, Johnny Rivers, Tommy Roe, and the Grass Roots, primarily on the ABC/Dunhill label. He scored further hits with the Four Tops after they moved from Motown to ABC/Dunhill, including yesterday’s classic song of the day, “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got).” Later, after ABC dissolved the Dunhill label, Barri moved to the parent company and produced hits for John Sebastian (“Welcome Back”), Alan O’Day (“Undercover Angel“), Cashman & West (“American City Suite“), and others. He left ABC for Motown in 1982, where he produced Lionel Richie, Rick James, and other artists. After he left Motown in 1986, Barri moved into artist management, while still doing some producing. He’s 82 years old now and retired.

And here’s your bonus video of the day, the Grass Roots singing live (but miming to a prerecorded instrumental track) on a medley of “I’d Wait a Million Years,” “Midnight Confessions,” and “Let’s Live for Today” on The Ed Sullivan Show on December 6, 1970. Groovy!