Today’s classic Girl Group song of the day is the rather obscure “Please Don’t Wake Me” by an equally obscure group called the Cinderellas. Released in 1964 on the Dimension label, this one didn’t chart, although it should have; it’s a perfect example of the 1960s Girl Group sound.
“Please Don’t Wake Me” was written by Cynthia Weil and Russ Titelman and produced by Mr. Titelman and Barry Mann. You know Ms. Weil from her songwriting partnership with her husband Barry Mann that produced hundreds of chart hits, including the Righteous Brothers’ ever-popular “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.” “Please Don’t Wake Me” is one of those rare instances where Ms. Weil wrote words for somebody else’s music.
Russ Titelman, who composed the song’s music, was a prolific songwriter and producer whose career started in the ’60s and stretched into the ’90s. Over the years he won three Grammy Awards, for producing Stevie Winwood’s “Higher Love” single and Eric Clapton’s Journeyman and Unplugged albums. He also co-wrote, with lyricist Gerry Goffin, the Girl Group classic “I Never Dreamed,” for the Cookies. We’ll get back to that one in a minute.
The reason that the Cinderellas are a little-known Girl Group is because they didn’t actually exist. In reality, the Cinderellas were a nom de plume for the well-known Girl Group the Cookies. It seems that the Cookies (singers Dorothy Jones, Earl-Jean McCrea, and Margaret Ross) liked to moonlight and recorded several tracks that came out under other group names, including the Palisades, the Stepping Stones, the Honey Bees, and, of course, the Cinderellas. They also provided backup vocals for a number of other artists, including Little Eva (“The Loco-Motion”) and Neil Sedaka (“Breaking Up is Hard to Do”).
The version of the Cookies that masqueraded as the Cinderellas was actually the second incarnation of the group. The first version of the Cookies was formed in 1954 and included Dorothy Jones, Darlene McCrea (Earl-Jean’s older sister), and Beulah Robertson (Dorothy’s cousin), who was later replaced by Margie Hendricks. This lineup did some local work that culminated with them appearing with Ray Charles, who poached Darlene and Margie to join his backup singers, the Raelettes.
The second version of the Cookies got together in 1961 and had considerably more success than the initial group. Their hit tunes included “Chains” (#17 in 1962) and “Don’t Say Nothin’ Bad (About My Baby)” (#7 in 1963). Both of those tunes were written by the legendary songwriting team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King, who wrote a lot of Girl Group hits.
Gerry Goffin also wrote the words for “I Never Dreamed,” for which Russ Titelman supplied the music. The Cookies released this one in 1964, the same year they released “Please Don’t Wake Me” as the Cinderellas. Goffin produced this one and his wife Carole King did the arrangement, which is super sweet. Unfortunately, like the track by the Cinderellas, “I Never Dreamed” didn’t crack the charts.
The Girl Group sound was a big moneymaker for the Brill Building songwriters of the early 1960s. Almost all the Brill Building songwriters cashed in with songs for that era’s big Girl Groups, including:
- Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, with songs for the Crystals (“Da Doo Ron Ron,” “Then He Kissed Me”), the Ronettes (“Be My Baby,” “Baby I Love You”), the Chiffons (“I Have a Boyfriend”), the Dixie Cups (“Chapel of Love,” “People Say“), the Jelly Beans (“I Wanna Love Him So Bad”), and the Shangra-Las (“Leader of the Pack”)
- Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, with songs for the Crystals (“Uptown,” “He’s Sure the Boy I Love”) and the Ronettes (“Walking in the Rain“)
- Gerry Goffin and Carole King, with songs for the Shirelles (“Will You Love Me Tomorrow“), the Crystals (“He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)”), the Chiffons (“One Fine Day”), and the Cookies (“Chains,” “Don’t Say Nothin’ Bad (About My Baby)”)
Even Burt Bacharach got into the act, writing (with Mack David and Luther Dixon) “Baby It’s You,” a big hit for the Shirelles.
The point is, the Girl Group sound was a big thing, propelled at least in part by first-rate songwriting from the top songwriters of that era. You’ll hear more of it tomorrow and the rest of this week, as we take a deeper dive into the Girl Groups of the 1960s.
