“She’s Just My Style” (Gary Lewis & the Playboys)

Today’s classic song of the day is “She’s Just My Style” by Gary Lewis & the Playboys. Released in November of 1965, this single went all the way to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.

“She’s Just My Style” was written by Gary Lewis along with professional songwriter Al Capps, producer Snuff Garrett, and arranger/studio musician Leon Russell. Here’s what Mr. Lewis remembers about it:

“That was really fun. Leon and Snuffy said, ‘All right, let’s write a song about the California coast and the beach and the surf and the sun.’ I said, ‘Oh, so you want to do like a Beach Boys thing?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, yeah. With voices and a lot of harmonies and stuff like that.’ I said, ‘Well, great. I like the Beach Boys.’ They recorded in the same studio that we recorded in, too. So I was always visiting them or they were coming and visiting me on my sessions. So that’s what we were going for, a Beach Boys type sound. And ‘Just My Style’ was the second biggest tune we had for Liberty.”

The song was the fifth of ten top twenty hits for the group, the others being “This Diamond Ring,” “Count Me In,” “Save Your Heart for Me,” “Everybody Loves a Clown,” “Sure Gonna Miss Her,” “Green Grass,” “My Heart’s Symphony,” “(You Don’t Have To) Paint Me a Picture,” and a cover of “Sealed With a Kiss.”

“She’s Just My Style” has the distinction of being the first recorded work of legendary drummer Jim Keltner, then 23 years old. He’d been hanging around the studios, being mentored by his idol, the great Hal Blaine, and this session finally gave him the opportunity to play one on his own. Many good things followed.

For today’s daily bonus video of the day, here’s Gary Lewis and the Playboys lip-synching “She’s Just My Style” on the February 27, 1966, episode of The Ed Sullivan Show. Mr. Lewis really couldn’t sing live. (Or at all, if the tales from the studio are true.)