Monday, January 6, 2014

Won't you come out to play? (The Beatles) #114

The 5 Stairsteps and Cubie O-o-h Child/ Dear Prudence (Buddha, 2011018, 1970)

The Five Stairsteps (the five and 5 are both used it seems) was a family group from Chicago that included a 6th sibling - Cubie, for this hit song. Unlike the Jacksons, The Stairsteps was a co-ed group.

Originally the B side Beatles cover was the A side but it was flipped when the A side became more popular. The song is ranked #402 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

[BTW the Beatle link continued later in their career when the band re branded as The Stairsteps signed with George Harrison's Dark Horse label].

Obviously I was ignorant of all of this when I bought the single from a funny little electrical shop in Greenlane, Auckland. It's long gone but it was a great shop as the old bloke there had heaps of single but no idea about pricing - I got a lot of singles there!

Hidden gem: The draw card for me was obviously the B side. It's a pretty good version too. I'm normally not a fan of Beatle covers but this one sticks reasonably close musically but with a different vocal arrangement so it's fresh and soulful.

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