Something I was wondering...now most of us all know and love "You Don't Know How To Tell The Truth," the Moore/Garagiola-era TTTT theme of course. What I want to know is, does anyone know the artist(s) who actually sang the song?

Anonymous session singers. Score probably has their names somewhere in their files, in case they have to got royalties off the Varese Sarabande game show album or "Catch Me if You Can."

Anonymous session singers. Score probably has their names somewhere in their files, in case they have to got royalties off the Varese Sarabande game show album or "Catch Me if You Can."
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Yeah it's probably in the same file as the "All Star Blitz" Guy and the "The Better Sex" singers.


Dizzy

Anonymous session singers were big around that era, after Don Kirshner proved he could create a group (The Archies) bereft of actual people. Sometimes the same person would sing for multiple groups (the same guy sang both "Sugar Sugar" and the Cuff Links' "Tracy," another guy sang both "Love Grows {Where My Rosemary Goes}" by Edison Lighthouse and "My Baby Loves Lovin'" by White Plains).

The singer(s) may have worked for a flat fee, rather than a royalty scale.

Back in the days when atgs was "cool", I thought I remember someone say that Score Prods. had used the same singers who sang the "Love, American Style" theme? I want to say that they were the Charles Fox Singers, as Fox was a prominent TV theme writer/composer in the 60's & 70's.

Back in the days when atgs was "cool", I thought I remember someone say that Score Prods. had used the same singers who sang the "Love, American Style" theme? I want to say that they were the Charles Fox Singers, as Fox was a prominent TV theme writer/composer in the 60's & 70's.
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"The Cowsills" did Love American Style. You can hear a piece of it by clicking track 13 here http://music.msn.com/artist/?artist=16073522&palbum=10473615

A little history on the Band can be seen here. I also believe they were the inspiration for The Partridge Family.

http://www.stellarshowcase.durham.on.ca/billhistory.htm



Dizzy

The Cowsills did indeed sing a version of LAS, but did not sing the actual TV version. I don't want to confuse anyone out there in TV-Land land into thinking the Cowsills sang the TV version. BTW, Charles Fox, along with Arnold Margolin co-wrote the song.

The Cowsills are better known for "The Rain, The Park, and Other Things" and the theme to Hair.

Tim, I think you may be right on that. IIRC, Charles Fox co-wrote the TTTT theme [with Paul Alter].

The Cowsills did indeed sing a version of LAS, but did not sing the actual TV version. I don't want to confuse anyone out there in TV-Land land into thinking the Cowsills sang the TV version.
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This may be the wrong place to get in a Love American style debate, but I thought The Cowsills did sing the TV version........until I found this page

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showth...?threadid=19511

I guess we can end the debate here and now since the Composer of the song chimed in on that Board. Not even sure where the Cowsills enter into the equation anymore. Now I'm all confused. lol.


Dizzy

The Cowsills are in an elite category of musical artists who performed TV theme songs that made the Billboard Charts, but their versions were not the original TV versions.

Other artists in that elite category:

•The Ventures -- "Theme From 'Hawaii Five-0'" (1969)

•Pratt & McClain -- "Happy Days" (which BTW was another Charles Fox ditty, IIRC). (1976)

•Al Caiola -- "Theme From 'Bonanza'" (1961)


and to keep on topic...

•Billy Vaughn -- "A Swingin' Safari" aka "Theme from 'The Match Game'" (1962)

The lead singer of both the Archies and the Cuff Links was Ron Dante. Andy Kim, Donna Marie, Toni Wine and Jeannie Thomas were the other singers. (Me, I still stay up nights wondering whose "I'm gonna make love so sweet" is first in the song "Sugar Sugar" - Betty or Veronica.)

Edison Lighthouse's and White Plains' lead singer was Tony Burrows, a Brit. Neither of Burrows' groups had any formal connection to Don Kirschner, however.

There's errant information to be found on various websites, and even within the second Varese GS theme collection, attributing the 1960s "The Match Game" theme to Vaughn. While Billy's rendition was, indeed, used on the never-aired pilot (which is easily available on the trading circuit), it was composer Bert Kaempfert's own version that was actually heard on the show every day for almost six years.

Actually, the Cowsills were the inspiration for The Partridge Family. Furthermore, when the pilot was in itas earliest stages in 1969, the family was originally supposed to be played by the Cowsills themselves.

ObGS: Bert Convy guest starred on PF three times.

Andy Kim had a hit with "Baby, I Love You".

Can't say I recognize the other names.

I don't recall ever hearing of a song called "Baby, I Love You" but I think that Andy Kim's most recognizeable hit would have been "Rock Me Gently"...

Jake

How appropriate you've been arguing these points of top-40 trivia on Casey Kasem's birthday!

And don't forget Ron Dante was also lead singer on The Detergents' hit "Leader of the Laundromat". The story behind "studio groups" of session singers and session musicians would make for fun reading. The best book on the subject I've seen is Hal Blaine's "Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew".


Speaking of minutae, my information cites Toni Wine only singing on the Archies' first recordings, including "Sugar, Sugar". She opted out of subsequent sessions reportedly because she was unhappy at not having been paid royalties on a single that sold over 3 million copies. The Brill Building magic was still alive well into the 70s! For more on THAT subject, read up on Mr. Morris Levy.

btw, the musical group playing on the 1972 TPiR cues is the famed London "Out of Local 47 Jurisdiction" Orchestra!


Randy
tvrandywest.com

The Marketts, Batman Theme, 1966

- Les Baxter and Felicia Sanders, both of whom did The Theme from 'Medic' (Blue Star), 1955
- Valjean, The Theme from 'Ben Casey,' 1962

and here's a case of a show's star singing his own theme song (but not the version used on the show):
- Richard Chamberlain, Theme from 'Dr. Kildare' (Three Stars Will Shine Tonight), 1962

Maybe this category isn't so elite after all...

And to tie everything up, Toni Wine was one of the Brill Building songwriters who cranked out many, many hits in the 60s, along with session singing. Oh look, she's got a web site!

I've misplaced my copy at the moment, but "Bubblegum Music Is the Naked Truth" talks a lot about such.

I was given one of those albums of TV themes in the late '70s ( I think from K-TEL), which included "Happy Days" and "Hawaii Five O". Being a purist, I prefer the originals which you heard on TV. Another you could add to the list:

Steve Carlisle "WKRP in Cincinnati".

Although Steve did sing the on-air version, his single release of the tune is a new recording and sounds slightly different. Probably the reason for the re-records is because the on-air themes just weren't long enough for a single release.





That was his No. 1 hit, but I much like his version of "Be My Baby". "Baby, I Love You" was a remake of a Ronettes' song that Andy released as a single.

I knew I recognized Toni Wine's name - I think she might have written some Monkees songs, or was affiliated with them somehow during the Kirshner years.

Let's see, if Dante = Archie, who substituted for the others? Maybe Jughead was replaced by Midge or Big Ethel during the sessions.

Randy, thanks for the reminder on the Detergents.

Now to go even further on a tangent....

Did Hal Blaine play on those famous KHJ/WOR-FM etc. jingles commissioned by Bill Drake? I've heard some demo tracks and one of the notes heard over the talkback is "a little heavier, Hal".... I think I read someplace that Johnny Mann and company recorded those jingles in LA....

Hal Blaine DID play drums on the Drake radio jingles. An amazing iota of trivia - congratulations!

For those unfamiliar, those jingles were pretty revolutionary when introduced in the mid 1960s. They were very quick, but richly orchestrated. They featured a rhythm section reminiscent of the Motown sound that was so popular at the time. Drake-Chenault also sold those cuts outside of the radio stations in the RKO chain they programmed, via their company American Idependent Radio.

Building on the success of those jingles, Joseph P. Cuff and Company looked to create a subsequent package with similar impact. He hired many of the studio musicians who played on the Drake sessions, and referred to them on the demo as "21 top-flight Hollywood musicians". Those sessions also featured Hal Blaine.


Randy
tvrandywest.com

I knew I recognized the KHJ jingles - I heard them in the '70s on WRKO in Boston during the weeks we'd spend in Massachusetts on vacation.

Someone, for possibly a brief time, had about a dozen KHJ jingles on a web site as MP3s (which I quickly downloaded) - I've never been able to find the site since then.

Love to get my hands on some WABC jingles in MP3 format, but that doesn't seem likely to happen.

How far astray has this thread gone, anyway?

E-mail me... I'll hook you up.

Mann also wrote the 2nd and 3rd jingles packages for the old WMCA here in NY...a buncha them are available in WAV format here:

WMCA Jingles

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

Barry Manilow's old musical partner Ron Dante? Huh!




Neither one, silly. In a thread about anonymous session singers, you have to know that that line was sung by an uncredited Josie, several years before she and the Pussycats had their breakthrough.

Seriously? They were London players?

Funny you should mention those cues. At long last I burned a bunch of TPiR music to CD and took it on a car trip last week. I've heard 'em for years, of course, but (a) on TV, with persons such as your fineself reading copy over, or (b) over crummy little computer speakers. But on I-78, with no distractions other than traffic, I was positively amazed. Those cues--both the writing and the playing--are so much better than they had to be. The variety of styles and instrumentation...considering that the standard of the day was a crummy little TV speaker, well... just wow.

Edd, Sheila, Bob, y'all have my even-deeper admiration.

(Sidebar: also on that CD is the Narz Concentration theme, whose bass player must have been, at least for that moment, the hardest workin' player in show biz.)

To take this one step further... The original Drake "rum pum" tracks were recorded in April 1969 at Western Recorders in Los Angeles. Hal Blain did play drums on the session, as we documented when were posted some out-takes mixed out from the original 1" multi-track reel at http://www.jingles.org/mpf/mpfaudio.html

Further... there was a later Drake package othewise known as THE MOTOWN PACKAGE. What most people don't realize is that the backing tracks for this package were actually cut at Motown.

Joseph P. Cuff's Image II was a "must have" for many radio stations... following up on the KHJ logo'ed concept. The package was available with either Dallas vocals (mainly the TM Productions "A" group of the time, led by Judy Parma) or the infamous Los Angeles singers who sang on many of the original Drake packages.

I hope this helps....

Tracy E. Carman
Executive Director
Media Preservation Foundation

Welcome, Tracy! Our Invision family should know that Tracy is THE authority on radio jingles, and a great guy. Hope you'll visit us again, my friend.

Randy
tvrandywest.com

Any way that Tracy can help me get my hands on some old WIXY-1260 jingles, preferrably the non-PAMS, Spot Productions packages?

Chief-O:

Robert Israel of Score Productions wrote the music for the To Tell the Truth theme. Paul Alter(the show's director) wrote the lyrics.

However, it is widely believed that Charles Fox actually wrote the music for the "TTTT" theme--one of the last things he did for Score before writing the score to "Goodbye Columbus" and the theme for "Love American Style." Since Score required their contract writers to sign over the rights to the head of the company, he most likely never received the royalty money he should have.

Fox's other major Score credits were the "Wide World of Sports" theme (the most well-known one, accompanying that ski jumper) and the original "Monday Night Football" theme (the one with the director saying in the background "Ready tape...ready replay...ready to cue Keith, Dan and Howard....", etc.).