Bobby Day (b. 1932 Robert James Byrd Snr d. 1990)
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Bobby Day – Little Bitty Pretty One (1957) #67 Pop
Born in Texas but working in the Los Angles do-wop arena, Robert Byrd composed and sang “Little Bitty Pretty One” backed with his group “The Satellites. ” It was released on Class Records in 1957.
Thurston Harris (1931-1990)
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Thurston Harris – Little Bitty Pretty One (1957) #2 R&B, #6 Pop
Born in Indianapolis, but also working in the California music scene, some how Thurston Harris recorded and released his pretty much identical cover, on Aladdin Records, and beat out Day’s original! The cover, backed by “The Sharps,” went to the top of the charts becoming a classic oldie still played on the radio today!
Franklin Joseph Lymon (1942-1968)
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Frankie Lymon – Itty Bitty Pretty One (1958)
Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers were topping the charts when his management decided that teen idol Lymon should go solo. Lymon’s cover of “LBPO” was on his 1958 solo debut album on Roulette Records entitled “Rock & Roll.” The album has just, finally, been re-released on the Collectors’ Choice Music label this year.
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Jackson 5 – Little Bitty Pretty One (1972) #8 R&B
In 1969, The Jackson 5 were introduced to the world as another super teenage group on the wildly popular Motown label. Generally Motown artists would only cover songs from Jobete (Gordy’s publishing), but Motown management had the J5 doing pop covers on every lp and many of those covers were the same style and arrangements as Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers. This cover of “LBPO” was no exception.
It was a cut on on 1972′s “Lookin’ Through the Windows”, the J5′s seventh LP. The brothers share lead on this one. I love it!
In addition to these early versions presented above, before Motown put their spin on “LBPO”, both Dee Clark (1938-1990) and the great Clyde McPhatter (1932-1972) released great versions of the song — with McPhatter’s reaching #25 Pop in 1962.
I created a poll for this post but the polls are not showing up on WordPress.Com right now. Until the problem is fixed please leave a comment as to which of these four versions presented is your favorite. I want to hear what you think. (NOTE: Poll has been fixed as of 4/5/10: please vote!)
BTW: I guess you can tell that the new theme for my blog posts in November is “Motown Covers Pop!” Hope you enjoy it.
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Filed under: Aladdin, Bobby Day, Class Records, Fifties, Little Bitty Pretty One, Motown, Motown Covers Pop, Pop/R&B, R&B/Doo-Wop, Roulette Records, Seventies, The Jackson Five, Thurston Harris
