RICHARD GOTTEHRER
Richard Gottehrer (born 1940) is an American songwriter, record producer and record label executive. His first number 1 record as a songwriter and producer was “My Boyfriend’s Back” followed by other hits like “Hang On Sloopy” and “I Want Candy”, eventually leading to the formation of Sire Records in 1966 with Seymour Stein. His career continued as producer for acts such as Blondie, The Go-Go’s, Dr. Feelgood, Richard Hell, The Bongos, and the path eventually led him to Orchard Street in 1997. (More from Wikipedia)
The American songwriter/producer trio of Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer has been a veritable cauldron of one-hit wonders over the years. They first teamed up in 1963 for the girl-group classic “My Boyfriend’s Back” by the Angels. The following year, in the wake of the British Invasion, they decided to reinvent themselves as a band called the Strangeloves and to pretend that they were three brothers who grew up on a sheep farm in Australia. Once they came up with the hit song “I Want Candy” in mid-1965, they were put in the uncomfortable position of having to perform as live artists, so they brought a touring band with them (much as the UARB for July 2011 the Rip Chords had done). The sole album by the Strangeloves includes two other excellent songs that have been widely covered, “Cara-Lin” and “Night Time”.
While on tour in Ohio, the Strangeloves discovered a local band led by Rick Zehringer. They brought him back to New York and pieced together Rick’s vocals with one of their own melodies, creating yet another hit with “Hang on Sloopy” that was released under the name the McCoys. (That melody was later “sampled” in the cool novelty song “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron” by the Royal Guardsmen; the tune was well known enough so that everyone understood the implied lyric “hang on Snoopy” without its having to be uttered).
I later saw Richard Gottehrer’s name on recordings by Blondie, and he produced the first two albums by the Go-Go’s, Beauty and the Beat and Vacation. With Seymour Stein, Gottehrer was also the co-founder of Sire Records.
(May 2012)
