THE STRANGELOVES
The Strangeloves were a band created in 1964 by a New York-based American songwriting production team who pretended to be from Australia. Consisting of Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein, and Richard Gottehrer, The Strangeloves’ most successful singles were “I Want Candy”, “Cara-Lin”, and “Night Time”. Before the invention of The Strangeloves, the three-member team ‒ often going by FGG Productions ‒ had already scored hits for other artists including 1963’s “My Boyfriend’s Back” by the American female group, The Angels. (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. In 1964, 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).
At a later date, Bow Wow Wow recorded the old Strangeloves song “I Want Candy”; coupled with an early MTV video, this song became a worldwide hit in 1982.
(May 2012)
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In 1968, the Primitives released a very rare album in Italy called Blow Up; the famous film by Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni called Blow-Up had come out two years earlier. The album mostly features other Italian-language versions of American and British hit songs of the period. Their cover of the Strangeloves classic “Cara-Lin” from this album is included on the English Freakbeat, Volume 1 CD.
(May 2015)
