Little Eva

A record without it's sleeve I bought many years ago at Cheshire Street in East London I think. Some lovely examples of soul ballads in the style of The Ronettes and Carol King. Indeed Carol King wrote many of the songs on this compilation LP of her hits with Gerry Goffin. Wikipedia says - "Born in Belhaven, North Carolina, she moved to the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, New York at a young age. As a teenager, she worked as a maid and earned extra money as a babysitter for songwriters Carole King and Gerry Goffin. It is often claimed that Goffin and King were amused by Boyd's individual dancing style, so they wrote "The Loco-Motion" for her and had her record it as a demo (the record was intended for Dee Dee Sharp). However, as King said in an interview with NPR and in her "One to One" concert video, they knew she could sing when they met her, and it would be just a matter of time before they would have her record songs they wrote, the most successful being "The Loco-Motion". Music producer Don Kirshner of Dimension Records was impressed by the song and Boyd's voice and had it released. The song reached #1 in the United States in 1962. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. After the success of "The Loco-Motion", Boyd was stereotyped as a dance-craze singer and was given limited material. The same year, Goffin and King wrote "He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)" (performed by The Crystals) after discovering that Boyd was being regularly beaten by her boyfriend.[2] When they inquired why she tolerated such treatment, Eva replied, with apparent sincerity, that her boyfriend's actions were motivated by his love for her." Little Eva - Side Two