Single:
Sugar Baby Love entered the Australian singles chart* on 24 June 1974 and peaked at #2. The song was #18 on the Top 100 of 1974.
Album:
The song is on Wear It’s ‘At which entered the Australian albums chart* on 9 December 1974 and peaked at #85.
Songwriters:
Wayne Bickerton, Tony Waddington
Producer:
Wayne Bickerton
Record label of Australian release:
Polydor
*Kent Music Report / Australian Chart Book. See About.
Wikipedia – the band’s formation and first success:
The Rubettes were put together in 1974 after the release of Sugar Baby Love. The song had been recorded by studio session musicians by the songwriting team of Wayne Bickerton, the then head of A&R at Polydor Records, and his co-songwriter, Tony Waddington after their doo-wop and 1950s American pop-influenced songs had been rejected by a number of existing acts.
Sugar Baby Love and three other songs were recorded in that session, featuring the distinctive falsetto and lead vocals of Paul Da Vinci. When Sugar Baby Love took off, a real band had to be formed for Top of the Pops and other television performances. However, Da Vinci did not join the others to become a member of the band. Alan Williams took on the role of lead singer, being the only one of the original session singers able to duplicate Da Vinci’s falsetto vocals. The Rubettes then comprised Williams, Richardson, and Pete Arnesen (all three of whom had participated in the original recording) together with Tony Thorpe, Mick Clarke, and Bill Hurd.
Williams sang lead on later recordings, and the Rubettes went on to have a number of other Top 10 hits in Europe and Australia during the mid-1970s, such as Tonight, Juke Box Jive and I Can Do It.
Read more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rubettes
Wikipedia – Sugar Baby Love:
Written by Wayne Bickerton and Tony Waddington with lead vocals by Paul Da Vinci. Bickerton and Waddington had been writing songs together since early 1960s. Bickerton said: “We had Paul DaVinci singing in that incredibly high falsetto voice and then a vocal group sings ‘Bop-shu-waddy’ over and over for about 3 minutes.”
Read more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Baby_Love
Songfacts:
Gerry Shury, who did the string arrangements said “This is not going to work: you can’t have a vocal group singing ‘Bop-shu-waddy’ non stop. A lot of people said the same thing to us so the more determined I became to release it.”
Read more: www.songfacts.com/facts/rubettes/sugar-baby-love
Lyrics:
Sugar baby love, sugar baby love
I didn’t mean to make you blue
Sugar baby love, sugar baby love
I didn’t mean to hurt you
Click for full lyrics
This song is also on our Spotify playlist Bang a Gong – the 70s
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