I never get far with my ‘All Time Top 10
Favourite Records’ lists before I want to extend it to Top 20 or 30, or divide
it into specific music genres or eras.
But if it ever became a matter of survival, I’m pretty sure that this
record would be on the shortlist:
To me it’s almost a perfect 45, it’s got just about
everything going for it, and I never get tired of hearing it. Although it comes
from what some people regard as the post Rock & Roll /pre-Beatles dead zone
that preceeded the real golden age of pop, it has many elements that you find
on highly-regarded 7” singles from the 1960’s:
- It’s short and sweet, but in just over two and half minutes it does everything it sets out to do. Someone quite rightly decided that there was no need for an instrumental break, so there’s no surplus guitar or piano noodlings. Definitely all killer, no filler!
- It’s musically straight to the point, and if it lacks anything in sophistication, it more than makes up for it in energy and attitude. Timi Yuro’s vocals pack maximum power; she knows she can sing the heck out of this song, and given the opportunity, that’s exactly what she does - the engineers manage to keep the needle out of the red !
- Everything in the arrangement is just right, and does what it needs to do, no more, no less. Starting with a shimmering drum to get your attention, it then jumps right out of the speakers (in classic mono!) with a chunky guitar figure pushing it along, and sharp-as-a-knife drum fills that keep the momentum between the vocals. The strings and backing vocals create a backdrop, but they don’t over-sweeten the mixture – add the power and emotion of Yuro’s lead vocal, and the whole thing is a perfect balance of sweet and sour, rough and smooth.
- It’s got that rewind/ play it again factor – as soon as it’s over you will be cueing it up to play again.
The song itself is a familiar tale of a failed love affair, but we join the story at the point where the narrator’s mood is turning from heartbreak into to resentment and bitterness, and the need to vent some venom (often a great template for a classic pop song!) Yuro’s message to her ex is pretty clear from the way she delivers the lyrics – from the cynical ‘ha ha’ after ‘I know you’ve been asking about me‘, to the growl in ‘it’s just starting for you .........’, and the triumphant tone as the song fades.
Other elements that add to it’s rock & roll credibility (in my eyes at least): the title chooses colloquial language over correct grammar (and has a bracketed sub-title), backing vocals are in a classic ‘sha la la la la’ girl-group style, and it’s sung by a girl with a boy’s name! On first hearing you might not pick whether the singer is male or female, black or white, or guess the singer’s age – is that mature emotive powerful delivery really by a 22-year old Italian-American Ms ?
The disc also has a good backstory, and links to music
royalty. The original Liberty recording sessions were supervised by Clyde Otis,
who had produced Yuro’s smash-hit debut single ‘Hurt’ the year before, joining
from Mercury after major success as a writer and producer. On ‘What’s A Matter
Baby’ he was assisted by Bob Johnston, and the composer credits are Otis and Johnston’s
wife Joy Byers - although Johnston later confirmed some songs registered with
Byers name were written by him. However, Otis soon quit Liberty to start his
own company, and among the unfinished projects he left behind was the Timi Yuro
session for ‘What’s A Matter Baby’. The final production and mixing was left to
a young Phil Spector, who was still doing freelance work for majors like Liberty
and Atlantic while establishing his own Philles label. We don’t know what Spector
was given to work with or how much he added - the US release label shows ‘Arranged
& Conducted by Bert Keyes’ and it has the style and class found in most of
his work. The end result is a clear crisp captivating hybrid of pop and r&b
elements into something very similar to what would soon be commonly called ‘soul’
– it probably deserved a better placing the 12 it achieved on Billboard pop
charts, although it possibly wasn’t exactly what fans of ‘Hurt’ (or the couple
of moderately successful follow up singles) were looking for, and may have been
a bit gritty for radio stations that helped her debut become such a huge
success.
It’s tempting to speculate what the outcome might have been
if Timi Yuro had done more recording with Spector. The hit singles were over by
1965, and because she could handle soul, country, big ballads and even cabaret
style equally well, her later records covered a variety of styles and material.
Record labels didn’t seem to know what to do with her, but tended to favour material
and arrangements a long way from ‘What’s A Matter Baby’. In the late 60s she
was back with Liberty, and delivered another show-stopping performance - in 1968
‘It’ll Never Be Over For Me’ (previously a 1964 US single on Sue for Baby Washington)
was buried on the B-side of a UK-only non-hit single, but has since quite
rightly gone on to become a celebrated and sought-after sound after being
discovered by the UK Northern Soul scene.
Timi Yuro continued to record, and in the 1980's enjoyed comeback success in Europe, but unfortunately she was diagnosed with throat cancer in the 1990's, and died in 2004. She left a recorded legacy that covers many styles, and is consistently good and often great. You can bet that on a regular basis somebody somewhere
hears ‘Hurt’ or ‘What’s A Matter Baby’ or ‘It’ll Never Be Over For Me’ for the
first time, and says ‘wow!’ ... then plays it again.
ON CD: UK specialist label RPM issued two excellent collections:
To dig a bit deeper, these include rarities and unreleased material
ONLINE: Mike Iannarelli (aka bandstandmike) runs a YouTube Channel and Facebook page . He appears to be involved in managing Timi Yuro’s musical estate, and these are well-curated and have content from all stages of her career that you are unlikely to find anywhere else.
OTHER VERSIONS: ‘What’s A Matter Baby’ has been recorded by a few other artists. Ellen Foley grazed the bottom of the Top 100 with her version in 1979 – it’s a pretty good update and has the right attitude, although the song is almost lost in the sludgy drum-dominated production. The Small Faces made it the B-Side of their 1965 debut single – it’s okay, but not one of their better moments, although you can imagine how well it might have worked in a live show. Versions by Irma Thomas and Del Shannon sound promising given the track record of both artists, but don’t really add anything new or exciting.
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