The Crystals – He's A Rebel / I Love You Eddie

Under the wing, or more aptly the control of Phil Spector [who was just 21 years old at the time], with his stunning ‘wall of sound’ recording technique, the Crystals rocketed to the number one chart position in 1961 with this song “He’s A Rebel,” penned by Gene Pitney … and in fact is a song on which The Crystals sang not one single note.

With lyrical matter that surrounded falling in love with the anti-hero bad boy, the number was bright, inventive, danceable, throughly modern and of it’s time both musically and lyrically. The trouble was, the song was sung note for note and word for word by The Blossoms, headed by Darlene Love [who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2011], along with Fanta James and Garcia Nitzsche, who were probably hands down the most gifted group of backup singers in the business, women who should have been set on par with The Wrecking Crew, who laid down nearly all of the instrumental tracks for the chart topping hits of the 60’s and early 70’s, including this one.

During those heady years there was but one artist who gave these backup singers their due, and that was Lou Reed on his majestic soulful hit “Walk On The Wild Side,” where he sang And the coloured girls go, Doo doo doo doo … suggesting that it was these backup singers who laid down the bottom and memorable choruses to most songs, meaning that the backup singers set the pace for the musical soundtrack of our lives. And it was The Rolling Stones who nearly physically gave presence to backup singer Merry Clayton, who sang those hauntingly dark lines on the track “Gimme Shelter,” and went on to vocally own that song.

The story regarding The Crystals was broken on air by WINS disc-jokey Murray the K when he called 15 year old La La Brooks who laid out the story nearly matter of factly. Surprisingly, like other bands who used The Wrecking Crew to lay down their instrumentation, it was not uncommon for producers to move other voices in and out of a group to create a hit, because it was all about the hit, and not the music of the group.

So while “He’s A Rebel” was a groundbreaking hit, a caveat needs to be given to The Blossoms, who breathed life into a song that was unsinkable by those who got the credit.

And that my friends is why it’s called The Music Business.

*** The Fun Facts: Despite all this, Rolling Stone Magazine rates the song at number 263 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs Of All time.

Review by Jenell Kesler