From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Thu Nov 13, 2003  1:30 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Annette Kleinbard
 
ANNETTE KLEINBARD (AKA CAROL CONNORS)

Born 13 November 1940, New Brunswick, New Jersey

In his biography of Phil Spector ("He's a Rebel", 1989), Mark
Ribowsky describes Annette Kleinbard as "a shy, cherubic
brunette, tiny as a buttercup". Early in 1958, she met Phil Spector,
who was dating her girlfriend Donna Kass at that time. Phil was
more than interested in Annette's soprano singing voice. He asked
her to sing on a session (on May 20, 1958) that he had prepared,
at Gold Star Studio in Los Angeles. So much time was spent on a
song called "Don't You Worry My Little Pet", that there was no studio
time left for any other songs. The as-yet unnamed group consisted of
Spector, Kleinbard, Marshall Leib (often misspelled as Lieb ; he died
in March 2002) and Harvey Goldstein. The master was sold to Lou
Bedell of Dore Records, but it still needed a B-side. By the time "To
Know Him Is To Love Him" was recorded (with Sandy Nelson on drums),
the group had decided on a name, The Teddy Bears, and lost a member,
Harvey Goldstein. Annette's lead was remarkable, a little girl hurting with
real pain. "Don't You Worry My Little Pet" was released as the A-side,
but got preciously little airplay. Instead, deejays started playing the other
side. The week of September 22, 1958, "To Know Him Is To Love Him"
hit the Billboard chart at # 88. It took ten weeks to rise to number one.
The Teddy Bears performed on American Bandstand and on the Perry
Como Show. They had further releases on Imperial in 1959. Both sides
of "Oh Why"/"I Don't Need You Anymore" charted, but peaked no higher
than # 91 and # 98 respectively. The group disbanded at the end of 1959,
crippled by internal strife and also as a result of a serious car accident :
in early September 1959, Annette lost control of her MG convertible,
tumbled down a mountainside and into a ditch. She was pulled from the
wreckage. Her face was ravaged, her nose almost completely sheared
off. For weeks she lay in a bed at the UCLA Medical Center as doctors
reconstructed her features. She required four operations. When she was
well enough to receive guests, Phil Spector was not among the bedside
visitors. "Too bad she didn't die", was his comment.

In the sixties, Annette returned to the music scene as a songwriter, now
calling herself Carol Connors. She had come to hate the name Annette
because of Annette Funicello. Her first hit was "Hey Little Cobra" by the
Rip Chords (# 4 in early 1964) and she went on to write many hot rod
songs, some of which were used in beach movies. She really hit the big
time in July 1977, when the theme from the first "Rocky" film, "Gonna
Fly Now" went all the way to # 1 in the version by Bill Conti, who co-wrote
the song. Annette wrote the lyrics ; the released version contained only
30 words. Her third big hit came in 1979, when she co-wrote "With You
I'm Born Again" for Billy Preston and Syreeta (# 4).