From: "Dik de Heer" 
Date: Fri Sep 9, 2005  1:32 am 
Subject: This Is My Story : Eddie Cooley 

EDDIE COOLEY (By Klaus Kettner with Tony Wilkinson)

Eddie Cooley was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and later relocated to New York. His
lasting claim to fame is that he wrote the smash hit (and subsequent standard)
'Fever' that has been successfully recorded by many artists including Little
Willie John, The McCoys, Terry Dene, Elvis Presley and, of course, Peggy Lee.
The song was co-written with the legendary composer and singer Otis Blackwell
who, for this piece, adopted the nom de plume of John Davenport. This happened
to be the real name of Blackwell's stepfather. As Otis explained: "Eddie Cooley
was a friend of mine from New York and he called me up and said "Man, I got an
idea for a song called "Fever", but I canīt finish it. I had to write it under
another name because, at that time, I was still under contract to Joe Davis."

When recorded by Rhythm & Blues singer Little Willie John on the King label,
'Fever' climbed to the number one position on the 'Jockey' charts and stayed
there for five weeks in 1956. It similarly made the Best Sellers chart for
three weeks in May of that year and, in addition, was included on the Jukebox
charts for one week. From Little Willie John's perspective, it was an important
record as it was his first record to cross over and appear on Billboard's Top
100 Pop Charts, thus opening up the white market to him. For Eddie Cooley, the
impact of 'Fever' was also important as the sales of records that made the
national hit parade sold in large quantities. The disc by Little Willie John
entered on the hot one hundred at position 50 on July 7th 1956, eventually
peaking at the number 24 spot. All told, the record was on these charts for a
total of fifteen weeks. In those days, the national chart was an amalgam of the
pop side of the Best Seller, Juke Box and Disk Jockey charts.

In essence, 'Fever' was a gimmick song that, probably in anybody's else's hands,
would have been listed under the novelty category. However, when recorded by
Little Willie John for Syd Nathan's King Records, he infused it with a thinly
veiled eroticism that appealed to the young black female audience who bought the
disc in large quantities. Clearly, the waxing also appealed to the white
audience. The song received its definitive form from Peggy Lee, when she
reworked the song and recorded it on May 19th, 1958 with her bass, drums and
finger snapping lead version. In the hands of Miss Lee, the basic earthiness
contained in Little Willie John's interpretation was replaced by a sophisticated
eroticism. Peggy Lee's treatment of the song climbed to position number 8 on
the pop charts on 25th August 1958. As a possible consequence, both Little
Willie John and Titus Turner went on to assert that they had written 'Fever',
claims that went nowhere. Elvis Presley recorded the Otis Blackwell
composition 'Don't Be Cruel, a song that had been laying around at Shalimar
Publising for weeks. Another hit at that time was 'Apple Of My Eye' by the Four
Lovers and suddenly Otis Blackwell was one of the hottest writers around.

Eddie Cooley and Blackwell went on to write other songs for King Record artists
such as The Lamplighters, The 5 Royales and Joe Tex. When Boyd Bennett of
'Seventeen' fame rejected the song 'Priscilla', a demo version was played to
Teddy Reig, the A&R man for Royal Roost Records. The label was launched,
initially as Roost Records, in 1950 in New York by Arthur & Bill Fadden along
with Monty Kay and Ralph Watkins and was nominally owned by Jack Hooke, manager
of Alan Freed. . However, in August 1958, Roulette Records bought out the
company. Reig liked the demo by Cooley and arranged for Eddie to re-cut
'Priscilla' as a master. This time, it was with a trio of girls who were under
the collective name of The Dimples. Otis Blackwell recalled: Well, Eddie was not
really a singer, understand, so what I did was I found three girls that were
living in the projects over there, and I put them together. Cause at that time
there was no girls backing up any singer, one particular singer. There were all
girl groups, all boy groups, there were duets. But, there was no group where
the lead was a male and the backup singers were girls. So that's how that got
over. Maybe Otis's memory was a little cloudy was there were several other girl
groups with a male singer around at that time. Otis went on to say: After it
hit, Eddie went on the road singing that song for three months. When he came
back, he decided he didnīt want to do it anymore himself It is difficult to
ascertain exactly how much influence Otis Blackwell really had on these
recordings but, with the last statement, he certainly was incorrect. Eddie
Cooley recorded several more sides for the Royal Roost label and then started to
label hop.

'Priscilla' when released on Royal Roost 621 in mid-1956 became successful on
the East Coast with the help of Alan Freed playing it on the radio and booking
the outfit on some of his shows. A reviewer in Billboard wrote : Here is yet
another left-field hit. Starting off with unusually good volume in Eastern
cities like New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore, the disc has moved out
now in almost every part of the country. Detroit and Pittsburgh are very keen
on the disc, and it seems about ready to make a big surge to the national
listings. On 24th November 1956, the song reached its highest chart position at
# 20. As a result of this success, the recording was released in Great Britain
on Columbia 3873. Research for these liner notes has revealed that a girl group
by the name of The Dimples also recorded for Era, Dore and Cameo but we have not
been able to establish whether these are the same ladies who recorded with
Eddie. What is definite is that Eddie played a show at the Howard Theatre in
1956 that was emceed by Dr.Jive. Other acts on the bill included The Dells, The
El Dorados, Screaminī Jay Hawkins, Robert & Johnny and the Debutantes.
'Priscilla' was popular enough to have cover versions made by Buddy Lucas (Bell
Records) and Julius La Rosa (RCA). Gus Backus, an ex-member of the
Dell-Vikings, recorded two versions, the first in 1961 and then again 1962 for
the German Polydor label (# 21389 and 21614). One of the American trade papers
wrote about the original recording by Eddie: Covers are now coming out, but the
original stands out as a charmer that is likely to stand up well against all
challengers.

The next release by Eddie Cooley in February 1957 on Royal Roost was 'A Spark
Met A Flame / Driftwood' (#626). 'Driftwood' was a Cooley composition and he
promoted the record by joining Irving Feld's 'Biggest Show Of Stars From 1957
tour that started on 15th February and journeyed through East and South
California, the Pacific Northwest and West Canada for eighty nightly
consecutive shows ending on 5th May. Other acts on the bill were Ann Cole,
LaVerne Baker,Clyde McPhatter,Chuck Berry, Fats Domino,Bill Doggett, Charles
Brown, Schoolboys, The 5 Satins, The Five Keys, The Moonglows and Paul
Williams.

The last release (#628) by Cooley on Royal Roost, 'Hey You/Pull Mon Pull' was
issued in April 1957 but neither side was a Cooley composition. This release
was commercially still-born and so Eddie elected to give up performing and
concentrate on song writing. Tiny Topsy recorded his 'Aw Shucks Baby' for
Federal Records later that year and this was reasonably successful with the
consequence that she went on t record a further two Cooley compositions. In
1958, Eddie wrote 'Golly Gosh Oh Gee' that was recorded by Buzz Clifford who
went on to gain international chart success with 'Babysitter Boogie'. Conway
Twitty also waxed 'Golly Gosh Oh Gee' for MGM but neither version of this song
was successful.

In July 1959, he received an offer from Triumph Records, a set up owned by Herb
Abramson. Cooley recorded two sides for the label, namely 'Be My Steady
(Clementine)' and his own composition 'Leona'. The last mentioned has marked
similarities with 'Priscilla', and in fact uses The Dimples as vocal backup.

In the early sixties, Blackwell asked Cooley back to the studio to participate
on the album project 'We Wrote 'Em, We Sing 'Em'. The idea of the concept was
that six songwriters would each record their one of their biggest hits that had
originally charted by another artist together with one of their new
compositions. Along with Eddie (who included 'Fever' and 'Lay It On') and Otis
('All Shook Up' and 'Music And Fire'), the project included Winfield Scott
('Tweedlee Dee' and 'Some Cold Night Now') and Ollie Jones ('Send For Me' and
'Come On, Come On'). Also on the disc was Lincoln Chase ('Jim Dandy' and 'Hot
Biscuits And Sweet Marie') and Billy Dawn ('The Angels Listened In' and 'When I
Saw You'). Each of the six supported the other guys by helping out on the
backing vocals. The singer/songwriters had an impressive line up of studio
musicians backing them including Mickey Baker (gtr), Buddy Lucas (sax), George
Barnes (gtr)and Ernest Hayes (piano) along with several others. They did not
have any written arrangements and worked them out together in the studio during
the session, thus giving the songs that live feel. The resulting album of
these recordings came out in 1961 on the MGM label (#3912).

In the late eighties, Otis Blackwell laid claim to writing 'Pricilla'. For the
book 'The Songwriters Speak', , Blackwell told the authors: It was comic book
character. I read a lot of comic books cause at that time I wanted to be a
cartoonist, 'till my eyes went really bad on me. Comic book titles would give me
an idea. I'd add a little country bit to it. That gave me a sense of direction.
That 'Priscilla' she was a bad little broad, too!

Interestingly 'Priscilla' backed with 'A Spark Met A Flame' was re-released by
Roulette Records in 1960 and this time around, the composing credit has changed
from simply Cooley to Cooley and Blackwell.

After that forementioned MGM album project with Otis Blackwell, it appears that
Eddie again lost interest in singing, returning once more to purely writing
songs for other artists. Eventually, he disappeared completely from the
public's view and that sadly, is where we have to leave the story of Eddie
Cooley.


FEVER:

Notable artists to record the song 'Fever' include:

Ann-Margaret (RCA-Victor LPM/LSP 2453) 1962
Frankie Avalon (Chancellor CML 5002) 1958
Roy Ayers (Polydor 2020) 1979
Beatles (1960)
Arena Brass (Epic 10085) 1966
James Brown (King 1020) 1967
Velda Brown (Stax 0194)1974
Brownsville (Epic 50695) 1979
Jerry Butler & Betty Everett (Vee-Jay 691) 1965
Little Caesar & Romans (Del-Fi 4166) 1961
Chubby Checker (Parkway P-7036) 1963
The Chords (Hit 233) 1966
Dee Clark (Vee-Jay 443) 1962
Rita Coolidge (A&M 1398) 1972
James Cotton Band (Buddah 461) 1975
King Curtis (Tru-Sound LP 15006) 1961
Dick Dale (Beggar's Banquet 2184) 1996
Terry Dene (Aral )
Celine Dion
Cindy Ellis (Polydor NH 23919) 1959 "Fieber"
Barbara English (Roulete 4450) 1962
Bobby Freeman (King 5953) 1964
Earl Grant (Decca 30475) 1957
Buddy Guy (Vanguard 35080) 1968
Joe Harnell (Medallion 604) 1961
Little Willie John (King 4935) 1956
Quincy Jones
Ben E. King (Atco 33-137) 1962
The Knockouts (MGM 13010) 1961
Peggy Lee (Capitol 3998) 1958
Anita Lindblom (Philips SM 843760; 701597) 12.-15.9.1965 "Fieber"
La Lupa (Mercury 72169) 1963
Marie "Queenie" Lyons (DeLuxe 103) 1969
Kenny Martin (Big Top 3072) 1961
The McCoys (Bang 511) 1965
Clyde McPhatter (Mercury LP 20655) 1962
Sandra Meade (Calvert 103) 1956
Medicine Men (Duel 510) 1962
Little Milton (Checker LP 3002) 1966
Little Nell (A&M 2183) 1979
The Osmonds (MGM 14766) 1974
Ray Peterson (RCA 47-7087) 1957
Esther Phillips (Atlantic 2370) 1967
Esther Phillips (Kudo 929) 1976
Elvis Presley (RCA LPM/LSP 2231) 1960
Suzie Quatro
Sarah Vaughan (Mercury 72334) 1964
Alvin Robinson (Red Bird 10-010) 1965
Caterina Valente
Sylvie Vartan
The Ventures (Dolton BST 8040) 1966
Johnny Watson
Bob Welch (RCA 13569) 1983
Timi Yuro (Liberty LRP 3263) 1962