From: "Dik de Heer" Date: Tue Oct 26, 2004 1:33 am Subject: This Is My Story : Gaynel Hodge GAYNEL HODGE Born 4 January 1937, Los Angeles, California Never heard of Gaynel Hodge? Never mind, I hadn't heard of him either until I met him last Saturday, at a private party of a friend who celebrated his 60th birthday. But he was an important part of the L.A. doo-wop scene in the fifties. Hodge came from a musical family. His mother, Catherine, played piano and sang. His uncle, Austin Powell, had his own group, The Cats and the Fiddle. His stepfather, Chuck Norris, was one of the early innovators of the electric bass and also played guitar. And his grandmother's house was a stopping-off point for every jazz and blues artist in the Los Angeles area. Gaynel began writing songs and playing and singing professionally at the age of thirteen. He claims to be one of the founding members of the Platters, together with his older brother Alex Hodge (1935-1982), Cornel Gunter, Joe Jefferson and Herb Reed. In fact, the founding of the group took place at the Hodge residence, in January 1953. But by the time the Platters recorded their first single, Gaynel had already left the group, because he couldn't get along with Buck Ram. Before the end of 1953, Gaynel had joined the Hollywood Flames, with whom he would record three singles. These included the song "I Know" (co-written with Curtis Williams, also of the Hollywood Flames), which evolved into the doo-wop classic "Earth Angel", a big hit for the Penguins. The available information on the origins of "Earth Angel" is contradictory, to put it mildly. See for instance: http://www.electricearl.com/dws/earth-origin.html Hodge's version of the story is that he co-wrote the song with Curtis Williams and Jesse Belvin. However, only the name of Curtis Williams appeared on the label, and Curtis sold the copyright to Dootsie Williams in 1956 (Dootsie Williams was the owner of Dootone Records, the label on which "Earth Angel" came out. Gaynel has absolutely nothing positive to say about Dootsie.) In 1980, 23 years after Hodge first went to court, a preliminary settlement was reached whereby Gaynel received royalties for airplay of "Earth Angel" and was recognized by BMI as co-writer of the song. But he still didn't get royalties for record sales and the use of "Earth Angel" in movies like "Back to the Future", "Superman III" and several TV series. This finally changed in 1997, 40 years after the original lawsuit against Dootsie Williams, and Hodge received a handsome sum, though it didn't make him rich. I asked him: What other songs did you write? Any hits among them? - GH : This song may not be so well-known in Europe, but it's quite well known in America : Goodnight My Love. - DdH : You mean the Jesse Belvin hit? - GH : Yes, and the McGuire Sisters had a pop hit with it. - DdH : I happen to know that the writer'ss credit on the label goes to George Motola and John Marascalco. - GH : That's right, but I wrote that songg with Jesse Belvin and he sold it to those people. Marascalco had money, you know, everybody knew that. John was a nice guy, but he only wrote a few of his songs himself. Most of them were bought from others. - DdH : Were you not consulted by Jesse Beelvin? - GH : No. This sort of thing happened alll the time then, you know. People needed money fast and copyrights changed hands for a few hundred bucks or less. After leaving the Hollywood Flames in 1954, Gaynel formed the Turks, who recorded for a variety of labels, among them John Dolphin's labels (Money, Cash), Class and Imperial. Hodge also recorded under his own name for RCA. In the sixties and seventies, he was a much in-demand session pianist in L.A. Two famous hits on which he plays keyboards are "Alley-Oop" by the Hollywood Argyles and "Papa Oom Mow Mow" by the Rivingtons. He also played behind the Olympics, Preston Epps, Sam Cooke, Lou Rawls, Johnny Guitar Watson, Dr. John, Richard Berry, Don and Dewey and many others. Gaynel developed into an all-round singer-pianist and accommodated well to the changing tastes in popular music. In the 1980s he moved to Phoenix, Arizona, working mainly with the Ink Spots, or at least one of the groups operating under that name, which is in the public domain. In 1999 he received a place of honour in the Arizona Blues Hall of Fame. Since 2002 he has been living in the Netherlands (The Hague) and already interjects a few Dutch words into his conversation. I had an even more pleasant hour-long conversation with his Dutch-Indonesian wife, an extremely charming, friendly and civilized woman, quite the opposite of Willie Littlefield's bitchy Dutch wife Tonny. Most of the info above on "Earth Angel" comes from Mrs Hodge. More info: http://www.electricearl.com/dws/hodge.html CD: The Hollywood Flames and Friends, 1950-1965 http://www.doowop-net.com/reviews/review.asp?id=118 Includes several tracks by the Turks. Gaynel's e-mail address is earthangelwillyou@w...