The Heart of Rock and Soul by Dave Marsh

90 LOVE IS STRANGE, Mickey and Sylvia Produced by Bob Rolontz; written by Ethel Smith [Bo Diddley] Groove 0175 1957 Billboard: #11

Mickey Baker's middle name was "Guitar," or anyway that's how they billed the tough, red-headed Kentuckian as one of the leaders of the great band featuring saxophonists Sam "The Man" Taylor and King Curtis that dominated New York's R&B recording scene in the fifties. Sylvia - Little Sylvia, she was originally called - was a lot younger than Mickey but she convinced him to teach her guitar. It was also Sylvia's idea that she and Mickey should form a team (although he swears he couldn't convince her to make their relationship more intimate, which suggests something about the veracity of things that happened later). They hooked up musically sometime in 1955. Their manager persuaded Bob Rolontz, a former Billboard reporter running Groove Records, RCA's R&B label, to sign them up. They came up with "Love is Strange" at their second session. Allegedly, they were given the song by Ethel Smith, Bo Diddley's wife. Maybe they were, but Smith didn't write it. Bo did. He didn't want to cut it himself because he was pissed off at his music publishers because they never gave him enough money, so he passed the song along. Rolontz at first thought the concept was crazy, especially because they wanted a children's chorus to sing the refrain, then insisted that the duo sing it themselves and rehearse the number with unheard-of thoroughness. When they knew what they wanted to do, instead of going in and cutting live, he began to overdub, building up the guitar parts through multitracking and repeated rerecordings. The staid RCA engineers told Rolontz he was crazy. He told them to shut up. The result is the most polished version of the Bo Diddley beat ever pieced together. It's also simultaneously among the most erotic and the most comic records ever made - where the emphasis falls sort of depends on how you take the "How do you call your lover boy?" bit. There's no reason you can't have it both ways, though. After all, horny as he may be, Mickey sounds like one suave fella as he invites Sylvia's enticements. And earthy as Sylvia may be, she also sounds like she's about to dissolve into giggles any second. The record was a smash, but not only love is strange. Mickey Baker, the first great rock and roll guitarist, hated the touring and the glitz and the TV shows. He loved music. So he broke up the partnership and moved to Paris for twenty-five years, from whence he occasionally toured 'round the world for the U.S. State Department. as a paragon of blues guitar. Sylvia got married and became Sylvia Robinson, had another sex-schmooze hit in the disco era with "Pillow Talk" and formed Sugar Hill Records to give her son a place to record the Sugar Hill Gang, guys he heard on weekends in Harlem and the Bronx. Who became the first recorded rappers - if you don't count Mickey and Sylvia.

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