Dick and Deedee
Encyclopedia
Dick and Dee Dee is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 singer-songwriter duo that reached popularity in the early to mid-1960s. The group was originally founded by California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 classmates Mary Sperling and Richard Gosting. They eventually changed their names to Dee Dee Sperling (currently Dee Dee Phelps) and Dick St. John. They had their first hit in 1961 when "The Mountain's High
The Mountain's High
"The Mountain's High" is a 1961 hit R&B song written and performed by the California duo Dick and Dee Dee. It featured Richard St. John Gosting's overdubbed falsetto and Dee Dee Phelps's harmony. Produced by the Wilder Brothers and Don Ralke, it was released as the B-side of "I Want Someone"...

" reached #2 on the Billboard 100. They toured with The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...

 and opened for the Rolling Stones during the Stones' 1964 tour of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. Regulars on the show Shindig!
Shindig!
Shindig! was an American musical variety series which aired on ABC from September 16, 1964 to January 8, 1966. The show was hosted by Jimmy O'Neill, a disc jockey in Los Angeles at the time who also created the show along with his wife Sharon Sheeley and production executive Art Stolnitz....

, the duo had multiple hit songs before St. John and Sperling disbanded in 1969. In the 1980s, St. John toured with his wife, Sandy. Dick St. John died on December 27, 2003. In 2007, Dee Dee Phelps released her memoir, Vinyl Highway, Singing as Dick and Dee Dee in the Sixties. She began performing with actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

/singer Michael Dunn as Dick and Dee Dee in 2008, appearing in large doo wop and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

 shows throughout the United States.

Founding

Dick St. John and Dee Dee Sperling met while students at Paul Revere Junior High School in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. They attended different high schools, only to re-encounter one another after graduation. At the time Sperling was attending college and working at a See's Candy store, and St. John was looking for a job. Both realized they were singer-songwriters, and together they began writing songs and singing the vocal parts. The duo were not romantically linked.

The Mountain's High

The first Dick and Dee Dee 45 RPM release ("I Want Someone" backed by "The Mountain's High
The Mountain's High
"The Mountain's High" is a 1961 hit R&B song written and performed by the California duo Dick and Dee Dee. It featured Richard St. John Gosting's overdubbed falsetto and Dee Dee Phelps's harmony. Produced by the Wilder Brothers and Don Ralke, it was released as the B-side of "I Want Someone"...

,") was on Lama Records, a small company started by their record producers, the Wilder brothers and Don Ralke
Don Ralke
Don Ralke was a prolific music arranger, composer, and producer, working for four decades in the Hollywood studio system in films, television, and pop recordings. He was born on July 13, 1920 in Battle Creek, Michigan...

. Their recordings
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 were created with four voice
Human voice
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal folds for talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, etc. Its frequency ranges from about 60 to 7000 Hz. The human voice is specifically that part of human sound production in which the vocal folds are the primary...

 tracks. Each of them sang two separate harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...

 lines. St. John sang the highest and lowest parts including the falsetto
Falsetto
Falsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds, in whole or in part...

, and Dee Dee sang in the middle notes. Without telling the duo, the record producers changed Mary's name to Dee Dee, something they did not discover until after the record was released.

The rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

 song
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

 "The Mountain's High" became a smash hit
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...

 in San Francisco. The single was leased to Liberty Records
Liberty Records
Liberty Records was a United States-based record label. It was started by chairman Simon Waronker in 1955 with Al Bennett as president and Theodore Keep as chief engineer. It was reactivated in 2001 in the United Kingdom and had two previous revivals.-1950s:...

 for national distribution and spent two weeks at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

. The track reached #37 in the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

, and eventually sold over a million copies. Sperling left college to perform with St. John on rock and roll tours in America, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

Touring with the Beach Boys, Rolling Stones

In the United States early on in their career, Dick and Dee Dee performed at California high school assemblies with the upcoming surf band, The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...

. They eventually sang in 49 of the 50 United States, with acts like Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...

, The Righteous Brothers
The Righteous Brothers
The Righteous Brothers were the musical duo of Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield. They recorded from 1963 through 1975, and continued to perform until Hatfield's death in 2003...

, Ike and Tina Turner, Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health....

, The Shirelles
The Shirelles
The Shirelles were an African-American girl group that achieved popularity in the early 1960s. They consisted of schoolmates Shirley Owens , Doris Coley , Addie "Micki" Harris , and Beverly Lee...

, The Dick Clark Caravan of Stars, Murray the K
Murray the K
Murray Kaufman , professionally known as Murray the K, was an influential rock and roll impresario and disc jockey of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s...

’s Brooklyn Paramount Theatre review, Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Kingsmen
The Kingsmen
The Kingsmen is a 1960s garage rock band from Portland, Oregon, United States. They are best known for their 1963 recording of Richard Berry's "Louie Louie", which held the #2 spot on the Billboard charts for six weeks...

, Patti La Belle, The Crystals
The Crystals
The Crystals are an American vocal group based in New York, considered one of the defining acts of the girl group era of the first half of the 1960s. Their 1961–1964 chart hits, including "Uptown", "He's a Rebel", "Da Doo Ron Ron " and "Then He Kissed Me", featured three successive female lead...

, The Drifters
The Drifters
The Drifters are a long-lived American doo-wop and R&B/soul vocal group with a peak in popularity from 1953 to 1963, though several splinter Drifters continue to perform today. They were originally formed to serve as Clyde McPhatter's backing group in 1953...

, Ben E. King
Ben E. King
Benjamin Earl King , better known as Ben E. King, is an American soul singer. He is perhaps best known as the singer and co-composer of "Stand by Me", a U.S...

, Jan and Dean
Jan and Dean
Jan and Dean were a rock and roll duo, popular from the late 1950s through the mid 1960s, consisting of William Jan Berry and Dean Ormsby Torrence...

, the Miracles
The Miracles
The Miracles are an American rhythm and blues group from Detroit, Michigan, notable as the first successful group act for Berry Gordy's Motown Record Corporation . Their single "Shop Around" was Motown's first million-selling hit record, and the group went on to become one of Motown's signature...

, The Dovells
The Dovells
The Dovells were an American music group, formed at Overbrook High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1957, under the name 'The Brooktones'. The members were Arnie Silver, Mark Gordesky, Len Borisoff , Jerry Gross, Mike Freda and Jim Mealey...

, Johnny Tillotson
Johnny Tillotson
Johnny Tillotson is an American singer and songwriter. He enjoyed his greatest success in the early 1960s, when he scored 9 top-ten hits on the pop, country and adult contemporary billboard charts including "Poetry In Motion" and the self-penned "It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin'"...

, Jackie Wilson
Jackie Wilson
Jack Leroy "Jackie" Wilson, Jr. was an American singer and performer. Known as "Mr. Excitement", Wilson was important in the transition of rhythm and blues into soul. He was known as a master showman, and as one of the most dynamic singers and performers in R&B and rock history...

, Sonny and Cher and numerous other singers.

Dick and Dee Dee were the opening act for the Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...

 when the band came to California for their first tour in 1964. The duo recorded their voices on three Rolling Stones tracks while visiting London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in in 1964, including "Blue Turns to Grey
Blue Turns to Grey
"Blue Turns to Grey" is a song that was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The song first appeared in February 1965 when both Dick and Dee Dee and The Mighty Avengers released versions of it. Another version was released shortly thereafter by Tracey Dey on Amy Records...

," and "Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind
Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind
"Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind" is a song by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, released first by the singing duo Dick and Dee Dee , who were a support act for the Stones when they first toured the U.S.A...

," penned by Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....

 and Keith Richards
Keith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...

. In an interview with BBC Radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...

, recorded in 2006, Dee Dee Phelps revealed that their singing was overdubbed onto backing tracks recorded by the Rolling Stones with Mick Jagger's vocals removed. The songs were officially sanctioned, largely at the behest of Rolling Stones' manager Andrew Oldham and released on Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...

.

Later singles

The duo had eight other singles chart with a total of five reaching the Top 30. Their other hits included "Tell Me" (1962), "Young and in Love" (1963), "Turn Around" in 1964 (co-written with Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte
Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...

), and "Thou Shalt Not Steal" (their second-biggest hit, reaching #13 in 1965, which included a special picture sleeve issue promoting Triumph Motorcycles). After their last hit "Thou Shalt Not Steal," they remained regulars on Jack Good
Jack Good
John or Jack Good may refer to:* I. J. Good, Irving John Good , British statistician* John G. Good, Pennsylvania politician* Jack Good , icon painter and television & music producer...

's television show Shindig!
Shindig!
Shindig! was an American musical variety series which aired on ABC from September 16, 1964 to January 8, 1966. The show was hosted by Jimmy O'Neill, a disc jockey in Los Angeles at the time who also created the show along with his wife Sharon Sheeley and production executive Art Stolnitz....


Disbanding, revivals

In 1965, Dee Dee married the duo's manager (later executive television producer for Dick Clark Productions
Dick Clark Productions
Dick Clark Productions is an entertainment production company founded by entertainer Dick Clark...

), Bill Lee, and had one son. In 1969, St. John and Sperling parted ways. Dick St. John continued as a songwriter, co-writing "Yellow Balloon
Yellow Balloon
"Yellow Balloon" was a Top 30 hit single in the Billboard Hot100 by The Yellow Balloon, included on the group's 1967 self-titled album. It was classified as in the sunshine pop genre.-Music and lyrics:...

" for the group of the same name. After her divorce in the early seventies, Dee Dee married Kane Phelps and moved to Big Sur
Big Sur
Big Sur is a sparsely populated region of the Central Coast of California where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. The name "Big Sur" is derived from the original Spanish-language "el sur grande", meaning "the big south", or from "el país grande del sur", "the big...

 for the remainder of that decade. They raised two other children, moving back to the Los Angeles area in the 1980s, and are still married today.

In the 1980s Dick revived the Dick and Dee Dee act with his wife, Sandy. The two of them also authored a cookbook in 1993, The Rock and Roll Cookbook, which featured recipes of various rock and roll artists. St. John died in 2003 after a fall from the roof of his house.

Dick and Dee Dee today

In 2006, Dee Dee Phelps published Vinyl Highway, Singing as Dick and Dee Dee in the Sixties, and in 2008 she teamed with actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

/singer
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

 Michael Dunn to again revive the classic Dick and Dee Dee songs on stage.

Dunn was trained at New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

’s Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

, where he studied side by side with such future stars as Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...

 and Val Kilmer
Val Kilmer
Val Edward Kilmer is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! , then the cult classic Real Genius , as well as blockbuster action films, including a supporting role in Top Gun and a...

. Dunn had a lengthy, award-winning theatrical career in his native Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. He is also an experienced lyricist, partnering with producer/composer Jim Price
Jim Price (musician)
Jim Price was, together with Bobby Keys and Jim Horn, one of the most in demand horn session players of the 1970s. He toured extensively with The Rolling Stones from 1970 until 1973, including their 1972 American Tour, and appears on the albums, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St. and Goats Head Soup...

 (who produced “You Are So Beautiful
You Are So Beautiful
"You Are So Beautiful" is a song written by Billy Preston and Bruce Fisher and Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys. It was first recorded by Preston and made popular in a version by Joe Cocker....

” for Joe Cocker
Joe Cocker
John Robert "Joe" Cocker, OBE is an English rock and blues musician, composer and actor, who came to popularity in the 1960s, and is most known for his gritty voice, his idiosyncratic arm movements while performing, and his cover versions of popular songs, particularly those of The Beatles...

) for several years in Nashville. He sang the John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

 lead vocals on Castellaneta
Castellaneta
Castellaneta is a city and comune in the province of Taranto, in the Puglia region of Southern Italy, about 40 km from Taranto. Located in a territory spanning from the Murgia to the Ionian Sea, characterized by numerous gravina ravines, it is part of the Comunità Montana della Murgia...

’s Beatles tribute album, Tulips, in 1998. For over a decade he has performed a one-man show as Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

 for Los Angeles audiences.

Singles

Highest Billboard Positions for Dick and Dee Dee
Release Title Chart Rank
1961 "The Mountain's High
The Mountain's High
"The Mountain's High" is a 1961 hit R&B song written and performed by the California duo Dick and Dee Dee. It featured Richard St. John Gosting's overdubbed falsetto and Dee Dee Phelps's harmony. Produced by the Wilder Brothers and Don Ralke, it was released as the B-side of "I Want Someone"...

"
Pop Singles 2
1962 "Tell Me" Pop Singles 22
1963 "Young and In Love" Adult Contemporary 6
Pop Singles 17
1963 "Where Did All The Good Times Go" Pop Singles 93
1964 "Turn Around" Pop Singles 27
1964 "All My Trials" Pop Singles 89
1965 "Thou Shalt Not Steal" Pop Singles 13
1965 "Be My Baby" Pop Singles 87

TV, Film performances

Television
  • American Bandstand
    American Bandstand
    American Bandstand is an American music-performance show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989 and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as producer...

  • Where the Action Is
    Where the Action Is
    Where the Action Is or ' was a music-based television variety show in the United States from 1965–67. It was carried by the ABC network and aired each weekday afternoon...

  • Shindig!
    Shindig!
    Shindig! was an American musical variety series which aired on ABC from September 16, 1964 to January 8, 1966. The show was hosted by Jimmy O'Neill, a disc jockey in Los Angeles at the time who also created the show along with his wife Sharon Sheeley and production executive Art Stolnitz....

  • Ready, Steady, Go (UK)

Motion Picture
  • Wild Wild Winter
    Wild Wild Winter
    Wild Wild Winter is a 1966 Universal Pictures comedy film in the beach party genre, starring Gary Clarke and Chris Noel. It is directed by standup comedian Lennie Weinrib and produced by Bart Patton and is notable for featuring Jay and the Americans and the duo of Dick and Dee Dee in their only...

    (1966) - sang "Heartbeats", their only film appearance

Further reading


External links

Media
  • Dick and Dee Dee on Pandora
  • Dick and Dee Dee on YouTube
    YouTube
    YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

  • Dick and Dee Dee on Last.fm
    Last.fm
    Last.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed 30 million active users in March 2009. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m ....

  • Dick and Dee Dee on Rhapsody Music

Merchants
  • Dick and Dee Dee on Amazon.com
    Amazon.com
    Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

  • Dick and Dee Dee on iTunes
    ITunes
    iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

  • Dick and Dee Dee on CD Universe
    CD Universe
    CD Universe.com is an e-commerce site that sells music CDs and mp3 downloads, movies and video games worldwide. CD Universe was created in 1996 by founder and CEO Charles Beilman in Wallingford, Connecticut, where it is still maintained and operated...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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