Josie and the Pussycats (album)
Encyclopedia
Josie and the Pussycats, besides being both an Archie comic book
Josie and the Pussycats (comic)
Josie and the Pussycats is a teen-humor comic book about a fictional rock band, created by Dan DeCarlo and published by Archie Comics. It was published from 1963 until 1982; since then, a number of one-shot issues have appeared without regularity...

 and a Saturday morning cartoon series
Josie and the Pussycats (TV series)
Josie and the Pussycats is an American animated television series, based upon the Archie Comics comic book series of the same name created by Dan DeCarlo....

, is also the name of a bubblegum pop
Bubblegum pop
Bubblegum pop is a genre of pop music with an upbeat sound contrived and marketed to appeal to pre-teens and teenagers, produced in an assembly-line process, driven by producers, often using unknown singers.Bubblegum's classic period ran from 1967 to 1972...

 singing group from the early 1970s, which was designed to be the real-life incarnation of the musical girl group featured in both the comic
Josie and the Pussycats (comic)
Josie and the Pussycats is a teen-humor comic book about a fictional rock band, created by Dan DeCarlo and published by Archie Comics. It was published from 1963 until 1982; since then, a number of one-shot issues have appeared without regularity...

 and the cartoon
Josie and the Pussycats (TV series)
Josie and the Pussycats is an American animated television series, based upon the Archie Comics comic book series of the same name created by Dan DeCarlo....

. The group was made up of Cathy Douglas (also known as Cathy Dougher, and whose real name was Kathleen Dougherty), Patrice Holloway
Patrice Holloway
Patrice Holloway was an African-American soul and pop singer.-Career:Patrice Yvonne Holloway was born on March 23, 1951 in Los Angeles, California, the youngest of three children born to Wade Holloway, Sr. and his wife, the former Johnnie Mae Fossett...

, and Cherie Moor
Cheryl Ladd
Cheryl Ladd is an American actress, singer and author. Ladd is best known for her role as Kris Munroe in the television series Charlie's Angels, hired amid a swirl of publicity prior to its second season in 1977 to replace the departing Farrah Fawcett-Majors...

 (formerly known as Cheryl Jean Stoppelmoor and later better known as Cheryl Ladd
Cheryl Ladd
Cheryl Ladd is an American actress, singer and author. Ladd is best known for her role as Kris Munroe in the television series Charlie's Angels, hired amid a swirl of publicity prior to its second season in 1977 to replace the departing Farrah Fawcett-Majors...

), who cut an album and six singles for Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

 in 1970 with Danny Janssen's La La Productions.

Background

In preparation for their upcoming cartoon series, Hanna-Barbera Productions began working on putting together a real-life "Josie and the Pussycats" girl group, who would provide the singing voices of the girls in the cartoons and also cut an album.

The "Josie and the Pussycats" recordings were produced by La La Productions which included producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

/songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 Danny Janssen (who had written for Bobby Sherman
Bobby Sherman
Robert Cabot "Bobby" Sherman, Jr. , is an American singer, actor and occasional songwriter, who became a popular teen idol in the late 1960s and early 1970s.He graduated in 1961 from Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California...

 and The Partridge Family
The Partridge Family
The Partridge Family is an American television sitcom about a widowed mother and her five children who embark on a music career. The series originally ran from September 25, 1970 until August 31, 1974, the last new episode airing on March 23, 1974, on the ABC network, as part of a Friday-night lineup...

), his business partner Bobby Young, and songwriters Austin Roberts, Sue Steward (now known as Sue Sheridan) and Bobby Hart (formerly one of the producers/songwriters for The Monkees
The Monkees
The Monkees are an American pop rock group. Assembled in Los Angeles in 1966 by Robert "Bob" Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the American television series The Monkees, which aired from 1966 to 1968, the musical acting quartet was composed of Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork,...

). They held a talent search to find three girls who would match the three girls in the comic book in both looks and singing ability, and, after interviewing over 500 finalists, settled upon casting Cathy Douglas as Josie, Cherie Moor
Cheryl Ladd
Cheryl Ladd is an American actress, singer and author. Ladd is best known for her role as Kris Munroe in the television series Charlie's Angels, hired amid a swirl of publicity prior to its second season in 1977 to replace the departing Farrah Fawcett-Majors...

 as Melody, and Patrice Holloway
Patrice Holloway
Patrice Holloway was an African-American soul and pop singer.-Career:Patrice Yvonne Holloway was born on March 23, 1951 in Los Angeles, California, the youngest of three children born to Wade Holloway, Sr. and his wife, the former Johnnie Mae Fossett...

 as Valerie.

African-American with part-Hispanic background, Patrice Holloway was the younger sister of Motown legend Brenda Holloway
Brenda Holloway
Brenda Holloway is an American singer and songwriter, a recording artist for the Motown label during the 1960s...

. She was the only one of the three finalists with prior ties to Capitol Records (the label that released the Pussycats' album and singles), having signed to the label as a solo artist in 1965. Her early Capitol singles, all highly collectible, include "Ecstasy," "Stay With Your Own Kind" and "Stolen Hours" (released between 1965 and 1967). Most were produced by Hollywood-based writer/producers Billy and Gene Page.

Cheryl Jean Stoppelmoor had come to Hollywood from her native South Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

 with a Country & western band that broke up and went back home almost immediately upon arrival. Shortening her unwieldy last name and now going as Cherie Moor, she decided to stay and try her luck as a singer, dancer and actress on television. After marrying David Ladd
David Ladd
David Ladd is an American producer and former actor.-Personal life:Ladd was born in Los Angeles, California, and is the son of Alan Ladd and Sue Carol and brother of Alana Ladd...

, Cheryl would go on to replace Farrah Fawcett
Farrah Fawcett
Farrah Fawcett was an American actress and artist. A multiple Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominee, Fawcett rose to international fame when she first appeared as private investigator Jill Munroe in the first season of the television series Charlie's Angels, in 1976...

 in Charlie's Angels
Charlie's Angels
Charlie's Angels is a television series about three women who work for a private investigation agency, and is one of the first shows to showcase women in roles traditionally reserved for men...

prior to the filming of its second season in 1977. She would also release a Gold album and a Top 40 single ("Think It Over") on Capitol the following year.

Janssen presented the newly formed band to William Hanna
William Hanna
William Denby Hanna was an American animator, director, producer, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of people for much of the 20th century. When he was a young child, Hanna's family moved frequently, but they settled in Compton, California, by...

 and Joseph Barbera
Joseph Barbera
Joseph Roland Barbera was an influential American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of fans worldwide for much of the twentieth century....

 to finalize the production deal, but was in for a major surprise. Hanna-Barbera wanted Janssen to recast Patrice Holloway, because they had decided to portray "Josie and the Pussycats" as an all-White trio and had altered African-American Valerie's character to make her Caucasian. Janssen refused to recast Holloway, whose voice he felt he needed for the soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...

-inspired bubblegum pop
Bubblegum pop
Bubblegum pop is a genre of pop music with an upbeat sound contrived and marketed to appeal to pre-teens and teenagers, produced in an assembly-line process, driven by producers, often using unknown singers.Bubblegum's classic period ran from 1967 to 1972...

 songs he had written, and threatened to walk away from the project. After a three-week-long stand-off between Janssen and Hanna-Barbera, Hanna-Barbera finally relented, allowed Janssen to keep Holloway, and changed Valerie back to being an African-American. Valerie had been introduced in the "Josie" comic book in late 1969, and the character had been African-American from the start.

Word quickly spread around 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...

 about the stand Janssen had taken. To show their gratitude, a number of the most notable soul session players in the city offered their services to La La Productions and the Josie album at a fraction of their regular fees. Among them were Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....

's drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...

 Ronnie Tutt, Elvis' bassist
Bassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...

 Jerry Scheff
Jerry Scheff
Jerry Obern Scheff is an American bassist, perhaps best known for his work with Elvis Presley in the early 1970s as a member of his TCB Band and his work on The Doors' final recordings....

, keyboardist
Keyboardist
A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instruments with keyboards have come into common usage, requiring a more...

 Clarence MacDonald, flutist Wilton Felder
Wilton Felder
Wilton Lewis Felder is both a saxophone and bass player, and is best known as a founding member of The Crusaders, initially called the Jazz Crusaders. Felder, Wayne Henderson, Joe Sample, and Stix Hooper founded the group while in high school in Houston...

 and guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

 Mike Stewart.

Overview

The Josie and the Pussycats sound is very much based upon that of late '60s Detroit acts such as Motown's Jackson 5 and Hot Wax's Honey Cone
Honey Cone
Honey Cone was an American R&B and soul all girl vocal group, who are best remembered for their Billboard #1 hit single, "Want Ads". They were the premier female group for Hot Wax Records, operated by Holland–Dozier–Holland after they had departed from Motown Records.-Career:Honey Cone comprised...

. A cover of The Jackson 5's classic "I'll Be There" is present on the album, and a number of Patrice Holloway's leads find her imitating young Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...

's lead vocals. Ironically, Holloway, who almost didn't even end up in the group, sings most of the album's lead vocals. Holloway also sings lead on the famous "Josie and the Pussycats" theme song, which was written by Hanna-Barbera musical director Hoyt Curtin
Hoyt Curtin
Hoyt Stoddard Curtin was an American composer and music producer, the primary musical director for the Hanna-Barbera animation studio from its beginnings with The Ruff & Reddy Show in 1957 until his retirement in 1986, except from 1963-1973, when the primary music director was Ted Nichols...

 (and based on a recurring score cue from The Jetsons
The Jetsons
The Jetsons is a animated American sitcom that was produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing in prime-time from 1962–1963 and again from 1985–1987...

), William Hanna
William Hanna
William Denby Hanna was an American animator, director, producer, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of people for much of the 20th century. When he was a young child, Hanna's family moved frequently, but they settled in Compton, California, by...

, and Joseph Barbera
Joseph Barbera
Joseph Roland Barbera was an influential American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of fans worldwide for much of the twentieth century....

. The majority of the rest of the lead parts are done by Cherie Moor
Cheryl Ladd
Cheryl Ladd is an American actress, singer and author. Ladd is best known for her role as Kris Munroe in the television series Charlie's Angels, hired amid a swirl of publicity prior to its second season in 1977 to replace the departing Farrah Fawcett-Majors...

. Although she was cast as the singing voice of Josie, Kathleen Dougherty only sings partial lead vocals on two of the Pussycats' songs, "If That Isn't Love," and the cover of "I'll Be There." Also present on the album are covers of Bobby Sherman
Bobby Sherman
Robert Cabot "Bobby" Sherman, Jr. , is an American singer, actor and occasional songwriter, who became a popular teen idol in the late 1960s and early 1970s.He graduated in 1961 from Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California...

's "La, La, La (If I Had You)", The Carpenters
The Carpenters
Carpenters were an American vocal and instrumental duo, consisting of sister Karen and brother Richard Carpenter. The Carpenters were the #1 selling American music act of the 1970s. Though often referred to by the public as "The Carpenters", the duo's official name on authorized recordings and...

' "(They Long To Be) Close To You", and Bread
Bread (band)
Bread was a rock band from Los Angeles, California. They placed 13 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart between 1970 and 1977 and were a prime example of what later was labeled soft rock....

's "It Don't Matter to Me".

Although Janssen used strings
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

, horns
Horn section
In music, a horn section can refer to several groups of musicians. It can refer to the musicians in a symphony orchestra who play the horn . In a British-style brass band it refers to the tenor horn players. In popular music, it can also refer to a small group of wind instrumentalists who augment a...

, keyboards, and oscillators (electronic synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

s) to create the band's sound, the on-screen cartoon band featured Josie on guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

, Valerie with tambourine
Tambourine
The tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....

s, and Melody on drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

. No other musicians appeared on-screen with them, creating a disconcerting contrast between audio and visual for the viewers. At least one, but usually two, of the band's songs were heard during the course of an episode of the TV show, especially during a high-action chase sequence.

Josie and the Pussycats: From the Hanna-Barbera TV Show was released on December 15, 1970 by Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

, Six 45 RPM singles were released, 4 of which contained non-album songs and were only available as part of a Kellogg's mail-order promotion. None of the singles charted, and many people didn't even know the album was available. As a result, sales were far below expectations, and plans for a national tour were shelved. Hanna-Barbera contracted producer Jimmie Haskell and a group of anonymous session singers to do the music for Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, and La La Productions' Josie and the Pussycats group was officially disbanded. Danny Janssen and Patrice Holloway worked together on a few songs after the demise of the band ("Black Mother Goose" and "Evidence," both issued in 1971), and Sue Sheridan (as Sue Steward) cut two solo singles for Capitol under Janssen and Young's supervision. Several years later, Sheridan wrote a few songs for Cheryl Ladd's self-titled 1978 debut album, also released on Capitol Records.

The album, the singles, some alternate takes, and a few songs that only appeared in the animated series were all collected in a limited edition digitally remastered set entitled Josie and the Pussycats: Stop Look and Listen: The Capitol Recordings, released by Rhino Handmade on October 5, 2001. Rhino only pressed 5000 copies of the album. Earlier that same year, Babyface produced a new Josie and the Pussycats album as the soundtrack for the motion picture released by Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...

 that same year. This new reincarnation of the Pussycats had a harder, punk-rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 sound, as opposed to their Motown-ish 1970 counterparts. Letters to Cleo
Letters to Cleo
Letters to Cleo was an alternative rock band from Boston, Massachusetts perhaps best known for the 1993 single "Here & Now" from their full-length debut album Aurora Gory Alice...

 vocalist Kay Hanley
Kay Hanley
Kathleen Marie Hanley is an American alternative rock musician. She is best known as the vocalist for the band Letters to Cleo.-Life and career:...

 sang lead on all of the Pussycats' new songs.

Track listing

  • Side One
  1. Every Beat of My Heart
  2. La, La, La (If I Had You)
  3. Stop, Look and Listen
  4. Hand Clapping Song
  5. I'll Be There
    • Side Two
  6. You've Come a Long Way Baby
  7. (They Long to Be) Close to You
  8. Roadrunner
  9. Lie Lie Lie
  10. It Don't Matter to Me

  • Bonus tracks (2001 re-issue)
  1. Every Beat of My Heart [Single Version]
  2. It's Alright With Me
  3. Stop, Look and Listen [Single Version]
  4. You've Come a Long Way Baby [Single Version]
  5. Letter to Mama
  6. Inside, Outside, Upside Down
  7. Josie
  8. With Every Beat of My Heart
  9. Voodoo
  10. If That Isn't Love
  11. I Wanna Make You Happy
  12. It's Gotta Be Him
  13. Lie Lie Lie [Alternate Mix][Alternate Take][#]
  14. You've Come a Long Way Baby [Alternate Mix][#]
  15. You've Come a Long Way Baby [Alternate Mix 2][#]
  16. Together [#]
  17. Dreammaker [#]
  18. Time to Love [#]

Commercial singles

  • "Every Beat of My Heart" b/w "It's All Right With Me" (Janssen, Steward; non-album)
  • "Stop, Look And Listen" b/w "You've Come a Long Way Baby"

Kellogg's mail order singles

  • "Voodoo" (Janssen, Steward) b/w "If That Isn't Love" (Hoyt Curtin
    Hoyt Curtin
    Hoyt Stoddard Curtin was an American composer and music producer, the primary musical director for the Hanna-Barbera animation studio from its beginnings with The Ruff & Reddy Show in 1957 until his retirement in 1986, except from 1963-1973, when the primary music director was Ted Nichols...

    , William Hanna
    William Hanna
    William Denby Hanna was an American animator, director, producer, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of people for much of the 20th century. When he was a young child, Hanna's family moved frequently, but they settled in Compton, California, by...

    , Joseph Barbera
    Joseph Barbera
    Joseph Roland Barbera was an influential American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of fans worldwide for much of the twentieth century....

    )
  • "Josie" (Curtin, Hanna, Barbera) b/w "With Every Beat of My Heart" (Janssen, Steward)
  • "Inside, Outside, Upside-Down" (Janssen, Steward) b/w "A Letter to Mama" (Curtin, Hanna, Barbera)
  • "It's Gotta Be Him" (Curtin, Hanna, Barbera) b/w "I Wanna Make You Happy" (Janssen, Steward)

Other recordings

These songs only appeared in the cartoon show; they were never released for consumer purchase. "Clock on the Wall" and "I Love You Too Much" were the only songs not included on the Rhino reissue.
  • "Dreammaker"
  • "Clock on the Wall"
  • "Together"
  • "The Time to Love"
  • "I Love You Too Much"


Cartoon Network did re-working of the Josie And The Pussycats theme song in a short called Musical Evolution, in which the theme song goes through several changes in styles, including disco, punk, country, heavy metal, and hip-hop. It is unclear who provided the singing voices for the characters in the short.

See also

  • Josie and the Pussycats (the Archie comic)
    Josie and the Pussycats (comic)
    Josie and the Pussycats is a teen-humor comic book about a fictional rock band, created by Dan DeCarlo and published by Archie Comics. It was published from 1963 until 1982; since then, a number of one-shot issues have appeared without regularity...

  • Josie and the Pussycats (the Hanna-Barbera cartoon show)
    Josie and the Pussycats (TV series)
    Josie and the Pussycats is an American animated television series, based upon the Archie Comics comic book series of the same name created by Dan DeCarlo....

  • Josie and the Pussycats (film)
    Josie and the Pussycats (film)
    Josie and the Pussycats is a 2001 comedy film released by Universal Studios and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Directed and co-written by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan, the film is loosely based upon the Archie comic of the same name...


External links

  • [ The Josie and the Pussycats page at allmusic.com]
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