100 Greatest Songs of the 60’s #92 Rosie & The Originals – Angel Baby

Released: 1960

Sometimes, the song and the story are equally fascinating, but in different ways. Rosalie Hamlin supposedly (Others said it was Originals guitarist Dave Ponci) wrote a song for her first boyfriend at the tender age of 14, called it Angel Baby and recorded it in a converted garage. Unable to find an outlet, the legend goes that after being piped through the sound system of a local department store the band were eventually signed to Highland Records.

An Enchanted Under The Sea like number with more than a hint of appropriated doowop, not everyone was impressed. A top five hit at the time, in a retro piece printed in 1975 Bill Millar of Let It Rock was scornful of it’s inner corniness, describing the singer’s vocal as sounding “like a haemophiliac with a punctured artery.”

But that indeterminate handoff period between the saccharine pop of the late 50’s and rock n’ roll saw even it’s unpolished gems leaving an impression on the young minds of many. Once heard never forgotten, the song became a favourite of John Lennon, who recorded a version himself, whilst in an even more unlikely circumstance, the band are directly referenced in the sleeve notes of Led Zeppelin’s Houses of The Holy. Sometimes the song and the story are equally fascinating, sometimes the fascination is someone’s that the world becomes fascinated with.