Santana's first two singles had wrong names in spades: Though classical composer Aaron Copland wrote a "Jingo" - the fifth movement to his "Statements for Orchestra" - this was not what Santana covered here. (Promos even got the publisher wrong - Copland's, Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. (ASCAP).) Another whopper. The "J. Zack" was Jimmie Zack, an obscure Midwest rockabilly singer of the late 1950's / early 1960's. Listen to this and tell me if this sounds anything like the "Evil Ways" Santana did: Such errors were also on first labels of their debut LP:
And then there was this ringer on track B2 of early copies of Elvis' In Person At The International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada: Alas, Presley didn't cover the Monkees' record, but the Bee Gees' as written by B., R. & M. Gibb. Also note the gender transposition of the writer of B4; meaning they messed up on Mark James' birth name too.
There were two different Del Vikings groups as early as the summer of 1957, due to some contractual hassles that prevented Kripp Johnson from leaving Fee Bee Records for Mercury along with the rest of the group. Since Fee Bee still had the rights to the group name and to the lead singer on their latest record, they simply hired a few replacements. "Whispering Bells" was recorded before the split but became a hit immediately afterward. The Mercury group (i.e. the original lineup sans Johnson) recorded their third hit, "Cool Shake", which is largely forgotten today but was actually almost as big a hit as "Come Go With Me" and "Whispering Bells". Neither version of the group had much success afterwards. One or the other of them appeared on Bandstand in late 1957, but no one seems to be sure which it was. Incidentally, the "Whispering Bells" single qualifies for this thread in its own right, misspelling both Johnson's first name and the group name:
I can't find an image of it anywhere, but some (maybe even all?) CD copies of Jackson Browne's first album have Saturate Before Using on the spine, when that was never the title of the album. As Browne himself recalled years later: "I was thinking, 'well, it could be a water bag.' ... it said 'saturate before using' on the front ... 'You know, Gary, on mine, it says this on the back.' And you said, well, so?' And 'if you put it on the front, people are going to think that's the title.' And you said, 'don't be ridiculous. Who would think that was the title?' I said, 'Yeah, you're right.' So, not only does everyone think that's the title of that album, but my record company thinks that's the title of the album."
That one has to be intentional. Incorrect by the strict rules of the English language, sure, but a clever pun.
Actually, it's a documented error that has appeared three different ways on reissues over the years: Reel To Real Real To Reel Reel To Real 1002
Ah! I understand now. "Reel to Real" is definitely the intended one but I don't fault people for getting it wrong.
Or Benny Hill's Chow Mein character was in charge of the graphic design. "Rye you no risten - shtoopid iriot!"
My favorite is still the old Cars Panorama 8-track................................. When I ran a Panorama weakest link game a few months ago, I used the wrong title from this until the song was voted off.
The Ronettes’ first album famously misspelled the band’s name as The Ronnettes on the first pressings.
