I've been around the song ever since it was charting on am radio. Usually sort of tuning it out in my mind. I didn't know till this week that the Angels were a white trio!! And only 16-17 yrs old when the record hit. The main singer has such a cool, smoky r&b voice in a 1960 kinda way (on the 45 anyway). I've been reading about the engineering that went into making the single sound like it does.....man oh man. I just saw this video for the first time this week and it put me in shock....instead of seeing an image of what I'd expect to look like the Blossoms....I'm suddenly seeing the Donna Reed show!! Or the McGuire sisters doing r&b Has this been discussed before? Amazing amazing amazing......double-take video for me.....but after listening to the 45 a few times after...whatta record...including the sound and some of the most clever lyrics ever invented. Wow!
a great song! and I can remember it on the AM radio at the time...yes, just another great song...I played the single much!
When singers could actually sing without the need for auto tune or to stick 500,000 notes in where they don't belong and when songs had an actual tune. Just 3 singers and a backing band. Perfection
Wow, amazing live performance! Footage with live vocals from that time period is rare. Girl group music might be the most exciting and transcendant form of rock n' roll, especially when paired with Phil Spector's wall of sound. I take this opportunity to post one of the best in the genre, which might have the single best bridge ever in a pop song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pIoAsOGH1Q For my money, this is as brilliant a recording and a song as anything the Beatles or Brian Wilson ever did.
There was in the early 1980s a VHS tape on “Girl Groups: Story of a Sound” based on the book by Alan Betrock, from the same company that did “The Compleat Beatles” . This song/clip opened it with one of the songwriters (Bob Feldman?) saying it basically wrote itself…He happened to be near a high school at the start of school and one girl was saying a lot of the words to a guy. The VHS tape was kinder to girl groups than the book, which had mixed feelings about the genre,
Great early 60's Pop. [definite Doo-Wop influence] Always sounded like young White girls to me; even as a young White guy.
A few years later, an obscure British beat group worked part of Boyfriend's chorus into the coda of one of their own songs, starting at 2:45:
The Angels were an Italian-American girl group from New Jersey, originally called The Delicates. They were made up of Peggy Santiglia and the Siroco sisters, Barbara and Phyllis. Later on, Bernadette Dalia joined. She's best known as Bernadette Carroll, who had a minor hit with "Party Doll" in 1963. "My Boyfriend" was written and produced by the trio who made up the Strangeloves. One of them was now-legendary producer Richard Gottehrer, who went on to co-found Sire Records and produce Blondie, Marshall Crenshaw, the Go-Go's, and others. Both Peggy and Bernadette released records under various monikers in the ensuing years. None were hits, but some are now cult classics, especially among England's Northern Soul crowd. A good example is this sultry 1966 single by Peggy, "Come Closer," done under the name Tiffany Michel (?!?). It was written and produced by the 4 Seasons' Bob Gaudio -- another Jersey native. The Angels also figured into the hit stage musical "Jersey Boys," but I digress...
I remember the song well from 1963, which was a very colourful year for music, full of interesting and enjoyable songs. The attitude shown in My Boyfriend's Back contrasted with the quieter efforts that made the charts. Like many songs from that era, it gives me a mental image of my aunt's basement up on "the mountain" in Hamilton, Ont., where we stayed for a couple of weeks after arriving from the U. K. Nostalgia ...
Cool song. I knew they were white as I saw them on some TV show back in the day. They lowered the key a little on the live video. I still can't believe that Ronnie James Dio plays trumpet on the song.
"I Never Dreamed" is new to me as well, a terrific song...re: Russ Titelman, I do have a record with his involvement (sung by the Cookies under the Cinderellas name)-"Baby Baby I Still Love You". I really love these types of records!
Note that the version of Boyfriend that’s become the standard one is longer than the single, with an extra bridge and instrumental break.
It's funny how people can perceive things differently. Up until just now I'd never seen the group who sung this song. So I watched the video posted above, and they are exactly as I thought they'd look like all these years. I've been way wrong on other groups though.
I found out they were white when I saw them on Sha Na Na as a kid. I loved this record when I was little. My mother had all her old 45s from the late 50s and 60s and so I grew up in the 70s and 80s liking music from that era more than what was on the radio at the time. Still do.
