Goodnight My Love (Pleasant Dreams)

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Goodnight My Love
(Pleasant Dreams)
Cover
Jesse Belvin
publication 1956
length 3:06
Genre (s) Rhythm and blues , pop
Author (s) Jesse Belvin , George Motola , John Marascalco
Publisher (s) Quintet Music Inc.
House of Fortune Music
Label Modern Records
Cover versions
1956 The McGuire Sisters
1959 Ray Peterson
1963 The Fleetwoods
1966 Ben E. King
1969 Paul Anka
1977 Tavares

Goodnight My Love (Pleasant Dreams) , sometimes shortened to Goodnight My Love , is a successful rhythm and blues ballad by George Motola and Jesse Belvin from the year 1956. The original recording was made by Jesse Belvin for Modern Records . Songwriter John Marascalco Belvin bought a share of the author's rights per cut-in . The chord progression of the stanzas corresponds to a typical pop turnaround and is interrupted twice by a bridge . The song is addressed to a loved one who, with the assurance of mutual affection, is wished good night as a farewell in the evening. By 1977 the piece was in seven versions in the American charts.

Emergence

When Jesse Belvin sang the falsetto voice in 1956 for the hit Dreamy Eyes by the group The Youngsters on Empire Records , he met the label boss George Motola. The independent producer took Belvin with him when he started working for Modern Records as well. Together they developed Goodnight My Love (Pleasant Dreams) , although there are different reports on the exact contributions and parts of the songwriting: According to Billy Vera's research, Motola had already thought up the song in the 1940s and Belvin only contributed the bridge . According to Steve Propes and Galen Gart, however, Belvin brought the unfinished composition to Motola's office. The producer already knew about the financial importance of promising song rights and was happy to take over the publishing house with his publishing house House of Fortune Music for 400 dollars. He also added the bridge. Motola's songwriting partner John Marascalco also joined the session and helped complete the song. A few days later, Jesse Belvin, who was in need of money, called Marascalco and offered him half of the author's rights for $ 400. Marascalco's money enabled Belvin to marry his future manager Jo Ann Johnson, who at the time was a saleswoman in John Dolphin's record store .

Just a few weeks after the piece was sold, Jesse Belvin went into the studio with George Motola for the recording. Motola's Modern colleague Maxwell Davis contributed an arrangement for strings. A vocal quartet led by Don Raike and his wife Dee Dee Patrick were engaged for the background choir . Maybe Motola's wife Rickie Page also sang for the Don Raike Singers. The prominent background choir was unusual for an independent label of the time. Barry White , who was only 11 years old, helped out on the piano . The title was registered by Motola and Marascalco on December 10, 1956 with the Library of Congress .

Musical structure

Title page of the music edition

Goodnight My Love (Pleasant Dreams) is a ballad in the moderate pace . The original recording of the song is in C major in 4/4 time and is mainly performed in triplets . While the piano accompaniment is playing eighth note, the singer uses quarter-note triplets and the melody shuffled punctures . Eighth note triplets are only sung in the bridge. The four-bar intro is followed by two stanzas, each of which consists of four turnarounds over the chords C major, A minor, D minor and G major, so they can be represented theoretically as I-VI-II-V. The following Bridge switches between E major and B major, only to a minor third upwards on G major and D major move . Then the first verse, the bridge and again the first verse are repeated, whereupon the song ends in a ritualistic way .

\ relative c '' {\ key c \ major \ autoBeamOff r8 ^ "C" g8 c8. g16 e2 ^ "Am7" | r4 ^ "Dm7" f8 g8 \ times 2/3 {b4 ^ "G7" ab} | g4. ^ "C" f8 e2 ^ "Am7" | r4 ^ "Dm7" d8 e8 g8 ^ "G7" e8 d4 | \ times 2/3 {c4 ^ "C" de} c2 ^ "Am7" | r8 ^ "Dm7" d8 d8 e8 d8 ^ "G7" b4 a'8 | g1 ^ "C" | } \ addlyrics {Good - night my love | Pleas - ant dreams and sleep | tight my love May to - mor - row be sun - ny and bright And bring you clos - er to me}

Publications

The song was released on Modern 1005 in October 1956 along with I Want You with Me Christmas . Belvin's first name was varied to "Jessie". The Christmas B-side was replaced with Let Me Love You Tonight after the holidays . In 1959 Belvin was in the charts with Guess Who , so Jamie Records re-released the Modern recording with an additional string arrangement under the number 1145, but without the addition of brackets in the title. In the same year, the original appeared again with Senorita on the modern sub-label Kent Records under the number 1005. In 1960 there was a follow-up release on Lana Records , and again in the mid-1960s on Modern Oldies. A sheet music edition was published by the music publisher Quintet Music by Lester Sill , Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in collaboration with George Motola's own publishing house House of Fortune. The New York publishing house Hill and Range took over the distribution . The title appeared on LP for the first time in 1959 on the compilation Casual Jesse Belvin from Crown Records , a subsidiary of Modern Records, which has dedicated itself to the inexpensive new edition of the parent company's catalog. After Jesse Belvin's accidental death on February 6, 1960, this practice was continued through numerous compilations, including split editions with Brook Benton .

Cover versions

Ray Peterson
Half-page advertisement for Modern Records on November 10, 1956 on Billboard
Word roll for pianola

Goodnight My Love (Pleasant Dreams) has been covered over 70 times since it was first released. Many interpreters shorten the title when it is stated on the sound carrier and omit the addition in brackets. When releasing on LP, the title is often set as the final track. The QRS Company had Clyde Ridge play a word roll for pianola in 1956 ; Ray Anthony in 1962 and Fred Mollin in 1990 produced other instrumental versions . In 1957 the Sunnies and the Coronels recorded a German version under the title Ein Leben lang and directed by Günter Fuhlisch .

Importance, Criticism, and Success

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
Jesse Belvin
  R&BTemplate: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / country wrong 7th December 8, 1956 (3 weeks)
The McGuire Sisters
  US 32 December 8, 1956 (9 weeks)
Ray Peterson
  US 64 11/16/1959 (6 weeks)
The Fleetwoods
  US 32 06/01/1963 (11 weeks)
Ben E. King
  US 91 01/08/1966 (3 weeks)
Paul Anka
  US 27 04/01/1969 (10 weeks)
Tavares
  R&BTemplate: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / country wrong 14th 07/23/1977 (11 weeks)

Goodnight My Love (Pleasant Dreams) was quickly becoming an R&B standard. Modern Records co-owner Saul Bihari recommended the song to his New York friend Alan Freed , who used it as the credits for his popular nightly radio show on WINS. On the west coast, too, the title received plenty of airplay and was able to place itself in various local radio charts. Nationally, the record peaked at number seven on the R&B jukebox charts and stayed on Billboard Magazine's R&B sales charts for three weeks . Through the repeated reprints of the piece, the title became the outstanding "bread merit song" of the Modern group.

The success of the title underpinned Belvin's ambitions to seek a crossover from the black R&B genre into the pop music market, which was perceived as rough . His musical and vocal role model for this was Nat King Cole , especially on his hit Sentimental Reasons . In his greatest success, Guess Who, in 1959, Belvin drew heavily on Goodnight My Love . Don Raike's choral setting also anticipated the arrangement of Sam Cooke's first pop recording You Send Me on Keen Records from 1957.

Billy Vera praised the emotionality of the piece. To this day he could not hear Belvin's performance without “feelings of innocent romanticism” arising in him. It is a perfect mixture of a rock ballad and a string landscape that sounds like film music. Even Dick Clark recalled in his biography like the fact that he ended his dancing "wonderfully romantic" with Belvins ballad to which the couples were able to cling to each other again. Gretchen Christopher from the Fleetwoods said goodbye to the late George Motola with the song in 1991 at his burial at sea.

The McGuire Sisters covered the piece in the year of its first release and charted it high in the pop charts. In 1959, Ray Peterson reached 64th place with his version. In the 1960s, The Fleetwoods , Ben E. King and Paul Anka took on the song and thus reached the top list of the American music market. The last chart listing for the time being dates from 1977 and goes back to the funk band Tavares , which, like the original version in 1956, only scored in the black market of the R&B charts. Outside of the United States, no recording of the song reached a leaderboard. In 1987 Los Lobos recorded Goodnight My Love for the film La Bamba about the brief career of Ritchie Valens . The song also appeared on the accompanying soundtrack album , which sold over two million times.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Billy Vera: Jesse Belvin: Mr.Easy. (No longer available online.) In: DooWop Cafe. 2001, formerly in the original ; Retrieved March 27, 2013 (originally published as liner notes on the RCA Victor album Mr. Easy ).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / launch.groups.yahoo.com  
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Steve Propes, Galen Gart: LA R&B Vocal Groups 1945–1965 . 1st edition. Nickel Publications, Milford 2001, ISBN 0-936433-18-3 , Jesse Belvin, pp. 14-18 (American English).
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Steve Propes: Old School. 77 Years of Southern California R&B & Vocal Group Harmony Records 1934-2011 . 1st edition. San Bernadino 2013, ISBN 978-1-4610-7692-6 , p. 134 (American English).
  4. ↑ a b c Jim Dawson: Jesse Belvin Discography. In: The Doo-Wop Society of Southern California. 2004, accessed March 27, 2013 .
  5. ↑ a b John Broven: Record Makers and Breakers. Voices of the Independent Rock 'n' Roll Pioneers . University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago 2010, ISBN 978-0-252-03290-5 , Harold Battiste: Specialty Records Branch Manager, New Orleans, pp. 299 f . (American English).
  6. ↑ Bobby Bennett, Sarah Smith: The ultimate soul music trivia book: 501 questions and answers about Motown, Rhythm & Blues, and More . Carol Pub. Group, Secaucus 1998.
  7. ^ Public Catalog. Library of Congress, accessed March 27, 2013 .
  8. ^ A b George Motola, John Marascalco: Good-Night, My Love, Pleasant Dreams . Quintet Music, House of Fortune Music, Hill and Range Songs, New York 1956 (sheet music edition).
  9. ^ Gérard Lambert: Jesse Belvin. In: Rocky 52. 2011, accessed March 27, 2013 (French).
  10. ↑ a b c Joel Whitburn: Hot R&B Songs. Billboard 1942-2010 . 6th edition. Record Research Inc., Menomonee Falls 2010, ISBN 978-0-89820-186-4 (American English).
  11. ^ Joel Whitburn: Top Pop Singles 1955-2006 . Record Research, 2007, ISBN 978-0-89820-172-7 .
  12. ↑ Charts US
  13. ↑ Dick Clark, Richard Robinson: Rock, Roll & Remember . Popular Library, 1978, ISBN 978-0-445-04178-3 , pp. 150 (American English).
  14. ^ William Ruhlmann: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. La Bamba. In: Allmusic. Retrieved July 25, 2013 .
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on August 17, 2013 .