You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry

Album

You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry

Label

Smash Records

Genre

Dance-pop

Duration

1:00

Composer(s)

Bob Merrill;Terry Shand

Entered Chart

Nov 2, 1963

Peak Date

Dec 21, 1963

Released

12 July 1963

Recorded

1963

Catalog #

Smash 1852

B-Side

The Last One To Know

Question: In 1963, what British act had a hit on the US Hot 100 which started a 38-year run of at least one UK act on the American chart, finally ending on April 27, 2002? Hands up all of you who said The Beatles. It was actually female pop duo The Caravelles, whose light, breathy cover vocal style found favor across the Atlantic two months before the Fab Four started the British Invasion. The song was a cover of a 1950 Ernest Tubb Country hit, penned by Bob Merrill and Terry Shand. It was later reworked by Tennessee Ernie Ford as the flip side of his 1955 hit "Sixteen Tons." The Caravelles were Andrea Simpson and Lois Wilkinson. Lois met Andrea when they worked in a car showroom, but by night Lois was playing jazz at the Tatty Bogle club in Soho. Her ambition was to become a session guitarist. "People said, 'Girls can't play guitar,'" she recalled to Mojo magazine February 2012. "I struck up an acquaintance with Andrea because of music, she played clarinet." Naming themselves after a French airliner, The Caravelles began singing standards and found their voices combined well. A friend from the Tatty Bogle suggested they cover "You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry" and a demo found its way to the independent company Ritz, who issued a re-recorded version on Decca. "Everybody liked it," recalled Lois and the duo soon found themselves in the UK charts. Four months later the feather-light Country saunter hit the US charts, after being picked up by Smash Records for North American distribution. "We went to America for six weeks," recalled Lois to Mojo. "Our last engagement was in February 1964, second on the bill to The Beatles in Washington DC. (The Beatles first proper US date). It was like being in a boxing ring, I didn't think we were audible." By their return from America, two follow-up singles had missed the charts back home. The Caravelles also failed to hit the Hot 100 again. "I don't know why," said Lois. "I wish I knew. Perhaps the perception of us was that we were a one-hit wonder." Lois left The Caravelles in early 1966, returning to jazz as Lois Lane and she later sang pop hits on the BBC's That's Life in the 1970s. Andrea carried on with Lynne Hamilton, then Pauline Kelly into the 1990s.

You don't have to be a baby to cry
All you need is for love to go wrong
You don't have to be a baby to cry
Or to lie awake the whole night long

When you leave me my golden rainbow disappears
And you leave me a broken heart that's full of tears

These ain't rainbows in my eyes, why should I lie
You don't have to be a baby to cry

When you leave me my golden rainbow disappears
And you leave me a broken heart that's full of tears

These ain't rainbows in my eyes, why should I lie
You don't have to be a baby to cry
You don't have to be a baby to cry
You don't have to be a baby to cry