Phil Spector Wanted the Same Song — Quincy Jones Rushed a 16-Year-Old Lesley Gore to Radio First
In the spring of 1963, Lesley Gore was still a 16-year-old high school student from New Jersey.
Then Quincy Jones heard her voice.
Gore had recorded a few demonstration songs with her vocal coach, and the tapes eventually reached Mercury Records. Jones, already an accomplished musician and arranger, was working as an executive at the label.
He saw something in the teenager.
For their first recording session, Gore and Jones listened through a huge pile of demo songs, searching for the right one.
Eventually, they found it.
“It’s My Party.”
The story was perfect for a teenage singer: a girl watches her boyfriend Johnny disappear at her own party, only to discover him returning with another girl, Judy.
It was heartbreak reduced to a few unforgettable minutes of pop music.
Lesley recorded the song in New York in March 1963.
That might have been the end of the story.
Then Quincy Jones ran into Phil Spector.
Spector was already becoming famous for his enormous “Wall of Sound” productions, and during their conversation he revealed something that immediately alarmed Jones:
He was working on “It’s My Party” too, with The Crystals.
Suddenly, there was a race.
Jones knew that if Spector’s version reached radio first, Lesley Gore’s debut might disappear before anyone ever heard it.
So he moved fast.
Rather than waiting for the normal record-company release process, Jones rushed Lesley’s recording to radio stations.
The gamble worked.
Within days, “It’s My Party” was spreading across American radio.
Lesley herself reportedly first heard the finished record while listening to the radio.
Then things became almost surreal.
Quincy Jones left for Japan on another assignment. While he was away, Mercury Records president Irving Green contacted him with the news:
The teenage singer Jones had just produced had the No. 1 record in America.
“It’s My Party” transformed Lesley Gore almost overnight.
She went from schoolgirl to national celebrity, and the hits kept coming.
“Judy’s Turn to Cry” continued the story.
“She’s a Fool” followed.
Then, later that same year, Lesley recorded “You Don’t Own Me,” a dramatically more mature declaration of independence that would become another defining song of her career.
But none of it might have happened if Quincy Jones had waited.
Phil Spector’s competing recording never became the hit.
Lesley Gore got there first.
It is one of those moments when pop history seems to turn on a matter of days — perhaps even hours.
A 16-year-old girl walked into a studio with no idea how dramatically her life was about to change.
Quincy Jones heard a rival producer mention the same song.
And instead of waiting, he raced it to the radio.
By the time the competition could catch up, Lesley Gore was already No. 1.
Barbara Mandrell Retired From Music at 18 — One Night at the Grand Ole Opry Changed Her Mind
Long before Barbara Mandrell became one of the biggest stars in country music, she had already decided her music career was over.
She was only 18.
That decision sounds almost impossible in hindsight.
Because Barbara Mandrell had been preparing for the stage practically since childhood.
Born in Houston on Christmas Day in 1948, she learned accordion and how to read music before entering first grade. After her family moved to California, she began studying steel guitar at about ten years old while also learning saxophone at school.
Then someone important noticed her.
Country guitarist Joe Maphis saw the young Mandrell performing at a music trade convention in 1960.
He was impressed enough to bring her into his Las Vegas act.
Barbara was still a child, yet she was already sharing a musical world populated by professional country performers.
Before long, she appeared on the Los Angeles television program Town Hall Party and joined a national package tour headlined by Johnny Cash.
By 14, she was performing with her family band at military bases in the United States and Asia. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
It looked as though music had already chosen her.
Then Barbara walked away.
She had fallen in love with Ken Dudney, the drummer in the Mandrell family band.
Dudney eventually joined the Navy and trained as a pilot.
The couple married in 1967.
Barbara decided that was enough.
At 18, she retired from music.
For someone who had spent much of her childhood performing, it was an extraordinary choice.
But the retirement did not last.
When Dudney was away with the Navy, Barbara visited her family in Tennessee.
One evening, she attended a taping of The Porter Wagoner Show before the Grand Ole Opry.
As Barbara watched the performers, something came back.
She leaned toward her father, Irby Mandrell.
She told him she could do what she was watching onstage.
More importantly, she wanted to do it again.
She asked whether he would manage her.
Her father believed in her.
The decision made that night changed everything. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Barbara soon signed with Columbia Records.
In 1969, she entered the Billboard country chart with her version of Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.”
More hits followed.
By 1972, she had joined the Grand Ole Opry — the same institution connected to the night that helped convince her to return.
Then the career accelerated.
“Sleeping Single in a Double Bed” reached No. 1.
Her version of “If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don’t Want to Be Right)” also topped the country chart.
But Mandrell was becoming more than a recording artist.
She could sing.
She could dance.
She could play multiple instruments.
And onstage, she could move between traditional country, pop, soul, gospel, and show-business spectacle without losing her identity.
By the beginning of the 1980s, Barbara Mandrell was everywhere.
From 1980 to 1982, she starred with her sisters Louise and Irlene on NBC’s Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters, bringing country music into millions of American homes every week.
And the industry recognized what was happening.
The Country Music Association named Mandrell Entertainer of the Year in 1980.
Then she won again in 1981.
She became the first artist in CMA history to win the award in consecutive years. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
That same period produced the song that would become inseparable from her name.
“I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool.”
The song looked back at a time when openly loving country music was not always fashionable.
Then country culture exploded into the American mainstream.
George Jones appeared on the recording, and the song became another No. 1 country hit for Mandrell
The title almost seemed to describe Barbara herself.
She had been playing steel guitar as a child long before television superstardom.
She had toured before she was old enough to drive.
She had quit.
She had started again.
And she had reached the top.
Her life would still bring serious challenges.
In 1984, a devastating automobile accident left Mandrell with multiple injuries and required a long recovery.
Yet she returned again, continuing to record, tour, and act before eventually retiring from performing in 1997. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
In 2009, Barbara Mandrell was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
It was a remarkable ending to a story that could easily have stopped decades earlier.
At 18, Barbara Mandrell thought she was finished with music.
Then she sat in an audience in Nashville and watched other performers doing what she had once done.
Something inside her changed.
She told her father she wanted another chance.
He believed her.
And the young woman who had retired before her career truly began eventually became one of country music’s defining entertainers.
