TOYS STORY
By Bill Dahl

Some Toys are unequivocally more fun than others.

Take the seductive trio of Toys that recorded the million- selling "A Lover's Concerto." That mellifluous melody-a soaring adaptation of Bach's Minuet in G, no less-was one of the biggest hits of 1965, zipping up the pop and R&B charts like a rocket and turning the Jamaica, New York-based vocal threesome into global overnight sensations. The irresistible song remains a staple of oldies stations playlists from coast to coast.
Sundazed's CD reissue of A Lover's Concerto/Attack, the Toys' 1966 album for Bob Crewe's DynoVoice label, contains 14 soul-steeped girl group classics (including two bonus tracks) that are non-stop fun, thanks to the dynamic lead vocals of Barbara Harris and her cohorts Barbara Parritt and June Montiero. The group came together when they were in their teens.

"We were in high school," says Harris. "The other Barbara and myself, we went to the same school. June, her sister was a neighbor of Barbara's. She used to come over to her sister's house all the time. So they met that way. We all got together after school. We would sing on the corner. First we were doing talent shows. We started doing talent shows, and then we started going to New York-1650 Broadway-looking for background work.

"We met a fellow at one of the talent shows who took us back to Broadway, and introduced us to our manager," she continues. "Vince Marc was his name. He was managing his wife. Her name was Barbara Chandler, she had a record out there. So we sort of got together and we did shows together. And then he introduced us to the writers, Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell."

Linzer and Randell would play an integral role in the Toys' rise to fame, both as their producers and their primary source of material (of the dozen songs on the original album, the prolific pair wrote all but one, a cover of the Beatles' "Yesterday").

"They wrote four songs in the beginning, and we went in and recorded the four songs," says Harris. Surprisingly, waxing "A Lover's Concerto" wasn't the primary goal that fateful day. "We did four songs, and that one was the last one that they introduced us to," she says. "The first three, we rehearsed for weeks, trying to get it just so. Then they came up with 'A Lover's Concerto' at the last minute, and they said, 'Hey girls, let's sing this song!' It was so easy that we rehearsed it for a bit, then we went into the studio and recorded that. The first take they took. We didn't have to do it over and over like the rest of them. And we never knew that that would be the one."

The girls were novices at recording, but their lack of experience never came through on vinyl for an instant. "They put us in the booth, and we didn't want anybody in there, in the studio watching us," she says. "'Cause we were straight out of high school, and everything was kind of scary then."

Linzer and Randell assumed specific roles as the Toys' producers. "They were pretty cool," Barbara says. "Denny seemed to be more aggressive than Sandy. Denny would play the piano, and Sandy would just stand in front of us and try and pull out all the passion and everything that he wanted in the song. They worked together good like that. Denny was more like the musical person, and Sandy was more for bringing out the sound."

When "A Lover's Concerto" blasted skyward to the uppermost reaches of the hit parade, the trio hit the road. "It was fantastic," says Barbara. "All three of us were so thrilled to be able to travel. We really didn't realize what we had, though. Vinnie kept saying, 'Girls, I don't think you realize what a number one record is!' And actually, we didn't. It was the first time, and we were just having fun and traveling, and meeting all these different people, and seeing all these different things.

"It was just overwhelming. We should have been back in the studio if we had been thinking businesswise, get that album out to keep it going. But we were having fun. I think our manager was more concerned about making the money too. He had us traveling all over Europe-Germany and England. The writers were yelling, 'They gotta come back here!' And he was saying, 'Well, they'll be back in two months!' So we were just having fun. It was fantastic, just so overwhelming. I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd end up in England or Germany, you know?"

"We got off the plane; all these kids were like the Beatles, like they treated the Beatles when they came over here! That's what they did for us. They were screaming and yelling outside the airport, so they rushed us in this car and got us to a press conference they were having. All the kids were outside. We couldn't even get back outside. It was fantastic. They had all these people coming-writers, reporters-interviewing us there."
Closer to home, the Toys made the rounds of America's top TV rock programs: Shindig, Hullabaloo, American Bandstand, Where the Action Is, The Clay Cole Show, and Upbeat, a syndicated show hosted by Don Webster in Cleveland where the trio was a house favorite. "We did that so much. Whenever they had an opening, they would call us. One hour, I'd be over here in New York, and the next hour I'd be in Cleveland. Two hours later, I'd be back in New York," she says.

"The dancers there were fantastic. They loved us. Every time we'd come there, they'd look at us practicing. We'd be backstage, trying to get our little act together before we got on the camera. We were so funny! They used to laugh and say, 'We love watching you girls!'"
The Toys' first DynoVoice followup, "Attack," proved another huge hit before 1965 was through. "We had come back, and we went into the studio and did that one. They changed it so much that it was a little disappointing when we heard it," Barbara says. "We went back to England, and they brought us the final mix. The way they had it at first,I think I liked it better. When we finally heard the final mix, it was different. The echo part was just a little too much-'Attack! Attack!' But I guess it caught on."

Though Crewe's track record as a songwriter (he co-penned the Rays' 1957 smash "Silhouettes" with Frank Slay; the pair also masterminded Freddie Cannon's series of high-energy hits for Swan Records), producer (he supervised the Four Seasons' incredible hitmaking run), and artist (the catchy 1966 instrumental "Music To Watch Girls By") was undeniably dusted with gold, the label boss mostly maintained a low profile with the Toys.
"You know what I remember him doing? Taking us to take pictures, and taking us shopping for clothes," remembers Barbara. "He was more or less on that end. He didn't have anything to do with the music, not really."

Crewe was responsible for conceptualizing the group's striking album cover, where the three girls appear to be posing on toy shelves. "It was at somebody's house on Park Avenue. I know he had an apartment on Park Avenue. He had a friend, and he took us to this friend's house. It was like a suite, a loft, or something like that," explains Harris. "He had it all set up with like this thing you see on the front-like a room divider, I called it. He had it all set up."

Linzer and Randell packed the album with solid material. Harris handled the lead work on everything but "Hallelujah," which featured Barbara Parritt up front, and the June Montiero- led "Yesterday." Harris shines on the rest of the set, which boasted the impressive "Baby's Gone," "I Got A Man," "Can't Get Enough Of You Baby," and plenty more.

Inevitably, there were comparisons with the Supremes- especially after Diana Ross's glamorous Motown trio covered "A Lover's Concerto" on their I Hear a Symphony LP. "The Isley Brothers were telling us they were listening to 'A Lover's Concerto' all over Motown, trying to come up with 'I Hear A Symphony,' laughs Barbara. "They said, 'We heard your record all day long 'til they wrote one for the Supremes.' That made us feel kind of good."

The Toys even leaped onto the silver screen when they cameoed in the beach film It's a Bikini World. "We went out to California," recalls Barbara. "Up at six o'clock in the morning, on the set. I think it was 'Attack' we did. We didn't do 'A Lover's Concerto,' we did 'Attack.' And we never got to meet anybody, 'cause nobody was there when we taped it. When I see it back, it's like the audience is sitting out there, and it's strange. Then it was just the cameramen, very quiet. We were sleepy, because we'd had a gig the night before, and they woke us up at like six o'clock. But it was nice." Musical appearances by the Toys, Castaways, Animals, and Gentrys constitute the movie's principal highlights.

After two more chart entries in 1966 (the alluring "May My Heart Be Cast Into Stone" and "Baby Toys," both included as bonus tracks on Sundazed's CD reissue of the album), the Toys moved to Mercury's Philips subsidiary for two singles in '67 and then over to Musicor Records, where they scored their final R&B hit with a soulful 1968 reading of Brian Hyland's "Sealed With A Kiss" while working with songwriter Helen Miller.

"Then we split up after that. We each went our way," says Barbara. "I was in another band, and Barbara and June, they joined one of the Marvelettes groups. They had about three or four groups floating around. Barbara was in the A group or the B group, and June was in the C group. So they were still doing it that way. But I got into a little band, and I was just working locally, because I was having a family."

Happily, Harris never stopped singing. Along with her husband, Kenneth Wiltshire, she recently cut a new CD, Barbara Now. "My husband was my bass player and my bandleader for a number of years. We got married, and now we have a little studio in our home," she explains. "Our sons got together-the oldest boys, they have a little computer business, and they're doing very well. They put their money together and financed our first CD. So now we've got a brand-new CD out." Although they no longer perform together as a unit, Barbara stays in touch with her ex-mates in the Toys. Both Barbara Parritt and June Montiero live in Queens, and both still perform. Parritt sometimes teams up with Joe Rivers, the former duet partner of the late Johnnie Richardson (when they were known as Johnnie & Joe).

"I love them both. They're real good people. It's that we have different ideas about things," says Harris, who occasionally performs under the Toys name with two other singers.

You'll definitely have fun playing Sundazed's Toys CD!