Carpenters please mister postman11/2/2022 ![]() ![]() Postman” and, when Dobbins asked permission to re-write it to be suitable for a girl group to sing, he agreed as long as he would get credit as a writer. ![]() Garrett only had a small set of lyrics but no melody for a song he titled “Please Mr. Georgia Dobbins took it upon herself to take a blues song written by a friend of hers named William Garrett and rework it for the group to perform at a later audition for Motown. Although they performed well, they were required to come back with their own original song. In early 1961 they landed an audition with Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson at Hitsville, USA, home of Motown Records. The Marvels were a singing group from Inkster, Michigan made up of five high school friends Georgia Dobbins, Gladys Horton, Georgeanna Tillman, Juanita Cowart and Katherine Anderson. To solve the mystery we need to look at the history of the song. The Songwriters Hall Of Fame credits the song to “Holland/Bateman/Gorman” while The Beatles discography book “All Together Now” even lists Motown founder Berry Gordy as the co-author. On The Marvelettes record you will see the songwriting credit as “Dobbins/Garrett/Brianbert,” but on the label of The Beatles version of the song you will see “Holland” as the songwriter. You would think that taking a look at the label on the original record would solve this issue, but that is not the case. And you better believe they included “Please Mister Postman” on that next release, “ The Beatles’ Second Album.”Īn interesting mystery surrounding “Please Mister Postman” is the actual identity of the songwriter or songwriters. On the surface, you can understand their reasoning, but after three million copies of the album had been sold by mid March, Capitol was ready to rush-release another album to cash in on the excitement. They decided against including the song on their first album “ Meet The Beatles!” for just that reason. It was actually the first #1 hit the Motown label ever had.Ĭould The Beatles do the song justice? Would American audiences be interested in a young white British group covering a black R&B/pop smash hit? Capitol Records didn’t think so. The original version of the song by the Motown group The Marvelettes peaked at #1 on the Billboard pop charts in December of 1961. The fifth and final “girl group” song The Beatles picked to record professionally was also the biggest hit they chose. “Please Mister Postman” was the exception. The songs they chose to record usually weren’t big hits in fact some were so obscure that many Beatles fans assumed that they had written them. When they entered EMI studios for recording sessions in the early years, no matter what they were recording and no matter how rushed their schedules were, they were on top of their game.Īs can be seen by the cover songs chosen for their second album “ With The Beatles,” they were given more leeway to record what they felt strongly about, as opposed to having George Martin or Brian Epstein suggest the track list for them. The Beatles took pride in their recordings, whether it was newly written originals or well loved cover versions. (Georgia Dobbins – William Garrett – Brian Holland – Robert Bateman – Freddie Gorman) ![]()
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