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JAYNETTS

“SALLY, GO ‘ROUND THE ROSES”

(Zell Sanders, Lona Stevens)

Tuff 369

No. 2    September 28, 1963

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The girls came together in the Bronx, New York, in the mid-’50s, but the members would go and come and

go; things were very iffy and liquid then.    Mary Sue Wells,  Ethel Davis, Yvonne Bushnell, and Ada Ray

used to hang out with Zell Sanders, who was the entire staff of the Bronx-based J & S Record Company.

Zell had this odd little number, “Sally, Go ‘Round The Roses,” when Abner Spector of Tuff Records came

to town looking for some material and a girl group.     The meeting of Spector, the fluid Jaynetts, and the

mystifying lyrical ambiguity of Zell’s “Sally” would culminate in the creation of a rock’n’roll classic.

Abner had been involved with acts like THE TUNE WEAVERS and THE CORSAIRS.   In an interview with

Goldmine writer Aaron Fuchs, Johnnie Richardson (of JOHNNY & JOE fame) described  the “Sally”

recording sessions and Abner’s tendency to go a bit over the top in the studio.    “He took them in the

studio on a Friday and they didn’t get out of there until the next week.     And he used everybody on  that

track.       Anybody [including Buddy Miles and pianist Artie Butler] that came in the studio that week he

would put them on.   Originally, I think he had about 20 voices on that ‘Sally.”‘

The cost of that project alone, Richardson figures, was over $60,000–an unheard-of amount of money to

spend on recording a pop single in 1963.   “Sally, Go ‘Round The Roses” is a timeless wonder of a song,

featuring an odd, hypnotic rhythm and soft voices seductively rising and falling.      The lyrics seem to

portray Sally in an alluring field of roses, catching an eyeful of her lover with another.      But differing

interpretations abound.        Some listeners read the roses and the hushed throbbing of the music as

expressions of a young woman’s troubled acceptance of homosexuality.   Others think that the song is

about a religious experience or possibly a mental breakdown.    Still  others remember “Sally” as nothing’

more than a silly nursery rhyme.

Zell and Abner are gone now, so we’ll never know what it all meant, or even if  “Sally”‘s creators knew

what it all meant.     Abner never was able to concoct a follow-up with just the right ingredients.

“Snowman, Snowman, Sweet Potato Noses” and “Keep An Eye On Her,” produced in a Phil Spector-

influenced style, yielded unsuccessful results.     Some grouping of  Jaynetts continued on with “Chicken,

Chicken Crane Or Crow” and “Who Stole The Cookie From The  Cookie Jar?” both for Zell’s J & S label.

According to Richardson, Vernell Hill was also a recording member of the Jaynetts, and the lead vocalist

on the “Chicken, Chicken” flip side, “Winky  Dink,” is none other than BABY WASHINGTON.