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ROBIN WARD

“WONDERFUL SUMMER”

(Gil Garfield, PERRY BOTKIN, JR.)

Dot 16530

No. 14       December 14, 1963

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Robin was born Jackie Ward in Nebraska in the early 1940s; the family soon after moved to Los Angeles.

As a young girl, Jackie loved to sing, to fews dismay.    She went to school and did all those things people

do when they are growing up.    The pattern continued:  she married, settled down, and started raising a

family, but still she dreamed of  making a niche for herself as a singer.   Jackie recorded some demos, and

the tiny Songs Unlimited label released “Lover’s Lullabye.”   Dot Records took an interest and issued a

single of hers called “Top 40 Blues” (credited simply to “Robin”).   Both disks were poor sellers.

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“We hired Jackie to sing the demo to ‘Wonderful Summer,’ said the tunes co-writer   PERRY BOTKIN, JR.

to liner note writer Todd Everett.     “It sounded so good, we decided to go for a master.   We sped her voice

up a quarter-tone on the track, so she sounded about 13 years old.   It sounded like a Dot Record to us, so

we went up the street (from Gold Star Studios) to the label’s office at Sunset and Vine and got Tom Mack,

one of Randy’s [label owner Randy Wood’s] A&R men, to listen to it.     We credited the record to Robin

Ward, who was one of Jackie’s three daughters.     Jackie was so busy in the studios, she couldn’t go out and

promote it.”

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In the heart of the winter, Dot issued the Lesley Gore-like  “Wonderful Summer.”   With the onset of spring,

the label–with crossed fingers and pretzel logic–issued the similar-sounding “Winter’sHere.”    No one

bought the humor, and “Here Winter” went nowhere.   After a  few more sides, Ward’s public career

dimmed.

 

“I knew it was a one shot,” said Randy Wood, on the liners of The History Of Dot, Volume 1.   “But I put it

out anyway–it sounded good, and I liked Jackie, who worked  on a lot of my sessions, very much.”

 

BOTKIN, JR. went on to One-Hit status as half of the duo-­ BARRY DE VORZON AND PERRY BOTKIN, JR–

who created “Nadia Theme (The Young And The Restless).”    “Wonderful Summer’s” other pen man, Gil

Garfield, was with the late TV actor Bert Convy two-thirds of the Cheers, an act responsible for the noxious

number “Black Denim Trousers (And Motorcycle Boots).”