Return To 60’s Main Menu Recording Artists Of The 60s
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.”