First off, I want to point out that this seems to have been a lopsided partnership. I've read a bunch of articles and interviews about these guys, and I've come to the conclusion that Sloan did most of the songwriting and Barri mostly helped with production and fleshing things out. This can be seen in the way Sloan continued to write and release lots of songs after their partnership finished, while Barri moved into production and other record industry roles, only occasionally co-writing songs for musical acts he produced. Heck, even Barri later admitted that Sloan was the key to their success, saying of him, "He was a major, major talent. God, he was good."
So this write-up is mostly about Sloan, and what a weird life story he had. (He died in 2015 at the age of 70.)
Sloan showed musical talent at a young age. He started playing guitar at the age of 13, but just one year later he released an obscure single. Two years after that, around 1961, he got a songwriting job in Los Angeles with Screen Gems, the largest music publishing company on the West Coast. Even though he was only 16 years old, with virtually no musical experience, apparently he was hired mainly because the publishing company wanted a teenager on staff to help them make money off teenagers buying rock and roll records.
Soon, Sloan began working with Barri, who was three years older than him. They began writing songs together at a frantic pace. They also produced and played the instruments on their songs, and many more. But that wasn't all. They pretended to be entire bands, and released many singles and even albums under a variety of different names, such as the Rally-Packs, the Wildcats, the Street Cleaners, Themes Inc., the Fantastic Baggys, the Lifeguards, and many more. The first song here, "Meet Me Tonight Little Girl," was actually written and recorded by Sloan and Barri in 1964, though they used yet another different name based on their first names, "Philip and Stephan."
In 1963, producer Lou Adler recognized their talent and was able to get them to switch to working for his record company, Dunhill Records, by doubling their salaries. Once there, Sloan worked a lot with Jan Berry, the real musical force of the duo Jan and Dean. Sloan sang uncredited lead vocals on the Jan and Dean hit "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena," and most other Jan and Dean hits for the next couple of years. He also came up with the intro guitar riff for the massive hit "California Dreamin'" by the Mamas and the Papas. Sloan in particular had a knack for writing songs in the popular styles of the day. He wrote entire albums of surf music, songs in the style of the Beach Boys, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and more.
Their first, and probably biggest hit, was "Eve of Destruction," in 1965. This was an extremely unlikely hit. Nowadays, it's hard to see how controversial its critical social commentary lyrics were. But the singer of the song, Barry McGuire, didn't like it, and only sang it to fill out an album. The record company certainly didn't like it, and had no intention of releasing it as a single. Even Barri didn't like it, and apparently had no role in writing or producing it (although he was given a co-write credit, since he and Sloan shared writing credits on all the songs either one of them wrote at this time). But someone (Sloan, perhaps?) leaked a copy of the song to a Los Angeles radio station. The public response was so overwhelming that the record company was forced to release it as a single. Once released, hundreds of radio stations banned it for its controversial lyrics. But despite such widespread banning, it made it all the way to Number One in the U.S. singles chart in 1965!
After such a massive success, it would have been a no-brainer to let the key songwriter of the song - Sloan - to pursue a solo career. And indeed, Sloan released solo albums in 1965 and 1966. However, they went nowhere. It seems pretty obvious that his record company, Dunhill Records, sabotaged his solo career as much as possible. This is because Sloan was writing many, many songs for the other acts on that record label, AND producing, AND playing the instruments, while getting paid very little for it, relatively speaking. If Sloan became a big star and just focused on his own career, they probably would have lost a lot of money on all their other acts.
Some of the Top Forty hits they wrote in 1964 to 1966 include "A Must to Avoid" by Herman's Hermits, "Let Me Be" by the Turtles, "You Baby" by the Turtles, "Where Were You When I Needed You" by the Grass Roots, and "Secret Agent Man" by Johnny Rivers. But they really should have had many more hits, except Dunhill Records didn't have much distribution or promotion muscle. This can be seen by the fact that they had several more Top Ten hits in Canada. For instance, "Unless You Care" was a Number Two hit in that country in 1964.
In fact, speaking of the Grass Roots, for that band's first album, Sloan and Barri basically were the band. This was yet another in a long series of fake bands fronted by them. They wrote, produced, and performed nearly all of the songs on the band's first album, released in 1966. But the song "Where Were You When I Needed You" had such success that a real band was hired to tour. Then that band actually performed on their next album. That was a success in 1967, mainly due to "Let's Live for Today," a song that was chosen and produced by Sloan and Barri, although they didn't write it.
However, the good times didn't last. Around the end of 1966, Sloan and Barri had a falling out, and their songwriting partnership (lopsided though it was) came to an end. The heads of Dunhill Records, especially an executive named Jay Lasker, really, really screwed Sloan over. In the 1960s, organized crime had a role in many record companies. Consider what happened to Jackie Wilson, who at one point was hung upside down out a window of a tall building until he agreed to sign a terrible record contract for a Mafia-controlled record label. Or consider Roulette Records. Even their Wikipedia entry states they "had known ties to New York City mobsters." Members of their biggest act, Tommy James and the Shondells, have said the company was a front for the notorious Genovese crime family, and the record company stole millions from them.
A similar thing happened to Sloan. Lasker, a rough guy from the New York City Mafia, repeatedly threatened to hurt or even kill him if he didn't do exactly what Dunhill Records told him to do. At one point, he forced him to sign away all his royalties, including everything he would earn for the next ten years, in return for letting him live. This is what caused the split between Sloan and Barri, because Barri sided with Dunhill Records. He continued working for them, and made lots of money from his continued royalties.
But Lasker pushed too hard, and essentially killed the golden goose that was the reason for most of the record company's success. At some point in late 1967, Sloan couldn't take it anymore. He fled Los Angeles for the East Coast. There, his life slowly spiraled down into even worse circumstances. But that will be explained in the second and last volume in this series, since this volume only goes until 1967.
Normally, in the "Covered" albums, I try not to have the songwriters also appear as performers. But I made a couple of exceptions here, because there are a couple of excellent songs in this time period that were best performed by Sloan: "Here's Where You Belong" and "Karma (Study of Divinations)." Also keep in mind that's him singing on the first song, as mentioned above.
Although I mentioned "Where Were You When I Needed You" as a hit in this time period, I haven't included it here. That's because I've chosen a later version by the Bangles that will appear in Volume 2.
Here's the Wikipedia link for Sloan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._F._Sloan
And here's the one for Barri:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Barri
This album is 55 minutes long.
01 Meet Me Tonight Little Girl (Philip & Stephan)
02 Unless You Care (Terry Black)
03 Eve of Destruction (Barry McGuire)
04 A Must to Avoid (Herman's Hermits)
05 Let Me Be (Turtles)
06 Sh-Down Down Song [You Better Leave Him Alone] (Ginger-Snaps with Dandee Dawson)
07 Little Liar (Terry Black)
08 You Never Had It So Good [Lollipop Train] (Barry McGuire)
09 Take Me for What I'm Worth (Searchers)
10 Here's Where You Belong (P. F. Sloan)
11 Sins of a Family (Ivans Meads)
12 What Am I Doing Here with You (Johnny Rivers)
13 You Baby (Turtles)
14 Tip of My Tongue (Grass Roots)
15 Bittersweet (Robbs)
16 From a Distance (Odin's People)
17 Can I Get to Know You Better (Turtles)
18 Secret Agent Man (Johnny Rivers)
19 Hold On (Herman's Hermits)
20 Is It Any Wonder (Turtles)
21 Karma [Study of Divinations] (P. F. Sloan)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/ckJi9NQv
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/xqtxOpGTnH6ML1P/file
The cover image is taken from an album by a band called "The Fantastic Baggys," supposedly consisting of four members. In fact, though, it was just Sloan and Barri, which is why there was a photo of just the two of them in the album art. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it. I also moved their heads closer together.
Thanks
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