B-side "Hands Off" Recorded 1963 Label Vee-Jay | Released 1964 Length 2:12 | |
Genre R&B, soul, pop, Girl Group | ||
"The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)" is a song written and composed by Rudy Clark. It was first released as a single in 1963 by Merry Clayton that did not chart. The song was made a hit a year later when recorded by Betty Everett, who hit No. 1 on the Cashbox magazine R&B charts with it in 1964. Recorded by dozens of artists and groups around the world in the decades since, the song became an international hit once again when remade by Cher in 1990.
Contents
Merry Clayton version
The song was rejected on behalf of the premier girl group of the early 1960s, the New York-based Shirelles, and was first recorded in Los Angeles by Merry Clayton as her first credited single. Clayton had previously provided an uncredited female vocal to the hit "You're the Reason I'm Living" recorded by Bobby Darin as his debut on Capitol Records, and Darin had subsequently arranged for Clayton herself to be signed to Capitol. Clayton recorded "It's in His Kiss" - whose composer Rudy Clark was a staff writer for TM Music which Bobby Darin headed - in a session produced by Jack Nitzsche featuring Hal Blaine on drums and the Blossoms as chorale: the single was released June 10, 1963 with no evident result.
Clayton recorded the song again for the soundtrack of the 1987 comedy film "Maid to Order" in which she, as the character Audrey James, performs with fictional band the Loaded Blanks, played by the rock band Great White, in the film's climactic scene.
Background
Calvin Carter, the chief A&R man for the Chicago-based Vee-Jay Records, found "It's in His Kiss" while visiting New York City in search of material for the Vee-Jay roster which included Betty Everett. After Everett had a hit with another song Calvin Carter brought back from New York City, "You're No Good", Calvin Carter suggested Everett cut "It's in His Kiss" as the follow-up single. Everett – who found the song puerile – reluctantly agreed. The accompanying vocals on Everett's recording were provided by Vee-Jay session regulars the Opals, a trio of teenage girls (Rose Addison, Myra Tillison, and Rose "Tootsie" Jackson) from East Chicago, Indiana.
Dave Marsh in his book The Heart of Rock and Soul opines that Betty Everett's version, "while [credited] as a solo performance is one of the finest girl group hits, undoubtedly the best one made outside the genre's New York City/Philadelphia/Los Angeles "axis"".
Reception
Everett's version of "The Shoop Shoop Song" reached number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the spring of 1964: at the time Billboard was not publishing its R&B chart but her cover was a number 1 R&B hit according to Cash Box. In international release, Everett's "The Shoop Shoop Song" was also a hit in Australia reaching number 21 but was initially overlooked in the UK although Everett's minor 1965 U.S. hit "Getting Mighty Crowded" (number 65) would reach number 29 in the UK. In 1968, the label President Records reissued both songs on one single, with "The Shoop Shoop Song" as the A-side, that peaked at number 34.
Ramona King version
The next evident recording of "It's in His Kiss" was made in Los Angeles by Ramona King, an R&B singer from San Francisco: this version was produced by Joe Saraceno and former Phil Spector associate Jerry Riopelle and released on Warner Brothers in February 1964, the week prior to the release of Everett's version. Although Everett's single was more likely to receive airplay due to her being an established hitmaker (with "You're No Good"), Vee-Jay feared losing sales to the King version and opted to distinguish Everett's version by issuing it under the title "The Shoop Shoop Song" referring to the song's background vocals.
Background
"The Shoop Shoop Song" first became a major UK hit in 1975 via a disco version by British vocalist Linda Lewis recorded at Media Sound Recording Studios (NYC) with producers Bert de Couteaux and Tony Silvester: Arista Records president Clive Davis suggested Lewis record "In His Kiss" in a session which also yielded Lewis recording of her own composition "Rock and Roller Coaster". Lewis would recall: "Clive sent me over to New York [City] to work with Bert DeCoteaux, who’d [produced] Sister Sledge and people like that...And I had all these amazing backing vocalists, like Deniece Williams and Luther Vandross in the studio. I was like, 'Oh, my God!' I’m just this little girl from the East End...I just went in the studio and just hit the nail on the head, apparently."
Reception
Issued as "It's in His Kiss" — despite containing a variant of the "shoop shoop" background vocal – Lewis' version became a UK Top Ten hit in August 1975:. on July 26, 1975 the track had been ranked at number 13 in its third charting week, its advance to number 8 on the August 2, 1975 chart being assisted by Lewis' performance of the song on the TOTP episode dated July 24, 1975, with the track reaching its UK chart peak of number 6 on August 9, 1975 with a third and final Top Ten ranking at number 9 on August 16, 1975. "It's in His Kiss" also afforded Lewis an Irish Top Ten hit at number 9, and in the US ranked as high as number 11 in club play with peripheral cross-over to the R&B chart in Billboard at number 96, while the track almost reached the Billboard Hot 100, "bubbling under" at number 107. "It's in His Kiss" was included on Lewis' debut Arista Records album release Not a Little Girl Anymore which reached number 40 in the UK Albums Chart.
Linda Ronstadt performances
On the episode of Saturday Night Live broadcast May 19, 1979 Linda Ronstadt and Phoebe Snow performed "The Shoop Shoop Song" as a duet: in an October 2008 interview Snow stated that she and Ronstadt "always talked about" recording "The Shoop Shoop Song" adding: "Maybe we still will"; although the duet remained unrecorded at the time of Snow's April 26, 2011 death. When Linda Ronstadt participated in two benefit concerts for Jerry Brown on December 21–22, 1979 she performed "The Shoop Shoop Song" that number - featuring vocal accompaniment from Nicolette Larson - being one of six songs performed by Ronstadt which were announced as tracks on her upcoming album Mad Love": however Mad Love was issued in February 1980 without the inclusion of "The Shoop Shoop Song". Ronstadt performed "The Shoop Shoop Song" as a guest on an episode of The Muppet Show broadcast October 26, 1980. At the Rally For Nuclear Disarmament concert held in Central Park on June 12, 1982 Linda Ronstadt's set included "The Shoop Shoop Song": vocal accompaniment was provided by Nicolette Larson and Rosemary Butler. Had Ronstadt recorded "The Shoop Shoop Song" for her Mad Love album it would have been produced by Peter Asher who would eventually produce the 1990 international smash hit remake by Cher.
Background
Cher's remake was cut for the soundtrack of her 1990 film Mermaids in which it played under the closing credits, and the single's U.S. release coincided with the November release of the film. It peaked at number thirty three on the Billboard Hot 100, and number one in the United Kingdom, where it remained for five weeks, selling a total of 520,000 copies, making it one of the biggest-selling singles by a female artist in Britain in the 1990s. The song was Cher's first solo number one single, her previous number one in the United Kingdom had been in 1965 with her then husband Sonny Bono and their first hit: "I Got You Babe".
Cher's "The Shoop Shoop Song" also topped the charts in Austria, Ireland and Norway; the single achieved a number two peak in Belgium and top ten status in France, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, Netherlands and Sweden.
The success of the single in the United Kingdom and Continental Europe was reflected in its addition to Love Hurts, her subsequent album, as released in those parts of the world, Australia and New Zealand. "The Shoop Shoop Song" was also included in the album's Canadian release but in the U.S. "The Shoop Shoop Song" was not available on a Cher album until the 1999 release of If I Could Turn Back Time: Cher's Greatest Hits.
Music video
The original video for "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)" was made to promote the movie Mermaids. The video features Cher with Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci, who played her daughters in the film, in a music studio in the clothes and styles of the 1960s period of the film, clips of which are shown throughout. Near the end Cher and the girls are shown in an alley spray-painting a wall. When Mermaids quickly came and went from theaters a revised video was issued which deleted the clips from the film.
A brief music video of the original version appeared at the start of the special DTV Romancin', set to clips of kisses from Disney cartoons.
An episode of Tiny Toon Adventures also featured an animated music video of the original version, with Babs Bunny lip-syncing to the song.
Formats and track listings
Worldwide CD Single
- The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss) [2:51]
- Baby I'm Yours
- We All Sleep Alone
U.S. Promo CD
- The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss) [2:51]
Official versions
Live performances
Cher performed the song on the following concert tours: