Baby I've Got It More Motown Girls

[mysterysinger]

For the Liz Lands song, DFTMC shows

It's Crazy Baby [[Frank Wilson) published Jobete
Liz Lands; recorded California, completed by 25-Oct-64 ; produced by Marc Gordon, Hal Davis ; [with horns]
Mar-18; CD [[M): Ace CDTOP 1524 Baby I've Got It! - More Motown Girls [2018 mix] [UK]

The Ike & Tina Turner song seems to be from 1967. On that basis I would have to give it to Frank Wilson.

[brother_love]

For the Liz Lands song, DFTMC shows

It's Crazy Baby [[Frank Wilson) published Jobete
Liz Lands; recorded California, completed by 25-Oct-64 ; produced by Marc Gordon, Hal Davis ; [with horns]
Mar-18; CD [[M): Ace CDTOP 1524 Baby I've Got It! - More Motown Girls [2018 mix] [UK]

The Ike & Tina Turner song seems to be from 1967. On that basis I would have to give it to Frank Wilson.

I would have to agree with you Mystery Singer. It just seems odd that something like that got by without any of the publishers or record companies not having notice it. After all the Ikettes did recorded another one of his Jobete songs, "I'm So Thankful." Maybe Ike was given demos for the songs and went on to claim "It's Crazy Baby" as his own composition thinking no one would take note. He was known for renaming a lot of song-titles on his records and other shady dealings.

[brother_love]

Ike & Tina Turner version of "It's Crazy Baby"

[keith_hughes]

Impressive research and memory, brother_love. I actually have one of the Ace Ike & Tina Turner CDs you cite, but haven't listened to it for ages and didn't recall the song when compiling the Girls CD.

I got the writer info for "It's Crazy Baby" from two sources - the Motown Tape Filing Card and the [[1967) Jobete Catalog, both internal Motown documents. I checked at ASCAP and BMI, but there is no song at either site called “It’s Crazy Baby”, so it seemed safe to credit it to Wilson.

Dating the two recordings is problematic. Bob McGrath just says 1963-1966 for Ike & Tina’s version [[i.e. the duration of the Turners’ stay at Kent): he doesn’t mention location, but he shows other Ike & Tina recordings from the period as having been cut in LA [[Kent/Modern’s home town) so that’s a likely guess. The Turners' version was first released on on their Kent [[US) LP “The Soul Of Ike & Tina” in 1966/7. Liz’s version was also cut in LA: we don’t know exactly where or when, but the tape was logged in at Hitsville on Oct 25 1964.

There are various possiblities, here are two. First is that Turner wrote it and Wilson heard it [[maybe on an acetate, as the LP wasn’t out yet) and decided to cut it on Liz. He left off the writer credit on the paperwork he sent to Hitsville [[maybe he didn’t know), so the clerk there wrote it down as Wilson, as he was [[a) the producer and [[b) an established writer. But the clerk forgot to register the title at BMI. The other option is that Wilson wrote it, one of the musicians on the Liz Lands session brought it to Ike’s attention and Ike & Tina cut it. Since the song wasn’t registered, Kent/Modern claimed it for Ike on the LP [[they probably owned his publishing rights at the time). But they forgot to register it too.

I don't think this is something we'll ever get to the bottom of ...

Keith

[mysterysinger]

If we can date an Ike & Tina recording of the song before the recording of Liz Lands version that might give the song to Ike. Also, if Motown were unsure about the pedigree of the song that would presumably be a good reason for leaving it in the vault though the Liz Lands version may only ever have been a demo?

[reese]

I would have to agree with you Mystery Singer. It just seems odd that something like that got by without any of the publishers or record companies not having notice it. After all the Ikettes did recorded another one of his Jobete songs, "I'm So Thankful." Maybe Ike was given demos for the songs and went on to claim "It's Crazy Baby" as his own composition thinking no one would take note. He was known for renaming a lot of song-titles on his records and other shady dealings.

During the same period, Ike and Tina recorded another song which has been credited to Frank Wilson, SOMEBODY [[SOMEWHERE) NEEDS YOU. It appears on their Loma album THE IKE AND TINA TURNER SHOW, VOL. 2.

[heikki]

Hi!

Seems that Ike & Tina cut their Kent sides in late 1964.
http://www.45cat.com/artist/ike-and-tina-turner

Best regards
Heikki

[kenneth]

Though Ike was notorious was taking credit for songs he sometimes had little to do with. Most of his songs were relatively simple in structure and he also wrote many soundalikes to his songs that made the charts such as "A Fool in Love." I don't have it in front of me but I even think he took credit for much of the blues standards on their two Blue Thumb LPs, "Outta Season" and "The Hunter," when some of those songs had been around for years and years.