SHIRLEY & LEE

70078

ALADDIN 45-3313
artist: SHIRLEY and LEE
label: ALADDIN 3313 (10" 78rpm)
ALADDIN 45-3313 (7" 45rpm)
release: 1956, USA, 10" 78rpm
1956, USA, 7" 45rpm
A-side: That's What I'll Do
(Leonard Lee)
B-side: A Little Word (2:14)
(Leonard Lee)
recorded:

January 23, 1956

poss. Cosimo Recording Studio
523 Governor Nicholls Street
New Orleans, Louisiana
USA

Shirley Goodman - duet vocal
Leonard Lee - duet vocal
with poss. Justin Adams - guitar
Frank Fields - bass
Charles "Hungry" Williams - drums
Edward Frank - piano
Lee Allen - tenor sax
Alvin "Red" Tyler - tenor sax

comment:

from the liner notes of the SHIRLEY & LEE box "THE SWEETHEARTS OF THE BLUES" (BEAR FAMILY 15 960 DI):

.....In February Aladdin releases A Little Word. On February 5, 1956, after the last performance of the tour, in Washington, D.C., an old friend from New Orleans, Lloyd Price, by then a resident of the Capital, comes backstage. He hears A Little Word, Shirley's favorite of the duo's many recordings.
With new words, the song will become Price's comeback record, Just Because, a year later. The same basic melody apparently  has a more surprising origin: the Caro Nome aria from Verdi's "Rigoletto". The tunes are based on the same simple descending chromatic scale.

Shirley: "I loved ['A Little Word'], I don't know why. I always liked that song. I would not go on stage without singing it. I'd sing it every night. Every night, it had to be in.
"Well, Lloyd came in and heard it, and he says, 'I wrote some more words for this song.' And he just went and record it. We gave it to him. Never got a cent off it. They had an agreement, Lee said, 'Okay,' so I didn't say anything. In those days it was different in the business, you didn't care, you tried to help one another."

 

lyrics:

A Little Word
(Leonard Lee)

Shirley:
Yes, you told the world I made you cry
Yes, you told the world you wanted to die
But that is just one thing I want to know
How's the little word that hurts you so

Lee:
Here I sat at home so all alone
Counting every day that you've been gone
Waiting for the mailman to bring good news
But days and nights that has cried me river blues
Suddenly ring ring the telephone
I just knew you tell you're coming home
Instead you gave a little word that makes me cry
You said you're gone for good and darling goodbye

Shirley:
How the little word define that make you cry
How the little word define that make you want to die

Lee:
Yes, people ask how can a little word hurt me so
When the one you love to take to you will know
Suddenly ring ring the telephone
I just knew you tell you're coming home
Instead you gave a little word that makes me cry
You said you're gone for good and darling goodbye