In an earlier post I commented that of all the songs released by Ray Columbus & the Invaders it was ‘Til We Kissed’ that always got me, right from that first time I heard on the family radiogram in New Zealand back in 1965.
RAY COLUMBUS & THE INVADERS: from left WALLY SCOTT; DAVE RUSSELL; RAY; JIMMY HILL; BILLY KRISTIAN (from TEEN BEAT December 15, 1965)
The song was written by the American song-writing team Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil. It was originally recorded as ‘Where Have You Been?’ by black singer Arthur Alexander back in 1962. The same year the Beatles played it in Hamburg with John Lennon on vocals. Then the song then was re-titled ‘Since We Kissed’ & there’s a bootleg clip of this on You Tube.
I remember hearing the Gerry & the Pacemakers version of ‘Where Have You Been’ on a CD: ‘A’s B’s & EPs’ (released in 2003) when I was driving north out of Melbourne one day. I hadn’t remembered that it was the same song until I heard it. Not surprisingly the sound took my attention from the task in hand.
Other people who have recorded this song include Gene Vincent (1963), the Searchers & the Guess Who (1965). The later versions have tended to use the ‘Til We Kissed’ title whereas the early ones used ‘Where Have You Been?’
For me though, it will always be the Ray Columbus version of this song that will win out.
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