His biggest songwriting success was the Billboard number one hit “ Hang On Sloopy” performed by The McCoys. He started his songwriting career at the age of 19, writing hits for many early 60’s artists, such as Dion, Freddie Cannon, Chubby Checker and Timi Yuro. Wes Farrell has an even more impressive musical legacy. He even accepted an offer from Capitol Records to form his own record label Ludix Records. ” He also can be credited with discovering many acts for the Scepter label, including Tammi Terrell. The Shirelles’ next number one single, “Soldier Boy,” was co-written by Dixon and Scepter’s founder Florence Greenburg.ĭixon continued to co-write and produce many hits for the Scepter label and others, including “Big Boss Man,” “Mama Said (There’d Be Days Like This),” “Soul Serenade,” “I Don’t Want To Cry” and “I Love You 1000 Times.
Their first number one hit on the Billboard pop charts was Dixon’s arrangement of the Gerry Goffin & Carole King classic “Will You Love Me Tomorrow.” For the flip side, Dixon had the girls sing his arrangement of his own self-penned song, “Boys” which was co-written by his new songwriting partner Wes Farrell. That group became known as The Shirelles. The owner of the label, Florence Greenburg, focused on promotion for the label, while Dixon focused on developing a young singing group who went to high school with Greenburg’s daughter. He had co-written many early hits, most notably “Sixteen Candles” by The Crests in 1958, which led to his eventually being hired as manager of artist development at the small New Jersey label Scepter Records. Luther Dixon was a producer and songwriter in the R&B field with a successful career that spanned from the late 50’s and throughout the 60’s. As Ringo Starr had acquired the lead singing duties for the song “Boys” from former drummer Pete Best, this became his lead vocal debut on the first Beatles album.īoth of this song’s authors had well established careers in music and songwriting. Right from the first album, each member of the band sang lead on at least one song. This may have been unconventional, but The Beatles were anything but conventional anyway. So the name of the group did not become “Paul and The Beatles,” and therefore did not have only one lead singer.
But knowing that The Beatles had become a well established act with a great local following as a four piece unit, and that each of them sang lead throughout their “stage act,” each having their own personal following, he decided that the band should not be “tinkered with.” George Martin remembers originally favoring McCartney as the leader, being that he had the most melodious singing voice, but also contemplating Lennon as well.
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When The Beatles were holding their first audition / recording session with George Martin at EMI Studios on June 6th, 1962, a determination was being made as to which member of the group would be focused on as the “leader.” The established British rule of the day, professional or non-professional, was to have one member of each pop group stand out as lead singer, as in Cliff Richard and The Shadows, Johnny Kid and The Pirates, Gerry and The Pacemakers, Derry and The Seniors, Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, etc.
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