Thursday, August 19, 2010

Tell Her/Him - Minun on hän


Today we continue the series Both Sides Now. On the flipside of yesterday's Gulliver finnpick was this song "Minun on hän" (She's mine). It's a good cover of a good song and the lyrics again were provided by Vexi Salmi. The original song was called "Tell Her" and it was written by a pioneer of sixties rock and soul, Bert Berns. It was first interpreted by American r&b singer Gil Hamilton. Gil later changed his name and rode high in 1963 on Billboard chart (number 4) with "Loop De Loop" under the name Johnny Thunder. The the hit version of "Tell Her" was done by the American vocal group The Exciters in 1962 with the slightly updated title "Tell Him" (becouse the singer was a woman; lead singer Brenda Reid). This was Exciters' first hit record. It was produced by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and reached number 4 in US pop charts. It also remained their only hit, making them one of the 'One Hit Wonders'.

Updated on 18.09.2010: added the first Finnish version "Sano hänelle niin" (Tell him so) by Katri Helena.

Here's the bunch:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Exciters' Brenda Reid's son, Mark, is better known nowadays as "L.A.Reid".

Arrowman said...

Shold I stay... or should I leave???
:-) Once again... This Gulliver's version is excellent, I have always liked Markku's voice, but also this original Finnish version is long forgotten... Katri Helena (yes, she again) recorded this in 1968 it was on the flip side of her single "Paikka auringossa" Top voice (top 26) and was also included on the album with the same name (Top-LP 507)