A Look Back at R&B; Trendsetters the Clovers

**** THE CLOVERS: “The Very Best of the Clovers” Rhino/Atlantic

Unlike fellow Atlantic Records vocal groups the Coasters and the Drifters, the Clovers haven’t been voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but the quintet made a series of extraordinary singles that helped define Atlantic’s pivotal role in popularizing R&B; in the ‘50s.

In some ways, in fact, you can think of the Clovers as Atlantic co-founder Ahmet Ertegun’s musical workshop.

Two years before the Drifters broke into the national R&B; chart in 1953 with the gritty “Money Honey,” Ertegun wrote a song for the Clovers that put them at No. 1 on the same chart.

The song was “Don’t You Know I Love You” and the writing was just part of Ertegun’s contribution to the record, which opens this outstanding 16-track retrospective.

In the album’s liner notes, singer and pop historian Billy Vera explains that the Clovers were a Washington, D.C., group whose repertoire before meeting Ertegun consisted of the kind of pop standards associated with the Ink Spots.

In starting Atlantic, Ertegun was looking for a different sound, one that incorporated some of the raw, sensual, blues-based rhythms coming out of the South. And he heard something in the sound of the Clovers--and their lead singer John “Buddy” Bailey--that intrigued him.

According to Vera, the Clovers were hoping to record the old pop hit “Prisoner of Love” when they went into the studio for their first Atlantic session, but Ertegun wanted them to do his song and he enticed them into singing it by allowing the group to record the pop standard “Skylark” as the B-side of the single.

After the success of “Don’t You Know I Love You,” Ertegun had no trouble getting the group to make the kind of records he wanted.

One noteworthy element of that first single is that it was the first record by an R&B; vocal group to feature a saxophone solo, Vera maintains. But that solo wasn’t part of any Ertegun master plan. In producing the session, Ertegun hired the rhythm section of saxophonist Frank Culley’s band.

On the day of the session, however, Culley refused to let Ertegun use the rhythm section unless he, too, would be paid. Replied Ertegun, “Now listen, man, if I pay you, you’re gonna play.”

When Bailey entered the Army in 1952, he was replaced in the group by Billy Mitchell, who remained in the Clovers after Bailey’s return. The other original members of the group: Matthew McQuater, Harold Lucas, Harold Winley and guitarist Bill Harris.

By the time the Clovers left Atlantic in the late ‘50s, the group had come up with almost two dozen more Top 20 R&B; hits, including “Lovey Dovey,” “Devil or Angel” and the especially striking and influential “Your Cash Ain’t Nothin’ but Trash.”

Even after Atlantic, the group returned to the charts in 1959 with a hit version of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s “Love Potion No. 9.” That United Artists single is also included in this richly satisfying tribute to one of the most appealing of all the early R&B; groups.

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