Vicky Gomez with Shivaree host Gene Weed

Listen/Download – Vicky Gomez – Boys Are a Dime a Dozen MP3

Greetings all.

Today’s selection is one of those records that you’re going to be thanking me for years from now (just as I always thank the anonymous groover that turned me on to it way back when).

Unfortunatey there’s almost nothing out there about Vicky Gomez.

She appears to have been a Chicana from southern California who only ever made one 45 (the one you see before you today) in 1965.

‘Boys are a Dime a Dozen’ is a booming piece of Wall of Sound, dance floor soul that is every bit as amazing as it is obscure.

There are minute tendrils of information attached to it. The producers, Malkin-Hoffman worked in LA studios with the Wrecking Crew. One of the composers Raul Abeyta appears to have worked with Gary Usher through the 60s (including composing songs with Usher for the Super Stocks, Wayne Newton, the Neptunes, Bobby Sherman, as well as writing a couple of tracks on Usher’s ‘Astrology Album’). The other writer, Alonzo Willis penned a bunch of SoCal R&B, inclusing the Roach and Gator Tails & Monkey Ribs for Gene and Wendell, and tracks for the Crystals and Dick Dale. The best known person with a hand in the creation of the 45 is its arranger, the mighty Gene Page.

That said, it amazes me that ‘Boys Are a Dime a Dozen’ wasn’t a hit anywhere. The fact that Gomez appeared on the LA dance party show Shivaree in 1965 suggested to me that the song may have charted regionally, but I can’t even find a trace of that happening.

The record features crashing drums, multiple layers of percussion, horns and a throbbing bass guitar, all of which combine into the kind of sound that suggests Phil Spector as a touchstone.

If anyone out there knows anything else about Gomez, or the production, please let me know.

Until next week

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Keep the faith

Larry

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