August 31, 1963: The Angels hit Number 1 with "My Boyfriend's Back." After having a minor hit with the soft ballad "Till" the year before, they have cranked out a doo-wop classic.
It was written by Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer. They had previously written "Who Put the Bomp" for Barry Mann. Feldman claimed he had seen a couple of teenagers, a boy and a girl, arguing, the girl telling him, "My boyfriend's back, and you're in trouble. You're gonna be sorry you were ever born!"
The Angels were Barbara "Bibs" Allbut, her sister Phyllis "Jiggs" Allbut, and Peggy Santiglia, from Belleville, Essex County, New Jersey. They remained together until 1968.
The song has been used many times, most notably by Hess Oil, for their annual Christmas-season commercials for their toy trucks: "The Hess Truck's back, and it's better than ever!"
In 1965, the writers decided that they wanted to take advantage of the "British Invasion," but thought, as Jewish New Yorkers, they couldn't do a proper British accent. So they became the fake Australian band The Strangeloves, writing and singing "I Want Candy." Or, rather, they borrowed the beat from Bo Diddley's song "Bo Diddley," and wrote new words to it.
When it became a hit, reaching Number 11 in the Summer of 1965, they hired musicians to take their place on the road. It might have gone higher if, at the same time, Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders hadn't hit Number 1 with "Game of Love," which also stole the Bob Diddley beat for its bridge. "I Want Candy" song was covered by the British New Wave group Bow Wow Wow in 1982, reaching Number
I swear, I am not making this up: One of the trumpeters on the song was 21-year-old Ronald James Padavona. He later recorded as Ronnie James Dio, becoming the lead singer of the hard rock band Rainbow, then replacing Ozzy Osbourne as the lead singer of Black Sabbath, and finally leading the band Dio. He claimed to have invented heavy metal's "devil horns" gesture. (He didn't: Jinx Dawson, lead singer of the band Coven, of "One Tin Soldier" fame, was doing it as far back as 1970.)
But "My Boyfriend's Back" remained the biggest hit song that Dio ever worked on. In other words, the man identified with the devil horns had his biggest success with The Angels.
Ronnie James Dio died in 2010. Barbara Allbut died in 2021. As of August 31, 2022, Phyllis Allbut, Peggy Santiglia, and all 3 songwriters are still alive.
UPDATE: Bob Feldman died in 2023.
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August 31, 1963 was a Saturday. These baseball games were played:
* The New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 5-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Jim Bouton outpitched Robin Roberts. This was when Jim could still smoke 'em inside, and hadn't yet hurt his elbow, forcing him to switch to the knuckleball.
Yogi Berra and Tom Tresh hit home runs. Yogi's was the 357th of his career. He would hit only 1 more. Tresh was playing center field, as Mickey Mantle did not play. Roger Maris went 2-for-4. Brooks Robinson went 0-for-3 with a walk.
* The New York Mets lost to the Milwaukee Braves, 4-3 at the Polo Grounds. Warren Spahn, age 42, outpitched his former Brave teammate Carl Willey, 32. Hank Aaron went 1-for-4. Joe Torre and Frank Bolling hit home runs for the Braves. Al Moran hit one for the Mets.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 5-4 at Fenway Park in Boston. Former Yankee Bob Turley was the winning pitcher. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4.
* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-5 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Ken Boyer hit a home run in the top of the 11th inning. Stan Musial, in his last season, appeared as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Jim O'Toole allowed 4 hits over 6 innings, and Dom Zanni finished the 5-hit shutout. Frank Robinson went 2-for-4 with a walk. Rookie Pete Rose went 0-for-5. Roberto Clemente went 0-for-4.
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 9-8 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Tigers scored 3 runs in the top of the 9th inning to win it. Al Kaline went 1-for-5.
* The Chicago Cubs beat the Houston Colt .45s, 6-5 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ellis Burton hit a grand slam for the Cubs. Ernie Banks did not play. The Colt .45s became the Houston Astros in 1965.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Minnesota Twins, 2-0 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of
Bloomington, Minnesota. Jim Landis and Floyd Robinson hit back-to-back home runs in the top of the 9th inning. Joe Horlen allowed 6 hits over the 1st 7 innings, and Hoyt Wilhelm pitched a perfect 8th and 9th innings to finish the shutout and become the winning pitcher. Jimmie Hall got 3 of the Twins' 6 hits. Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-4.
* The Kansas City Athletics beat the Los Angeles Angels (not to be confused with the vocal group), 7-0 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Orlando Peña allowed 9 hits, but kept the shutout.
* And the San Francisco Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-3 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Felipe Alou singled José Pagán home with the winning run in the top of the 12th inning. Willie Mays went 0-for-4 with a walk. Willie McCovey went 0-for-5, but had an RBI on a groundout.
