"Sugar Baby Love", recorded in autumn 1973 and released in January 1974, is a bubblegum pop song, and the debut single of the Rubettes. Written by Wayne Bickerton and Tony Waddington and produced by Bickerton, engineered by John Mackswith at Lansdowne Recording Studios, and with lead vocals by Paul Da Vinci, "Sugar Baby Love" was the band's only number one single on the UK Singles Chart, spending four weeks at the top of the chart in May 1974.

Recording details

Bickerton and Waddington had been writing songs together since they were both members of the Pete Best Four in Liverpool in the early 1960s. Their biggest success had been writing "Nothing but a Heartache", a US hit for the Flirtations in 1968. In the early 1970s, they came up with the idea for a rock 'n' roll musical. They co-wrote and produced a demonstration recording of "Sugar Baby Love", recorded October 1973 with "Tonight", "Juke Box Jive" and "Sugar Candy Kisses" (which became a hit for Mac and Katie Kissoon). They originally intended to submit it for the Eurovision Song Contest but instead offered it to Showaddywaddy and Carl Wayne, who both turned it down. They then offered it to the demo musicians, provided that they would become an actual group with the exception of the recording's lead singer, Paul Da Vinci, who had signed a solo recording contract with Penny Farthing Records. Surprisingly, only John Richardson, who played drums and spoke the "please take my advice," Alan Williams, who sang in the chorus backing vocal group and Pete Arnesen who played piano would sign up and later become a member of The Rubettes. For public appearances including Top of the Pops, Williams, who claimed to be the only member of the group able to duplicate Da Vinci's falsetto, performed the lead vocals. Bickerton said:"'We had Paul DaVinci singing in that incredibly high falsetto voice and then a vocal group sings 'Bop-shu-waddy' over and over for about 3 minutes. Gerry Shury, who did the string arrangements, said, 'This is not going to work: you can't have a vocal group singing 'Bop-shu-waddy' non-stop.' A lot of people said the same thing to us and the more determined I became to release it. The record was dormant for 6 or 7 weeks and then we got a break on Top of the Pops and it took off like a rocket and sold 6 million copies worldwide. Gerry said to me, 'I'm keeping my mouth shut and will concentrate on conducting the strings.''" "Sugar Baby Love" became a UK No. 1 hit in 1974, also reaching No. 37 and No. 30 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and Cashbox charts, respectively. It also reached No. 1 in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria and Belgium, and No. 2 in Australia, South Africa and Italy.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Wink version

"Sugar Baby Love" was covered by Japanese idol duo Wink as their debut single, released on April 27, 1988 by Polystar. The Japanese lyrics were written by Yukinojo Mori, under the pseudonym "Joe Lemon". "Sugar Baby Love" was used as the theme song of the Fuji TV drama series, which starred Yoko Minamino. The B-side, "Kaze no Prelude", was used as an image song in the drama series. The single peaked at No. 20 on Oricon's singles chart and sold over 61,000 copies.

Track listing

All lyrics are written by Joe Lemon; all music is arranged by Shirō Sagisu.

Chart performance

Other cover versions and appearances