You're The One (Petula Clark Song) - History

History

Petula Clark thus describes the genesis of "You're the One": "we were making yet another LP, and that's like twelve thirteen songs. He'd written twelve, and he said, 'Listen, I haven't got a number thirteen in me at all. Write something.' And I said, 'Okay. I'll try.' And I wrote the melody of 'You're the One.' And he wrote the lyric." As was standard with Clark's tracks produced by Hatch, "You're the One" was recorded at Pye Studios in Marble Arch. Hatch also conducted for the session whose personnel featured Bobby Graham on drums, Big Jim Sullivan on guitar and The Breakaways vocal group.

Originally there were no plans to issue a follow-up to the "I Know a Place" single off its parent album; instead two newly recorded Petula Clark singles were consecutively released: "You'd Better Come Home" and "Round Every Corner" both of which barely made the UK Top 50. Both singles were substantially more successful in the US where each neared the Top 20 in respectively the summer and autumn of 1965. However the US chart impact of Clark's own singles in the latter half of 1965 paled next to that of a recording of Clark's composition "You're the One" by the Vogues which reached #4 US that autumn.

Recorded at Gate Way Studios in Pittsburgh, "You're the One" was the first track to be credited to the Vogues although the group had previously recorded as the Val-Aires. Pittsburgh-based record producer Nick Cenci had already cut "You're the One" with a local band called the Racket Squad; after hearing the Val-Aires audition tape, Cenci decided that that group's lead singer Bill Burkette could sing "You're the One" more effectively than Racket Squad vocalist Sonny DiNunzio. Accordingly DiNunzio's vocals were erased from the master, so that Burkette could record a fresh vocal over the instrumentation played by the Racket Squad's members.

Cenci approached Jim Rook, program director of KQV, with the Vogues' "You're the One" and KQV became the first radio station to play the record, which entered the KQV "Finest Forty" chart in July 1965, and that August broke in Detroit and San Diego. prior to breaking nationally that September.

The burgeoning success of the Vogues' "You're the One" had alerted Petula Clark's UK label: Pye Records, to the track's hit potential with Pye rush releasing Clark's own version as a single which entered the UK chart in November 1965 and peaked at #23. According to Chuck Blasco of the Vogues, Clark's US label: Warner Bros., had also intended to issue Clark's version as a single to vie with the Vogues' version in the US, but Clark vetoed the idea saying: "Let the boys have the hit". The Vogues' version did have a UK release on London Records but did not garner enough interest to share the UK charts with Clark's version.

In the autumn of 1965 four versions of "You're the One" charted in Australia with that by Petula Clark becoming the major hit at #4. Besides the Vogues version, which reached #55, two local covers of "You're the One" charted with that by Col Joye reaching #41 while that by Yvonne Barrett - charting in tandem with its B-side "Little People" - reached #58.

A #30 hit for Petula Clark in the Netherlands, "You're the One" also afforded the Vogues a Top Ten hit in Canada (#4) and New Zealand.

Unique among Clark's hit singles as the only English language hit in which she had a hand in writing, "You're the One" was rendered by Clark in French, German and Italian; the French version was entitled "Un Mal Pour Un Bien" (French #6), the German "Deine Liebe ist wunderbar".

Clark performed the song live in the 1965 concert film The Big TNT Show.

The 1967 album release Pet Project by the Bob Florence Big Band features an instrumental version of "You're the One", the album being devoted to songs associated with Petula Clark.

Rocky Sharpe and the Replays remade "You're the One" on their 1981 album release Come On Let's Go.

A Finnish rendering of "You're the One": "Sinä Vain", was a 1966 single release for Eero.