1968
"I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" was offered to Dusty Springfield who recorded for Philips Records, the UK equivalent of Mercury Records. Springfield passed the song on to Madeline Bell, her friend and regular background vocalist. Springfield sang backup vocals on Bell's version, which was featured on Bell's 1967 Philips album release Bell's a Poppin'.
According to Bell "nothing happened with and the tapes were sent over to America and this one guy took a shine to 'I’m Gonna Make You Love Me'. He printed up 10,000 copies and he sent them round the radio stations and they started playing it. I got a call from Philips in London to say that I had a record moving up the US charts and I had to go to America to promote it. It got to No.26 and it was great to go back to my home town (Newark, New Jersey) with a record in the charts. I was so happy to go home a success."
The US single of Bell's "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" featured "Picture Me Gone" by Chip Taylor and Al Gorgoni as the B-side: originally issued on the Mod label it had its wide release with the Philips logo. Bell's US success led Philips to release her single in the UK - there the B-side was "I'm Gonna Leave You" a composition by Bell, Springfield and Lesley Duncan - where it failed to chart. An I'm Gonna Make You Love Me album became Bell's only full-length release to appear on a major chart reaching #46 on the US R&B album chart.
The summer of 1968 saw the release of another version of "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" as a single, this one on Cadet Concept by Aesop's Fables a Long Island-based blues/rock unit led by Sonny Bottari. Although this version failed to reach the national charts, it became the third version of "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" - after Warwick and Bell's - to receive airplay in Detroit within the period of a year and a half: within six months the Motown version brought the total to four.
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