Josie and The Pussycats (album) - Overview

Overview

The Josie and the Pussycats sound is very much based upon that of late '60s Detroit acts such as Motown's Jackson 5 and Hot Wax's Honey Cone. A cover of The Jackson 5's classic "I'll Be There" is present on the album, and a number of Patrice Holloway's leads find her imitating young Michael Jackson's lead vocals. Ironically, Holloway, who almost didn't even end up in the group, sings most of the album's lead vocals. Holloway also sings lead on the famous "Josie and the Pussycats" theme song, which was written by Hanna-Barbera musical director Hoyt Curtin (and based on a recurring score cue from The Jetsons), William Hanna, and Joseph Barbera. The majority of the rest of the lead parts are done by Cherie Moor. Although she was cast as the singing voice of Josie, Kathleen Dougherty only sings partial lead vocals on two of the Pussycats' songs, "If That Isn't Love," and the cover of "I'll Be There." Also present on the album are covers of Bobby Sherman's "La, La, La (If I Had You)", The Carpenters' "(They Long To Be) Close To You", and Bread's "It Don't Matter to Me".

Although Janssen used strings, horns, keyboards, and oscillators (electronic synthesizers) to create the band's sound, the on-screen cartoon band featured Josie on guitar, Valerie with tambourines, and Melody on drums. No other musicians appeared on-screen with them, creating a disconcerting contrast between audio and visual for the viewers. At least one, but usually two, of the band's songs were heard during the course of an episode of the TV show, especially during a high-action chase sequence.

Josie and the Pussycats: From the Hanna-Barbera TV Show was released on December 15, 1970 by Capitol Records, Six 45 RPM singles were released, 4 of which contained non-album songs and were only available as part of a Kellogg's mail-order promotion. None of the singles charted, and many people didn't even know the album was available. As a result, sales were far below expectations, and plans for a national tour were shelved. Hanna-Barbera contracted producer Jimmie Haskell and a group of anonymous session singers to do the music for Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, and La La Productions' Josie and the Pussycats group was officially disbanded. Danny Janssen and Patrice Holloway worked together on a few songs after the demise of the band ("Black Mother Goose" and "Evidence," both issued in 1971), and Sue Sheridan (as Sue Steward) cut two solo singles for Capitol under Janssen and Young's supervision. Several years later, Sheridan wrote a few songs for Cheryl Ladd's self-titled 1978 debut album, also released on Capitol Records.

The album, the singles, some alternate takes, and a few songs that only appeared in the animated series were all collected in a limited edition digitally remastered set entitled Josie and the Pussycats: Stop Look and Listen: The Capitol Recordings, released by Rhino Handmade on October 5, 2001. Rhino only pressed 5000 copies of the album. Earlier that same year, Babyface produced a new Josie and the Pussycats album as the soundtrack for the motion picture released by Universal Pictures that same year. This new reincarnation of the Pussycats had a harder, punk-rock sound, as opposed to their Motown-ish 1970 counterparts. Letters to Cleo vocalist Kay Hanley sang lead on all of the Pussycats' new songs.