Sally Go 'Round the Roses

"Sally Go 'Round the Roses" is the name of a 1963 hit by The Jaynetts, a Bronx-based one-hit wonder girl group, released by J&S Records on the Tuff label.

Background

The producer of "Sally Go 'Round the Roses," Abner Spector, was an A&R man for the Chicago-based Chess Records. Spector was responsible for the Corsairs' 1962 number 12 hit "Smoky Places," which had been released on Tuff, a subsidiary of J&S Records. In the summer of 1963, Spector asked J&S owner, Zelma "Zell" Sanders, to assemble a vocal ensemble to record a girl group style record to which end Sanders wrote the song "Sally Go 'Round the Roses," with Spector's wife Lona Stevens, drawing inspiration from the nursery rhyme "Ring Around the Rosie." The songwriting copyright for "Sally Go 'Round the Roses" is now in the name of Abner Spector who died in 2010; Zell Sanders died in 1976.

The arrangement for "Sally Go 'Round the Roses" was provided by Artie Butler, who recalls Spector "asked me to listen to [the] song...[I] decided that in its present form it did not [have potential], but I heard something in my head. He said, 'Go into a small demo studio and do what you hear,' and he would pay for it." Butler claims he played all the instruments on the track except for the guitar parts which were by Al Gorgoni and Carl Lynch, although it is widely reported that Buddy Miles is the drummer on "Sally Go 'Round the Roses." Butler states the entire recording of "Sally Go 'Round the Roses" was done "on an old Ampex tape machine at 7¹⁄₂ IPS mono....Each time when I added another element" - including the final element: the vocalists - "I added a different type of reverb. Each generation [ie. development] seemed to add to the distinct sound of the record."