The Delltones - Come A Little Bit Closer (1963)

Willy And Ruth - Come A Little Bit Closer (1954)

(Jerry Leiber - Mike Stoller)
 USA
Original version

Single on Leiber & Stoller’s own Spark label, #101, the label’s first release.

Willy & Ruth were members of The Honey Bears who were also signed to Spark.

❝ We had discovered Willy and Ruth with a gospel quintet we’d heard in the Oakland area. We loved the quintet’s sound and brought them to LA for a session. We called them The Honeybears… From that same group, we pulled Willy and Ruth to sing duets.❞
   Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography (2009), p.68 [Link]

Willy & Ruth’s second single, on Spark #105, was Love Me (1954), another Leiber & Stoller composition that was a hit for Elvis Presley (1956, #2 USA).

Willy & Ruth
Willy was Willie Headen, lead singer of The Honey Bears. He had also been in The Kansas City Gospel Singers as lead singer (c.1950). After the Willy & Ruth singles (1954), he recorded for Dootsie Williams’s Authentic, Dootone and Dooto labels as Willie Headen & The Five Birds (from 1956) and as a solo artist (1957-1961). He released several solo singles and a Dooto LP collection, Blame It On the Blues (1960). Some of his Dooto singles were issued as Willie Hayden.

Of Ruth, nothing much seems to be known except that she was married to The Honey Bears’ bass singer.

Ruth’s surname? Her husband’s name? If there’s a full list of the Honey Bears line-up somewhere I haven’t found it yet. One other member was Willie Bradford, later in The Hi-Tones.

References, further reading: 1. Willy and Ruth, and Willie Headen, at The Vocal Group Harmony Site. 2. Liner notes to Ace Records’ Leiber & Stoller Present The Spark Records Story. The liner notes are here.  3. Willie Headen & The Five Birds at the Doo-Wop blog. 4. Willie Bradford of The Honey Bears and The Hi-Tones: see here and p.44 here. 5. DieterM at Rock’n’roll Schallplatten dismisses the theory that Headen recorded as Clifford Chambers.

Thanks to Tony at the Vocal Group Harmony Site.

Red Herring: Some websites have mistakenly used this photo to illustrate Willy and Ruth. They are husband-and-wife entertainers Ruth Mönch and Willy Seiler who flourished on German TV around the 1960s.