Vicki Forrest - Mama Let The Phone Bell Ring (1964)

Little Cheryl - Mama Let The Phone Bell Ring (1963)

(Kal Mann - Dave Appell)
 USA
Original version

Single on Cameo.

Little Cheryl released a handful of singles 1962-1964, most of them on the Cameo label.

The B-side, Can’t We Just Be Friends, was written by Billy Jackson, A&R man, producer and arranger with Cameo Parkway, later noted for producing, arranging and writing for the The Tymes from their first hit in 1963 to the 1970s phase of their career.

Can’t We Just Be Friends had already been Little Cheryl’s previous single (1963). Its B-side, also produced by Billy Jackson, was a recording of Heaven Only Knows (1963), a remake of The Capris’ God Only Knows (1954):

Cheryl’s vocal sound and my admiration for [God Only Knows] were really my reasoning for the coupling. Cheryl’s last name was Springfield and she was Buddy Dee’s wife. Buddy Dee was the son of WHAT Radio’s Mary Dee. I believe she passed after a brilliant career at Bell Records. It was the Tymes in the background. I used them quite often!

Billy Jackson, quoted by Charlie Horner, “Philadelphia’s Original Capris”, Echoes of the Past (2011).

Jackson also wrote (and probably produced) both sides of Little Cheryl’s first single (1962), released on Elma and later on Kapp, when she used the name Little Cheryl Williams.

Kal Mann and Dave Appell, writers of Mama Let The Phone Bell Ring, wrote a further Little Cheryl B-side as well as the A-side of her fourth and final Cameo single Yeh, Yeh, We Love ‘Em All (1964), one of many Beatles novelty tracks released at the peak of Beatlemania.

Comedy writer turned lyricist Mann and arranger-producer-composer-music director Appell frequently wrote together. Their compositions include Chubby Checker’s Let’s Twist Again and Bobby Rydell’s Wild One, written with Bernie Lowe, also recorded by Australian Grantley Dee.