A Little Bit of Soap
| "A Little Bit of Soap" | |
|---|---|
| Single by The Jarmels | |
| Released | 1961 (Jarmels) 1970 (Davis) 1978 (Showaddywaddy) 1979 (Olsson) |
| Recorded | 1961 (Jarmels) 1970 (Davis) 1978 (Showaddywaddy) 1979 (Olsson) |
| Length | 2:13 |
| Label | Laurie (Jarmels) Bang (Davis, Olsson) Arista (Showaddywaddy) |
"A Little Bit of Soap", written by Bert Berns (aka Bert Russell), was a song, first sung in a bluesy soul style by The Jarmels, who reached #12 with it in September 1961.
The song has been covered many times since. Paul Davis's rendition reached #52 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1970, while Nigel Olsson's version hit #34 in June 1979. Both Davis and Olsson used ballad arrangements. The song was a great success in Britain in the 1978 version by Showaddywaddy, peaking at #5 in UK Singles Chart in July 1978.
While the song was a minor hit in the United States all three times it was released, it reached the Top Ten on the Canadian charts, and Top Twenty in Australia in 1970 for Davis.[1] It was his first charting single release.
"A Little Bit of Soap" was a huge hit in southeast Asia when the Hong Kong-based group Cliff Foenander and The Fabulous Echoes released it as a single. It spent 25 weeks at number 1 in top ten charts in 1963 in southeast Asia.[2] Foenander and The Fabulous Echoes also sang the hit in Las Vegas USA in 1964. It made Cliff Foenander a household name in South Asia: Radio Ceylon, the oldest radio station in South Asia, played the number one hit across the Indian subcontinent.[2]
Daniel Johnston also covered it, while De La Soul sampled it for a different song with the same name.
[edit] References
- ^ Go-Set Australian charts - 22 August 1970
- ^ a b "Remembering Cliff Foenander of the Fabulous Echoes". worldmusiccentral.org. November 10, 2007. http://worldmusiccentral.org/article.php/remembering_cliff_foenander.
