That’s A Cover? explores cover songs that you may have thought were originals.
I know someone out there is thinking, “How did you not know Phil Collins’ version of “A Groovy Kind of Love” was a cover of the Mindbenders?” Of course I knew that. But this is not about Phil’s version. This is about the Mindbenders’ cover of the song.
The roots of this song go all the way back to 1797. The melody came from Muzio Clementi’s Sonatina in G Major, Op. 36, No. 5: III. Rondo. He played it much faster than the pop version we know today. Unsurprisingly, he also never mentioned anything being “groovy.”
Fast-forward to 1965. Teenage songwriters Toni Wine and Carole Bayer—a few years before she added the married name “Sager”—turned Clementi’s melody into a pop song. By then, songwriters had already spent decades adapting classical music into pop. The trend dates back at least to 1941, when vocalist Clyde Rogers crooned to bandleader Freddy Martin’s “Tonight We Love,” which was based on Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1.
Wine and Bayer originally pitched the song to Lesley Gore, but her producer reportedly rejected it because he disliked the slang word “groovy.” That rejection opened the door for Diane Hall and Annita Ray, a duo who met during a stint with Ray Anthony’s Bookend Revue. They recorded the song in 1965, and released it on the EP One by One. The French label Disques Vogue managed to include a few typos on the release. Most notably, they misspelled both Diane’s name and the title, listing it as “Groovey Kind of Love.”
About the same time, the British Invasion was sweeping through America. One of those “invaders,” Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, was riding high on their #1 hit “The Game of Love.” Meanwhile, they were touring with fellow invasion band Herman’s Hermits. Then came one of the stranger moments in rock history: Fontana quit the band in the middle of a concert. The band carried on as a trio, with guitarist Eric Stewart taking over lead vocals.
Their first release without Fontana, “A Groovy Kind of Love,” became their biggest and most enduring hit. The song reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100. Ironically, Fontana left in part because he preferred ballads, while the rest of the band wanted a more upbeat sound. Yet the band’s biggest post-Fontana hit ended up being a ballad.
The song also became Bayer’s first pop hit as a songwriter. She later became one of the most successful songwriters of her era. She wrote or co-wrote dozens of hits like “Arthur’s Theme (The Best That You Can Do)” by Christopher Cross, Neil Diamond’s “Heartlight,” and “On My Own” by Patti Labelle & Michael McDonald.
The Mindbenders returned to the Billboard charts one last time in 1966 with “Ashes to Ashes” (#55). The following year, they appeared in the film To Sir, With Love, contributing two songs to the soundtrack: “It’s Getting Harder All the Time” and the Bayer/Wine composition “Off and Running.” Neither track achieved commercial success, and the post-Fontana lineup is widely regarded a one-hit wonder.
After the Mindbenders released “A Groovy Kind of Love,” numerous artists quickly recorded the song, including thirteen covers in the next two years alone. And while the focus here is not Phil Collins’ 1988 cover, his version introduced the song to a new generation, climbed to the top of the charts, and secured its legacy as a major hit for two different artists in two different eras.
Even today, an online search for Phil’s version often labels it as a “Mindbenders cover.” But now you know the truth.
Worth noting that the singer and guitarist on this record, Eric Stewart, went on to be 1/4 of 10cc.
So, technically he’s 2.5 CC? Thanks for mentioning that, Jeff.