Doris Troy: Just One Look (emerald green vinyl) [REAL GONE MUSIC]

Why you'll love it

Real Gone Music's emerald green edition is the album's first-ever LP reissue, in stereo. Its title song reached No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 3 on the R&B chart, and spent three weeks at No. 1 on Toronto's CHUM Hit Parade.

This edition

• Emerald green vinyl
• Stereo

About the album

Plenty of hits start life as a demo, but few go straight from demo to radio without a single overdub. Doris Payne, a Bronx singer and songwriter, cut "Just One Look" with Ernie Hayes on piano, Wally Richardson on guitar, Bob Bushnell on bass and Bernard Purdie on drums, and when she took the tape to Jerry Wexler at Atlantic, he put it out exactly as it was. She took the stage name Doris Troy for the occasion, though she still wrote as Payne.

Producer Artie Ripp built the album around the hit, and it shows off her range: the gospel-tinged "What'cha Gonna Do About It," the playful "Bossa Nova Blues," the yearning "Lazy Days (When Are You Coming Home)" and a smouldering take on "Stormy Weather." "Draw Me Closer" and "Someone Ain't Right" show the songwriter's touch that made her so in demand in New York studios.

"Just One Look" went on to be covered by The Hollies, Linda Ronstadt and Canada's own Anne Murray, which is a fairly distinguished queue for one song. The original still gets there first.

Also at Kops: more Doris Troy on vinyl · browse Classic Soul

Tracklist

Listen

On Atlantic / Real Gone Music (cat# RGM-1397), a reissue of the 1963 album.