Lesley Gore: Some Place Else Now (1972)

The most commercially successful solo singer to be identified with the girl group sound, Lesley Gore reeled off a number of big hits all through the ‘60s. But, after six years and eleven Top 40 hits on Mercury Records, she found herself at the end of the decade without a record contract. Bob Crewe, who had produced some of her last Mercury singles, signed her to his own label, but nothing clicked. Exit Lesley Gore, hitmaker. And enter Lesley Gore, composer. It wasn't a new role, exactly -she had written before- but something spurred her to write, write, write during those early days of the ‘70s. In 1972, producer Joe Porter brought Lesley Gore back to the studio and Someplace Else Now was released. The songs scarcely resemble Lesley's classic girl-group items. ‘Out of Love’ would have fit nicely into an early Carly Simon album. ‘She Said That’, the single, is what's left when you drain all the smarm out of something like Charlene's ‘I've Never Been to Me’. These songs remind us that Lesley Gore’s art was always based on a certain anguished undercurrent, even as a teenager. Some of the cuts on Someplace Else Now reinforce the artistic personality that Gore had already projected. There haven't been that many teen-idols who have been able to express themselves deeply within their pop/corporate framework and then be able to take this sense of style into adulthood. Lesley Gore’s sense of style resided largely in the ability to raise most of the songs she sang up into the range of believable emotion. The best example of that on Someplace Else Now is ‘What Did I Do Wrong,’ which she sings with as much flair as her hit ‘You Don’t Own Me.’ The album also shows Lesley attempting to extend her string of hits on songs like ‘Don’t Wanna Be One,’ ‘Mine’ and ‘Be My Life’. Not quite ‘60s pop, yet not really a standard ‘70s singer-songwriter effort, the album baffled the few that heard it and went ignored by the rest. But in Lesley’s case it reminds us that some of her best moments have been on songs that weren’t hits, and it was on these non-hits, perhaps, that her personality most clearly stands out. http://www.crecon.com/, http://www.dustbury.com/

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