Free He's a Rebel by Mark Ribowsky

the follow-up to “To Know Him.” Spector had come in with a song called “Oh Why,” a bluesy piece replete with minor chords similar to the kind he used for the bridge in “To Know Him.”
    â€œI don’t wanna do it, Phil,” Bedell told him. “I don’t like minor songs, very few of ’em make it.”
    Spector would not budge. “Then I’m leaving. I’m gonna go somewhere else,” he said.
    It was no idle threat either. Spector had by this time gotten feelers from Lou Chudd, the head of Imperial Records, one of the biggest of the L.A. independent labels. Chudd was dangling a real contract, at twice the royalty rate, before Phil’s eyes. Bedell knew he was boxed in, that Spector had him at his mercey because Bedell hadn’t torn up the original lease of master for four songs with a real,binding contract delineating responsibilities. In effect, Spector was working on speculation and Bedell had no control over the material. But Bedell held
his
ground as well.
    â€œHey, I wanted to keep ’em, but I wanted to pick the material, because I’d been pickin’ the material,” he said. “But I made a mistake. I should’ve given ’em a contract where I had complete control. So we had an altercation about this song and I said to my cousin Herb, ‘You wanna handle this kid? I don’t want to. I don’t need this aggravation.’ And Herb didn’t want anything to do with Spector. He was a
meshugenah
too. And when you got five things in the Top 20, like we had, you don’t need this
tsouris
. If I could’ve taken the aggravation, I’d still be with him today.”
    Late in 1958—with “To Know Him Is to Love Him” hanging strong at No. 3 in
Billboard
—the Teddy Bears had signed on with Imperial, the prestigious label of Fats Domino and Ricky Nelson. With royalties hiked to three cents per copy sold, Marshall thought it was time to ask Phil about possibly sharing a few writing credits with him. Lieb didn’t fool himself; he knew he wasn’t close to Phil as a composer, but he felt his lyrical contributions were helpful. “When Phil came up with ‘To Know Him,’ I liked it, but I told him, ‘We need to do some things with it,’ ” Lieb said. “The background part that goes ‘And I do and I’ . . . that was mine.
    â€œTo us, when we started singing, it was always the both of us. We were open and flowing with each other, and all things could happen. And at that time, there was no money in it, and Phil allowed my ideas to be dumped in his lap. Phillip wrote most of the stuff, and I did the backgrounds, because I was the background freak.
    â€œWe talked about me getting some credits a couple of times, and he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m gonna give you half my royalties anyway.’
    â€œPhillip was more familiar with the business, and he was slowly—or quickly—becoming what he later became, in terms of deceiving people. My whole thing then was, we’d grown up together, we were close friends, and it was gonna be okay. While I called him on it, we’d fight, and I didn’t want to fight with him so I just said, ‘Phillip, if you make a promise then you better keep it.’ And, of course, he didn’t. He never paid me any royalty.”
    Donnie Kartoon didn’t get anything either, on
his
promise from Phil. He never tried to collect on it. He knew better.

    On January 3, 1959, the Teddy Bears went on national television, flying to New York again to appear on NBC’s “Kraft Music Hall with Perry Como.” The show was a tribute to composer Harold Arlen, who was a guest, along with actor Louis Jourdan, singer Peggy King, and vaudevillian Eddie Foy, Jr.
    For Annette in particular, the trip was a nightmare. Shirley came with the group this time, and she was to room with Annette at the Plaza Hotel. By the