Atlantic Records was again in a period of change by the end of 1963,when the Drifters were handed over to a new producer, Bert Berns. Atlantic's association with the Stax label out of Memphis was not only changing the color of the music, but changing how records were made.  Jerry Wexler: "We were using arrangements in those days, we were not doing ad-lib sessions...if you needed to change something, it was very awkward." There were budgetary considerations as well. In New York, you got three hours or four songs for union scale, whichever came first. In Memphis, "it was scale with a certain elasticity,"  meaning, they'd keep working until it was right. New York studio musicians had become like many unionized laborers,doing what they had to and no more, reading newspapers or racing forms between takes. Wexler again: "dry-rot set in. The arrangers were out of ideas, the players were out of licks. Our ears had become dull and we were making the same record. And you'd go into a session.with a dread. 'Oy!' Before you'd even start. 'We're going to come up with another turd; another labored piece of shit.' 

So, what are you going to do with an urban, Harlem vocal group like The Drifters? They'd only sound out of place backed by a bunch of Southern boys. This guy, Bert Berns had been doing pretty good work, getting as much out of spoiled New York sidemen as one could. Granted, he and sometime partner Jerry Ragavoy were using the cream of the up-and-comers - Eric Gayle, Bernard Purdie, Chuck Rainey. He's had a few hits, let's give him a shot.

With Leiber & Stoller, art and commerce collided, a rare occurrence, one which did not reoccur when Berns took over the reins. His Drifters records were fine, workmanlike and often commercially successful but, in comparison, lacked that indefinable quality, "magic." His style was more suited to artists like Solomon Burke, in the more churchy tradition.
The first Bert Berns date was December 12, 1963. It produced a single of the old Les Paul & Mary Ford hit, "Vaya Con Dios," which made it to the middle of the pop charts, as did a second record, written by Berns (under one of his pseudonyms, Bert Russell) with Jerry Ragavoy, "One Way Love."

The May 1964 Drifters session proved to be a different kettle of fish. Out of Bobby Darin's publishing operation came a couple of staff songwriters named Artie Resnick and Kenny Young. They crafted, if not a work of art like the songs Leiber & Stoller chose, a perfectly commercial ditty which was an ideal summer hit, "Under The Boardwalk."  The date almost didn't happen. The night before, Rudy Lewis was found in a hotel room, with a needle in his arm, dead from an overdose of
heroin.

Jerry Wexler recalls the incident: "Bert, the English arranger and The Drifters all balked; 'Boardwalk' was written for Rudy and the charts were in his key. At first, the union wouldn't let us cancel, or even postpone the date. So, here we are, with all these union musicians sitting around. We had to pay them, the show had to go on." Johnny Moore sang the song, with his great range, and The Drifters ended up with what would be their last Top 10 pop hit. Years later, Ricky Lee Jones cut a very nice version of it. The flipside was a song written by Berns and Wexler, "I Don't Want To Go On Without You." At the time, there was a rumor going around backstage that it was written for Rudy. It makes a good story, but Jerry assures us it is not the case. Rudy's death the night before may have had some impact, however, on Charlie Thomas's moving vocal. The song was later recorded by Patti LaBelle & The Bluebelles and yours truly cut a version, as well.

The last tune recorded, "He's Just A Playboy," by Bert "Russell," was done in two keys. It wound up as a B-side. Before the summer was over, Resnick & Young came up with the perfect follow-up to "Boardwalk," "I've Got Sand In My Shoes." Call it contrived, but record companies are in the business of selling records. If it sells one way, write it again, sideways.  At the same session, it was back to Mann & Weil for another "event" tune, "Saturday Night At The Movies." Johnny Moore was handling the lead duties full-time at this point, and he, along with Gene Pearson, Johnny Terry, Charlie Thomas, and guitarist Billy Davis were pictured on the special sleeve for the 45.

On July 24, 1964, Atlantic recorded a show at Philadelphia's Uptown Theater, featuring a number of the label's acts, for release as a live album. Ever since James Brown's incredible Live At The Apollo LP, there had been a vogue for that kind of thing. From that album, we have chosen "On Broadway," which will give the listener some idea of what The Drifters' in-person act was like. Charlie replaces Rudy Lewis on lead. Almost too late for the holiday season, the October revival of Nat "King" Cole's "The Christmas Song" was a try for some of the success the group had had with "White Christmas." The ever-loyal New York soul stations played it for one season. Johnny does a sweet job with the Mel Torme classic.

One day later, we find the group in studio, recording an album of pop tunes of the day, such as "More (The Theme From Mondo Cane)," "Desafinado," and "I Wish You Love." Manager George Treadwell knew there was more money in playing Las Vegas than for teeny-boppers at "Chitlin Circuit" venues, as did Berry Gordy, who also had his big teen acts record albums of the kind of stuff the music business believed at the time would become standards. This would, the thinking went, render the acts more palatable to older - and bigger-spending - audiences. While the years have not been especially kind to much of this type of material, The Drifters sing the tunes as well as we might expect. Certainly, their versions are several rungs up from those '70s pop singers who came on The Johnny Carson Show, doing lame versions of Billy Joel or Stevie Wonder tunes - which always managed to sound like bad lounge numbers when sung by anyone other than their authors.

A month later, we can see that even Goffin & King jumped on the assembly line with a "place" tune of their own, "At The Club." It's Goffin & King, so how bad can it be? It's just that all concerned had passed their creative peaks.  From here on out, from Mann & Weil's "Come On Over To My Place" to "I'll Take You Where The Music's Playing," it got more and more
contrived, with "idea" songs, the kind you hear these days coming out of Nashville, where the title says it all. The most outlandish of the batch was a Bert Berns item called - get ready - "Up In The Streets Of Harlem." The public said, "Enough!"

My band and I played several times a year with The Drifters between 1963-67, and I remember well their waning enthusiasm, as one after another of these things came out, and they felt they had to perform them in person.
From the same 1966 session comes a remake of Dean Martin's old hit, "Memories Are Made Of This." Not a bad record, it came about when AprilBlackwood Music, the publishing arm of CBS, found the tune in their catalog and began shopping it around in an attempt to build the value of the copyright.The hits stopped coming and, one by one, members left, until only Johnny Moore remained, along with three interchangeable guys whose main function seemed to be to look good and dance a little while Johnny provided a touch of authenticity and a link with the glory years.

By the time of the early-'70s oldies revival, there were a number of Drifters groups working the circuit. One played the Southeast and featured Bill Pinkney, while another was comprised of Charlie Thomas, Dock Green, Elsbeary Hobbs, Abdul Samad (Billy Davis) on guitar and Al Banks, former lead singer of the Turbans. This was clearly the better act, despite the presence of Johnny Moore in the one managed by Treadwell's widow, Faye, who inherited ownership of the name.  Lawsuits abounded and, eventually, the country was divided up among the various Drifters. Faye's group made it over to England, where, in 1972, a reissue of "Come On Over To My Place" wandered into the Top 10. This resulted in these Drifters signing a deal with Bell Records, for whom they recorded a number of hits in that country throughout the remainder of the decade.

Oldies revivals ebb and flow, but there is always a Drifters working some part of the world. Whether it is Charlie Thomas or Johnny Moore on lead, the songs hold up as the best nostalgia has to offer. Whether your youth was in the Clyde McPhatter era, the Ben E. King era, the Rudy Lewis era, or either of the Johnny Moore eras, "Memories Are Made Of This."

Billy Vera
Los Angeles, 1995