“One Fine Day” by the Chiffons just came on the radio.
That opening flourish on the piano, reused as a fill throughout the song, is so awesome. Why?
Dopers who are more critical audiophiles than myself, please shed some light.
The hook its self is really simple- not that the simplicity of the hook is any cause for surprise at the resulting awesomeness, in popular music the best hooks are often quite simple (e.g. the guitar riff from “Satisfaction”). Still, it’s not what’s being played that makes this hook so awesome, it’s the sound that the producer was able to get that makes it so awesome.
Who knows about studio recording techniques in 1963? Is it the room in which it was recorded that produces that great sound? The mic? Studio effects applied to the recording? Are there any Dopers who truly nerd out on this stuff- how would you go about recreating the sound if you were to rerecord it?
The Wiki page for the song doesn’t say who produced it. Anyone here know? This is definitely one of those songs the popularity of which can be greatly attributed to the work of the producer (true of every popular song, but there are some songs for which it is especially true).
The song as written by Goffin and King, great? Yes.
The performance by the Chiffons, great? Yes.
Still, the producer worked some serious magic in the studio- this song just always sounds so awesome.
What’s going on with the sound of that piano part?
Who produced it?
No, The Tokens had nothing to do with One Fine Day. It was originally recorded for Little Eva with King herself playing the piano riffs. Later the vocals by The Chiffons were dubbed in and was released and became a hit.
“One Fine Day” is one of my favorite songs from the '60s – it’s deceptively simple. On repeat listenings, you can find there’s a lot going on.
It was used in the soundtrack of The Flamingo Kid, near the end of that underappreciated movie (and the soundtrack has a good sampling of other great music from that era).
I love songs with strong backing piano from the late 50s and early 60s – “I Wonder Why” by Dion and the Belmonts is another great one.
The Wiki Page does say that the song had been intended for Little Eva,
but it doesn’t mention anything about the Chiffons recording their vocals over tracks originally recorded by Goffin and King- who I’ve never heard anything about them producing any of their early songs (although I have heard of Carole King doing session piano work now and then).
The only cite I could find about who produced it is the, possibly inaccurate, cite that it was produced by the Tokens.
I don’t hear anything really razzle dazzle going on there. It sounds like a pretty straightforward recording of a piano, featured prominently in the mix. The piano sound itself is pretty bright - which could be a combination of factors: type of piano used, voicing of the piano (pianos can be made to sound brighter or mellower depending on the hammers), and the equalization of the recording. There is also a certain bell-like quality to the sound, but that’s from the repeating of the notes, I would say. What does make it really special to me, though, is the syncopated accent pattern.
It’s almost a certainty that Carole King played the piano on that, even if the original version recorded as a demo by Little Eva was recorded over by the Chiffons. I don’t think anyone will ever know.
There is an extremely fine book about the Glory Years of Tin Pan Alley: “Always Magic In The Air - The Bomp and Brilliance Of The Brill Building” by Ken Emerson.
He talks about this song:
The Chiffons’ “One Fine Day,” propelled by Carole King’s clarion piano and the group’s echoing “shooby dooby dooby dooby dooby doo wah wah’s,” was scintillating. King and Goffin had written the song to follow up Little Eva’s “Locomotion”, but “we couldn’t get it to work,” Goffin said, “It started out like ten men with that piano lick of Carole’s, and then once the song started, the whole rhythm track fell apart.”
He goes on to describe how the Tokens got the song for the Chiffons and re-produced it keeping the best of the original Carole King arrangement:
The Tokens erased King’s vocal (but not her piano) from the demo of “One Fine Day,” tweaked the instrumental track, added the Chiffons’ voices, and came up with a second big hit for the group. According to Medress and Jay Siegal, they made only minor changes, yet Goffin credited them with turning the song around entirely. “They really earned their production on that.”
My first thought was “wall of sound” which Phil Spector used to turn a necessity (too many instruments crammed into a small studio) into a musical style.
Spector didn’t have anything to do with Chiffons, but he worked with Goffin and King. Whoever produced the record may have decided the song and group had a Spector-ish feel, and tried to mimic the technique by pushing the piano (and sax) high up in the mix.
I recall seeing Carole King years ago on a cable program about the Brill Building, and she was asked about that intro. She said that sometimes things just come to her from out of nowhere, and that she simply sat down at the piano and that intro came out.