{"id":9486,"date":"2012-01-04T12:03:38","date_gmt":"2012-01-04T17:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=9486"},"modified":"2012-01-04T12:03:38","modified_gmt":"2012-01-04T17:03:38","slug":"midweek-music-break-james-bobby-purify-im-your-puppet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/midweek-music-break-james-bobby-purify-im-your-puppet\/","title":{"rendered":"Midweek Music Break: James & Bobby Purify, “I’m Your Puppet”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"So there was this front-page headline in the morning paper:<\/p>\n

Music legend Robert Dickey dies at age 72<\/strong><\/p>\n

Er<\/em>, I thought; Who?!?<\/em>\u00a0I mean, I hardly know every (well, possibly any<\/em>) music legend in town. But I’ve been here for almost 20 years and couldn’t recall the name at all.<\/p>\n

As it happens, Dickey — that’s him over there at the right, in an undated and uncredited file photo from the newspaper story — was the “Bobby” half of a late-1960s soul duo called James & Bobby Purify<\/a>. More precisely: he was the first of three singers to play brother “Bobby” to James Purify, and turned over the role (and the pseudonym) to Ben Moore in 1971.<\/p>\n

But before Dickey moved on, the pair recorded several hits, the biggest of which (#6 on Billboard’s “Hot 100”) was 1966’s “I’m Your Puppet.”<\/p>\n

It’s not, y’know, a profound<\/em> song. In fact, when I first read the article I couldn’t remember the song at all. (Hence, my second “Huh?” moment: the subhead, “I’m Your Puppet” sold millions in the late ’60s<\/em>.) But then I hunted around online for an audio clip. And of course one listen — with that signature ding-ding-DING-ding-ding<\/em>\u00a0triangle, especially — was all it took to bring it back to me.<\/p>\n

Dickey himself apparently didn’t care for the song (excerpt from the article<\/a>\u00a0(may be hidden behind a paywall for non-subscribers)):<\/p>\n

“I didn’t even like it,” Dickey said in October 2000, when he was honored as part of “Follow That Dream: Florida’s Rock & Roll Legends” exhibition at the Museum of Florida History. “I hated it. It was originally intended to be the B-side. But things got changed… I sang it for 23 hours straight (in the studio), that’s why I hate it. And the last one, the last take was the one they decided to go with.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ha!<\/p>\n

Here’s James & Bobby Purify, then, performing “I’m Your Puppet” on some unidentified television show; I think Dickey\/”Bobby” is the one on the right:<\/p>\n