Edit for headphones. The Lemon Pipers included singer Ivan Browne, guitarist Bill Bartlett, keyboardist R.G. Nave, bassist Steve Walmsley and drummer William Albaugh. The group is best known for this number one bubblegum hit "Green Tambourine" and several follow-ups, all written by the team of Paul Leka and Shelley Pinz. The Lemon Pipers actually wanted to play more psychedelic music; they only recorded "Green Tambourine" because their label would have dropped them had they refused. They eventually got the artistic control they wanted and ended up dropping off the charts for good with their first self-produced album. They broke up in 1969.
"Green Tambourine" reached no 1 in the US Februari 3, 1968. Other hits were: Rice Is Nice (April 20 1968 no 46 US) - Jelly Jungle (Of Orange Marmalade) (June 1 1968 no 51 US).
Paul Leka was their producer.
GREEN TAMBOURINE
(Paul Leka/Shelley Pinz*)
Drop your silver in my tambourine
Help a poor man fill his pretty dream
Give me pennies I'll take anything
Now listen while I play
My green tambourine
Watch the jingle jangle start to chime
Reflections of the music that is mine
When you drop a coin you'll hear it sing
Now listen while I play
My green tambourine
Drop a dime before I walk away
Any song you want I'll gladly play
Money feeds my music machine
Now listen while I play
My green tambourine
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*
Shelley Pinz was a New York songwriter, poet and psychotherapist, born in 1944, who died in 2004. She told about the inspiration for "Green Tambourine", just before meeting with Paul Leka in the Brill Building ** precinct of New York: "In early Spring, 1966, while standing in front of the Brill Building I watched a man holding a tambourine begging for money. I wrote a poem about him and called the poem, Green Tambourine. I added it to my lyric collection. Sometimes I wonder what happened to the man in front of the Brill Building, holding a tambourine begging for money. I remember writing the lyric, ‘watch the jingle jangle start to shine, reflections of the music that is mine. When you toss a coin you'll hear it sing. Now listen while I play my Green Tambourine’ as if it were yesterday..; in the 60s, on the streets between Seventh Avenue and Broadway there was a magic one could only imagine."
**
The Brill Building was a musical "factory" in Manhattan where songwriters, record producers and recording artists assembled to produce a steady stream of Top 40 songs for American pop music radio stations. It was the 1960s equivalent of "Tin Pan Alley" of the early 20th century. (Thank you Robert Cross.)
