The Birds and the Bees (Jewel Akens song)

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"The Birds and the Bees"
Song by Jewel Akens
Language	English
Released	1964
Genre	Pop, easy listening
Length	2:08
Label	Era
Songwriter(s)	Barry Stuart

"The Birds and the Bees" was a 1964 single release by Jewel Akens that is said to have been written by the twelve-year-old son of Era Records owner Herb Newman; the songwriting credit on the Jewel Akens recording of "The Birds and the Bees" reads Barry Stuart, which is the song's standard songwriting credit.^[1]

History

"The Birds and the Bees" was written with a lyric based on the "

. Some subsequent recordings (i.e. by artists other than Akens) identify the composer as Herb Newman (Newman had written "The Wayward Wind" a 1956 No.1 hit for Gogi Grant). Jewel Akens had recorded one single for Era as frontman for the doo-wop group the Turn-Arounds in 1964 when Newman pitched "The Birds and the Bees" as the group's next recording; as Akens was the only group member to favor the song he recorded it solo, working through four or five different arrangements and thus considerably honing the song's original format.^[2] Musicians on the recording included Billy Strange and Ervan Coleman on guitar, Bob West and Arthur Wright on bass, Hal Blaine on drums and Leon Russell on piano.

Chart performance

Recorded at

that failed to chart.

Other recordings

• (The Same Thing Happens with) The Birds and the Bees
  ".
• Later in 1965, Dean Martin included his version on (Remember Me) I'm the One Who Loves You.^[7]
• A 1966 single release by Rufus and Carla Thomas was more simply titled "Birds and Bees".
• Bobby G. Rice recorded "The Birds and the Bees" in 1971 to serve as B-side for his No.33 C&W chart hit "Suspicion", with "The Birds and The Bees" being featured on Rice's 1972 debut album Hit After Hit.
• An Italian-language rendering of "The Birds and the Bees", "Sulla sabbia c’era lei", was recorded by Sonia e le Sorelle (it), and was an entrant in the 1965 Cantagiro festival; Nicola Salerno wrote the lyrics which typically of the song's non-English renderings are independent of the English original, the title translating as "On the sand there was you".
• Also in 1965, Drafi Deutscher (de) & His Magics recorded a German rendering of "The Birds and the Bees" entitled "Heute Male Ich Dein Bild [today I paint your image],
• Cindy Lou" which reached No.3 in Germany and No.5 in Austria while the French rendering "Bientôt les vacances" (Soon the holidays) by
  Québécois artist Donald Lautrec
  also recorded a French take of "The Birds and the Bees" in 1965, that being "Tu Dis Des Bêtises" (You say the nonsense)
• The Cindy Lou spawned a parody recording by Jacques Desrosiers entitled "Il Y'a Des Bibites" (There are some bugs).
• Ambrus Kyri (hu) recorded a Hungarian rendering of "The Birds and the Bees" entitled "Madarak és Méhek" (Birds and bees) in 1967.
• A recording was made in Danish as "Blomster og bier" (flowers and bees) by Birthe Kjær in 1974
• "The Birds and the Bees" was done in Swedish as "Blommor och bin" (Flowers and bees) by lyricist Keith Almgren and recorded by Little Gerhard 1965 (SweDisc SWDS 1093) and Sten & Stanley (sv) on their album Musik, dans & party 8 (1993).
• It was also performed in Finnish by Laila Kinnunen as "Kuinka kuu katoaa".
• the Chicks
• the Defenders (da),
• Jan Keizer, Brenda Lee
• Gary Lewis & the Playboys
• Billy Preston,
• Sha Na Na
• Spooky and Sue (nl).
• Willear's Records

References