Robert Hover
In the beginning we didn’t know what she looked like, but from the sound of that high-pitched voice on “Angel Baby,” Rosalie Hamlin was probably as thin as a frog’s hair, with a 16-inch waist, two-inch long eyelashes, and a piled-high beehive hairdo.
Here was a sad, bad girl who just needed a boy, a beer, some romance, and everything would be all right.
Rosie Hamlin was born and raised in Alaska, until her family relocated to San Diego, Calif., when she was a teenager. She had taught herself how to play the piano, with dreams of being a singer. She auditioned at age 14 for songwriter and guitarist Dave Ponci and his band the Originals. The Originals consisted of a drummer, a saxophone and second guitarist. Rosie and the band rehearsed a few numbers, then approached Highland Records about recording some of their material. Rosie had scribbled the words to the group’s first and penultimate single as a poem in her notebook, then crafted a melody based on the chord progression from the song
“Heart and Soul.” She performs “Angel Baby” in one of the skimpiest voices to ever grace the Billboard charts (apparently, she had a cold that day, with the Originals playing a very sparse and primitive back-up. At moments, the drummer seems to forget where he’s at, plus the recording itself is flawed with flubs in timing left and right. Then there’s the sax solo that many consider to be the worst sax solo played on a hit record. The overall sound quality is poor, but “Angel Baby” is undoubtedly one of rock and roll’s greatest moments.
Within weeks of the platter’s success, the group disbanded. Rosie stormed out because Highland Records had credited Dave Ponci as author of the song. Their follow-up, “Angel from Above” went unnoticed by radio programmers and the public. Singer Jackie Wilson, however, took notice and introduced Rosie to Nat Taranapol. Taranapol finagled a recording contract with Brunswick Records, a much bigger label. However, the Originals were not part of the deal, and they apparently vanished from the face of the Earth.
In place of the crudities the Originals had were the lush strings and flub-less instrumentation of the Dick Jacobs Orchestra. Two of Rosie’s self-penned tunes, engulfed in the finest sounds money could buy, were issued, but both failed miserably.
A long-play album was released, but overall sales were almost zero. “The band on that album (‘Lonely Blue Nights’) kind of swallowed me up,” Rosie admitted later. “They wanted to duplicate that sparse “Angel Baby” sound, but they all were too professional. The saxophonist tried to get that off-key sound, and it sounded terrible—like he was trying to play off-key. Plus, Brunswick didn’t push the album. I think it was a tax write-off or something.”
Two other solo singles were issued, but record buyers’ interest was elsewhere, so Brunswick set Rosie free.
Rosie and Originals guitarist Noah Taffola married and raised a family. After they divorced in 1984, Rosie began appearing at “Oldies” shows in her hometown of San Bernardino. She has since acquired the rights to “Angel Baby” and ended up performing with a group called the L.A. Rhythm Section. She passed away on March 30, 2017, in Belen, N.M.
In 1961, at W. A. Anderson Junior High School in Bothell, Wash., “Angel Baby” was voted the No. 2 favorite slow dance song next to “A Thousand Stars” by Kathy Young and the Innocents.