Who are these guys? —The Ron Hicklin Singers

by Dai Bando

Beginning in the 1950s and peaking in the 1960s, there sprang forth from the hills of Hollywood, a loose collective of session musicians whom industry insiders nicknamed “The Wrecking Crew.”

In the post-Brit Invasion recording frenzy, L.A.’s star-making machinery wanted their young performers to quickly grow their hair into a pudding bowl cut, slide into a pair of “Beatle boots”, and let the pros do the actual playing of musical instruments.

The seasoned veterans of The Wrecking Crew hustled their gig bags and lunch buckets around the streets of L.A., often working 7 days a week, 15 hours a day, playing on record sessions for The Monkees, Byrds, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Beach Boys, and other chart-topping performers of the day. 

By 1967, nearly everyone but my sister Maryanne knew that The Monkees did not play their own instruments on their records, but few fans, or critics even, knew that it was The Wrecking Crew, just as it was on The Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and nearly every instrumental sound on The Beach Boys’ masterpiece, Pet Sounds. 

As Paul Newman’s Butch Cassidy might have asked, “Who are these guys?”

The answer to that question finally came by way of the excellent documentary called The Wrecking Crew (2011), when drummer Hal Blaine, bassist Carol Kaye, and guitarists Tommy Tedesco and Barney Kessell finally received the credit they so richly deserved for their contribution to these great recordings. But even more inconspicuous than those musicians were the “ghost singers” who were uncredited on the very same session recordings. The most prolific among these singers was a collective called The Ron Hicklin Singers.

Backing, Ghosting and a Special ‘Thank You’ from Jerry

The group’s leader and organizer Ron Hicklin got his start singing in “barbershop”-style quartets in Seattle in the late 1950s. The talented young tenor was soon performing backup vocals for crooners like Frankie Laine, Johnny Mathis, Frank Sinatra, and each of his Rat Pack buddies. Hicklin says he never wanted to be a star. He merely wanted to sing, work as often as possible, and bring home a decent paycheck to support his wife and children. He found everything he was looking for working as an uncredited session singer.

As well as singing backup, Hicklin sometimes “ghosted” the lead vocals, as he did on “This Diamond Ring” for Gary Lewis & the Playboys. For that, Hicklin recalls, he received a bonus check in the amount of $25 (!) sent from Gary’s famous dad, Jerry Lewis (such a mensch!). Hicklin even once “ghosted” on a recording by Michael Jackson when the Prince of Pop became distracted during a recording session and couldn’t finish his track. It’s unclear from Hicklin’s interviews if he was employed to mimic Michael’s signature “sha-mons,” or his “hee-hees“. 

To burst yet another bubble, it was Hicklin who sang the high harmony part on The Lettermen’s hit version of “When I Fall In Love” – and those boys had just one job, which was to croon a tune in the upper register! 

Hicklin’s group soon recorded their own chart-toppers, such as the irresistible Batman theme, which featured, Hicklin drolly points out, “Word [no plural] and Music,” by his composer/arranger/friend Neal Hefti, who got credit on the RCA 45 rpm Mono single.

“Alvin!“

In addition to that one-word wonder, the group was responsible for other earworms such as the hideous theme from TV’s Happy Days, while the gigs and paychecks kept rolling in. Hicklin himself supplied all three of the speed-altered voices of Alvin and the Chipmunks. He recalled one bizarre Chipmunk studio session from 1965 taking place in the City of Angels while gunshots from the Watts Riots rattled the Los Angeles sky. 

By the mid-’60s, Hicklin had organized a capable roster of male and female singers who would go on to perform backup vocals on a thousand pop songs, TV and movie themes, and on radio and television commercials such as McDonald’s “You Deserve a Break Today!” and Kawasaki’s “Let the Good Times Roll!”

While 70s Tiger Beat heart-throbs David Cassady and Susan Dey (in the parlance of Jack Nicholson) gave good face, the Hinklin Singers were the voices behind The Partridge Family, even ghosting Broadway-veteran Shirley Jones’ singing parts.

The Partridge Family’s debut hit, “I Think I Love You” sold 5 million records and bumped the Beatles’ “Let It Be” from the top of Billboard’s charts. For Hicklin, voicing the Partridges was “just another gig.”

South American Getaway

Back to 1969, and the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, directed by George Roy Hill with music by Burt Bacharach.

When Bacharach was putting together ideas for his song “South American Getaway” for the film, he sought the advice of Ron Hicklin. Bacharach expressed that the song needed The Swingle Singers – a vocalese ensemble from France who had recently recorded a Grammy-winning album with The Modern Jazz Quartet.

Hicklin told Bacharach that his own group could out-swingle the Swingles in terms of singing those fanciful “ba-da-dahs”, and for the lead vocal, Hicklin recommended his friend Sally Stevens, who possessed a lovely and distinctive soprano. Bacharach immediately fell in love with her voice. Because of the movie’s huge box office success, the track “South American Getaway” became one of the most listened-to vocalese/scat songs of all-time – every bit as memorable as the “ba-da-dahs’ in Francis Lai’s “Un Homme Et Une Femme (A Man and A Woman),” which was an international hit in 1966. Sacré ba-da bleu! 

In addition to working with Bacharach, Stevens would work with film-scoring legends Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, John Williams, and Thomas Newman. You can hear her spooky wordless vocals on the soundtracks of two classic films from 1971, Klute (composer Michael Small) and Dirty Harry (composer Lalo Schifrin).

Few performers can say they’ve worked with both Ennio Morricone and Seth McFarland. Sally Stevens performed on Morricone’s score for Exorcist II: The Heretic and later sang on the main title song of McFarland’s Family Guy.  You can also hear Sally’s voice on several episodes of The Simpsons and on South Park, singing Trey Parker and Marc Shaiman’s brilliant anthem, “Blame Canada.”

Sally Stevens was also the official choral director for The Oscars show for 22 years.  

“They’re G-r-r-r-eat!”

Other notable alums of Ron Hicklin’s choral corral are female-alto Jackie Ward, who dubbed Natalie Wood’s singing in both Inside Daisy Clover (1965) and The Great Race (1965), and t legendary bass man Thurl Ravenscroft, the voice of Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger (“they’re g-r-r-r-eat!”) and singer of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” from the beloved How the Grinch Stole Christmas TV special (1966).

Ron Hicklin retired from the music business in the mid-1990s, only after injuring his vocal cords. He and his wife Trudi now split time between their homes in Tennessee and Ko Olina, on Oahu, Hawaii.

In retrospect, Hicklin has said, “I enjoyed working with the ‘kings’ of the business. I was able to do what I really wanted to do – music.”