“Baby It’s You” was released as a single by first-ballot Hall of Fame groups the Shirelles and the Beatles. But the band who scored the biggest hit with the Burt Bacharach composition (with lyrics by Mack David, Hal’s older brother) was a now-forgotten group called Smith.
The band was playing in a Los Angeles bar when Del Shannon of “Runaway” fame heard them and got involved as a manager/producer. The group had three singers, but its obvious star was soprano belter Gayle McCormick. Shannon worked up a new arrangement of the song, reinventing it as a slow-burning blue-eyed soul number that showcased McCormick’s range and passionate delivery. The record reached No. 5 on the hot 100 in 1969 — the Shirelles peaked at No. 8 — and propelled the band’s debut album into the Top 20.
Smith broke up after a hitless second LP. The record company tried to market McCormick on her own, but after a a brief solo career she left the industry in the mid-’70s and returned to her native St. Louis. She died of cancer in 2016. The clip is from the short-lived “Leslie Uggams Show,” which CBS rushed into production when it cancelled the Smothers Brothers over their left-wing leanings.
The original, released in late 1961, was one of six Shirelles singles to make the Top 10.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKgkDxnG9Z8
The Beatles started playing the tune in their live sets in 1962, and recorded it for their first album, “Please Please Me” the next year. A live version, recorded in 1963, was released as a promotional single for “Live at the BBC” in 1995.
And here’s Mr. Burt Bacharach himself, with guest vocalist Adele, performing it a British concert series called the Electric Proms in 2008.
