Song of the Day 2/14: Penny and the Quarters, “You and Me”

It’s almost a miracle that “You and Me” ever reached our ears. The demo tape was recorded sometime in the early ’70s in Columbus, Ohio, for a tiny soul label, Prix, but was never released. It was rediscovered only in 2005, after the death of a man named Clem Price, who owned the studio where it was recorded.

The tune was among a box of tapes sold at Price’s estate sale, which found its way to an archival record label, the Numero Group, that specializes in obscure, overlooked music. The label included it on a 2007 collection called “Eccentric Soul,” but didn’t feature it prominently – it was track 18 on a 19-song album – and nobody could find the identity of Penny and the Quarters.

That might have been the end of it, except Numero had an ardent fan in Canadian actor Ryan Gosling, who was producing and starring in a heartbreaking indie film, “Blue Valentine,” opposite Michelle Williams, who was Oscar-nominated for her role. Gosling sang some of the songs on the soundtrack, but he convinced the director to use “You and Me” as the couple’s theme song.

That exposure brought it to the attention of the widow of Jay Robinson, who wrote the song and worked with Penny and the Quarters at their recording session, but she didn’t know the identity of the group. That wasn’t discovered until 2011, when Jayma Sharpe, the daughter of Nannie “Penny” Coulter Sharpe, was studying abroad in Italy. An Italian friend who collected old soul records told her about this mystery group from Columbus, and after a little internet sleuthing she realized “Penny” was her mother and the “Quarters” were three of her uncles.

The tune has been used in several movies and TV shows since, and I can’t help wondering how good it would sound if it had been given the full Motown treatment. It’s pretty catchy even in its primordial form.