OBIT Little Eva; Independent

Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 21:08:16 -0400
Newsgroups: alt.obituaries
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Little Eva
Singer of 'The Locomotion', a No 1 hit for her in 1962 when she was just 19
12 April 2003 Eva Narcissus Boyd (Little Eva), singer: born Belhaven, North Carolina
29 June 1943; married 1962 James Harris (died 1983; one son, two daughters);
died Kinston, North Carolina 10 April 2003.
In 1962 Carole King and Gerry Goffin created a new dance to complement the
twist and called their song "The Locomotion". The dance is long forgotten
but Little Eva's record was one of the great pop hits of the early 1960s and
it retains its power and potency to this day. "Kylie Minogue's revival is
all right, but mine is better," Little Eva told me with a laugh in 2000.
"You can't improve on perfection. 'The Locomotion' is a great song, but it
ain't no 'Amazing Grace'."
Eva Narcissus Boyd was born in 1943 in Belhaven, North Carolina. Her
grandfather was a minister and five of David and Laura Boyd's 13 children,
including Eva herself, formed a gospel group, the Boyd Five. "I had an aunt
called Eva," Boyd said, "so she was Big Eva and I was Little Eva."
In 1960 she worked as a maid in Hempstead, Long Island. She met Earl-Jean
McCrae of the Cookies vocal group, who recorded demonstration records for
songwriters in and around the Brill Building in New York. They often worked
with the husband-and-wife songwriting partnership of Carole King and Gerry
Goffin. "I got a job singing with the Cookies," said Eva,
and Carole needed a babysitter as she was expecting and already had a
three-year-old. She asked me if I wanted the job when I wasn't working in
the studio so I told her, yeah.
Eva had a stormy relationship with her boyfriend, James Harris, and Goffin
and King wrote songs around her problems, notably "He Hit Me (And It Felt
Like a Kiss)", which was recorded by the Crystals, and "Keep Your Hands Off
My Baby", which became Eva's follow-up to "The Locomotion". The Cookies also
did session work and Eva is strongly featured on Ben E. King's glorious
"Don't Play That Song (You Lied)".
Chubby Checker had an international hit with "The Twist", which prompted Dee
Dee Sharp to tell the world it was "Mashed Potato Time" early in 1962. Silly
dance records were the order of the day and Goffin and King wrote "The
Locomotion" for Sharp. Goffin was so impressed by Eva's demo that he asked
the publisher, Don Kirshner, to forget about Sharp and start a new label to
release Eva's record. Carole King and Little Eva added harmonies, and "The
Locomotion" became the first release on Dimension Records in June 1962.
Following the instructions in the lyric, Eva devised a routine to perform on
American Bandstand, and the record climbed to No 1, easily outstripping
Sharp's follow-up, "Gravy (For My Mashed Potatoes)".
When I showed Eva the famous publicity photograph of her standing on the
front of a locomotive, she commented,
That was cold. I was standing on this train in a straw hat and with my
stomach exposed and I was freezing. I weighed 98 pounds then and I was size
3. Look at me now. I am well over 200 pounds, but I am losing weight.
Eva's follow-up, "Keep Your Hands Off My Baby", was another US hit and, in
December 1962, she married James Harris, appearing on her honeymoon night at
the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Her sister, Idalia, had replaced her as the
Goffin's babysitter, and Goffin and King were to write a dance single for
her, "Hula Hoppin' ", on which Eva sang backing vocals. There was a also a
tribute record, "Little Eva", by the Locomotions. Eva's album
Llllloco-motion (1962) is the finest example of the songs published by
Kirshner's Screen Gems company: "They are great songs," said Eva,
but you'll notice that I also did "I Have a Love" on there. I had been to
see West Side Story and they indulged me and let me do that song.
The Cookies made excellent records in their own right, notably "Chains" and
"Don't Say Nothin' Bad About My Baby", with Eva taking the top harmonies and
Earl-Jean singing lead. The Cookies backed Little Eva on her third hit,
"Let's Turkey Trot", making farmyard noises behind her exuberant vocals. Eva
recorded the demo for Goffin and King's "One Fine Day", but the song was
passed to the Chiffons, rather than being left with Eva herself, who was
given the decidedly substandard "Old Smokey Locomotion", which ended her run
of hits.
Little Eva also made an uncredited appearance on Big Dee Irwin's radical
reworking of Bing Crosby's "Swinging on a Star" (1963). The affection
between the two performers is self-evident. "He was a wonderful person,"
said Eva:
He was just like he looked, warm and friendly and cuddly. It was like making
a record with Santa Claus.
The Beatles recorded "Chains" on their first album and performed "Keep Your
Hands Off My Baby" on their début on the BBC's Saturday Club in January
1963. Little Eva came to Europe with Brian Hyland for a concert tour, but
had to return early following the death of her father. Although her career
hit hard times, she continuted to record but, rather than having new Goffin
and King sings, she was covering UK pop hits like "Bend It". She had little
money as she was only on a salary during her hit-making days.
When her mother died in 1971, Eva, separated from her husband, returned to
Belhaven, taking a job as a nanny and raising her three children on her own.
Her version of "The Locomotion" was a UK hit again in 1972, but she saw no
royalties from it, nor she did benefit from Grand Funk Railroad's revival,
which topped the US charts. Ever resilient, she patched up her marriage and,
when her husband died in 1983, she recorded a tribute to him, "In Memory of
C.J" on her 1989 gospel album, Back on Track.
Kylie Minogue had an international hit with "The Locomotion" in 1988, and
promoters asked Little Eva to tour again. She came to the UK with Little
Richard in 1992 and then undertook extensive UK tours with her friends Bobby
Vee and Brian Hyland in 1998 and again in 2000. She had all the audience
standing up doing the locomotion, of course.
Spencer Leigh