I Want You to Be My Baby is a jump blues

Jump blues

Jump blues is an up-tempo blues usually played by small groups and featuring horns. It was very popular in the 1940s, and the movement was a precursor to the arrival of rhythm and blues and rock and roll...

 song written by Jon Hendricks

Jon Hendricks

Jon Hendricks is an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is considered one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists...

 for Louis Jordan

Louis Jordan

Louis Thomas Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the...

 whose recording - made 28 May 1953 - was an R&B

Rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...

 hit that autumn.

In the summer of 1955 "I Want You to Be My Baby" was remade as the debut disc by comedy musical act Lillian Briggs

Lillian Briggs

Lillian Briggs was an American rock 'n roll performer and musician.Lillian Briggs was the first woman to achieve super-star status at the dawn of rock 'n roll in the early 1950's, as evidenced by the fact that soon after embarking upon her career, she was named "The Queen of Rock & Roll" by The...

 resulting in an expedient cover version

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

 by veteran vocalist Georgia Gibbs

Georgia Gibbs

Georgia Gibbs was an American popular singer and vocal entertainer rooted in jazz. Already singing publicly in her early teens, Gibbs first achieved acclaim in the mid-1950s interpreting songs originating with the black rhythm and blues community and later as a featured vocalist on a long list of...

: producers Hugo & Luigi

Hugo & Luigi

Hugo & Luigi were an American record producing team, made up of songwriters and producers Luigi Creatore and Hugo Peretti, who shared an office in New York's Brill Building...

 had Gibbs fly in from her Massachusetts home to New York City on Wednesday 3 August 1955 to cut "I Want You to Be My Baby" that same afternoon; New York City disc jockeys were provided with acetates

Acetate disc

An acetate disc, also known as a test acetate, dubplate , lacquer , transcription disc or instantaneous disc...

 of the Gibbs' version by the following morning with regular jockey copies being shipped out Friday 5 August 1955. Neither version of the song would reach the Top Ten: Gibbs' version had the higher chart peak at #14 but it was the rough voiced Briggs - whose version peaked at #18 - who had the million seller.

Ellie Greenwich

Ellie Greenwich

Eleanor Louise "Ellie" Greenwich was an American pop music singer, songwriter, and record producer. She wrote or co-wrote "Be My Baby", "Christmas ", "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Leader of the Pack", "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", and "River Deep, Mountain High", among many others...

, who as a teenager saw Lillian Briggs sing her hit at Alan Freed

Alan Freed

Albert James "Alan" Freed , also known as Moondog, was an American disc-jockey. He became internationally known for promoting the mix of blues, country and rhythm and blues music on the radio in the United States and Europe under the name of rock and roll...

's rock and roll shows, chose "I Want You to Be My Baby" as the song to launch her 60s career as a solo recording artist. Produced by Bob Crewe

Bob Crewe

Bob Crewe is an American songwriter, dancer, singer, manager, record producer and fine artist. He is known for producing, and co-writing with Bob Gaudio, a string of Top 10 singles for The Four Seasons...

, Greenwich' version of "I Want You to Be My Baby" reached #83 in the spring of 1967 marking Greenwich's only US chart appearance as a recording artist (apart from her singles with the Raindrops

The Raindrops

The Raindrops were an American pop group from New York, associated with the Brill Building style of 1960s pop. The group existed from 1963 to 1965 and consisted of Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, both of whom worked as writer/producers for numerous other acts before, during and after their tenure...

).

In the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Annie Ross

Annie Ross

Annie Ross is an English jazz singer, and actress, best known as a member of the trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross.-Early years:...

 - John Hendricks' future co-partner in Lambert, Hendricks & Ross

Lambert, Hendricks & Ross

Lambert, Hendricks & Ross were a vocalese trio formed by jazz vocalists Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross.-History:The group formed in 1957 and recorded their first album Sing a Song of Basie for Paramount Records...

 - had an October 1955 single release of "I Want You to Be My Baby" recorded with Tony Crombie

Tony Crombie

Anthony John "Tony" Crombie was an English jazz drummer, pianist, bandleader and composer. He was regarded as one of the finest jazz drummers and bandleaders, and occasional but very capable pianist and vibraphonist, to emerge in Britain, and as an energising influence on the British jazz scene...

 & His Orchestra: neither this disc nor a 1956 UK single release of "I Want You to Be My Baby" by Don Lang charted. The song became a UK Top 40 hit in the autumn of 1968 via a recording by Billie Davis

Billie Davis

Billie Davis is an English female singer who had hits in the 1960s, and is best remembered for the UK hit version of the song, "Tell Him" and "I Want You to Be My Baby" ....

. Produced by Ready Steady Go!

Ready Steady Go!

Ready Steady Go! or simply RSG! was one of the UK's first rock/pop music TV programmes. It was conceived by Elkan Allan, head of Rediffusion TV. Allan was assisted by record producer/talent manager Vicki Wickham, who became the producer. It was broadcast from August 1963 until December 1966...

co-host Michael Aldred and arranged by Mike Vickers

Mike Vickers

Mike Vickers is a British musician who came to prominence as guitarist, flautist and saxophonist with the 1960s band, Manfred Mann. He originally played flute and saxophone but with the increasing popularity of guitars in bands it was decided that Manfred Mann should have a guitarist in its line-up...

, Davis' version featured a chorale comprising Madeline Bell

Madeline Bell

Madeline Bell is an American soul singer, who became famous as a performer in the United Kingdom during the 1960s, having arrived from the US in the gospel show Black Nativity in 1962, with vocal group The Bradford Singers.-Career:She worked as a session singer, most notably backing for Dusty...

, Kiki Dee

Kiki Dee

Kiki Dee is an English singer with a career spanning more than 40 years....

, Kay Garner, Doris Troy

Doris Troy

Doris Troy was an American R&B singer, known to her many fans as "Mama Soul".She was born as Doris Higginson in The Bronx, the daughter of a Barbadian Pentecostal minister. Her parents disapproved of "subversive" forms of music like rhythm & blues, so she cut her teeth singing in her father's choir...

 and the Moody Blues

The Moody Blues

The Moody Blues are an English rock band. Among their innovations was a fusion with classical music, most notably in their 1967 album Days of Future Passed....

. The single's failure to rise no higher than #33 is attributable to a strike at the Decca

Decca Records

Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....

 processing plant which stopped the pressing of discs.
In November 1970 the Jyve Fyve

The Jive Five

The Jive Five is an American doo wop group.The group formed in Brooklyn, New York in the late 1950s with Eugene Pitt, Jerome Hanna, Richard Harris, Thurmon Prophet, and Norman Johnson. The group found success in 1961 with "My True Story" on Beltone Records, which reached #3 on the U.S...

 reached #50 R&B with their remake of "I Want You to Be My Baby".

The song has also been recorded by Colin James

Colin James

Colin James is a Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer, who plays in the blues, rock, and neo-swing genres. He grew up as a Quaker.-Early years:...

, Lindisfarne

Lindisfarne

Lindisfarne is a tidal island off the north-east coast of England. It is also known as Holy Island and constitutes a civil parish in Northumberland...

 and Janis Siegel

Janis Siegel (singer)

Janis Siegel is a singer with the vocal group The Manhattan Transfer . In 1965 Siegel recorded with a group called Young Generation on Red Bird records. In 1972 the original Manhattan Transfer had disbanded, and founder Tim Hauser re-formed the band with different singers, including Siegel...

. A Finnish rendering: "Armaani Sä Silloin Oisit", was recorded by Wiola Talvikki.