BACKGROUND: In 1961, the New York vocal group the Tokens had a million-seller called  >"The Lion Sleeps Tonight"  for RCA. It led to a one-year, ten record deal for the group with another company, Capitol Records--not for recording, but for producing! "They thought we knew how to produce records because we'd had a hit record," Token Jay Siegal explains. "Of course, we didn't know how to produce... but we learned while we were there." The Tokens set up their own office in New York City and produced nine records for Capitol. They all flopped. There was only one record left in their deal.
   Meanwhile, a poor young songwriter named Ronnie Mack (he lived in the public housing projects in the Bronx) overheard a quartet of girls singing in a high school lunchroom. He liked their voices and asked them if they'd go into a studio with him to record a demo of some of his tunes. They thought it was a great idea--everyone wanted to hear what they sounded like on tape; so they went in and sang for an hour. The cost: $25. Then the girls graduated from high school and got jobs (Siegal: "I think they were working as telephone operators"). But Mack kept knocking on music publishers' doors, carrying his composition book full of songs and his demos.

THE STORY: Jay Siegal: "The Tokens had an office at 1697 Broadway. We called that the "Street Building" because all the songwriters and all the artists used to come off the street and knock on doors. We were one of the doors they used to knock on. One day, this fellow named Ronnie Mack--I don't know how he heard of us--came up  to our office. He came up with a composition notebook with all these amazing songs in it. They had the most incredible lyrics; not intellectual lyrics, but just the things that people speak of in everyday language. Most people don't have the talent to write them down as music, but he did. 'He's So Fine' was one of the songs, but that's not the one we wanted to do. We thought 'Oh My Lover, the other side of the record, would be the A side.
   "Anyway, he had this group, the Chiffons. He brought us the group and they sang the songs and it was terrific.  Capitol had their own studio, so we took the Chiffons in and recorded 'Oh My Lover,' 'He's So Fine" and one other tune. I'm gonna give credit now where credit is due--'He's So Fine' didn't open with 'Doo-
lang, doo-lang at first. It was just in the background. But the staff engineer at Capitol, a guy named Johnny Cue said, 'Why don't you start the song like that?' So we put 'Doo-lang' in front of the song. We thought it was a terrific record and brought it to Capitol--the last song of our deal.  Boyle Gilmore was the president of Capitol at the time. He turned it down. He says, 'We don't like the record. It's too trite, it's too simple.' So our deal with Capitol records was over.
   "We took 'He's So Fine' to ten record companies. Ten companies turned it down. The eleventh company we went to was a little company called Laurie Records. We played it and they locked the doors and said, 'You're not getting out of here. We want that record.' They wouldn't let us out unless we made a deal with them. Of course, we'd already been turned down by ten companies--give us eighty cents and we'd have given you the record.
   Laurie released the record in February 1963. About two months later, it was #1 in America.

FOR THE RECORD. "He's So Fine" was the basis for one of the most celebrated (or notorious) lawsuits in rock 'n' roll history, against George Harrison--who was found guilty of plagiarizing it in his hit "My Sweet Lord" (which, with great irony, the Chiffons recorded as a "cover"). Perhaps even more ironic: years later, Harrison secured and owned the publishing rights to "He's So Fine".
• The brilliant 25-year-old composer, Ronnie Mack, died of Hodgkins disease shortly after "He's So Fine" became a hit. He was already in the hospital when he received his gold record.
• The Tokens were the backup musicians on the record. Lineup: Jay Siegal, guitar; Hank Medress, bass; Phil Margo, drums; Mitch Margo, keyboards.